West Virginia runs over Clemson

Associated Press

MIAMI

West Virginia put on a scoring show unlike any other in college football’s postseason history at the Orange Bowl.

With 49 points by halftime — a record for any half of any bowl game — the Mountaineers took complete control and led Clemson 63-26 after three quarters of the Orange Bowl on Wednesday night.

Geno Smith threw five touchdown passes, four of them going to Tavon Austin, who tied another bowl record with that many scoring receptions. And to think: The Mountaineers trailed 17-14 after the first quarter, before peeling off 49 of the next 52 points.

The 63 points by the Mountaineers, 89 combined points by both teams and 12 combined touchdowns were all Orange Bowl records — and that’s with 15 minutes left to play, too.

And maybe the most impressive part of West Virginia’s scoring show was that the most dazzling of the touchdowns came from a defender.

Early in the second quarter, West Virginia’s Darwin Cook snuffed out a potential Clemson touchdown, created a turnover, ran into the Orange Bowl record books and tackled the overstuffed orange that serves as the game’s mascot.

All on the same play, no less.

Cook stripped the ball from Clemson’s Andre Ellington near the goal line, turned and ran 99 yards for a West Virginia touchdown early in the second quarter — part of a 35-3 edge in those 15 minutes alone for the Mountaineers, who were closing in on their third win of a Bowl Championship Series game in the last seven seasons.

Smith also ran for a score for the Mountaineers. Shawne Alston ran for two touchdowns in the first half, the second coming with 4 seconds left. The 49 first-half points topped the previous one-half (excluding overtime) bests in any bowl game, a pair of 45-point efforts put up by Oklahoma State against Wyoming in the 1988 Holiday Bowl and Colorado against Boston College in the 1999 Insight.com Bowl.

“We’re not playing well anywhere,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said as he left the field for the first half.

Everything seemed to change on a play where Clemson thought it scored.

With Clemson having first-and-goal from the West Virginia 3, Ellington followed a mass of blockers toward the goal line, getting so close to breaking the plane at that at least two Tigers raised their arms in celebration in the touchdown signal.

Cook grabbed the ball away from Ellington and took off on what became the longest defensive score in Orange Bowl history.