Instant Recap: No. 12 West Virginia Survives No. 25 Texas Tech’s Comeback Bid, Keith Washington’s Pick Six Seals The Deal

Death. Taxes. Things getting weird in Lubbock.

The No. 12 ranked West Virginia Mountaineers went on the road this afternoon and survived a late scare from the No. 25 ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders, 42-34.

It wasn’t pretty. There were drops. There were weird calls. Will Grier looked arguably the worst we’ve seen him in his tenure in Morgantown - although he still completed 66% of his passes and threw for three touchdowns - and a lot of it could be blamed on dropped passes by his receivers.

The Mountaineer offense was absolutely on fire in the first half of the game, taking a 35-10 lead into the locker room but as we saw the Red Raiders do last week against the Oklahoma State Cowboys last week, Texas Tech made just the right adjustments to nearly pitch a shutout in the second half.

The Red Raiders scored 17 unanswered points before Mountaineer cornerback Keith Washington picked off Jett Duffey’s pass and returned it 51 yards to give the Mountaineers some breathing room with just under 3 minutes left in the game.

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Key Takeaways:

• West Virginia’s defense kept up with their tackles for loss average, registering 9 TFL today - 3 of which came from David Long
• Grier finished with 340 yards and 3 touchdowns on 27-of-41 passing.
• Kennedy McKoy carried the ball 11 times for 77 yards and 1 touchdown
• Marcus Simms was fantastic once again, catching 9 passes for 138 yards and 1 touchdown
• Texas Tech held the Mountaineers to 7-of-14 on third down, their lowest conversion percentage of the season.

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The Mountaineers return home next Saturday for Homecoming, where they’ll take on the Kansas Jayhawks. That game will kick off at Noon ET. Broadcast details will be released shortly.