With injuries piled up around the roster, the Virginia football team had two things in mind for its final practice of the spring. Continuing building on the identity of each side of the ball and stay healthy. In the end, Orange defeated Blue 20-7 in an offense-defense set-up for the Spring Game at Scott Stadium.
“We want to make sure we go back and look at all the practices,” Virginia coach Mike London said. “It’s been challenging, but it’s been really good for us to give guys reps that needed it and to heal guys’ bodies. … We wanted to establish an identity running the ball and today we looked good doing that. … We will look at tape Monday and Tuesday and have exit interviews with the players all next week to tell them where they stand.”
For the Orange offense, the Cavaliers produced four scoring drives and coughed up two turnovers during the running clock scrimmage. On the first drive of the day, Greyson Lambert found T.J. Thorpe, a North Carolina transfer, for a 12-yard touchdown pass. In the second quarter, Matt Johns lofted a jumpball touchdown to tight end Brendan Marshall from 27 yards out as well. Ian Frye and Dylan Sims each connected on field goals. Frye hit from 46 yards and Sims made it from 44. The offense did not score any points after halftime, though.
The Orange team spent a lot of the day with the quarterbacks under center, a shift from last season when the majority of snaps were in the shotgun. Lambert completed 6 of 14 passes for 79 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. He was sacked twice. Johns completed 11 of 23 passes for 66 yards with 1 touchdown. He was sacked once.
The 48.7% completion percentage was not a good day for a position that had reportedly been throwing more accurately during the spring. Even with multiple offensive linemen out with injuries (Sadiq Olanrewaju, Jay Whitmire, Eric Tetlow, Jack McDonald, and Grant Polk all sat), that’s not an impressive number to end the spring practice period.
“It’s hard to say. It was just kind of an off day,” Johns said. “We started off strong and were a little more inconsistent toward the end and that’s what hurt the percentages. We know we have to work on that. … The rest of the spring was [better]. Today, we started off strong and ended weak and that’s what we have to work on.”
The leading targets in the passing game were Andrew Levrone and Thorpe. Levrone caught 5 passes for 34 yards, while Thorpe hauled in 4 passes for 58 yards and a touchdown. Keeon Johnson and Taquan Mizzell logged 2 catches each.
Moving the quarterbacks under center was done in large part to boost the running game with more traditional formations. That included a lot of I formation with a fullback leading the way for the running game. Mizzell led the way with 9 carries for 83 yards, but he lost 1 fumble. Thorpe added 2 carries for 46 yards. Daniel Hamm and Jordan Ellis tallied 11 carries each with Hamm going for 35 yards and Ellis 34.
“We want to be able to run the ball,” London said. “If you noticed today, our quarterbacks were under center more. If you’re going to run the ball, then you have to be able to run the play-action passes that accompany that. That’s the identity we want to establish. We’ve started to do that.”
With the system rewarding no points except on scoring plays, the Blue defense was at a disadvantage obviously. The D made sure to make its one scoring play a crowd-pleasing one, though. Mizzell carried the ball to the outside where cornerback Tim Harris dislodged the ball during his tackle. Linebacker Mark Hall scooped it up and took off up the sidelines. When Johns rotated over to try to stop the return, Hall gathered his steps and then pitched the ball backward to end Trent Corney. Corney sprinted the final 35 yards for the touchdown.
“It was just instinct,” Hall said. “I was running the ball and saw Matt Johns was coming. I saw Trent, one of the fastest guys on the team, so I had faith in him to catch the ball. He took off and scored the touchdown.”
Safety Quin Blanding led the defense with 9 tackles and 1 interception. Blanding, of course, topped the tackle chart last season as a true freshman with 123 stops. Fellow safety Mason Thomas added 8 tackles Saturday, while Divante Walker and Kelvin Rainey also made 6 stops each in the secondary. Andrew Brown finished with 6 tackles, including 3.5 tackles for loss, as a disruptive player up front.
Defensive end Mike Moore, defensive tackle Donte Wilkins, and middle linebacker Micah Kiser were among the players that sat out. David Dean played in a limited role as well. So the defense was short of at least four possible rotation players for Saturday’s finale.
“You try to get to three guys at each position so you know what you have to work with this summer,” defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta said. “So that’s basically what we tried to get out of it, to see what younger guys could come to the forefront through the practices. … We tapered down what we’re going to put in and did not play our whole package and just used things they could do so they could be successful.”
Worth Noting
During the game, Virginia announced its spring award winners and team captains for the 2015 season. The team voted offensive lineman Ross Burbank, defensive tackle David Dean, receiver Canaan Severin, and fullback Vincent Croce as captains.
Croce was also among the award winners as the Rock Weir most improved selection for the offense. Micah Kiser took that honor for the defense. Quin Blanding received the Bill Dudley Award, presented to the first-year player for excellence in the classroom and community as well as on the field. The Cavalier Academic Achievement Award went to Connor Wingo-Reeves, Matt Johns, Nicholas Conte, and Will Wahee. The Iron Cavalier Award, for performance and dedication in the weight room, was given to Croce and Dean.
