Top 25: Lightning crashes WV season opener

Geno Smith threw two first-half touchdown passes, Tavon Austin returned a kickoff for a score and No. 24 West Virginia beat Marshall 34-13 in Morgantown, W.Va., on Sunday night in a game that was stopped in the fourth quarter due to lightning.

Smith completed 26 of 35 passes for 249 yards. West Virginia improved to 11-0 against its cross-state foe, including six wins since the series resumed in 2006.

The game was first halted with 5 minutes left in the third quarter due to severe storms and play didn’t resume for three hours.

Play was stopped again with 14:36 left. But another hour went by before the game was called off, giving new West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen a soggy, successful debut.

The game was delayed a total of 4 hours, 22 minutes and was the latest plagued by lightning and severe storms on the first weekend of the season.

Marshall was limited to 13 first downs, 187 total yards and no offensive touchdowns.

(8) Texas A&M 46, SMU 14: At College Station, Texas, Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael ran for two touchdowns apiece and Ryan Tannehill threw for two more scores to help the Aggies beat the Mustangs.

Texas A&M got things going early, intercepting quarterback Kyle Padron’s passes on SMU’s first two possessions to jump out to a 14-0 lead.

Backup J.J. McDermott replaced Padron and helped the Mustangs cut it to 20-14 in the second quarter.

But the Mustangs couldn’t do much after that and the Aggies scored 26 straight points the rest of the way to secure the win.