Mountaineers Roll Over Towson for First Victory of 2022

Saturday, September 17

Morgantown, W.Va.

1:00 p.m.

West Virginia University

1-2 , 0-1

Towson

2-1 , 0-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Towson

West Virginia

Photo by: USA Today

September 17, 2022 04:31 PM | Football

Box Score WVU-Towson Postgame Notes WVU-Towson Game Book Neal Brown Postgame Jordan Jefferson Postgame Tony Mathis Jr. Postgame Photo Gallery

By: John Antonik

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia scored touchdowns on six of its seven first-half offensive possessions, kicked a field goal on the other, and rolled to a 65-7 victory over outmanned Towson here at sun-drenched Milan Puskar Stadium this afternoon.

Six of West Virginia's nine touchdowns today were scored on the ground, its most since getting seven in a 66-21 victory over Connecticut on Nov. 24, 2007. The Mountaineers scored on all of their offensive possessions and did not punt.

"Proud of our guys," West Virginia coach Neal Brown said this afternoon. "This would have been a good game for us for an opener, but it's game three; we got a lot of guys into the game and now we've got a short week to prepare for another big game Thursday night at Virginia Tech."

The Mountaineers will face a Hokie team coming off a 27-7 win over Wofford earlier today in Blacksburg to improve to 2-1 on the season. Virginia Tech knocked off Boston College last week after falling at Old Dominion to begin the season.

Here in Morgantown, quarterback JT Daniels completed 16 of his 24 pass attempts for 174 yards, including a 2-yard touchdown toss to Kaden Prather on the game's opening possession, before giving way to backup Garrett Greene with 1:31 left in the second quarter and WVU leading 38-7.

Greene led West Virginia into the end zone on that possession as well as its opening drive of the third quarter when he marched the Mountaineers 73 yards to the Tiger 11 before taking it in from there.

The sophomore's two-possession stat line included 59 yards rushing and 45 yards passing.

Number three quarterback Goose Crowder got the Mountaineers into the end zone once he got into the game late in the third quarter.

That 13-play, 68-yard drive concluded with 11:12 remaining in the game when Crowder completed a 5-yard touchdown pass to a sliding Jeremiah Aaron. The score was set up by Reese Smith's fantastic catch down the near sideline two plays prior, which placed the football at the Tiger 1.

The Mountaineers finished the afternoon with true freshman quarterback Nicco Marchiol under center. It took the Denver resident seven plays into his Mountaineer career to throw his first touchdown pass, a pretty 26-yarder to Preston Fox that Fox snagged before he stepped out of the back of the end zone.

That score with 4:42 left put West Virginia up 65-7 following Parker Grothaus' conversion kick.

"These types of games are important for the morale of your football team," Brown explained. "We were able to sub about three-quarters of the way into the second quarter and we played a lot of guys.

"There's probably some guys that showed up in the third and fourth quarter that put stuff on film that may warrant some more playing time," Brown added.

Towson (2-1) did not register its initial first down until 2:15 left in the second quarter and its only first-half points were a result of D'Ago Hunter's 96-yard kickoff return immediately after Prather's score. In fact, WVU's kickoff team owned its only penalty of the first half when it was flagged for a personal foul while tackling Hunter on his 13-yard return.

"I'm really disappointed in our kickoff," Brown said.

Freshman CJ Donaldson continued his outstanding, early-season running with three first-half touchdowns, including a beautiful 82-yard burst down the far sideline that was aided by Prather's hands-in-the-air downfield block that took out two defenders.

Donaldson carried once for 4 yards on WVU's opening offensive possession of the third quarter to eclipse the 100-yard mark for the second time in three games, the Miami native finishing with 101 yards on just nine attempts.

Donaldson's three-game rushing totals now show 274 yards, six touchdowns and an impressive 9.4 yards per rush.

Tony Mathis Jr., who reached the end zone twice in the first half, got six carries in the third quarter before taking his shoulder pads off. His afternoon's work showed 104 yards on 17 attempts.

"I bring the speed and CJ brings the power," Mathis said.

Prather was WVU's leading pass catcher with six for 51 yards. Bryce Ford-Wheaton, who came into today's game with a team-best 20 receptions for 249 yards and three touchdowns, finished with four catches for 47 yards.

West Virginia (1-2) had 624 total yards, 316 on the ground, and averaged 7.3 yards per play from scrimmage.

WVU's four quarterbacks combined to complete 27 of their 40 attempts for 308 yards and three touchdowns for Graham Harrell's offense.

A Mountaineer defense that came into this afternoon giving up an average of 401.5 yards and allowing its opponents a 59% success rate on third down, was significantly better today. Towson finished with 180 total yards, including only 56 yards on 22 plays in the first half against West Virginia's No. 1 defense. The Tigers were just 3 of 14 on third down.

Backup linebacker Caden Biser came up with today's only turnover when he recovered backup quarterback Scott Smith III's fumble late in the third quarter.

"I thought the defense had a good bounce back game," Brown noted. "We really pushed them this week in practice, and we practiced physical on that side of the ball."

A crowd of 50,703 was announced for today's game.

Towson was making its first appearance at Milan Puskar Stadium since a 54-0 loss to the Mountaineers in 2014.