West Virginia Upsets TCU 24-20 as Late Strip-Sack Seals Win in Fort Worth

Michael Hawkins Jr. grew up in Frisco, Texas, right in TCU's recruiting backyard. The Horned Frogs offered him a scholarship, and he said no. On Saturday afternoon, he came back to North Texas with a sideline full of family and friends and spent the day reminding the Horned Frogs what that decision cost them.

Hawkins ran for two touchdowns and threw for a third, and West Virginia got the one play it absolutely needed from a defense that has taken plenty of heat this fall. With TCU at the Mountaineers' 14 and the clock under 40 seconds, David Afogho came off the edge on an all-out blitz, hit Jaden Craig as he tried to throw, and Ben Cutter fell on the loose ball. West Virginia knelt it out and left Fort Worth with a 24-20 upset.

TCU came in as a 10 1/2-point favorite. It left 3-4.

A game the stat sheet says West Virginia lost

Start with the weird part. TCU outgained West Virginia by more than 200 yards. They held the ball for 37:36, close to 15 minutes more than the Mountaineers. Craig threw for 372 yards.

None of it mattered, because TCU kept handing the ball back. The Horned Frogs fumbled four times and lost three of them. They committed eight penalties for 81 yards, several of them at the worst possible moments. Nate McCashland missed a 43-yard field goal late in the second quarter.

West Virginia, meanwhile, did just enough. Hawkins completed only seven of 15 passes for 79 yards, though drops cost him plenty. DJ Epps dropped a deep ball down the middle that could have gone for a touchdown after a first-half takeaway, and Jaden Bray could not haul in another long throw in the third quarter.

Rich Rodriguez was honest about it. "Offensively, we sputtered around a little bit, and there were some things we probably watching the film and like, 'Golly, missed out on that,'" Rodriguez said. "But we answered the call when we had to offensively. Mike made some plays, Cam made some plays, and defensively, they got the key turnover."

How it unfolded

West Virginia started fast. Jack Cassidy drilled a 54-yard field goal to cap the opening drive, and TCU answered with a long, grinding 16-play, 91-yard march that ate more than nine minutes. Craig finished it with a 6-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ka'Morreun Pimpton.

The Mountaineers went back on top early in the second quarter. Cam Cook broke a 31-yard run to set it up, and Hawkins punched it in from the 2 for a 10-7 lead. After that, the offense went quiet. West Virginia's final three possessions of the half netted 23 yards on 10 plays, and the Mountaineers went into the locker room with just 125 total yards. McCashland's 39-yard field goal tied it at 10.

The defense kept it level, with a Cam Torbor fumble recovery and a Chams Diagne interception.

TCU took a 13-10 lead on its first drive of the third quarter with a 37-yard McCashland kick. West Virginia answered in five plays. A defensive holding call on Gil Jackson extended the drive on third down, Hawkins found Prince Strachan for 21 yards down the seam, and two plays later the quarterback broke loose for a 36-yard touchdown run. It was his 16th rushing touchdown of the season.

Geimere Latimer II forced a TCU punt with a 13-yard sack, but West Virginia went three-and-out from its own 8, and Brian Hansen's 41-yard punt gave TCU the ball at the Mountaineers' 47. A pass interference call on Kameron Reddic set up first-and-goal at the 2, and Craig ran it in himself. TCU led 20-17 heading into the fourth.

The drive that flipped it

That lead lasted about five minutes. West Virginia went 75 yards in 14 plays, with more TCU help. Koron Hayward sacked Hawkins, but an unnecessary roughness flag on the play gave the Mountaineers a fresh set of downs at the 26. Cook converted a fourth-down run to get to the 14, and two plays later Hawkins found him open down the seam for a 13-yard touchdown with 11:28 to go.

There is a nice little plot twist in that score. Cook is from Round Rock and spent his first two college seasons at TCU before leading the nation in rushing at Jacksonville State last year. He finished with 90 yards on 18 carries plus the go-ahead catch against his old team.

The final stand

TCU had one more real chance, and it got close. Craig moved the Horned Frogs to the West Virginia 14 with one timeout left and the clock under 40 seconds. Defensive coordinator Zac Alley sent everybody. Afogho got there, the ball came out, and Cutter recovered with 34 seconds left. The official play-by-play credited Nate Gabriel with the forced fumble, but West Virginia's own recap said the replays clearly show Afogho off the edge.

Rodriguez credited the defense for absorbing a lot of new material on short notice. "Defensively, we had a lot of new stuff that we had tried to install right away, and you got to work it, and they did a good job with that," he said.

That matters from a unit that had been leaking points. West Virginia's previous four games had all topped 1,000 combined yards. This one did not come close.

The players who decided it

Hawkins is the headline. He entered the day leading the nation with 14 rushing touchdowns, added two more, and was responsible for all three West Virginia touchdowns. He also threw an interception, so it was not a flawless afternoon. It was a winning one.

Latimer led the defense with 12 tackles. Afogho and Cutter will be on the Morgantown highlight reel for a while.

On the other side, Craig deserves more than a footnote. He completed his first 12 passes, the third-longest streak in TCU history according to AP, and finished 33 of 47 for 372 yards with a passing touchdown and a rushing touchdown. Jordan Dwyer caught 10 passes for 113 yards, and Kari Ashley added six for 118.

The numbers that matter

Three turnovers to one. That is the game. TCU won nearly every volume stat, including passing yards by nearly 300, but West Virginia actually outrushed the Horned Frogs 186-112, won the turnover battle 3-1 and made TCU pay for its penalties. TCU had the ball nearly nine minutes longer in the first half alone and never led by more than four points.

West Virginia has now won four straight in Fort Worth, dating back to 2019. The full numbers are in West Virginia's official box score (opens in a new tab), and the school's game recap (opens in a new tab) breaks down every drive.

What it means

West Virginia is 5-3 overall and 2-3 in the Big 12, and it has already topped last season's win total. A week after a 45-42 shootout win over Cincinnati, the Mountaineers won a completely different kind of game. That versatility matters, because the schedule gets nasty. After an open date, West Virginia visits Texas Tech on Nov. 7, and three of its last four games come against ranked opponents.

TCU falls to 3-4 and 1-3 in conference play, one week after beating Baylor in the rivalry game. Next on the schedule was a home game against Kansas, and the Horned Frogs needed to fix their ball security in a hurry.

The last word

The offense sputtered, the defense delivered, and West Virginia got the turnover when it had to have it. That is not a formula to lean on every week. But the Mountaineers were double-digit underdogs, got outgained by more than 200 yards and still flew home with a win. For a program trying to prove it is ahead of schedule, that counts.

Hawkins said no to TCU once. On Saturday, he made the Horned Frogs feel it.

Sources: West Virginia Athletics recap and box score, The Associated Press and Field Level Media. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: WVU Athletics.