Another road trip, another disappointing flight home. The Virginia football team dropped its 14th straight road game on Saturday, falling 27-21 at Miami. The Hoos haven’t won away from Charlottesville since Nov. 3, 2012 at NC State.
The most recent road setback left this year’s team at 3-6 on the season. That means that the Cavaliers must win out to salvage a .500 season and bowl eligibility, which would include a win on the road at Louisville next week.
“They played better, they executed better, and we fought hard back and forth for a little bit, but you get close like that – we’ve been in close games – you’ve got to be able to make a play or do something to give your team an advantage,” Virginia coach Mike London told Damon Dillman of CBS19 in Charlottesville. “They were able to do that and we weren’t.”
“That whole [road] losing streak sucks,” Cavalier linebacker Zach Bradshaw told The Roanoke Times. “We’ve played some good teams but I have no idea beyond that.”
UVa had opportunities to reverse the outcome against the Hurricanes, but a combination of stalled drives on offense and missed stops on defense eliminated those hopes.
Offensively, that’s been a problem all season. The Cavaliers converted just 1 of 3 red zone trips into a touchdown against Miami. That will drop their already shaky red zone touchdown percentage, which entered the game at 50% and tied for 108th nationally.
Virginia’s stalled red zone drives came in the first quarter – the offense settled for a field goal after the defense forced a safety on intentional grounding – and the fourth quarter after an offensive pass interference penalty. That call left the Hoos steamed because it appeared that Canaan Severin had made a 4-yard touchdown catch on the play. The flag was on Charlie Hopkins for setting an illegal pick, but the replay appeared to show him engaged with a defender that initiated bump coverage at the snap and not trying to impede a different defender from getting out to Severin.
“Ask me another question,” London said to reporters after the game.
“That’s a play we’ve had in since fall camp,” Hopkins told The Associated Press. “It’s a great play. … For me to get called on a pass interference on my guy, that makes no sense.”
Still, the Cavaliers trailed 24-18 after an Ian Frye field goal followed that pass interference call and an incomplete pass on third down. Frye went 4 of 4 on the day, including a season-long 48-yard kick. The defense, however, could not come up with a stop to hold the margin at a one-score deficit.
Miami quarterback Brad Kaaya opened the drive with a 13-yard completion and then hooked up with Herb Waters for 23 yards on 3rd-and-7 to push the ball across midfield. Running back Joe Yearby and Waters combined for 27 rushing yards on the next three plays and the Hurricanes eventually added a field goal to push the lead back to 27-18. The Cavaliers climbed back to 27-21 with a 47-yard field goal from Frye with 35 seconds to go, but they could not recover the ensuing onside kick.
Kaaya, who sat out last week with a concussion, finished 20-of-26 passing for 286 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception. That included a 67-yard slant pass touchdown to Stacy Coley, who posted 7 catches for 132 yards.
“We all just listened to Coach [Larry] Scott, he told us this team had our [number] and we had to come out here and just play,” Coley said in reference to UVa winning 4 of the last 5 games against Miami before Saturday’s game. “Protect our house, protect our home and that’s what we did. We just listened to Coach Scott and we went out there and just had fun and just played.”
A similar sequence unfolded earlier in the second half. After trailing 14-8 at intermission, Virginia put together a 6-play touchdown drive to take the lead midway through the third quarter. The 80-yard drive featured three big plays: a 25-yard pass to Olamide Zaccheaus, a 27-yard run from Taquan Mizzell, and a 13-yard pass to Daniel Hamm. Zaccheaus capped the drive off with a 3-yard touchdown run, the first TD of his career.
Mizzell registered another big day with 91 rushing yards and 40 receiving yards, while Zaccheaus added 20 rushing yards and 46 receiving yards. Hamm ended up with 6 rushing yards and 48 receiving yards. Virginia also got 70 receiving yards from Severin, who had 5 catches. QB Matt Johns completed 29 of 42 passes for 280 yards, no touchdowns, and 1 interception.
Following the only red zone touchdown of the day, however, the defense could not back it up with a timely stop. The Hurricanes immediately answered with a 6-play, 64-yard scoring drive of their own. Mark Walton opened with runs of 26 and 15 yards on consecutive plays; Quin Blanding was flagged for a 15-yard personal foul penalty on the second run when he pushed Walton out of bounds by the face mask. Blanding finished with 5 tackles, while David Dean led the Hoos with 9 stops.
Virginia’s defense eventually held Miami to a field goal after those two big runs, but the Canes never trailed again after taking that 17-15 lead.
“There’s a lot of prideful guys in that locker room,” London told Dillman after the game. “The opportunities still exist to win and enjoy postseason play, the opportunity to go out on your own terms with three games left – two of the three are at home so there’s a lot of things still going on. Nobody’s feeling sorry for themselves. We’ve got to execute better down the stretch. We saw the other team did it today. We did it last week. We’ve just got to keep getting after it.”
