West Virginia had a chance to remain undefeated in Big 12 play on the road Saturday at Texas Tech, a feat the Mountaineers have yet to achieve since joining the league.

Instead, the Mountaineers had an uninspiring performance in all phases and were never competitive as they were defeated by the Red Raiders 52-15 at Jones AT&T Stadium.

“Just not good enough in the first half. “Our guys were competitive in the second half, but were very poor in all three phases of the first half,” WVU head coach Neal Brown said. “We managed the trip well. We played well away from home. We trained pretty well this week. At the time of the win in the first half, we just weren’t competitive.”

The result allows Texas Tech (8-4, 6-3) to finish ahead of the Mountaineers (6-6, 5-4) in the league standings and prevented the 5th-place Red Raiders from suffering a third home loss in As a result, they had to suffer -2 on their lawn.

A productive second quarter squad for much of the season, West Virginia was outscored 29-0 over the course of the game, allowing Tech to turn a 6-3 lead into a laugher.

Tahj Brooks scored the game’s first touchdown on a 2-yard run with 10:32 left before halftime, giving the Red Raiders a 13-3 lead. It was the first of five consecutive Texas Tech possessions that resulted in a touchdown.

“Defensively, it’s a bad game,” Brown said. “They took us somewhere. We also had several injuries in the game at the start of the second quarter. They’re just better at space than we are. We missed a lot of tackles. They got the ball out of their hands. We didn’t play as well up front as we have this year.”

After forcing a second straight WVU punt, the Red Raiders marched 75 yards in 11 plays and got a 1-yard touchdown pass from Behren Morton to Mason Tharp to extend their lead to 17. It was the first of three Red Raider touchdowns in a span of 4:08.

The ensuing series ended when Greene was intercepted by CJ Baskerville, who stripped the ball from Hudson Clement and allowed the Red Raiders to score at their 47-yard line with 2:40 left before halftime.

Four plays later, Brooks hit a 37-yard touchdown run, and the Red Raiders extended their lead with a unique two-point play that saw Jalin Conyers cross the goal line on a run to make it 28 with 1:35 left. 3 lead gave half time.

Things went from bad to worse for the Mountaineers when Greene was sacked by Terrell Timon, leading to a fumble that Brenden Jordan recovered to put the Red Raiders at the WVU 35 with 47 seconds left in the half.

Brooks scored his third rushing score of the quarter from 2 yards 9 seconds before halftime, sending the Mountaineers into halftime trailing 35-3.

At halftime, the Mountaineers had given up four sacks and had been stopped behind the line of scrimmage six times in 34 plays against the nation’s 125th scoring defense and a 132nd passing defense. A week earlier, Tech allowed 48 points to Oklahoma State, which was winless in Big 12 play this year. The Red Raiders also gave up 51 points to FCS’s Abilene Christian in the season opener.

“We had no illusions that this game could be won in the 20s, but offensively we weren’t up to the task,” Brown said. “We knew we had to get in the upper 30s or low 40s to win, but we just couldn’t do it. We had chances early on some third and fourth downs and you have to be able to take advantage of them. Made first downs are crucial when you have to compete in a shootout game. We didn’t manage to do that at the start of the competition and fell behind. We had a hard time slowing them down and we knew it would be a problem as the game progressed.”

Gino Garcia’s 32-yard field goal gave Tech an early 3-0 lead before the Mountaineers tied it on the visitors’ second series with Michael Hayes’ career-best 52-yard field goal.

WVU then held off Texas Tech with a second-and-goal sequence from the Mountaineers’ first minute, leading to Garcia’s 23-yard field goal that gave the Red Raiders a 6-3 lead late in the first quarter .

From that point on, West Virginia was no longer competitive and suffered its third straight loss in Lubbock, with the last two losses being one-sided, resulting in a combined score of 100-25.

Morton’s 31-yard pass to Caleb Douglas gave the home team a touchdown on the first series of the second half.

Nicco Marchiol opened the second half at quarterback for WVU, but suffered an injury on his first and only play that forced him out for good.

WVU safety Anthony Wilson intercepted Morton on Tech’s second series of the second half, and the Mountaineers scored their first touchdown from it, driving 91 yards and reaching the end zone on Greene’s 15-yard pass to Rodney Gallagher. Greene threw a pass to left tackle Wyatt Milum on the two-point play, but the senior was stopped well short of the goal line after the reception.

Garcia hit a 22-yard field goal 2:37 into the fourth quarter to make it 45-9.

Jahiem White’s 21-yard run with 8:38 remaining gave the Mountaineers their second and final touchdown before Tech backup quarterback Will Hammond capped the winning score with a 4-yard TD.

Greene completed 29 of 39 passes for 265 yards in his final regular season game.

White ran 14 times for 124 yards.

Of West Virginia’s 405 total yards, 280 came in the final two quarters with the game well out of reach.

“We did some better things in the second half,” Brown said. “We completed some easy balls and got some important completions on the hash. Here we used it effectively. We were consistent in the run game and didn’t have some of the running issues we had in the first half.”

The Red Raiders had 569 yards of total offense and were 9 for 12 on third down. Morton completed 28 of 41 passes for 359 yards.

Brooks rushed 23 times for 188 yards.

Josh Kelly caught nine passes for 150 yards in the win.

“There was some good and some bad. “Our balance sheet is not meeting our expectations,” Brown said. “I have no problem admitting that. But there were times throughout the year where people left us out and our guys bounced back and did some good things. We have some areas where we can compete with anyone in the league and others where we still need to do a lot of work. I’m talking about HR areas. We are very aware of this. We don’t cover our eyes. There are areas where we need to improve.

“We won five games in this league. We wanted to win more. There were some games there that we didn’t win that we can win. I don’t think we’re miles away from that, but there are critical areas where we need to improve.”