MORGANTOWN — Everyone wants to be remembered for something.
The 2022 West Virginia football team secured that something on Saturday by virtue of a 23-20 win over Oklahoma inside Milan Puskar Stadium, becoming the first Mountaineer team to defeat the Sooners in Big 12 play.
“Since joining the Big 12, there’s been several really good football teams and a lot of great players play here, but this is the first team to get it done,” said WVU coach Neal Brown. “That was our talking point all week.”
Oklahoma had won all nine prior meetings between the teams since WVU joined the Big 12 in 2012. That included wins over some of WVU’s best players such as the Geno Smith/Tavon Austin/Stedman Bailey trio in 2012 and the Will Grier/David Sills/Gary Jennings led teams in 2017 and 2018.
“I thought when Tavon Austin had those yards, they won that game,” said linebacker Jasir Cox, referring to Austin’s 572 all-purpose yards in 2012’s 50-49 loss. “They informed me about (the losing streak) and it’s exciting to be the first time to do that.”
Cox led WVU’s defense with a dozen tackles including one for a loss and a pass breakup Saturday. Despite giving up 426 total yards to the Sooners’ offense, the Mountaineers held their visitors to just two touchdowns, playing perfect bend-don’t-break defense.
“We were talking about it (Friday),” Cox said. “We wanted to change the narrative on that, it would be a good stepping stone for us to get a win over Oklahoma so this team can be remembered by something.”
The heroes Saturday were backup quarterback Garrett Greene, who had 257 total yards of offense and scored three touchdowns, and kicker Casey Legg, who knocked through the game-winning 25-yard field goal as time expired.
“It’s really sweet,” Legg said. “I’m super thankful to be a part of the team that did that. I’ve lost to them four times with a couple of heartbreakers. We lost by three in 2018 and last year lost by 3.”
In last year’s game, Legg could only watch from the sideline as OU’s Gabe Brkic sent a 30-yard field goal through the uprights as the clock hit zero in a 16-13 Sooner victory.
“We owed them,” Brown said of the 2021 game. “We really felt like we out-played them last year. To lose that game in that fashion and then turn around and get it done on a last-second field goal today was extremely rewarding.”
The Mountaineers might not get many more cracks at Oklahoma as the Sooners and their Red River Rivals at Texas are set to join the SEC sometime in the next few years. That made Legg’s kick on Saturday even sweeter.
“I think it was a sigh of relief to finally beat Oklahoma,” Cox said. “That was big for us and I know it was big for the coaches as well.”
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