15th-Ranked Cowboys Outlast Mountaineers Saturday in Big 12 Opener

Saturday, September 26

Stillwater, Okla.

3:30 p.m.

West Virginia University

1-1 , 0-1

Oklahoma State

2-0 , 1-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

West Virginia

Oklahoma St.

Photo by: Caleb Saunders

15th-Ranked Cowboys Outlast Mountaineers Saturday in Big 12 Opener

September 26, 2020 08:40 PM | Football

Box Score WVU-OSU Postgame Notes WVU-OSU Game Book Neal Brown Postgame Winston Wright Jr. Postgame Leddie Brown Postgame Alonzo Addae Postgame

By: John Antonik

Fifteenth-ranked Oklahoma State made the big plays it needed to defeat West Virginia 27-13 in the Big 12 opener for both teams this afternoon at Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The game was basically a repeat of the one we watched nine months ago in Morgantown when the Cowboys, without their starting quarterback Spencer Sanders, stymied West Virginia's offense and generated enough big plays to win the game 20-13.

"Extremely disappointing performance - we were an undisciplined football team today and that's on myself and our coaches," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said. "We talk all of the time about WVU not beating WVU and credit Oklahoma State, they are a veteran team that's won a ton of games like this, but we had 12 penalties, gave them 10 points on offense, and before we can win big games we've got to quit losing them."

This afternoon it was true freshman quarterback Shane Illingworth behind center instead of Sanders, and he made enough plays – or avoided enough bad plays – to lead OSU to its sixth straight victory over West Virginia and improve to 2-0 this season.

The game basically came down to two big Oklahoma State plays, both in the second quarter – an L.D. Brown 66-yard touchdown run and moments later, Tyron Irby's 56-yard fumble return for a score that came after a strip sack by Trace Ford, during OSU's 20-point second-quarter flurry.

West Virginia (1-1), as it did last year, struggled to run the football against Oklahoma State's stout front and that kept quarterback Jarret Doege from getting comfortable in the pocket.

Leddie Brown finished the game with 103 yards on 26 carries, but a lot of that was him breaking tackles at the line of scrimmage and getting yards on his own. West Virginia's other ball carriers went backwards 36 yards and WVU finished the game with a disappointing 67 yards rushing on 42 attempts.

Doege completed a little better than half of his 37 pass attempts for 285 yards and a touchdown, that one a 70-yarder to Winston Wright Jr., but he was pressured consistently and was sacked five times.

"They pressured us a bunch," Brown said. "I thought they did a nice job of getting on the edge, which we really didn't anticipate coming into the game, but I've got to watch the tape and see if it was a technique issue on us and that's the frustrating thing for me on this whole deal is we got into this game and environment against a good opponent and had some adversity and I don't think we reacted very well."

West Virginia's other scores came as a result of Evan Staley field goals of 26 and 30 yards. Oklahoma State countered with Alex Hale's 44-yard field goal with three seconds left in the first half and then Cuba Hubbard's game-sealing 23-yard touchdown jaunt with 1:17 left in the game.

"In a lot of ways it was the same game (as last year) but a different story," Brown said. "We never really got down in the score zone as much. It was in the 30-yard-line area that we really couldn't break, for whatever reason.

"You look at it and it was negative yardage plays again – now some of those came on the last drive and you have to let those go – but rushing, they ran the last 6 minutes and change off the clock to put the game away. We had two misfits, one on the long run, and that's disappointing because that's discipline because we're not in the gap we're supposed to be. We were in the wrong gap because our communication wasn't great on defense."

The Cowboys (2-0) called a conservative game to protect their true freshman quarterback, but still manufactured a 15-play, 80-yard drive late in the fourth quarter to ice the game.

Hubbard did most of the damage on that drive and finished the game rushing 22 times for 101 yards. Brown had 103 yards on just 11 carries as Oklahoma State rushed for 203 yards.

The Cowboy passing game accounted for only 139 yards on 15 completions.

"They didn't ask their true freshman to do a whole lot and if you look at his throws, he attempted 21 passes and a lot of those were screens, but they ran for 200 yards and when you run for 200 yards you are going to win most of them," Brown said.

Some other areas the Mountaineers will lament include penalties (12 for 106 yards) and failing to recover one of Oklahoma State's four fumbles.

Oklahoma State's only turnover was Illingworth's third-quarter interception that inside linebacker Tony Fields II returned 22 yards to the Oklahoma State 42.

But West Virginia's drive stalled at the Oklahoma State 10 requiring Staley to kick his second field goal.

Fields II and Alonzo Addae led West Virginia's defense with nine tackles each.

Illingworth, who attempted four passes in the last week's season opener against Tulsa, completed 15 of 21 for 139 yards.

Tylan Wallace caught six of those for 78 yards.

Wright led all receivers with four catches for 103 yards.

"I'm not pleased with how we played, and I'm not pleased with how we coached; it was extremely disappointing," Brown said. "I think the story of the game was rushing – once we crossed into that 30-ish range they were able to score touchdowns and we didn't, and then the penalties.

"Here is the deal, they repeatedly made routine plays. I don't think they did anything extraordinary, but that's how you win games. We didn't do that."

West Virginia continues Big 12 play next Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium against Baylor. The game will kick off at noon and will be televised nationally on ABC.