Each week WVSports.com Managing Editor Keenan Cummings provides a look at some of the things that stood out to him during the course of the game and on the stat sheet.
These observations are a snap shot of what unfolded in the West Virginia 30-24 road loss to Maryland and what could happen next for the Mountaineers.
---Listen, I was wrong. I thought West Virginia would win this game and I also thought that redshirt senior quarterback Jarret Doege and the offense would take a step forward. That simply was not the case today and it might have been one of the most mystifyingly called games of head coach Neal Brown’s tenure as the head coach. The Mountaineers offense simply bogged down to essentially a halt in the second half and Doege simply wasn’t the same quarterback after he gifted Maryland that first interception that essentially changed the momentum moving forward. I’m going to get into each of these bulletin points moving forward but just another example of the Mountaineers dropping another game against a regional rival which is becoming far too common place anymore. It’s hard to sugar coat this one at all, it was a very winnable game on the road and West Virginia simply couldn’t find a way to do it. The offense couldn’t generate anything when it mattered, coupled with some curious decisions in usage while the defense couldn’t hold up late in the game. If this team has any hopes of winning eight games, they’re going to have to turn things around in a major way moving forward because this effort simply isn’t going to get it done with the 2021 slate. The pressure is now on for this team to try to steal a game they perhaps aren’t favored to win or make some major leaps. There’s no way around this what happened in College Park is a deflating loss to open a season that had a lot of optimism.
--You simply won’t win many football games going on the road and turning the ball over four times. The Mountaineers were -4 in that department in this game and the Terrapins managed to score 13 points off those miscues in a six-point win. Perhaps the most frustrating part of all of this is each of them could have been avoided and it’s a major part of things falling a part in this one. I think the most frustrating part of all of this is even with all of those mistakes, West Virginia had a chance to win this game. You simply can’t shoot yourself in the foot as many different ways at the Mountaineers did and expect to win a football game against a power five opponent.
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