MORGANTOWN, WV — West Virginia sent their seniors out in style with a dominant 59-10 victory over Kansas on Saturday afternoon.
Geno Smith threw for 407 YDS and 3 touchdowns while Tavon Austin and Andrew Buie combined for 188 rushing yards. Stedman Bailey, who could be playing in his last home game due to draft eligibility, caught 11 balls for 159 YDS and 2 scores. Geno Smith also broke a school record for consecutive completions with 21. He ended 23/24 overall with the one miscue being an interception. ”He didn’t have a pass hit the floor all day so I’d say that was pretty good”, said Offensive Coordinator Shannon Dawson.
The Mountaineers scored early and often as they found the endzone on 5 of 6 possessions, the only non-scoring possession coming due to a Smith interception. The first score coming on an 8 play, 68 yard drive to start the game. The drive was highlighted by a Smith to Bailey 45 yard pass on the game’s first play. They would punch it in 7 plays later on an Andrew Buie 4 YD run.
The two teams would exchange interceptions on their next drives forcing Kansas QB, Dayne Crist out of the game for Michael Cummings. Cummings was the regular QB in Charlie Weis’s running offense but he had Crist out for the start to pass the ball.
WVU would then score two more times by way of a Shawn Alston 1 YD run and a Smith to Bailey 8 YD pass to make it 21-0. Kansas would then get on the board thanks to a 42 YD pass that set up a Chris Sims 1 YD run to make it 21-7. Alston and the Mountaineers would then answer directly with another 1 YD run to end the first half scoring at 35-7. It took Kansas 20 min of game time to break the 100 YD mark in total offense.
The second half would be the same story for the Mountaineers as they went 4/4 in scoring before shutting it down for the game. Bitancurt would kick a 30 YD field goal to make it 38-7. WVU would then get into the endzone twice more before Kansas would put their final points on the board with a 32 YD field goal. The two scores would come by way of a Smith to Bailey 16 YD strike and a 1 YD Austin run right after Austin barely missed the endzone on a nice run of 18.
Dustin Garrison would finish the scoring for the game with a nifty 26 YD run that had him start off to the right then juke his way to the left and into the endzone over a Kansas defender.
After zeros hit the clock in the 59-10 Mountaineer victory, Geno Smith and the WVU players ran over and leaped into the lower student section to thank the fans for their support and to sing Country Roads for one final time.
“We’ve talked about motivation all week and we wanted to go out on a strong note for our seniors and we did on all three sides of the ball”, said Head Coach Dana Holgerson. “These 21 seniors are here because they love it here. They have been through coaching changes and conference changes and they never complained”
For this we all say thank you to Geno Smith, Tavon Austin and the 19 other seniors who will always be remember in Mountaineer history as the first class to graduate as a Big 12 team.
The Mountaineers will find out where they will be for the bowl season tomorrow.
