West Virginia Head Coach High-Fives TCU's Trevone Boykin After Run [VIDEO]
STEPHEN HAWKINS, AP Sports Writer
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — If Trevone Boykin keeps playing like this, the TCU quarterback won't need any hype to win the Heisman Trophy.
"Everybody said you have to have a campaign," coach Gary Patterson said. "I think the campaign is what happens in those 60 minutes for three and a half hours. They chose us to be on TV on Thursday night."
And Boykin put on quite a show in the fifth-ranked Horned Frogs' 40-10 victory over West Virginia.
There was the somersault into the end zone for a 2-yard touchdown run, several nifty scrambles that left defenders in his wake and 388 yards passing with three more touchdowns while become TCU's career leader in total offense.
"I just try to use my ability that God blessed me with. That's all I can really do," Boykin said. "I'm just one of the 11 guys out there. It takes the guys without the ball to make plays like that happen."
Well, Boykin kept darting, dipping and spinning to make the Mountaineers miss him as TCU (8-0, 5-0) stretched its school-record winning streak to 16 games in a row.
When he was about to get hit, Boykin threw a side-armed strike to Josh Doctson for a 9-yard touchdown before taking a shot from a charging defender. The quarterback popped right back up to celebrate the score.
"The average guy doesn't make those plays," Patterson said. "I'm glad he's on my side."
Later in the third quarter, after scrambling to his right and eluding several defenders behind the line, Boykin gained 11 yards before running out of bounds near West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, who had a smile on his face when slapping hands with the quarterback.
"He was right there and I just saw him make every one of our players miss. He's a phenomenal player," Holgorsen said. "He made one of the best plays I've seen in a while. ... I could've started yelling at our guys but what good is that going to do."
Holgorsen has already changed his mind about who the best player in college football is.
In their previous game Oct. 17, the Mountaineers (3-4, 0-4 Big 12) lost 62-38 at No. 2 Baylor when Corey Coleman caught 10 passes for 199 yards and three touchdowns. After the game, Holgorsen called the Bears receiver "the best player in college football. ... You can put me on the record for that."
After watching Boykin, Holgorsen started his postgame comments saying, "With all due respect to Corey Coleman, Trevone Boykin is the best player in college football."
Boykin finished fourth in the Heisman voting last season, his first full season as the quarterback starter after previously playing games at receiver and quarterback.
"The good ones just keep maturing, keep blossoming," Patterson said. "The one thing they all have, they have an unbelievable competitive nature, an internal drive that takes them past what anybody else expects them to be."
Boykin completed 32 of 47 passes and ran 11 times for 84 yards with that acrobatic score to push his career total to 12,041 total yards. That broke the previous TCU record of 11,925 held by Andy Dalton, the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback who led TCU to an undefeated season and Rose Bowl victory during the 2010 season.
Said Doctson, whose 11 catches for 183 yards and two touchdowns made him only the second FBS player in 20 seasons with six consecutive games of 100 yards receiving and at least two TD catches, "He's just playing like a Heisman quarterback."
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