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The coveted Riot Bowl Trophy will stay with the folks at Wide Right & Natty Lite for another year, as their Iowa St. Cyclones leave Morgantown with a 38-14 win over an Austin Kendall-less West Virginia Mountaineers squad.
After forcing the Cyclones to punt on their opening drive, the West Virginia offense failed to get anything going on their opening drive before Kendall took a sack on third down and suffered an apparent upper body injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the game. With Kendall out of action, Jack Allison stepped in on West Virginia’s second drive of the game and, despite going three-and-out on that drive, turned in a decent performance through the rest of the half.
True freshman safety Tykee Smith had what would be the play of the game for the Mountaineers on Iowa State’s ensuing drive, when he picked off tipped pass from Brock Purdy and returned it to put the Mountaineers up 7-0 in the first quarter.
Iowa State answered with back-to-back touchdown drives in the second quarter to go up 14-7, but Allison and the Mountaineers responded with a long six minute drive of their own to tie things up with 28 seconds left in the half.
Everything that seemed to be going in West Virginia’s favor left the team in the locker room, as Allison and the Mountaineers just couldn’t get anything going their way after the break. All six of West Virginia’s second half drives stalled out and ended in punts, while Iowa State’s offense came alive, as three of their five second half drives ended in points for the Cyclones.
Allison finished the day 18-of-24 passing for 140 yards, one touchdown and one interception. TJ Simmons led the Mountaineers with five receptions for 75 yards and a touchdown.
There has been no official update on Kendall’s status, as of the time of writing. We will have continuing coverage of that as information becomes available.
The Mountaineers travel to Norman, Oklahoma next Saturday to take on the No. 6 ranked Oklahoma Sooners. That game will kickoff at Noon ET and will be broadcast on FOX.