After losing starting running back Jahiem White for the season against Ohio, the West Virginia Mountaineers will need to find a solution in the backfield for the rest of the 2025 season. And before The Backyard Brawl against Pitt even hit the halftime break on Saturday, WVU football may have found their man at tailback.
Tye Edwards, a redshirt senior who joined the program after a 1,000-yard season for FCS program Northern Iowa last year, was listed at third on the depth chart entering the Brawl and had seen very limited action in the first two games of the season. But once he was worked into the rotation against Pitt, he got off to a hot start and never looked back.
WEST VIRGINIA SWINGS FIRST IN THE BACKYARD BRAWL ‼️
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) September 13, 2025
Tye Edwards gets @WVUfootball on the board with the rushing touchdown.#Big12FB | 📺 ESPN pic.twitter.com/Pn4bhzKgxQ
Despite being listed behind Cyncir Bowers on the depth chart, Edwards was the second running back to get carries after starter Clay Ash and he immediately went 12 yards for a first down on his first run of the game. He was fed the ball multiple times throughout that drive, which was capped when Edwards took another carry for 12 yards into the endzone to score the first points of the game and put WVU up 7-0.
He would go on to rack up 10 carries for 77 yards and one touchdown before the halftime break, and hlped the Mountaineers carry a 7-3 lead into halftime. As of the time this article was published with just over eight minutes remaining in the third quarter, he was up to 99 yards on 14 carries and had added a second touchdown to give WVU a 14-3 lead over the Panthers. It seems as if WVU might have landed on the spark they needed offensively with Edwards.