Stillwater, Okla. — Both teams undefeated in their Big 12 matchup, so it was going to come down to who could stop the ground game in the crucial moments.
Chuba Hubbard scored on a 23-yard run with 1:17 remaining on the clock to help No. 15 Oklahoma State beat West Virginia 27-13 on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
OSU Shane Illingworth completed 15 passes for 139 yards. Hubbard put the ball on the carpet twice. OSU scored 7 points in the second half.
In spite not playing well, the Cowboys 2-0 on the season and 1-0 in the Big 12 Conference.
Hubbard finished the game with 101 yards on 22 rushes for his 12th 100-yard performance in his last 13 games. Hubbard’s backup, L.D. Brown, chewed up 103 yards on 11 carries, including a 66-yard touchdown run, for the Cowboys.
It was the first time since a 2016 contest against TCU that Oklahoma State had two different running backs rush for over 100 yards in a Big 12 outing.
“It’s not good when you put the ball on the ground,” Cowboys coach Mike Gundy said about Hubbard. “And he knows that and he did come back in late and made a cut and made a score, and did good for us, but this is not a secret. He needs to take care of the football.”
Jarret Doege threw for 285 yards and a touchdown for West Virginia (1-1, 0-1), which outgained OSU 353-342. Winston Wright had four catches for 103 yards, including a 70-yard score late in the second quarter.
The Mountaineers, which has now lost six in a row to the Cowboys dating back to 2014, was hurt by several penalties, getting flagged 12 times for 106 yards.
“Today was not good enough,” Mountaineers coach Neal Brown said. “That’s the story of the game — extremely disappointing performance. We were an undisciplined football team today, and that’s on me, that’s on our coaches. We talk all the time about WVU not beating WVU.”
OSU made WVU pay early in the second quarter. After defensive end Trace Ford forced a fumble by hitting Doege’s arm while he was about throw down the field, Tyren Irby picked up the loose ball in the backfield and sprinted 56 yards for a touchdown which made it 14-0.
“He’s great, I just told him to just get out of his head,” Brown said of Hubbard, who had 93 yards on 27 carries, including the game-winning touchdown in the fourth quarter, in last week’s 16-7 win over Tulsa. “He feels he’s not playing the way Chuba’s supposed to play. I told him it’s okay, it’s going to pick up, it’s a team sport, and at the end of the day, we got the W, and that’s all we care about.”
