The Virginia football team finished winless on the road for the third straight season Saturday. Louisville assured that for 2015 with a 38-31 win in the Hoos’ final trip of the year. The program has not won a road game since Nov. 3, 2012 at NC State, a streak of 15 games.
The most recent road setback also ended UVA’s bowl hopes and possibly Mike London’s chances of remaining as head coach as the team fell to 3-7. In London’s six seasons, the Cavaliers have finished above .500 only once.
With another loss in the books and another bowl free winter, Virginia left Kentucky disappointed.
“To score 31 points on them and to be effective and efficient, you know, it is frustrating and it all boils down to – all of these close games boil down to just a few plays that go the other team’s way,” London said. “As I said, I’m proud of this team, I’m proud of their effort, but things didn’t go our way this afternoon.”
“It was hard,” Virginia quarterback Matt Johns said. “It was definitely really hard, but I just feel bad for the guys who won’t be back next year. We’re still focused on this season. The leadership on this team from those fifth year, fourth year guys who didn’t redshirt, has been unbelievable all year. I’m just going to miss those guys.”
Johns put together a strong afternoon for the Hoos, leading the offense to its second highest scoring total of the season. He completed 25 of 41 passes for 260 yards with 0 interceptions (he did have a pass ruled a pick on the field that was overturned by replay). He also set a new career high with 4 touchdown passes, connecting with Evan Butts on the opening drive – it covered 75 yards on 15 plays and 7:52 – and Canaan Severin on three other occasions.
Severin had a monster outing with those 3 touchdowns, a career high. He finished with 8 catches for 116 yards. That pushed his career total to 1,325 career yards (No. 17 all-time at UVA). He has 50 catches for 699 yards and 7 touchdowns this season. After starting his career with just 6 catches for 46 yards in his first two seasons, Severin has piled up 92 catches for 1,277 yards as a junior and senior.
“He’s an outstanding young man,” London said. “One of the reasons he was voted captain is because he’s a selfless individual. He doesn’t pout. He doesn’t concern himself with stats and how many times the ball’s thrown to him. He’s a guy that has had some physical challenges. He’s came and overcome those challenges and became a model of how to take care of your body and just how to train. He’s been such a big influence, and to see some of the catches that he made today, were just some phenomenal catches. He’s going to have a great career when it’s all said and done. He’s a great young man more than he is a football player.”
Johns’ other favorite target, running back Taquan Mizzell, had a productive day as well. Mizzell rushed 14 times for 40 yards and added 9 catches for 89 yards. Now with 1,063 receiving yards for his career, he is on the fifth Cavalier in program history with both 1,000 career yards in both rushing and receiving (Terry Kirby, Alvin Pearman, Perry Jones, and Frank Quayle).
The day ended on a sour note for Mizzell and the Hoos, though. After Severin’s third touchdown of the day cut the Louisville lead to 38-31 with 1:16 to play, Virginia executed what looked like a successful onside kick. However, an official dropped a penalty flag – UVA’s eighth of the day – for an illegal formation call. The official appeared to indicate that Mizzell lined up off the 30-yard line and a replay showed some possible green space between Mizzell’s left foot and the white yard line. Article 2-b (the irony certainly isn’t lost on Sabre message board fans) on free kick formations states that “After the ball has been made ready for play all players on the kicking team except the kicker must be no more than five yards behind their restraining line. A player satisfies this rule when one foot is on or beyond the line five yards behind the restraining line. If one player is more than five yards behind the restraining line and any other player kicks the ball, it is a foul.”
The Hoos could not recover their next onside kick attempt and the Cardinals ran out the clock.
“On the onside kick what I was told, one of our guys, you got to be five yards from the ball when you line up – and we do kickoffs all the time. We’ve done onside kicks before,” London said. “They said one of our players was beyond five yards so again, we can go back and look at the tape or the film or something to corroborate if that’s the case. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that call.”
Those final head-scratching moments left Virginia on the short end of a close battle again. The momentum see-sawed back and forth all day with Louisville with the Hoos leading 7-0 and 14-10 as well as climbing back to ties at 17-17 and 24-24. Severin’s second touchdown grab of the day created that last tie with 10:14 to go and UVA’s defense, which had set up that score with a fumble recovery by Zach Bradshaw, made a stop with a three-and-out on the next possession.
With the ever-shifting momentum in its corner with close to 9:00 to go, however, Cavalier freshman Olamide Zaccheaus juggled the punt catch and got drilled by James Quick mid-bobble. That fumble gave the Cardinals field position for a 2-yard touchdown just 44 seconds later and they never trailed again.
Virginia’s defense, which had provided another fumble recovery earlier in the half only to see the offense squander the red zone opportunity when Ian Frye missed the field goal, could not come up with another stop after the Hoos went three and out when trailing 31-24. Running back Brandon Radcliff finished off the drive with three straight runs of 31, 6, and 36 yards for the decisive touchdown.
That sent Hoos back to Charlottesville with another road loss and two home games remaining to play against Duke and nemesis Virginia Tech.
“Just stay focused and don’t stop fighting,” Johns said, “because that is what we’ve been doing all year, but unfortunately it hasn’t been going the way we’ve want to, but maybe it will in these last two games.”
