Box Score Garrett Greene threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to running back
Jahiem White with 23 seconds left to defeat Baylor 34-31 at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas.
West Virginia, which outgained Baylor 365 to 86, had a 17 to 3 advantage in first downs and a 207 to 35 edge in rushing yardage in the first half, saw its offense go AWOL for most of the second half.
But it came alive in crunch time when it needed it most and without any timeouts.
After stopping West Virginia on a fourth and 1 at the WVU 46 with 4:20 left, Baylor moved the ball down to the Mountaineer 14, chewing three minutes off the clock to get in position to kick a field goal. But Isaiah Hankins, who missed a 43-yard field goal in the second quarter, also missed his 32-yard try with 1:14 left.
West Virginia took over at its own 20, and with surgical precision, marched the ball down the field. On first down, Greene completed an 11-yard pass to
Hudson Clement, but on the play starting center
Zach Frazier was injured and took himself out of the game.
Guard
Brandon Yates moved over to center, and Greene fired a 23-yard strike to Clement to the Baylor 46. Greene scrambled for 8 and added another 9-yard scramble to the Bear 29. His first-down pass down the far sideline to
EJ Horton fell incomplete, but his second one in the same area to a wide-open White coming out of the backfield, turned out to be the game winner.
Michael Hayes converted the extra point to put WVU up 34-31.
Following the kickoff, Baylor got one first down to its 40, and Sawyer Robertson's short pass got the Bears to their 46, but a final pass from backup RJ Martinez was broken up by a blitzing
Marcis Floyd and the game was over.
"This has been a team that has fought all year," West Virginia coach
Neal Brown said afterward. "
Garrett Greene is a winner, and I hope our fans appreciate him. He's about all the right things."
The Bears, without starting quarterback Blake Shapen, did nothing in the first half and almost everything in the second half until West Virginia's final possession. Baylor outgained West Virginia 248 to 154 and ran 40 plays to West Virginia's 24 after intermission.
Greene, as he did a week ago when he produced 354 yards of total offense and four touchdowns in a 42-21 win against Cincinnati, racked up another productive night of offense. He passed for 269 yards and two touchdowns and ran 14 times for 103 yards and two scores. He now has 13 rushing touchdowns for the season, tied with five others for 10
th in school history.
He finished the regular season with 708 yards rushing and 2,178 yards passing.
White, too, has really come alive in the second half of the season and finished tonight with a team-best 133 yards on 17 attempts. He ran for a season-high 204 yards last week and now shows 792 yards on just 97 attempts for an average of 8.2 yards per carry.
Clement made all four of his catches in the second half for a team-best 80 yards.
After trading possessions to begin the game, West Virginia crossed the goal line first when Greene connected on a 30-yard touchdown pass to
Traylon Ray.
The Mountaineers tacked on a Hayes 38-yard field goal on the third play of the second quarter, but it took Richard Reese only 15 seconds to cut into the lead with a 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.
West Virginia answered three minutes later when Greene broke free for a 23-yard touchdown scamper, capping a seven-play, 82-yard drive.
Reese struck again, though, taking Hayes' kickoff the distance for a 93-yard touchdown.
It's the first time in 119 years West Virginia has allowed two kickoff returns for touchdowns in the same game since Fielding Yost's Michigan Wolverines did it on Oct. 22, 1904, in a 130-0 Michigan victory. Back then, there were different rules regarding kickoffs, which is how a team that didn't score kicked off multiple times. Two different players were responsible for Michigan's kickoff return touchdowns that afternoon.
WVU concluded the second quarter with Hayes' 36-yard field goal and Greene's 1-yard touchdown run with just 15 seconds left. Greene perfectly executed the two-minute offense by completing passes of 26 yards to tight end
Kole Taylor and 19 yards to
Preston Fox before he took off for an 11-yard scramble to the 1.
To start the second half, Baylor didn't return another kickoff for a touchdown, but it did get into the end zone when Robertson hooked up with Ketron Jackson Jr. for a 38-yard touchdown pass, capping a seven-play, 77-yard drive that consumed 4:03.
Aiding the drive was
Ben Cutter's personal foul penalty that added 15 yards to a short Reese reception. Following the score, another penalty, holding called on
Wyatt Milum, negated a 46-yard Greene run and forced the Mountaineers to punt the ball back to Baylor. Brown argued the holding call on the field and continued to voice his frustration afterward during his postgame press conference.
"That was just a great block," he said.
Then a third miscue,
Andrew Wilson-Lamp running into Baylor punt returner Josh Cameron for a personal foul, gave Baylor possession of the ball at the WVU 49. Immediately, Robertson went to the air again to Jackson for 38 yards to the WVU 13.
Five plays later, Baylor took its first lead of the game when Dominic Richardson bounced in from the 2, making it 28-27 Bears with 5:45 left in the third quarter.
Another unsuccessful offensive possession led to more Baylor points, this time a Hankins 39-yard field to give Baylor a 31-27 lead with 12:58 left in the game.
However, it was Hankins' next missed kick that opened the door for West Virginia's comeback victory.
Robertson's night showed him completing 17 of his 19 pass attempts for 215 yards and a touchdown, and Jackson catching three of those for 88 yards and a touchdown.
Tonight's victory gives West Virginia eight wins for the regular season, its most since 2018. WVU also finishes with a 6-3 record in conference play, and with Iowa State's upset win over Kansas State tonight, the Mountaineers end in a three-way tie with the Cyclones and Wildcats for fourth place after being predicted to finish last.
It was also West Virginia's first win in Waco since 2017, and just its second ever there.
Baylor concludes its season with a 3-9 overall record and 2-7 mark in league play.
The game was played in a steady rain.
WVU's bowl destination and opponent will be announced next Sunday following championship Saturday.