West Virginia dominates post-weather delay to pummel Duquesne for 1st win of season
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – From start to finish, the first football meeting between West Virginia and Duquesne in 88 years took over five hours to complete.
That was due to a severe weather delay caused by lightning that paused the game for 1 hour, 54 minutes about midway through the second quarter, at which point the Mountaineers were leading by just four points.
But once play resumed at Milan Puskar Stadium, West Virginia seized complete control of the game, outscoring Duquesne by 35 points en route to a 56-17 victory Saturday, the Mountaineers’ first of the 2023 campaign.
“Guys showed some mental toughness, came out within the first four or five minutes after the lightning delay and took care of business,” said West Virginia coach Neal Brown.
Quarterback Garrett Greene was 10 of 18 for 240 yards and four touchdowns, finding a familiar target in Hudson Clement, who had five receptions, three of which were touchdowns, for 177 yards.
Clement, a redshirt freshman who didn’t record a reception last week against Penn State, impressed Brown enough Saturday to be immediately put on scholarship in the locker room postgame.
“Battlefield promotion,” Brown said.
Brown revealed that senior receiver Devin Carter was injured earlier this week in practice.
That paved the way for Clement, a local product out of Martinsburg, W.Va., to earn the start Saturday, which led ultimately to scholarship status.
“That’s something that when I came here, I knew I’d have to grind for,” Clement said. “Every day, you’re sort of playing with that in your mind. Three touchdowns, obviously a crazy accomplishment, but that scholarship really is the biggest thing.”
The Mountaineers (1-1) racked up 619 yards of total offense against Duquesne, 315 through the air and 304 on the ground.
By comparison, the Dukes managed 234, with only three total yards of rushing.
Duquesne quarterback Darius Perrantes threw two interceptions in the loss, going 14 of 31 with 220 yards to go along with a pair of touchdowns.
It was the Dukes (1-1) who struck first Saturday, when Perrantes found DJ Powell from 38 yards out for a touchdown about three minutes into the game.
Duquesne had taken advantage of a punt return miscue by the Mountaineers, recovering the loose football after it had struck Jacoby Spells on the bounce.
West Virginia answered on its second possession of the evening, with Greene hitting Clement on a slant from 14 yards out for his first passing touchdown of the season.
Following Perrantes’ first interception of the night, West Virginia capitalized on the turnover, producing a nine-play, 94-yard touchdown drive to take a 14-7 lead at the start of the second quarter.
Jaylen Anderson ran the ball into the end zone from 8 yards out.
The weather delay was enacted only a few moments after a 39-yard Dukes field goal that made the score 14-10.
Close to two hours later, when both teams retook the field, West Virginia came out swinging.
“After that break, we didn’t play as good as we could have,” said Duquesne coach Jerry Schmitt. “We’ll go to work on those things. We knew what we were up against. We knew there were a number of things that would be difficult for us to stop from West Virginia, but there were still some things after that break that we could have done better.”
Greene connected with Clement for touchdown strikes of 70 and 46 yards on back-to-back drives, handing the Mountaineers a 28-10 lead with 3:57 left in the second quarter.
With 39 seconds left in the second quarter, Preston Fox caught a 22-yard pass from Greene for six points.
Duquesne’s performance, both offensively and defensively, tailed off after the weather delay.
The Dukes ran three plays for minus-8 yards to close out the second quarter, with the defense allowing three long touchdown drives in quick succession before the end of the half.
After West Virginia removed several starters in the second half, including Greene, the Dukes managed a seven-play, 75-yard scoring drive, with Perrantes hitting Tedy Afful from 16 yards out, making the score 42-17 with 1 minute, 2 seconds left in the third quarter.
Mountaineers backup quarterback Nicco Marchiol later scored on a 1-yard touchdown run, with the final score of the game being DJ Oliver’s 5-yard rushing touchdown when there were about two minutes left in the fourth quarter.