Different coaches, different venue, the same ending.

Photo by Bill Bride.

Maryland sought to gain a 2-0 start, national recognition and the first win over its border rival since 2003. Instead, like last year in Morgantown, it sputtered early, a combination of untimely and costly mistakes and West Virginia’s clear athletic advantage forcing Maryland to play catch up for much of the game.

For the third time in the last four meetings, No. 18 West Virginia went up three touchdowns in the second quarter, a big enough cushion to stave off a valiant Maryland comeback in the second half, and left Byrd Stadium with a 37-31 victory.

It is the Mountaineers’ sixth straight win in the series, a significant set back to a Maryland program that was riding high after a Labor Day victory over Miami.

“Just not executing, everything from the penalties to either missing a block or a missed assignment,” wide receiver Kevin Dorsey said. “Those things add up after a while. The biggest thing is we can’t put ourselves in a hole like that. Even though we came out firing in the second half it was too hard of a deficit to fight your way out of.”

Coach Randy Edsall closed his nine-minute post-game news conference by leaving the podium after giving an impassioned monologue on Maryland’s fight to comeback.

“I respect the game too much and I know these kids respect the game too much to give anything but their best effort,” he said.

“I guarantee you that’s what you’ll see out of Maryland football. We didn’t get it done today because West Virginia is a good team, but we made some mistakes. I guarantee you every day you’re going to get the best effort out of this program, because that’s what we should be doing and that’s what the people who support this program deserve. That’s what we’ll get done.”

Maryland (1-1) trailed 34-10 after West Virginia (3-0) took the opening drive of the second half for a touchdown. It then rattled off 21 straight points before a late Mountaineers field goal and a Maryland interception with 1:13 left sealed the game.

In Morgantown last season, the Terps cut a three-touchdown halftime deficit to 11 points in the fourth quarter and had chances to close even further before falling, 31-17. Then and on Saturday, Maryland couldn’t overcome anemic and mistake-filled starts.

West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith orchestrated an efficient and potent first-half attack this time around, leading two touchdown drives and two field goal drives. He was 21 of 28 for 232 yards before the break as West Virginia averaged 6.8 yards a play.

The first touchdown drive was kept alive when cornerback Cameron Chism committed a pass interference penalty in the end zone on a third-and-13, and West Virginia scored on a nine-yard run two plays later.

Three plays later, Terence Garvin intercepted Danny O’Brien for a 37-yard touchdown, and the Mountaineers were off and running.

“It set us back a little bit. We didn’t come out and play as fast as we wanted to,” said safety Matt Robinson, who had 13 tackles. “The coaches put an emphasis on starting the game fast. In these early games, whoever gets out to a lead first usually goes on to win. We didn’t get a lot of stops early and they got some points on the board and that really came back to haunt us in the second half.”

West Virginia, despite committing two fumbles of its own in the first half, went into the break up 27-10. Coming out of the half, Lorne Goree, filling in for the injured Darin Drakeford at weakside linebacker, committed a facemask on a second-and-20 on West Virginia’s 12-yard line. The Mountaineers closed the drive with Smith’s 34-yard touchdown pass to Stedman Bailey, and the Maryland portion of the 53,627 in attendance (the fifth-largest crowd at Byrd) began thinning out.

“You can’t do those things to hurt yourself, because hurting yourself is definitely more detrimental than the other team hurting you,” linebacker Kenny Tate said. “If you’re hurting yourself and they’re getting big plays, that’s definitely a double-bogey.”

O’Brien, who threw two interceptions in an out-of-character first-half performance, led the Terps offense to 301 yards in the second half. As Maryland’s defense slowed West Virginia and Smith, who still finished with 388 passing yards, the offense made the most of its chances.

“What happened was we just turned the ball over, and I think once we started to spread the ball around we were better,” said Edsall, who suspended indefinitely wide receivers Quintin McCree and Ronnie Tyler on Thursday.

He said of their absence: “Missing those two receivers didn’t mean a thing. It didn’t mean a thing.”

Davin Meggett (19 rushes for 113 yards), scored a 20-yard run in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 34-16 after a failed two-point conversion. D.J. Adams, returning from a one-game suspension, scored on runs of six and two yards on Maryland’s next two drives, and with 10:29 left in the game, West Virginia led 34-31.

But the Mountaineers ran off a 65 yards on 14 plays on the ensuing drive. Bailey, one of three West Virginia wide receivers with more than 100 yards, caught a 21-yard pass on third-and-4 to enter Maryland territory. Bailey had eight catches for 113 yards and a touchdown; Tavon Austin had 11 catches for 122 yards; and Ivan McCartney had eight catches for 101 yards.

“They’re tremendously athletic,” Edsall said of West Virginia. “We don’t have a lot of margin for error back there [in the secondary]. Those guys got to understand how important it is to play with the proper technique. If we do that, see, we make plays. If we don’t, we get beat.”

Maryland’s final drive ended when O’Brien, who finished 34 of 52 for 289 yards and a touchdown, threw his third interception.

The comeback came up short, and West Virginia left College Park with the longest winning streak in series history since the Terps won sixth straight from 1949 to 1966. Maryland returned to the locker room with only a moral victory.

“We had them right there at the end, it could have went either way,” defensive tackle Joe Vellano said. It’s still a loss, but I think the team kind of showed heart of the end. I think that’s the biggest thing we can take out of this.”