MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — With one emphatic fourth-down stop, it became clear that this edition of West Virginia-Kansas State might be different than those in recent memory. It may turn out the same thing could be said of the Mountaineers defense as a whole.
The crowd of 59,245 at Milan Puskar Stadium started to buzz when officials called for the chains after K-State quarterback Skylar Thompson was stuffed on third-and-short at the Wildcats 43-yard line early in the second quarter.
Sure enough, he was short by a few links. The Mountaineers had bested the Wildcats at their own power-oriented game.