AUSTIN, Texas — Geno Smith and No. 8 West Virginia turned their first trip to Texas into a rollicking Wild West drama.
And now, two games into playing in a new conference, the Mountaineers look every bit like one of the teams to beat in the Big 12.
Smith passed for four touchdowns, Andrew Buie ran for 207 yards and two touchdowns and West Virginia came away with another wild victory, this time taking down the 11th-ranked Longhorns 48-45 on Saturday night.
A week after West Virginia ran up 70 points on Baylor at home, the Mountaineers turned their first road game in their new league into another high-scoring, heart-pounding affair.
“Every week, we’re going to go out and have fun,” Smith said after he and his teammates celebrated the win with several thousand West Virginia fans tucked into a corner of Royal-Memorial Stadium.
West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen called the win “pretty cool.”
Smith, who has 24 touchdown passes this season without an interception, hit Stedman Bailey with a 6-yard score with 10:50 left to play. Buie’s second touchdown gave the Mountaineers a 10-point lead late with 1:18 left.
But West Virginia (5-0, 2-0) didn’t seal the win until recovering an onside kick with 14 seconds left after Texas scored a touchdown on a pass from David Ash to Marquise Goodwin.
Joe Bergeron scored four touchdowns, all on short runs, for Texas (4-1, 1-1), which is 2-7 at home in conference games the since 2010. Texas has lost seven in a row to ranked opponents.
Smith was 25-of-35 passing for 268 yards in a game he had to be sharp. Texas’ aggressive defense hit him early and often and forced a second quarter fumble that the Longhorns recovered for a touchdown.
“They put me under duress a bit,” Smith said. “I just get up and continue to play.”
Cyclones end Frogs’ streak: Jared Barnett threw three touchdowns to Josh Lenz, who later had a scoring toss of his own on a trick play, and Iowa State beat No. 15 TCU 37-23 on Saturday, two days after the Horned Frogs suspended quarterback Casey Pachall.
TCU (4-1, 1-1) had its 12-game winning streak, tops in major college football, snapped in its first Big 12 home game.
Barnett was 12-of-21 passing for 183 yards and ran nine times for 30 yards in his first start this season for the Cyclones (4-1, 1-1).
Iowa State won for only the third time in 33 road games against a Top 25 team since 1996. Barnett had another one of those wins, as a freshman last season at Texas Tech in his first career start.
The Frogs had won a nation-best 25 conference games in a row, the first 24 while winning the Mountain West each of the last three seasons. They won their Big 12 debut at Kansas three weeks ago, and hadn’t lost a conference game since Nov. 6, 2008 at Utah.
KSU blows out Kansas: John Hubert ran for 101 yards and four touchdowns on just 10 carries, Collin Klein had two touchdowns running and throwing and No. 7 Kansas State routed Kansas 56-16 on Saturday.
Klein finished with 129 yards passing and 116 yards rushing to help the Wildcats (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) pile up more than 50 points for the third straight year against their biggest rival. They’ve won four straight against the Jayhawks (1-4, 0-2) since Bill Snyder returned to the sideline.
— AP
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