Defense leads Bobcats to 17-10 win over Mountaineers
Record crowd sees Ohio's first win in series since 1949
Saturday, September 6, 2025
ATHENS – A Peden Stadium-record crowd of 26,740 Saturday afternoon saw Ohio’s defense dominate West Virginia in a 17-10 victory, the Bobcats’ first against the Big 12 Conference neighbors since 1949.
"It is a great reflection of the coaching staff that we have, the job that they do mentoring and developing our players, and the respect everyone has for the culture here that's been built for a long time," Ohio coach Brian Smith said. "So, I'm really proud of the group and the staff."
West Virginia (1-1) scored a first-quarter touchdown and then managed just three points the rest of the way while being held to 250 yards of offense with eight punts on the day. Ohio (1-1) put up 429 yards and overcame a trio of Parker Navarro second-half interceptions.
Outside of the few mistakes, Navarro was dynamic as usual, completing 22-of-31 passes for 247 yards and a touchdown and also rushing 18 times for 87 yards. But it was the defense that led the way. The Mountaineers could not establish any kind of running game and tried two different quarterbacks in an effort to spark the offense. West Virginia managed just 54 yards on its final seven possessions.
"The ability to stop the run on early downs is the most important thing when you're dealing with a team like that," Smith said. "They did a great job. Obviously, the front six were in the backfield quite a bit."
It looked like on their second possession that the Mountaineers had things figured out. They had a trio of big plays, including a 31-yard pass from Nicco Marchiol to Cam Vaughn, followed by a 32-yard touchdown run by Jahiem White that made it 7-0.
From then on, the Bobcats owned the game. They settled for a Brack Peacock 37-yard field goal near the end of the first quarter and then saw Peacock miss wide from 38 yards on their next possession.
A defensive holding penalty on third down extended Ohio’s next drive inside the 10-yard line, and the Bobcats cashed in with a Sieh Bangura 1-yard touchdown run for a 10-7 lead with 2:36 left in the first half.
West Virginia’s fast offensive pace backfired when it went three-and-out, leaving Ohio plenty of time to strike again. It got 15 yards on pass interference before passes of 11 and 17 yards by Navarro. He then found a wide-open Chase Hendricks for a 31-yard touchdown to make it 17-7.
A Kade Hensley field goal on the opening possession of the second half were the only points after halftime, though the Bobcats had chances to add to their lead foiled by turnovers.
Ohio responded to the field goal with a drive inside the West Virginia 25-yard line when Darrian Lewis jumped a route for an interception, returning it to midfield. But the defense made sure no harm was done by forcing a three-and-out.
Navarro converted one fourth down with a 3-yard run, but another promising drive came to an end when Navarro was forced to put up a pass under pressure on another fourth down, and it was picked off by Ben Cutter. That came after the Mountaineers dropped Navarro for a 2-yard loss and third-and-1.
Despite solid field position again, West Virginia went nowhere and punted late in the third quarter, and one more time, Navarro was picked off, this time by Chase Wilson, giving the Mountaineers the ball again near midfield. They went backward and once more punted.
The Mountainners’ best chance came on their next possession that began with 10:08 left in the game. Marchiol had completions of 12 and 20 yards to move inside the Bobcats’ 40. Cam Vaughn caught a pass along the sideline inside the 5 but was ruled to have not controlled the ball before touching out of bounds. The call was upheld under review, and West Virginia turned the ball over on downs two plays later.
Jay Crable’s quarterback pressure on Marchiol led to a Jay Hollobaugh interception with 3:13 left on the next drive by West Virginia, and the Bobcats converted a third-and-9 with a 10-yard draw run by Navarro. That allowed them to run the clock down to 17 seconds before turning it over on downs at the West Virginia 27.
With no timeouts left, the Mountaineers gained 12 yards on a pair of sideline passes, and on a play that started with six second son the clock, Anas Luqman sacked Marchiol to end the game.
Marchiol went 15-of-26 passing for 178 yards and an interception and was replaced on two drives by Jaylen Henderson, who was 0-for-2. White ran six times for 40 yards but was one of three starters who left the game with injuries.
"Obviously, (White) is a great player and so you lose some of his explosiveness, but we weren't executing even before (the injury)," West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said. "That's my job. I take responsibility for the lack of execution. I thought we had two really good practices on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it didn't show up today for sure."
Bangura finished with 20 carries for 66 yards for Ohio, while Hendricks made eight catches for 121 yards.
Michael Molnar tied for a team-high seven tackles, including 1.5 sacks for the Bobcats. Nehemiah Dukes had six tackles, including a sack.
"We knew what we had to do to execute, especially looking at last week and going into this week,” Dukes said. “We always talked about how the biggest jump was going from week one to week two, and I felt we made that jump as a defense.”
In their previous four matchups with the Mountaineers, all of them in Morgantown between 1983 and 2001, the Bobcats managed just a total of nine points. Their last win in the series was a 17-7 victory in Athens in 1949. West Virginia now is 0-3 in three trips to Ohio.
The Bobcats’ challenging start to the season continues with a trip to Columbus to take on No. 1 Ohio State at 7 p.m. Saturday.
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