Tai Felton had another standout performance with nine catches for 117 yards and a touchdown, while Billy Edwards Jr. threw for one touchdown and ran for another, leading Maryland to a 27-13 win over Virginia on Saturday night.
The Cavaliers started strong but lost their edge by committing four turnovers. Although Virginia’s defense kept the game tight into the fourth quarter, they eventually succumbed to Maryland’s pressure.
“I thought Virginia came out and out-efforted us in the first half,” said Maryland coach Mike Locksley. “And that’s not anything I’ve ever had to be concerned with.
Then I thought the physicality with which they played — they out-physicaled us as well. Then there was the penalties, and those are things that we can control.”
After Virginia went three-and-out on their first possession of the second half, Edwards connected with Kaden Prather for a 26-yard touchdown, putting Maryland up 14-13 with 10:55 left in the third quarter. Maryland (2-1) held the lead from that point on.
Felton came into the game as the top receiver in the FBS and is likely to stay near the top of the stats after this game. Edwards settled down after a shaky first half and relied on Felton for some of the game’s key plays.
Edwards mentioned that after Felton’s impressive All-Big Ten season last year, the receiver came back even more focused on improving.
“Physically he has it all, but mentally he’s been better about handling stuff the right way and having a good mentality,” Edwards said. “We were stalemated in the first quarter offensively and couldn’t get much going.
But Tai, you know, he manifests things. He’s good on his mental game. And you know, the mental aspect of this game is probably just as much, if not more, important than the physical – and harder to really craft and get down.”
The only Cavalier who had any success slowing Felton down was Sabre, the team’s horse mascot – Felton accidentally bumped into the horse during his pregame warm-up.
