Story By: Andrew Lang and Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
For the second straight week, the Terps opened a game allowing an opponent to control the game from the first whistle, then the second half rolled around and the Terps suddenly become a totally different team and force the Virginia Cavaliers into quite a few fourth quarter woes and emerge with a 42-14 victory.
For the Terps, this marks the 3rd year in a row they have started the season 3-0, but what does that mean if you can’t get win the necessary conference games to take your program to the next level? This year seems to be a little bit different. We said that last year as well and what did we get? A Duke’s Mayo Bowl victory.. a start, but not exactly where Terps Head Coach Mike Locksley would like his team to be at the end of the season.
Maryland has continued to allow most of its opponents in these non-conference games to stay within striking range and in this game, Virginia was down just seven points and was 12 yards away from tying the game. From there, the Cavaliers seemed like a different team.
Another key play in the momentum swing came by the Terps came on the interception by Tarheeb Still that flipped momentum back to the Terps, who after this left the Cavs searching for answers. Still would finish with two interceptions on the night.
Two big notables from the game tonight were that Taulia Tagovailoa threw for 342 yards and Braeden Wisloski who scored on a 98-yard kickoff return.
For the Cavaliers, Anthony Colandrea got the start again tonight and it appeared he was going to be able to do something for them tonight as he connected with Malik Washington for a 49-year flea-flicker on Virginia’s first offensive play.
Perris Jones ran for a 13-yard touchdown and Colandrea added a 19-yard scoring pass to Kobe Pace giving the Cavs their only scores of the night.
Maryland and Virginia hadn’t played each other in football since 2013 — the Terps left the ACC for the Big Ten after that season.
“This was another great game for us. We did a lot of things right, but we have some work to do before we play our first conference game next week against Michigan State,” said Terps Head Coach Mike Locksley.
