West Virginia falls to Kansas on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium
By John Antonik, WVU Sports
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Kansas used dominant offensive and defensive efforts to dispose of West Virginia 37-14 on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium.
Jayhawk quarterback Isaiah Marshall ran 19 times for 164 yards and also added 152 yards through the air, completing 15 of his 18 pass attempts.
“I apologize to the Mountaineer fan base for today’s performance,” West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said afterward. “It was embarrassing.”
Kansas (4-6 overall and 2-5 in Big 12 play) scored on five of its first six possessions to take a commanding 30-7 halftime lead. KU kicked a 24-yard field on the game’s opening possession, then used a Trey Lathan interception deep in West Virginia territory to expand its lead to 10-0 just seven minutes into things.
Backup running back Khijohn Cummings-Coleman, in the game for injured starter Dylan Edwards, followed up Lathan’s interception with a 5-yard touchdown run, then added a 26-yard scoring jaunt later in the first quarter.
Kansas also got 2-yard touchdown runs by Chase Belcher and Marshall in a first half that saw it outgain West Virginia 344-to-79.
Kansas’ final scoring drive of the first half used up all but 45 seconds of the clock and required the Mountaineers to burn all three of their timeouts.
West Virginia’s lone first-half touchdown was scored by Michael Hawkins Jr. – a 2-yard run with 4:35 left in the first quarter for his 20th of the season and was set up by his 38-yard pass down the far sideline to Taron Francis.
West Virginia’s only other first-half play of consequence was Hawkins’ 16-yard scramble. Removing those two plays, the Mountaineers netted just 25 yards on their 27 first-half plays.
WVU’s offensive difficulties date back to its final five possessions of last week’s Texas Tech game when it netted minus-5 yards.
Today against Kansas, West Virginia punted on seven consecutive possessions following the Hawkins touchdown run and had another one end on downs when it was unable to convert a fourth and inches at the Kansas 37.
By then, most the 45,629 announced for today’s game were in their cars headed out of town.
West Virginia’s other touchdown was scored by John Neider with 5:01 left, a 17-yard pass from Hawkins capping a 12-play, 86-yard drive.
Kansas’ only second-half touchdown was Belcher’s 8-yard run to begin the fourth quarter.
West Virginia, which came into the game ranked sixth in the country in rushing offense, averaging 263.6 yards per game, netted just 35 yards on 37 rushing attempts. Hawkins gained 36 yards on 25 carries while leading rusher Cam Cook’s day ended with just 12 yards on nine attempts.
Hawkins completed 19-of-34 passes for 227 yards with DJ Epps catching a team-high five of those for 51 yards.
“Today was an outlier offensively. We’ve played pretty well all year, but defensively, we haven’t played well all year long,” Rodriguez said.
West Virginia (5-5 overall and 2-5 in Big 12 play) has two regular season games left against nationally ranked Houston and Utah to try and get a sixth victory to become bowl eligible.
A game time for next Saturday’s home finale against Houston is forthcoming.
Author
