MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Nicco Marchiol’s first profession begin was filled with hiccups, oversights and errors. The West Virginia quarterback certain was blissful about the way it turned out.

“Ecstatic to come out victorious,” Marchiol stated.

The redshirt freshman threw a landing cross instead of the injured Garrett Greene, CJ Donaldson added a brief TD run and West Virginia held off Texas Tech 20-13 in its Huge 12 opener on Saturday.

West Virginia was held beneath 300 whole yards of offense for the second straight week. However its protection performed one other stable recreation to beat any deficiencies on the opposite facet of the ball.

Texas Tech backup quarterback Behren Morton got here on for the injured Tyler Shough within the first quarter and put collectively a pair of scoring drives. However Morton, who had thrown for 325 yards and two touchdowns towards the Mountaineers a 12 months in the past in Texas Tech’s 48-10 win, could not carry the Crimson Raiders again from a 13-3 deficit this time.

Morton drove the Crimson Raiders from their 28 to the West Virginia 11, however he threw 4 straight incompletions, the final one with 11 seconds left.

On a day that noticed former standout defensive finish Bruce Irvin inducted into West Virginia’s Sports activities Corridor of Fame, the Mountaineers (3-1, 1-0 Huge 12) restricted Texas Tech (1-3, 0-1) to 56 whole yards within the first half and 321 general in a gentle drizzle from the outer bands of Tropical Storm Ophelia.

Shough, who had sat out video games towards West Virginia within the two earlier years with accidents, took onerous hits on consecutive performs late within the first quarter and was pushed off the sector on a cart with an harm to his decrease left leg. On the time, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire stated he kissed Shough on the brow, informed Shough he cherished him and requested him to “hang in there, we’ll see what it is.” He stated he did not have an replace on Shough’s harm.

“You feel for a guy that works as hard as he does,” McGuire stated.

The groups traded 79-yard scoring drives early within the fourth quarter. Morton discovered Jerand Bradley with a 6-yard scoring cross. Marchiol answered with a 9-yard TD toss to Kole Taylor to place West Virginia forward 20-10.

Morton then threw a 16-yard cross to Bradley on third right down to arrange Texas Tech on the West Virginia 16. However Morton threw three straight incompletions and the Crimson Raiders settled for Gino Garcia’s second area objective, a 34-yarder with 4:45 left.

Morton completed 13 of 37 for 158 yards.

Marchiol received the beginning every week after enjoying most of a 17-6 win over Pittsburgh when Greene injured an ankle early within the recreation.

Marchiol threw two interceptions — one which went off the fingers of extensive receiver Devin Carter. However Texas Tech managed solely three factors off these errors.

“Obviously not a good quarterback performance on my end,” Marchiol stated. “Could have been much better.”

However Marchiol put collectively sufficient sustained drives to make a distinction. Donaldson ran for 34 yards on a 75-yard drive that ended together with his 2-yard run late within the first quarter. Marchiol later ran 19 yards on third right down to arrange one in all two area objectives by Michael Hayes.

Marchiol led West Virginia with 72 speeding yards. However he did not see a number of open receivers and was held to 12 of 21 passing for 78 yards.

West Virginia coach Neal Brown was extra complimentary of Marchiol’s play than the participant was.

“For a guy making his first start in really poor weather and wet, I thought he did a pretty good job,” Brown said. “We’ve got to be better around him.”

Brooks ran for 131 of his 149 yards within the second half for Texas Tech.

“Tajh Brooks is the very best participant that no one talks about on this league,” Brown stated.

THE TAKEAWAY

Texas Tech: Time ran out on the Red Raiders, who outplayed the Mountaineers after halftime but couldn’t put together enough key plays. Texas Tech converted just 2 of 18 times on third down.

West Virginia: The Mountaineers have won three straight games for the first time under Brown, who is 25-26 in his fifth season. West Virginia also snapped a four-game losing streak to the Red Raiders.

UP NEXT

Texas Tech hosts Houston subsequent Saturday.

West Virginia travels to TCU next Saturday night.

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AP school soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll

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