MORGANTOWN — It was the classic tale of two halves in Saturday’s Friends of Coal Bowl at Milan Puskar Stadium.

West Virginia (5-1) overcame the loss of starting quarterback Jarrett Brown, an inept offensive first half, more turnovers and a nearly two-to-one deficit in time of possession to post a 24-7 win over intra-state rival Marshall in front of 54,432 fans who braved the cold, rainy conditions.

“There are no bad W’s,” WVU coach Bill Stewart said. “I learned that a long time ago. We will take a win any day.”

“You have to credit West Virginia,” Marshall coach Mark Snyder said. “We knew they had been a second-half team this year, as have we. We knew this was going to be a challenge of two second-half teams.”

In a game that was supposed to be dominated by two of the nation’s top tailbacks, it was a freshman who stepped to the fore in a second half owned by the Mountaineers.

Geno Smith stepped in for Brown, who was injured on the game’s fourth play. After a somewhat slow first half, he came on to lead three second-half touchdown drives as WVU erased a 7-3 halftime deficit.

Smith finished the game completing 15-of-21 passes for 147 yards and a touchdown. But he was better in the second half when he completed 10-of-12 for 121 yards, including a 33-yard strike to Alric Arnett that gave the Mountaineers a 17-7 lead.

But the biggest play of the game for Smith was a fourth-and-10 completion to Jock Sanders for 13 yards. Devine scored on the next play to give WVU the lead with 10:49 remaining in the third quarter.

“Fourth-and-10,” Stewart said of what he thought was Smith’s defining moment. “That was powerful.”

“When I saw coach discussing it, I thought there was a chance we’d go for it,” Smith said. “We’d discussed that play before. They dropped eight in coverage. My first couple of reads weren’t there, so I had to go back to my checkdown and he wasn’t there and then a guy slipped loose and I was able to avoid the tackle and at the last second I found Jock open.”

Early in the fourth quarter, after WVU’s J.T. Thomas recovered a Marshall fumble by Cody Slate, Smith came up with a pair of big plays on a 73-yard drive that ended with Arnett making a great catch in the back of the end zone on a perfectly thrown ball by Smith.

On the drive, Smith was 3-for-3 for 67 yards, more than he had in the game to that point.

He started the drive with a 29-yard strike to Wes Lyons.

“The touchdown was huge,” Stewart said.

“We needed to close the door and put the hammer down. At 10-7, I told the staff if we got to 17 I didn’t think they could handle our defense.”

Snyder agreed.

“That great catch by Arnett — geez, that was just a great throw and catch,” the fifth-year Herd coach said. “That was a great coverage. It was just a really good throw.”

West Virginia, hurt by two more turnovers in the first half, turned the tide and turned two of its four turnovers gained into 10 points.

And the WVU defense was stout, especially in the second half.

Marshall’s Darius Marshall finished with 82 yards on 25 carries, but he only had 14 yards on eight carries in the second half.

WVU outgained Marshall 229-70 in total yards in the second half.

“Our defensive football team, led by our defensive staff, kept us in the game,” Stewart said. “The defensive staff and players kept us in the game with Mountaineer football.”

Marshall had several opportunities.

After Jock Sanders muffed a punt, Marshall was set up at the WVU 24. Two runs by Marshall advanced the ball to the WVU 7. On second-and-5, Marshall fumbled and WVU’s Brandon Hogan recovered.

“That was a big because they came away with no points instead of three or seven,” Hogan said.

WVU gave the ball back, but on fourth-and-two, MU punter Kase Whitehead came up a foot short on a fake punt.

Again WVU endured a three-and-out, one of four straight after Smith came in the game, but Hogan again came up with a big play, intercepting Brian Anderson and returning it to the MU 35.

That set up a 32-yard Tyler Bitancurt field goal with 43.7 seconds left in the half.

Marshall scored on its first possession, going 64 yards in over eight minutes on a drive that started after Brown was knocked out and fumbled.

The drive was kept alive by a WVU personal foul after Marshall was forced to punt.

Brian Anderson scored on a 12-yard run after being flushed from the pocket.

WVU’s Devine finished with 103 yards and two touchdowns, giving him nine rushing TDs on the season and 10 overall.

Anderson was 17-of-35 for 149 yards and was picked off twice.

West Virginia hosts Connecticut next week for homecoming and Marshall is back home, entertaining Conference USA foe UAB. Both games kick off at noon.

— E-mail: demorrison@register-herald.com