Mountaineers score late to hold off one-win Syracuse

MORGANTOWN - Comparing his quarterback to a pitcher in baseball, West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said backup Jarrett Brown, making something of an emergency start in place of the still-groggy Pat White, didn't have his best stuff on Saturday in the Mountaineers' 17-6 victory against Syracuse at Mountaineer Field.

White, who left the third quarter of last week's game against Rutgers after taking a blow to the helmet, was closely monitored all week before being ruled out Friday because of some lingering effects.

That left Brown, who hadn't started a game in nearly two full years, to try and get the Mountaineers offense moving against a Syracuse defense that remains the worst in the Big East.

Save for a second-quarter drive that resulted in a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jock Sanders, Brown couldn't, as he threw for 52 yards and ran for 18.

Stewart said Brown sometimes incorrectly read the defense, the results similar to a pitcher that can't find the plate.

"It just isn't there," the coach said

Very little was there for West Virginia (4-2 overall, 2-0 Big East) on Saturday, where the Mountaineers totaled 268 yards, where three of their 52 offensive snaps produced returns of 20 yards or more, where they were still biting their nails with the clock ticking under five minutes.

It wasn't until sophomore tailback Noel Devine ripped off a 92-yard touchdown run with 4:16 remaining, giving the Mountaineers a total of 17 points against a team they were favored to beat by three touchdowns, that West Virginia was able to lay off the sideline manicures.

"We just didn't hit on all cylinders," Stewart said.

The run was part of a career day for Devine, who owned all three of the big offensive plays and finished with a personal-best 188 yards on 18 carries.

"I saw the open field, I saw the grass, and I just took off," said Devine, who ran behind upset offensive lineman Ryan Stanchek and was freed by a key block from Will Johnson.

Stanchek was miffed because he'd twice been called for holding earlier in the game, something that doesn't look good on an All-American resume.

"Once you get Stanchek mad," Devine said, "you can't stop him."

Offensive coordinator Jeff Mullen said he saw something in the Syracuse defense that gave him a good feel for the play, which started with West Virginia lined up in a rare I-formation.

Syracuse lined up in a Cover Zero, Mullen said, further explaining it got the safety out of position, something the Mountaineers had been waiting on.

"We knew if we could get (Devine) through the front end, it was going to be a foot race," Mullen said.

Devine doesn't lose foot races.

And West Virginia, in the recent past, doesn't lose to Syracuse, as this was the Mountaineers' seventh straight victory against the Orange (1-5, 0-2).

"It's really unfortunate," said Syracuse coach Greg Robinson about the play, but he could just as easily been talking about the season, or even the way things have gone throughout his tenure at the school. The loss moved his career record to 8-33, all at Syracuse. "We really shortened our self. It was that simple. We should have stopped that play."

After that, West Virginia held the Orange out of the end zone on their final drive, which at one point saw Syracuse quarterback Cameron Dantley get sacked on three of four plays, the big one an out-of-nowhere surprise attack by Sidney Glover that left Dantley looking at fourth-and-18, and perhaps, another bruise this morning.

That fourth-down pass attempt was overthrown in the end zone with 57 second left.

"I was frustrated with the defense early," Stewart said, mostly because Syracuse unearthing itself from very bad field position and converting first downs in the flat with very little resistance. But the young unit tightened things up in a big way, not allowing a touchdown for the second time in three games.

"They bent, bent, bent but never broke, and I was proud of that," Stewart said. "That was a tremendous job by our defense."

Linebacker Anthony Leonard and safety Nate Sowers came up with the biggest defensive plays. Sowers snuffed an Orange drive with an interception at his own 19-yard line in the third quarter. Later, just before the Devine touchdown, Syracuse was looking for the go-ahead score when Leonard broke up a fourth-down pass in the end zone.

At the time, it was a 10-6 game and Robinson wasn't thinking field goal.

"We have to score," he said. "We have to get touchdowns."

As it was, Syracuse's only points came on field goals of 26 and 54 yards by Morgantown native Patrick Shadle, the latter being a Mountaineer Field record.

West Virginia's Pat McAfee added a 33-yard, fourth-quarter field goal that allowed him to overtake Steve Slaton as the school's all-time leading scorer.