Morning, Mountaineers. Jolene Buckhannon here. Former rifle team captain. I count possessions like rounds in a magazine, I keep a pepperoni-roll tally of every opponent fumble, and I don't do long sentences.
Saturday, we didn't either. We just kept firing.
Load up. I don't miss.
Part 1: Pinned at the 1, and Then the Kick
West Virginia 45, Cincinnati 42. At Milan Puskar Stadium. Jack Cassidy kicked a 35-yard field goal as time ran out. Country Roads, everybody. Sing it loud.
We broke a three-game losing streak. We're 4-3 and 1-3 in the Big 12. And I'll be honest, because a shooter who lies about her score gets caught at the target. We never led that game until the final kick.
Cincinnati scored first. Then we answered. Every time. Mike Hawkins Jr. ran in from 12 yards and from 2 yards in the second quarter. He hit Josh Sapp for a 4-yard touchdown in the third. He found DJ Epps for 37 yards early in the fourth to tie it 28-28. Amari Latimer ran 3 yards to tie it again at 35. Cincinnati went back up 42-35 with 5:35 left. Five plays later, Hawkins hit Cam Cook for a 40-yard touchdown. Tied, 42-42.
Then the hard part. Cincinnati punted and pinned us at our own 1 with 2:05 left. Ninety-nine yards to go. On third down, Hawkins found Prince Strachan for 41 yards. Two plays later, Strachan again, for 40. That put us inside the Cincinnati 20. Cassidy did the rest.
Hawkins finished 25 of 33 for a career-high 464 yards and three touchdowns, with no interceptions. He also ran 26 times for 77 yards and two scores. AP noted he hadn't completed half his passes in any of the previous three games. Saturday he completed 75.8%. Target acquired.
And Cassidy? AP says he grew up playing Gaelic football in Northern Ireland, and he'd had a rough day before that last kick. Then he split the uprights, and his teammates carried him off on their shoulders. That's what I call a bullseye after a couple of practice rounds.
We had zero turnovers and only four penalties. Clean shooting.
Part 2: The Frogs in Fort Worth
Saturday, noon Eastern on ESPN2. West Virginia (4-3) at TCU (3-3) at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Scouting the Target
I respect the Frogs' defense. I'll say that first. TCU allows 12.2 points a game, third in FBS. It allows 264.2 yards a game, seventh. It ranks third in red zone defense and 13th on third down. TCU has held every opponent to 21 points or fewer this season. That's a real wall.
Now the offense. Oh, the offense.
TCU runs for 110 yards a game. That's 125th in FBS. It scores 24 points a game, 95th. Last week at Baylor, the Frogs ran 30 times for 33 yards. That's 1.1 yards a carry. I've seen a deer move farther in a standing position. And AP says that before beating Baylor, TCU lost all three of its games against Power Four teams and scored 33 points in those three games combined. Eleven a game.
Here's my most beloved fact. TCU opened its season against North Carolina in Dublin, Ireland, at Aviva Stadium. The Frogs lost 15-10. They flew across an ocean to score 10 points. Our kicker grew up in Ireland and just won a game with his foot. Theirs went to Ireland and left the points there.
TCU also ranks 98th in FBS in penalty yards, at 64.3 a game. We rank 35th. And TCU started 0-2 in Big 12 play for the first time since 2013.
Counting My Rounds
Our offense gains 497.1 yards a game, eighth in FBS. We run for 272.4 a game, fifth. Cam Cook has 833 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. Hawkins has 1,519 passing yards, 10 touchdowns and one interception. One. DJ Epps has 556 yards on just 22 catches. That's more than 25 yards every time he touches it. Linebacker Isaiah Patterson leads us with 44 tackles.
The Honest Range Report
I don't fudge a scorecard. Our defense allows 483.9 yards a game, 137th in FBS, and 310.1 passing yards a game, 138th. Our last four games have all gone over 1,000 combined yards. Fun to watch. Not fun for my blood pressure. TCU's Jaden Craig just threw for 294 yards, and his receivers Jordan Dwyer and Ed Small can run. We have to tackle. And we have to protect Hawkins, because TCU's Koron Hayward has 4.5 sacks this season and got three of them at Baylor alone. Keep him out of the backfield and the rest of this matchup looks a lot friendlier.
Series check: West Virginia leads 8-6, according to CollegeFootballData. We won our last three games in Fort Worth, in 2019, 2021 and 2023. TCU won the last meeting, 23-17 in Morgantown last season. And we went 4-8 last year. This team is already at four wins with five games left. Progress. And here's one more number for the scorecard: Craig has thrown five interceptions this season. We don't need many chances. One clean shot can change a game.
Morgantown vs. Fort Worth
Morgantown. Zackquill Morgan founded our town in 1785, on the Monongahela River near the Pennsylvania border. In 1975, Morgantown opened a driverless people-mover system, one of the few in the United States, and it went its first 42 years without a reported injury. Driverless cars? We were testing the future while the rest of the country was still circling the parking lot.
The pepperoni roll was first sold in 1927 by Giuseppe "Joseph" Argiro at the Country Club Bakery in Fairmont, just down the road. It was made for coal miners, because it didn't need refrigeration. The state tourism bureau calls it the state food of West Virginia. And "Take Me Home, Country Roads" has been played at every home pregame since 1972. When our stadium opened in 1980, John Denver himself landed on the field in a helicopter and sang it. Top that.
Fort Worth. Fort Worth calls itself "where the West begins." Fair enough. But it's the second-largest city in its own metro area, behind Dallas, and Dallas has held the population majority there for as long as records have been kept. Fort Worth has been the little brother in its own neighborhood since before anyone owned a calculator.
And they still run a cattle drive through the Stockyards twice a day, weather permitting. Twice a day. Those cows have a better commute schedule than a city bus.
Then there's the mascot. The Texas horned lizard defends itself by squirting blood from the corners of its eyes, up to 5 feet. I've been on a lot of ranges. I've seen a lot of defenses. That's the first one I've seen that cries at you.
Final Count
Here's my scorecard. TCU has a strong defense and an offense that can't run. West Virginia has a quarterback who just threw for 464 yards, a top-five rushing attack, a kicker with ice in his veins and a defense that needs to show up. If we hold the ball, run Cook downhill and tackle in space, we're singing Country Roads on the bus ride home.
Pepperoni roll tally for TCU's fumbles is at zero. For now. Load up. I don't miss.
My call: TCU Horned Frogs 34, West Virginia Mountaineers 22.