FORT WORTH, Texas — Though No. 23 West Virginia piled up 508 yards of offense, it scored only one touchdown on three red-zone trips in a 31-24 loss at No. 8 TCU.
“They have a good offense and they are going to make plays,” said Frogs safety Nick Orr. “But, what we want to do as a defense is get the stops that count. I feel like if we can do that and get the ball back to our offense and give them a chance to score, we’ll be in good shape.”
Though West Virginia scored on passing plays of 64 and 76 yards in the third quarter, TCU didn’t buckle in the final 3 minutes. Aided by an offensive pass interference call, the Frogs choked out WVU’s last drive.
Will Grier passed for 366 yards and three touchdowns — his fifth consecutive game eclipsing 300 —though he frequently was forced to scramble and threw an interception to Orr.
“He is a great quarterback, he’s hard to stop,” said TCU cornerback Ranthony Texada. “We just did what we had to do to get the win.”
Prodigious punting
Punter Adam Nunez was the first-half MVP for TCU, pinning West Virginia inside its 6-yard line four times.
“Hats off to their punter,” said Mountaineers quarterback Will Grier, who repeatedly found himself taking shotgun snaps out of his end zone.
WVU’s average starting field position in the opening half was its 12-yard line. The exception came when Marcus Simms called for fair catch at his 37 only to lose the ball when a defender was blocked into him.
Nunez averaged 43 yards on his seven punts, an average suppressed only by his pinpoint placement on a.
“That kid made four great punts … good for him,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. “Two turnovers and field position probably the difference in the game.”
Another 100-plus for Crawford
Big 12 rushing leader Justin Crawford gained 111 yards on 19 carries, bolstered by a 38-yard run that helped West Virginia score a field goal on the game’s first series.
Crawford was not on the field for the final series, however, when the Mountaineers had 2:53 to make up a seven-point deficit.
“He was tired. We were running him a lot of plays,” said offensive coordinator Jake Spavital.
Crawford’s backups Kennedy McKoy and Martell Petteway combined for 12 carries for 22 yards.
“I thought Crawford gave us an added element to the run game. You’d like to see those other backs hit some big plays when he’s out of the game,” Spavital said. “Crawford gave us a little juice in the run game, but when he was out we weren’t very effective with it.”
Defensive improvement
The nation’s top-performing offense on third down entering Saturday, TCU finished 6-of-15 on conversions against West Virginia.
However, the Frogs were perfect in crunch time, going 4-of-4 on the go-ahead drive that consumed nearly 7 minutes in the fourth quarter.
With its full complement of starters back, West Virginia gave up 170 rushing yards — about 62 below TCU’s average. And Tony Gibson’s crew yielded 406 overall, which was 91 below what the Frogs had been compiling.