Former West Virginia quarterbacks Major Harris, Marc Bulger and Pat White were in attendance for homecoming Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium to watch the Mountaineers take on the Bowling Green Falcons. After a tough loss last week to top ranked LSU, West Virginia (4-1) came out firing on all cylinders defeating Bowling Green (3-2) 55-10. In their previous four games, the Mountaineers have struggled in the running game. Today however, was a completely different story.
Freshman running back Dustin Garrison emerged to the top of the Mountaineer depth chart after his 291 yards and 2 touchdown performance against the Falcons. Coming into the game, the Mountaineers had just 306 rushing yards on the season, Garrison had 65 of those. While Garrison may have surprised a lot of people with his breakout game against the Falcons, coach Dana Holgorsen wasn’t one of them.
“If you look at 16 games on his high school film last year, it’s like that. He’s used to 200-yard games. The more you give it to him and the more he plays, the better he gets,” Holgorsen said.
While the Pearland, Texas native Garrison will get most of the spotlight for the victory, quarterback Geno Smith also did his part. Smith passed for 238 yards and 3 touchdowns. Smith hit wide receivers Ivan McCartney, Ryan Nehlen and Brad Starks for touchdowns en route to the 55 points. This marks the second time the Mountaineers have eclipsed the 50-point plateau this season. The skill positions get most of the credit, but Holgorsen doesn’t want the offensive line to go unnoticed.
“We’re getting better at it. We’re targeting better and finishing blocks better,” coach Holgorsen said.
With 55 points on the board, it’s normal to talk about the offense, but the defense did their job as well. Going into the game, the main criticism of the defense was the turnover differential and how they have only caused three turnovers from the opposing offense in the first four games. However, the Mountaineer defense picked off three passes from Bowling Green quarterback Matt Schilz and also sacked him twice. Keith Tandy had two of the interceptions and Terence Garvin added the other.
“It should have been three,” coach Holgorsen said of Tandy’s two interception day.
“It was a matter of time with him. He’s done that a lot. We haven’t been getting it for whatever reason and he made two plays and should’ve had three picks.”
The Mountaineers will ride high after this victory as they prepare to open up Big East play next Saturday at home against UConn (2-3) who lost to Western Michigan today.
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