Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The outcome of today's game was pretty much a forgone conclusion once Long Island chose to start it by kicking off to Winston Wright Jr. 
 
It did, and Wright Jr. caught the football on a dead run at the 10 and raced right past the Sharks for a 90-yard touchdown. In last Saturday's loss at Maryland, Wright Jr. set a WVU record with 217 kickoff return yards.
 
This evening, West Virginia (1-1) scored on nine straight offensive possessions in rolling to an easy 66-0 victory before 50,911 fans at Milan Puskar Stadium. It's the first time West Virginia has played a home football game without attendance restrictions since the 2019 season, Neal Brown's first at WVU. 
 
It was also the Mountaineers' widest margin of victory since defeating Rutgers 80-7 on Nov. 3, 2001 and the most points scored in a game since defeating Baylor 70-63 on Sept. 29, 2012.
 
"This is a game we should win and we did," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said. "One thing I was proud of our team was we played quality football. It wasn't sloppy. There were a couple of fourth downs we would have liked to have gotten offensively, but there weren't a whole bunch of penalties so it was clean football and I was proud of them."
 
Quarterback Jarret Doege led first-half touchdown drives of 80, 39 and 56 yards and two third-quarter touchdown marches before giving way to backups Garrett Greene and Will Crowder.
 
Doege completed 14 of his 22 pass attempts for 259 yards and three touchdowns, two going to Sam James and the other a 39-yarder to Sean Ryan. James' first touchdown grab was an 18-yarder in the second quarter and his other covered 15 yards early in the third to put the Mountaineers ahead 52-0.
 
Doege also operated the two-minute offense at the end of the second quarter after Long Island's unsuccessful field goal try from the WVU 8. The Mountaineers traveled 53 yards in just 32 seconds to get into position for Casey Legg to kick a 44-yard field goal to conclude the half.
 
By predetermination, Greene entered the game on West Virginia's third offensive possession and led WVU 69 yards to paydirt. The freshman got 34 of it on the ground, including a pair of third-down scrambles for 21 yards, before scoring from the 3.
 
Greene returned to the field with the No. 2 offense with 9:04 remaining in the third quarter and got the Mountaineers into the end zone for the eighth time when the freshman scampered 13 yards to the far-side pylon.
 
West Virginia's streak of scores ended on its 10^th offensive possession at the LIU 6 when Jordan White's snap sailed over Greene's head and Qualil Lumpkins recovered the ball at the 15.
 
A'varius Sparrow's 1-yard touchdown run and Evan Staley's conversion kick made the score 66-0 with 5:25 left. Third-string quarterback Will Crowder's 20-yard pass to freshman Kaden Prather set up Sparrow's touchdown run.
 
Leddie Brown added a pair of short touchdown runs in the first quarter to give him four for the season (five overall), while adding 37 yards from scrimmage on 17 touches.
 
Greene led the Mountaineers' ground attack with 98 yards rushing on 14 attempts, while completing four of his seven pass attempts for 57 yards.
 
"He's going through this maturation process right now," Brown noted of his freshman quarterback. "I don't know if I've said it in this (press conference) setting, but he's a guy that didn't have what I would say was a 'normal quarterback upbringing.' The way quarterbacks are kind of brought up is they play seven-on-seven starting in middle school and you have spring football.
 
"For him, that wasn't his experience. He was a baseball player who came from a baseball family. He played in an offense that was really run based, so they weren't asking him to make progressions or look at coverages a whole lot, so he just didn't have that same quarterback upbringing as some of the others," Brown added. "Since he got here over the last 20 months or so, this is the first time he's really been locked in on football only."
 
No. 3 quarterback Crowder completed both of his pass tries for 28 yards.
 
Ryan led nine different pass catchers with 77 yards on three receptions.
 
Other than one drive late in the second quarter and it's final possession, Long Island (0-2) spent the rest of the game on its side of the 50. The Sharks had only 95 yards of offense, becoming the first team since Rutgers in 2002 to fail to get 100 total yards against the Mountaineers. West Virginia held the Scarlet Knights to just 90 total yards in a 40-0 win in Piscataway that day.
 
Linebacker Josh Chandler-Semedo led the defensive effort with seven total tackles. Freshman defensive lineman Brayden Dudley was credited with two of West Virginia's 11 tackles for loss. Akheem Mesidor and Tennessee transfer Darel Middleton had the Mountaineers' two sacks.
 
The defense also came up with its first turnover of the season when Sean Martin recovered a third-quarter fumble.
 
West Virginia gained 542 total yards, 193 of those coming on the ground.
 
Long Island quarterback Camden Orth completed 11 of his 20 pass attempts for 60 yards. LIU's long play from scrimmage was 13 yards on passes to Derick Eugene and Steven Chambers.

At the conclusion of the first quarter, West Virginia University recognized the family of former quarterback Chris Gray, who perished in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center 20 years ago today. WVU also recognized the memory of former LIU player Bronko Pearsall and Keith Glascoe, the father of current Sharks tight end Owen Glascoe. Both were New York City firefighters who sacrificed their lives that day.
 
West Virginia remains in Morgantown to face longtime regional rival Virginia Tech next Saturday afternoon in a game that will kick off at noon and will be televised nationally on FS1. The Hokies were 35-14 winners over Middle Tennessee State in Blacksburg earlier today to improve to 2-0.
 
"Now it goes back to that feeling we had at Maryland when we really didn't perform the way we wanted to," Brown said. "We missed an opportunity and we sit here 1-1. Now our chance at redemption and a chance to make a mark is on Saturday in a rivalry game.
 
"It's going to be one of the biggest home games in my tenure here and I think the atmosphere here is going to be electric, I look forward to it and I look forward to the preparation," Brown said.

At a minimum, Greene's performance tonight is going to force the Hokies to spend some time during practice this week preparing for his ability to run the football.
 
"We didn't think he was ready to play in the opener," Brown admitted. "We knew he was going to get some playing time here and we'll go back and evaluate the film, and if his play here and his play through next week warrants the opportunity in situations then, yes, we will use him because I think he can help us." 
 
Next Saturday's game has already been announced a sellout.