Oklahoma State Pulls Away from West Virginia 41-24
Michael Hawkins Jr. ran for three touchdowns and still lost by 17. That is the kind of afternoon that makes a fantasy owner shrug and take the points anyway.
West Virginia looked like the team in charge early. Hawkins scored from 5 and 3 yards out and the Mountaineers led 14-3 in the second quarter. Oklahoma State answered with a field goal and a 21-yard Drew Mestemaker touchdown to Justin Bowick with 1:25 left before halftime, which made it 14-13 at the break. Hawkins added a third rushing score early in the third (21-13), Mestemaker found Terrence Lewis for a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie it at 21, and Jack Cassidy's field goal put West Virginia up 24-21 with 3:55 left in the quarter.
That was the last time the home team scored. Caleb Hawkins broke a 22-yard run 75 seconds later to flip the lead, and Oklahoma State ran off 20 straight points: a field goal, a 6-yard touchdown from Mestemaker to Wyatt Young with 5:42 left, and a 47-yard Sam Keltner kick to close it. Keltner made four field goals on the day (30, 19, 29 and 47 yards), so the kicker deserves a line of his own.
That 41-24 final grew out of a game that was tied at 21 in the third quarter. The yardage says what kind of game it was. Oklahoma State piled up 613 total yards, 389 of them through the air, against West Virginia's 467. The Mountaineers went almost entirely on the ground (66 carries, 335 yards) and threw for just 132. Each team threw one interception. Oklahoma State is 3-1, and so is West Virginia.
The fantasy takeaway is a tie at the top: Mestemaker and Hawkins both finished with 33.6 Promethium points, and Young's 192 yards made him the third man on the podium. Caleb Hawkins quietly added 31 carries for 180 yards and a touchdown.