West Virginia football hits century mark, beats Kansas

If West Virginia has rushed for 100-yards as a team, the Mountaineers have won the football game. Over the first 34-games, the program is 13-0 when surpassing the century mark as a team including all six of the wins that West Virginia rolled up this season.

And when it doesn’t happen? The Mountaineers are 4-17.

That’s quite the stark contrast and stands to reason why West Virginia has tried to establish the run down the stretch of the schedule. That was certainly the case against Kansas where the program rushed for a total of 261 yards, the most under Brown against an FBS opponent.

The Mountaineers had not only one, but two running backs eclipse the 100-yard mark with senior Leddie Brown at 156 yards and redshirt sophomore Tony Mathis at 118 yards. It was the first time that the program had supported a pair of 100-yard backs since ironically against Kansas in 2017.

“We ran the ball well,” Brown said.

A big part of that puzzle has been the maturation of the offensive line, which has taken on the personality of its leader center Zach Frazier. West Virginia has settled on five players soaking up essentially all the snaps at that position and have started to settle in as a strength.

Outside the Oklahoma State game, which the elite defense of the Cowboys bogged down the Mountaineers offense, West Virginia has been steadily improving in the run department.

“The last two weeks is the best as a collection that we’ve played in the first three years here. That’s a credit to coach (Matt) Moore but also it’s a credit to having five guys play a lot,” Brown said.

The Mountaineers came into the game against Kansas believing that they could establish the run and for both backs to hit the 100-yard mark is a testament to that commitment. For Leddie Brown, it was refreshing to see his teammate get an opportunity to do that after he eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark for the second consecutive season. It’s the first time any back in the program has done that since 2016-17.

“It’s not really strange, more like proud. I’ve seen Tony grow so much over the past three years. Just proud of him and excited for his future because he’s pushed me every day,” Brown sad.

Both backs ran hard and West Virginia only had to throw for 13-yards in the second half to secure the win, with a total of only one of those passes traveling forward.

There’s a recipe for victory since Brown has taken the reins in Morgantown and for the first time it seems that this team is equipped to meet that goal.

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @JaredSerre

•Like us on Facebook