No. 5 WVU runs past Syracuse
MORGANTOWN, WV – Before yesterday’s game at top-five West Virginia (6-0, 1-0), Syracuse (3-4, 0-2) had not allowed two different hundred-yard rushers in the same game in five years. That streak came to an end before halftime as The Orange defense was no match for West Virginia’s high-powered running attack. Pat White broke the school and conference rushing record for a quarterback in yesterday’s 41-17 thrashing of Syracuse at Milan Puskar Stadium in front of 60,051 by amassing 247 yards and four touchdowns on 15 carries. It was the Big East opener for the Mountaineers.
The Mountaineers ran their consecutive wins streak to 13 games, the second-best in the nation right now behind Ohio State.
“Records don’t mean anything to me because football is a team game, not a personal thing,” White said. “If it wasn’t for the great blocking we had all day, I wouldn’t have gained anything, so I’m celebrating a win in our first conference game and our undefeated record as a team right now, not my record.”
White ran through gaping holes most of the game as Syracuse’s defense keyed on running back Steve Slaton instead. Slaton still added 163 yards on 20 carries and one touchdown. He entered the game ranked number-three in the nation in rushing, and West Virginia entered the game ranked second in the nation in rushing, first in the Big East.
“Pat is fast so when he finds a hole, he shoots through it,” Slaton said. “The more defenders that focused on me, the bigger the holes got for Pat.”
West Virginia gained 457 yards on 45 carries as a team, much to the delight of head coach Rich Rodriguez.
“We had a pretty good day today and Pat [White] ran pretty well,” Rodriguez joked. “We tried some different things on the ground today that we haven’t really ran before, so maybe that caught them [Syracuse] a little off-guard.”
One such play was a quarterback-counter that Rodriguez said was fully-exposed for this game. White scored three of his four touchdowns running that play.
“We didn’t really show that quarterback-counter too much this year, but we thought they would key so much on Steve [Slaton] that the counter would be open,” Rodriguez said. “We kinda knew their tendencies and we did a good job of executing against that today.”
Syracuse took the opening kickoff and mounted an impressive drive fueled by quarterback Perry Patterson’s scrambling ability. On the scoring play, Patterson broke containment and faded left near midfield before finding a wide-open Williams standing at the 4-yard line and 10-yards behind the Mountaineer defenders.
It marked the first time West Virginia has trailed in a game since October 15 of LAST year, which was against Louisville. White made sure it didn’t last long.
Four plays and less than two minutes later, the Mountaineers responded with a White quarterback-keeper for a 69-yard touchdown run.
It was the eighth-consecutive game the Mountaineers have scored on their opening drive.
Five minutes into the second quarter, the Mountaineers took the lead for good with a 25-yard Pat McAfee field goal, giving WVU a 10-7 lead.
Midway through the second quarter, Slaton broke through a wide open hole and ran untouched 52-yards for a touchdown to push the Mountaineer lead to 17-7.
The score was Slaton’s twenty-fifth, moving him into fourth place on West Virginia’s career rushing touchdown list.
Patterson struck again by breaking three tackles, and spinning his way three yards into the endzone to pull the Orange back into the game, 17-14 with less than 3 minutes left in the half. It was Patterson’s first rushing touchdown this year, but the Orange’s last touchdown of the game.
“We made some second-half adjustments and played much better on defense with less missed assignments than in the first half,” said Carmichaels grad Bobby Hathaway. “It’s great to be 1-0 in the Big East, but we’re not looking ahead of our next game.”
White broke open and dashed untouched for a 40-yard touchdown on the first drive of the second half to extend West Virginia’s lead back to 10 points (24-14).
On West Virgnia’s next possession, White broke right through a gaping hole in the line and turned up-field on his way to a 34-yard touchdown run to extend the Mountaineer lead to 31-14.
With less than a minute left in the third quarter, White fielded a high shotgun snap at the Syracuse 12-yard line and still managed to bully his way into the endzone to push West Virginia’s lead to 38-14 and blow the game open.
Each team added a field goal in the fourth quarter to end the score.