WEST POINT — Brandon Harris peered into the sky.
With his arms outstretched, his neck bent back and his eyes gazing high into the Mississippi night, he could only reflect.
“We didn’t let them get us down,” Harris said through a handful of exacerbated breaths.
Despite 21 unanswered second half points from Starkville (1-2), Harris carried West Point (2-1) to a 41-35 victory Friday night.
“It’s been a long week,” West Point coach Chris Chambless said. “Our guys put in a lot of hours, and we preach to them there may be 10 ways to do something right and we do it one way and we kept plugging and plugging and got it done.”
After Starkville jumped out to a 14-0 first quarter lead, West Point responded with 41-straight points over the next two frames courtesy of four Yellow Jacket turnovers.
Following a fumble from Starkville junior quarterback Luke Altmyer at his own 25-yard line, West Point senior running back Dantariyus Cannon dropped back to pass off a gadget play.
Looking over the top, he delivered a dime into the outstretched arms of senior tight end TJ Anderson — who corralled the pass with a Starkville defender draped over his back.
Starkville junior running back Amariyon Howard then fumbled the ensuing kickoff — again gifting West Point possession.
Needing just two plays, Harris found the end zone with a 5-yard touchdown plunge on what would be the first of his four straight scores. He finished the evening with 150 rushing yards.
Again dialing up the trickery, West Point’s final touchdown of the game came off a variation of a double reverse pass in which Harris received a pitch on the outside before slinging a 17-yard floater to backup quarterback senior Gray Berry for a touchdown.
While West Point raced ahead in the first half, Chris Jones’ Starkville squad rebounded resoundingly.
Seeking a spark, Jones benched Altmyer in favor of junior backup NyJal Johnson. Johnson — whose brother Jaquez played quarterback first at Starkville then at Florida Atlantic — notched three touchdown passes in the game’s final 14 minutes to bring the Yellow Jackets within six points.
He finished the night with 154 yards and three scores on 7 of 13 passing.
After Starkville elected to kick the ball deep off Johnson’s final touchdown pass of the night, West Point found itself with a 4th-and-1 at its own 29-yard line with just under two minutes left.
Having already been stopped on 4th-and-1 on their own 29 in the third quarter, Chambless doubled down on the decision by dialing up a quarterback keeper to Harris.
Snaking through a mess of Starkville defenders at the line, Harris eked out a 3-yard gain to secure the win.
“We do these situations every day where we have to run out the clock, got to grind out first downs,” Chambless said. “You miss a block, it doesn’t matter. You get your tail up and play the next play.”
Cannon recorded 133 yards on the ground to give West Point its second 100-yard rusher of the night, while the Green Wave had 337 team rushing yards on 64 attempts. By contrast, the Yellow Jackets only had three on 14 carries.
With the loss, Starkville has dropped two of its first three games for the first time since 2013 when the Yellow Jackets fell to Oxford and, ironically, West Point in Weeks 2 and 3.
It’s expected Altmyer will also return under center next week against Louisville, though Jones didn’t make any promises regarding his quarterbacks room postgame.
“It’s kind of a game by game thing to be honest with you,” Jones conceded. “We’re not going to give up on Luke now by any means. I just thought we needed a change. We just need to be prepared — next man up — and I thought NyJal was very, very prepared to come in and make plays and I thought he did a good job.”
For West Point, the victory gives the Green Wave some momentum ahead of a Week 4 meeting with Tupelo (2-1).
And though next week’s matchup will come into focus over the coming days, Chambless, like Harris, took a moment to reflect on the night’s affairs as he stood under the luminescent glow of stadium lights.
“We genuinely love each other,” he said of Starkville. “And it’s fun to compete.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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