WVU football storms back to beat Texas Tech on homecoming

The WVU football team had a roller coaster afternoon against Texas Tech on Saturday at Milan Puskar Stadium.

For much of the first half and even into the third and early fourth quarter, Texas Tech was in the driver’s seat against the WVU football team. The Mountaineers were down, but they weren’t out.

The Mountaineers couldn’t tackle the Red Red Raiders and they couldn’t get their own ground game going. What engineered the victory was Will Grier doing his thing and the wide receivers stepping up to make big plays.

At the end of the day, the WVU football team came away with a dazzling comeback win, 46-35, against Texas Tech on homecoming. It wasn’t pretty, but no West Virginia win really is, but we’ll take a gritty win like that any day of the week.

So will head coach Dana Holgorsen. He said the game was “fun” in his postgame press conference and was relived to pull this one out in from to more than 60,000 fans at home.

"“We gained some momentum and then it kind of just steamrolled from there,” Holgorsen said in his postgame press conference, according to WVUsports.com. “Once that thing kind of flipped to us, we were ready to take it and run with it.”"

The momentum started with a touchdown pass from Grier to Ka’Raun White. White, the younger brother of the Chicago Bears’ Kevin White showed his athleticism by making a catch that his sibling was famous for when he played at West Virginia a few years ago. It was a 32-yard catch that made the score 35-30 midway through the fourth quarter with the Mountaineers still needing some magic to pull out the win.

Later in the fourth, Grier hooked up with White again. This time for a 17-yard touchdown that gave the Mountaineers their first lead of the game at 39-35. On the next possession, a Grier touchdown pass to David Sills sealed the victory and capped the scoring.

Grier had another field day, slinging the pigskin for 353 yards by completing 32 of 41 passes. He finished with five touchdown passes as two were to White and three ended up going to Sills. Sills is the nation’s leader in touchdown receptions. He six catches for 89 yards on the day. White was the top target with eight catches for 114 yards.

The late surge from the Mountaineers offense wasn’t enough to overshadow the poor play by the defense. The WVU football team surrendered 533 yards to Texas Tech with quarterback Nic Shimonek tossing for 323 and four touchdowns. Jonathan Stockton added 96 yards on the ground with one touchdown.

West Virginia was stuffed on the ground with Justin Crawford only having 47 yards and Kennedy McKoy running for just 35 yards. The Mountaineers were really helped out by the fact that the Texas tech kicker missed three field goals. That helped the WVU football team gain momentum to finish out the win.

Next: 30 best games in WVU football history

The Mountaineers can enjoy this win for a few days before the preparation turns to Baylor. The WVU football team is on the road next week against the Bears for an 8 p.m. kickoff.

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