Midway through the third quarter Saturday, the sunshine burst threw the clouds and lit the uppder deck of Scott Stadium. The appearance on a cloudy day was fleeting. A glimmer of hope for the Virginia football team and its 2013 season was equally brief.
After leading 22-0 in the first 27 minutes, the Cavaliers collapsed and Duke left Charlottesville with a 35-22 win. UVa has lost four straight games this season and five of the last six meetings with the Blue Devils.
“Thirty-five unanswered points is ridiculous. I am feeling a little frustrated right now. They kept playing and we didn’t,” Virginia running back Kevin Parks said. “They played four quarters and we played a half of football.”
The second half started well for the Hoos. Duke, which had cut into a 22-0 deficit with a late first-half touchdown, took the opening drive in the second half and moved close to midfield with several medium yardage gains. But with the ball near midfield, a penalty and a tackle for loss forced the drive to sputter and Cavalier safety Anthony Harris shut it down completely when he intercepted Anthony Boone’s pass up the seam.
From there, however, the Hoos’ fortunes spiraled.
The Virginia offense went three-and-out after the turnover and the Blue Devils began to rally with points on every other second-half drive. They started with a field goal and followed that up with a quick-strike touchdown drive to cut the lead to 22-17. The TD drive started with a 42-yard completion from Boone to Jamison Crowder and finished with a 6-yard run by Brandon Connette.
As the fourth quarter started, Duke moved across midfield before what was perhaps the game’s critical play unfolded. On 4th-and-1 at the Virginia 47-yard line, the Devils faked a read option run with Connette and he hit tight end Braxton Deaver in the right flats. Deaver had leaked out for the play-action look and was wide open for the first down … and, shockingly, much more. Deaver sprinted all the way to the end zone to give Duke the lead.
“We had either a breakdown in coverage or communication. Those are the types of plays that can’t happen. Obviously, it was a fourth down touchdown that changes the outcome of the game,” Cavalier coach Mike London said. “It was not played too well. We have to coach and teach them. We have to execute. We need to handle adversity better.”
“When the call came in, I said ‘hey don’t get smashed by somebody,’ because they brought almost the house on the play. I was able to miss somebody and get out. I caught the ball and there was nobody out in front of me,” Deaver said. “I’m not the most vertically fast guy in the world, but I had a whole cavalry out in front of me blocking and they did an unbelievable job so I could get into the end zone.”
The visitors went 4 for 4 on fourth down in the game, all in the second half.
“I liked the response of the staff and the players, so I made my mind up that we would do everything we could to win this game. I felt like anything on the plus side, 4th-and-nine and less, we were going for it. Anything within 4th-and-two, we were going for it. I just made my mind up to do it, and thankfully it paid off,” Duke coach David Cutcliffe said. “You could be saying, ‘why did you do that.’ It doesn’t always work out. Fortunately, the players and the coaches executed.”
The Cavaliers responded with an 11-play drive to set up a field goal try. Alec Vozenilek missed the 44-yarder – he made a kick from 39 yards that was negated by a false start penalty – and the hosts could’t stop Duke from putting the game away.
“Once again, we beat ourselves, offensively and defensively. If we have the ball in our hands, we have to come down with it. If we’re in a position to score, we need to convert. We made that field goal but get called for a penalty and had to do it again and something went wrong,” UVa linebacker Henry Coley said. “We just have to take care of ourselves and execute all the time, first half and second half, in order to come out with a win.”
The second half spiral was a complete reversal of the script over the game’s first 27 minutes. The Hoos got things going immediately against Duke with a touchdown on its first offensive drive and a 5-play, 6-yard debut on the first defensive drive.
Offensively, UVa used a blend of formations – and a little trickery – to go 11 plays and 78 yards on the first possession of the game. Quarterback David Watford hit Keeon Johnson for a 25-yard gain on the first call of the game and the Hoos climbed into Duke territory when Kevin Parks rushed for four yards on the second play. The drive stalled there with back-to-back incompletions before special teams coordinator Larry Lewis reached into his bag of tricks with a fake punt call. Vozenilek followed his shield blockers around the right end to gain 10 yards and a first down.
The Cavs took care of business from there with Parks rushing for 13 and 12 yards on 2 different carries before an 11-yard pass to Zach Swanson. Parks punched the drive into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead. Parks added a 1-yard touchdown with 32 seconds remaining in the first quarter; that drive was punctuated by a 51-yard bomb from Watford to Tim Smith. The junior running back’s third TD came on a 13-yard pass that he bobbled for a moment, gathered on his leg, and then rolled over two defenders at the goal line. Fellow running back Taquan Mizzell jump-started that drive with a 36-yard carry on the first play. Miles Gooch added a 2-point conversion carry on some more special teams trickery and it gave the Hoos a 22-0 lead.
The defense, meanwhile, had Duke completely smothered. The Blue Devils punted on their first six drives and recorded just 89 yards on 26 plays (3.4 yards per play).
But just as quickly as the sun came and went in the third quarter, Virginia’s lead and confidence vanished. Duke took care of the rest.
“When you’re not winning, it is very hard. The best way to learn is by doing it. We had chances in front of us the last few weeks and just haven’t been able to capitalize on the opportunities,” UVa senior Jake Snyder said. “That’s what it comes down to – little things that lose you games, and that’s what we have to cut out. Those things are contagious. When things are going well, they go really well, but when things go bad, they go really bad. You saw that tonight.”
It is time to play taps. This football team is done and has been for some time. Same ol’ comments from ML, “we need to execute better and we need to coach better” but when is this all going to happen, certainly not this year or next year. Please stop telling us how much D. Watford has improved, he is a nice kid but he is no Div 1 QB by any means. One word describes this mess “pitiful”.
We lost to Duke to begin our 28 game losing streak in 1958! Hope this is not a harbinger of past woes!!!!