Hawkins Runs for Three Scores as West Virginia Pulls Away
Fifty carries for 249 yards. That is how West Virginia got to 3-0, and it is how Virginia, at 2-1, got worn down after a fast start.
The Cavaliers scored first and scored late in the first quarter, a Jekail Middlebrook 8-yard run and a Xavier Brown 47-yarder with six seconds left, to lead 14-7. West Virginia answered the way it would all day. Michael Hawkins Jr. ran in a 13-yarder to tie it at 7, threw a 29-yard touchdown to DJ Epps to make it 14-14, and added a 15-yard run with 26 seconds left in the half for a 21-14 lead. It was tied three times in all and the lead changed hands exactly once.
Virginia pulled even at 21 on a 1-yard pass from Beau Pribula to Middlebrook midway through the third quarter. Then Hawkins and Epps hooked up again, a 21-yarder with 12 seconds left in the third, and the Mountaineers never gave the lead back. Hawkins added a 5-yard run with 5:24 to play and Jack Cassidy kicked a 21-yard field goal to make it 38-21. Pribula found John Rogers from two yards out with 21 seconds left (the two-point try failed), which made the final 38-27 and the margin look closer than it was.
Neither team threw an interception or lost a fumble. The difference was the ground game, 249 yards to 157, and the sacks, three for West Virginia against one for Virginia. Hawkins threw for only 190 yards on 10 of 17 and it did not matter, because his legs did the scoring.
If you had Hawkins, you had a week. 49.9 points, a season high by a mile, and a reminder that a quarterback who scores three times on the ground is worth more than most receivers you could have started.