MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For the second straight week, West Virginia is going to face a fast-paced offense when it takes on TCU Saturday night in Fort Worth, Texas.
 
Last Saturday, WVU (3-1, 1-0) managed to handle Texas Tech's tempo offense in its Big 12 opener. Now, the Mountaineers will have to prove they can do it on the road against a TCU team coming off its third straight win last Saturday against SMU.
 
In that game, running back Emani Bailey ran 25 times for 126 yards and scored a 24-yard touchdown, and 6-foot-7, 260-pound tight end Jared Wiley caught a pair of touchdowns in the Horned Frogs' 34-17 victory over their rivals.
 
Quarterback Chandler Morris, an Oklahoma transfer, completed 24-of-33 passes for 265 yards and three touchdowns and now shows 98 completions in 142 attempts for 1,121 yards and nine touchdowns. He passed for a season-high 314 yards two weeks ago in a 36-13 victory over Houston.
 
Wiley shows a team-best 14 catches for 120 yards and a team-high three touchdowns, while JR Richardson has nabbed 14 grabs for 185 yards. Eleven different players caught passes in last week's victory and 18 different players have caught at least one pass so far this year.
 
"They are really talented with their skill players, and their quarterback, Chandler Morris, is playing at a high level," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said. "They have multiple running backs and they're physical, downhill runners. And then they've got a bevy of receivers. They've got little guys that can make you miss. They've got possession receivers that can make the difficult catches and they've got a bunch of big bodies on the outside, so it's a really difficult matchup for us."
 
TCU began its win streak with a 59-17 victory over Nicholls. The Horned Frogs began the season losing 45-42 to Colorado in upset fashion. The Buffaloes passed for 510 yards and accounted for 565 yards of total offense against TCU's defense, which returns several players from last year's national runner-up team.
 
In its last game against SMU, TCU really got after Mustang quarterback Preston Stone, sacking him three times, hurrying him four times and forcing two interceptions.
 
Getting pressure on the quarterback is what the Horned Frogs do best. TCU already has 16 sacks in four games, including four sacks in the season opener against Colorado. Twelve different players have gotten to the quarterback, including three times by redshirt freshman defensive end Paul Oyewale.
 
Nose tackle Damonic Williams was a preseason All-Big 12 choice and shows 12 tackles and two sacks through four games this season. Strongside junior linebacker Namdi Obiazor had 11 tackles in last week's SMU victory and shows a team-best 33 for the year.
 
TCU is allowing just 85 yards per game on the ground and has forced seven turnovers so far this year.
"Defensively, they have a lot of the same guys. They use a three-man front, and they've kind of bent but not broke," Brown noted. "They do a really good job in the red zone, and they can create takeaways."
 
In last year's game in Morgantown, West Virginia had possession of the football with an opportunity to take the lead in the fourth quarter before TCU scored a late touchdown to claim a 41-31 victory.
 
WVU had success moving the football against the nation's seventh-ranked team. TCU had a dream season for first-year coach Sonny Dykes, the Horned Frogs winning all their regular season games before falling to Kansas State in last year's Big 12 championship game in Dallas.
 
TCU qualified for the college football playoffs and upset Big Ten champion Michigan 51-45 before falling to Georgia in the national championship game.
 
Dykes is now 16-3 at TCU and shows an 87-66 overall record in his 13^th season as a collegiate coach.He was 22-15 in three seasons at Louisiana Tech, 19-30 in four years at Cal and 30-18 in five years at SMU before replacing legendary coach Gary Patterson at TCU last year. TCU is bringing a 10-game regular season Big 12 winning streak into Saturday night's game, 11th-longest in Big 12 history.
 
West Virginia has won three in a row for the first time under Brown and has won five of its last seven dating back to last season.
 
After a 38-15 loss at then-seventh-ranked Penn State, the Mountaineers have won three in a row by scores of 56-17 against Duquesne, 17-6 against Pitt and 20-13 against Tech Tech last Saturday.
 
"Defensively, we played really well against Tech," Brown pointed out. "We've just got to finish better. I thought we got tired toward the end of the game. We've got to stop the run and play the run better than we did a week ago."
 
Redshirt freshman Nicco Marchiol was behind center for the Texas Tech victory and all but six snaps in the Pitt win. Marchiol tried just nine passes against Pitt, completing six, for 60 yards and a touchdown. Last week, he completed 12-of-21 passes for 78 yards and a touchdown, but Brown knows he's going to have to get more from his passing attack this weekend at TCU.
 

Junior Garrett Greene, injured in the Pitt game two weeks ago, dressed for last Saturday's Texas Tech game but was not utilized. Brown said earlier this week he will not play Greene unless he's fully healthy.
 
"Offensively, our pass game has got to get going, and we've got to make some explosive plays," Brown said. "We've got to be able to break some tackles and making people miss. We're capable of doing that but we didn't do that on Saturday. We've got to do some things to help the quarterback out."
 
WVU is averaging 189.5 yards per game on the ground with sophomore CJ Donaldson Jr. leading the way with 287 yards and three touchdowns.
 
Defensively, the Mountaineers are surrendering 109.8 yards per game on the ground and 201.3 yards per game through the air. The starting defense has allowed only two touchdowns in its last 12 quarters of action against Duquesne, Pitt and Texas Tech.
 
Senior linebacker Lee Kpogba leads the way with 29 tackles, followed by redshirt freshman linebacker Trey Lathan's 25 stops. Senior cornerback Beanie Bishop Jr. leads a vastly improved secondary with 21 tackles, five pass breakups and a pair of interceptions.
 
The last time West Virginia traveled to Amon G. Carter Stadium in 2021, it came away with a 29-17 victory. The Mountaineers won four in a row over the Horned Frogs before last year's 41-31 defeat.
 
Saturday's game will kick off at 8 p.m. and will be televised nationally on ESPN2 (Dave Flemming, Brock Osweiler and Kayla Burton).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage on affiliates throughout West Virginia begins with the GoMart Mountaineer Tailgate Show at 5 pm leading into regular network coverage with Tony Caridi, Dwight Wallace and Jed Drenning at 7 pm.
 
Fans can access the radio broadcast online at WVUsports.com, or on the popular Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.