GREENVILLE, N.C. — East Carolina didn't need any final-moment heroics to seal its latest upset. This time, coach Skip Holtz's plucky Pirates all but had No. 8 West Virginia put away by halftime.

Jonathan Williams had two short touchdown runs, quarterback Patrick Pinkney was nearly perfect and East Carolina routed the Mountaineers, 24-3, yesterday for its third straight win over a ranked team.

"It feels like we won a championship today," defensive end C.J. Wilson said.

Pinkney was 22-of-28 for 236 yards with a touchdown for East Carolina (2-0), which was coming off an upset of then-No. 17 Virginia Tech in which the Pirates returned a blocked punt for the decisive touchdown in the closing minutes.

They didn't let West Virginia (1-1) hang around nearly that long: They never trailed, kept Pat White in check, had 386 total yards to the Mountaineers' 251 and thoroughly outplayed them from start to finish on both sides of the ball. The result was a remarkably easy upset of a top-10 team, the school's first since Steve Logan led his Pirates past then-No. 9 Miami, 27-23, on Sept. 23, 1999, in a game played 90 miles west in Raleigh because of Hurricane Floyd-related damage.

"I told them it wasn't going to take an out-of-body experience to beat West Virginia," Holtz said.

The Pirates have followed last season's Hawai'i Bowl victory over then-No. 22 Boise State by taking care of the two toughest teams on this year's schedule, a pair of high-profile programs that Holtz has used as measuring sticks for the East Carolina program he is in his fourth year of rebuilding.