West Virginia football gets back on track with 31-26 road win against Arizona

After a pair of difficult losses at home to ranked opponents in Iowa State and Kansas State, West Virginia football sat under .500 on the season and faced a crucial road test as they made a cross-country trek to face Arizona.

While it's hard to say that the team's problems are fixed, they were able to use the trip as an opportunity to straighten the ship against another struggling program in the Wildcats, and escaped Tucson with a 31-26 victory.

The win came without starting quarterback Garrett Greene, with backup Nicco Marchiol putting on an impressive performance the help the Mountaineers get back into the win column. Marchiol, competing in his home state in front of his family, went 18-of-22 through the air for 198 yards and 1 touchdown and added 39 yards rushing.

The run game was again in top form as Jahiem White tallied 92 rushing yards and CJ Donaldson Jr. added 41 yards and a touchdown, with Rodney Gallagher III also notching 21 yards. Special teams even got involved in the scoring as Leighton Bechdel took a fake field goal 14 yards to add a crucial early touchdown.

The Mountaineers solved a big issue in terms of turnovers, taking much better care of the ball than in previous weeks. WVU had zero turnovers but did manage a takeaway in the victory. They also did an effective job of keeping the Wildcats defense on the field and controlling the tempo, winning the time of possession battle 35:04-24:56.

WVU moves to 4-4 overall and 3-2 in Big 12 action with the win, and will now head into their second bye week.