Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Leddie Brown's 3-yard touchdown run in the second overtime period gave West Virginia a 27-21 victory this afternoon over Baylor at sunny but nearly empty Milan Puskar Stadium.
 
An announced crowd of 978 consisting of family members and essential game workers turned anxious in the fourth quarter when Charlie Brewer's 34-yard touchdown pass to Josh Fleeks tied the game 14-14 with just 1:19 remaining.
 
Up until then, Brewer was basically running for his life every time he dropped back to pass. West Virginia sacked the senior six times and threw the Bears for a loss 11 times in a game that saw Baylor rush for only 27 yards on 33 attempts.
 
"We found a way to win and it sounds simple, but teams find a way to lose, and we found a way to win today, which at the end of the day is all that matters," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said afterward. "Some people are going to say it's ugly; I will say it's gritty."
 
Darius Stills, as he did in Waco last year, spent almost the entire game in the Baylor backfield to the point where he might as well have huddled with the Bears. The Fairmont senior was credited with 2 ½ sacks and 3 ½ tackles for a loss, while Tony Fields II, freshman Ahkeem Mesidor, Jeffery Pooler Jr. and Jared Bartlett also were involved in sacks.
 
Fields led all Mountaineer tacklers with 10.
 
Baylor (1-1) had just 1 yard rushing after the first quarter and 116 total yards by halftime.
 
"Darius Stills played like the preseason hype he's been given," Brown said, before correcting himself to say "earned."
 
However, a youthful and inexperienced West Virginia offense made the game challenging at times with a plethora of mistakes that will keep Brown and his staff busy correcting them well into the open weekend.
 
West Virginia (2-1) was penalized 12 times for 102 yards, a number of those coming during the beginning of offensive possessions. Quarterback Jarret Doege threw a pair of interceptions, one resulting in Baylor's lone first-half score, and fumbled once when he was stripped attempting to pass in the pocket.
 
"At times, it was hard to watch and it was extremely frustrating, but in the second half the offense didn't screw it up," Brown admitted. "If you look at it, the offense had the ball 31 minutes and we figured out a way to win by going three-for-three on fourth down and in the red zone we were four-for-four."
 
The Mountaineers also put the ball on the ground in the fourth quarter leading 14-7 when sophomore Bryce Ford-Wheaton ran into Alec Sinkfield, who was attempting to fair catch a punt at the WVU 28. Ford-Wheaton hit Sinkfield with such force that the football was jarred loose and Baylor recovered it at the 27.
 
The Bears moved the ball to the WVU 1, but the Mountaineer defense made an outstanding goal-line stand when Fields and Josh Chandler-Semedo kept John Lovett from crossing the goal line on fourth and inches.
 
West Virginia's defense repelled Baylor three other times during quick-change situations as well.
 
John Mayers missed two 47-yard field goal attempts in the first half and his backup, Noah Rauschenberg, missed a 51-yard try on the final play of the half that Dante Stills deflected.
 
Eight Baylor possessions ended in punts, three resulted in missed field goals, one ended on downs and two culminated in interceptions.
 
The biggest pick was made by sophomore safety Tykee Smith on Baylor's opening possession of the second overtime period when he hauled in Brewer's pass between the R and the G in the West Virginia end zone and got his left foot down before falling out of bounds.
 
Junior Dreshun Miller came up with the other pick at the WVU 37 late in the third quarter.
 
West Virginia scored on the game's opening possession when the Mountaineers marched 70 yards in 15 plays, including going for it on fourth and 6 at the Baylor 38. Doege hit Sam James for a first down and eight plays later, the quarterback snuck in from the 1.
 
Baylor answered on its fifth possession following J.T. Woods' 28-yard interception return to give it the ball at the WVU 30.
 
A pass interference penalty negated a Nicktroy Fortune interception and a Tyquan Thornton 18-yard reception made it first and goal for Baylor at the WVU 9.
 
Two plays later, Brewer connected with R.J. Sneed for a 7-yard touchdown pass to tie the game with 6:44 left in the second quarter.
 
West Virginia retook the lead with 5:05 remaining in the third quarter when Brown culminated an 11-play, 72-yard march by squeezing in from the 1. Sinkfield's 25-yard run on second and 1 was the drive's big play, advancing the ball to the Baylor 38.
 
Later, a big Doege third-down pass to Sinkfield netted 11 yards to the 24, and a Leddie Brown 7-yard run on third and 3 kept the sticks moving. A Baylor substitution penalty moved the ball to the 5, and three Brown cracks eventually got it into the end zone.
 
In the first overtime, West Virginia got on the scoreboard first when Ford-Wheaton hauled in Doege's 6-yard pass in the corner of the end zone. The key play was sophomore Mike O'Laughlin's 10-yard reception to the near side of the field on fourth and inches to give the Mountaineers a first and goal at the 6 when Brown eschewed a go-ahead field goal attempt.
 
He said afterward analytics dictated that decision.
 
"I believe in it," Brown said. "I think it's proven if you go for it on fourth down, especially in the plus territory, over the course of a season those percentages play in your favor. We always are going to be aggressive on fourth down.
 
"In overtime, if you look at the numbers, if you get the ball first, field goals do not win in overtime," he continued. "We knew when we got the fourth and 1, (Doege) had a good suggestion there (to throw it to O'Laughlin). And I will say, our offensive staff was figuring out ways with some close formations because we had all kinds of trouble blocking (Star safety Jalen Pitre)."
 
Baylor quickly answered WVU's score when Brewer caught the Mountaineer defense out of position with a 25-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ben Sims running wide open down the left hash.
 
Brewer finished the afternoon completing 23-of-38 passes for 229 yards and three touchdowns, but those figures are a little bit misleading because a good portion of that came in the waning moments of the game and in overtime.
 
Lovett ran 14 times for just 23 yards for a Baylor ground game that generated 203 yards during last Saturday's 47-14 win over Kansas in Waco.
 
Doege completed 30-of-42 for 211 yards and one touchdown with the vast majority of his completions coming near the line of scrimmage. 
 
James was WVU's top pass catcher with eight grabs for 66 yards.
 
"My hope is we can point back to this when we've got this thing rolling and we can say, 'Hey, this is the game we kind of figured it out,'" Brown said. "A lot of things went wrong against a really well-coached team with a lot returning players, so I hope that's the story line because I'm proud of them."
 
Brown had his streak of consecutive 100-yard rushing games snapped at two, but he did gain 93 yards on 27 attempts and finished the afternoon with 124 all-purpose yards. Sinkfield was also a factor in the ground game by averaging 8.8 yards on his six attempts for 53 yards.
 
Overall, West Virginia outgained Baylor 345 to 256 and limited the Bears to just 4-of-16 on third down.
 
Baylor remains winless all-time in Morgantown, dropping their fifth straight game here since West Virginia joined the Big 12 in 2012.
 
WVU is now 6-3 in all-time series play.
 
"That team at Baylor won 11 games and was in the conference championship a year ago; they've got several NFL players and we helped them quite a bit in the first half, but our kids fought and they found a way to win," Brown said.
 
The Mountaineers will now have an idle weekend before playing host to Kansas on Saturday, Oct. 17. 
 
University, local and state officials announced last week that fans will once again be allowed in Milan Puskar Stadium at a reduced capacity of 25%