Late in the game Saturday at Scott Stadium, a pair of Richmond football players carried a cooler in search of coach Danny Rocco but he initially avoided the dousing. That was one of the few times all day the Spiders didn’t execute.
That scene, in and of itself, tells the tale that unfolded over the previous three hours. Richmond controlled the game with its consistency and execution, while Virginia stumbled through four turnovers and repeatedly missed assignments on defense. As a result, the Hoos lost in Bronco Mendenhall’s debut by a lopsided 37-20 score. That spread wasn’t a fluke as the Spiders captured nearly every statistical category.
After the fact, the Cavaliers (0-1) fell somewhere on a scale between seething and shocked, but they vowed to stay the course and get to work on corrections.
“In regards to our team, I have a clear reference point now of where we are starting from,” UVA coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “I think teams play as they are prepared to play and so my responsibility is to have a team that performs more cleanly and at a higher level than we did today and that’s what I need to do. This is a really clear indicator of the amount of work that lies ahead.”
“I think you just go in, like I said earlier, Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re going to correct it,” Virginia linebacker and captain Micah Kiser said. “We already know it’s going to be very hard. Coach is going to push us and that’s what we want. If you don’t want that then you don’t want to be on this team. So he’s going to push us and we’re going to get better.”
A lot of things will make the list of needed corrections. Run blocking, decisive cuts, third down on both sides, pass coverage, and tackling to name a few. Ultimately, however, turnovers should fall on the top line in all capital letters. The Hoos committed four turnovers – three fumbles and an interception – while the Spiders had none. UR scored 17 points off turnovers, which accounted for its entire margin of victory.
While the turnovers themselves were damaging, the timing of two them short-circuited potential momentum-building drives and effectively ruined UVA’s chances of winning.
After surviving a fumble by up-back Connor Wingo-Reeves on its first kick return of the season, Virginia trailed just 6-0 thanks to two red zone stands at the start of the day. The offense got going on its first drive, moving the ball to the UR 11-yard line. A touchdown could have given the hosts the lead and settled some nerves. Instead, Taquan Mizzell plowed up the middle and had the ball ripped out of his hands by Brendan Coniker at the 5-yard line. Mizzell finished with 7 yards rushing on 7 carries and 24 yards receiving on 4 catches.
Richmond followed that turnover with a 95-yard touchdown drive to make matters worse. That TD gave the visitors a 13-0 edge with 13 minutes left in the half and UVA climbed within one score only once more the rest of the day.
“A fumble is unfortunate, there’s nothing that we can do about that, and as a defense we just need to go out there and play like we would any other drive,” Cavalier linebacker Zach Bradshaw said. “Make the stop and get the ball back to the offense, which we didn’t do. It’s a buzz kill for sure.”
A second-half turnover had a similar effect. Trailing 23-7 late in the third quarter, Virginia started to put together a drive that showed signs of life that could kindle comeback hopes. Kurt Benkert completed 3 of 4 passes to start the drive. A pass interference penalty against the Spiders and 18-yard completion to Olamide Zaccheaus, who sat out the first out for a violation of team rules, pushed the ball into Richmond territory. On the next snap, David Eldridge appeared to get behind the corner on the home sidelines, but Benkert left his pass attempt well short and Tafon Mainsah pulled in the interception.
Mizzell fumbled again on the next possession and the Spiders opened the fourth quarter with a touchdown drive for a 30-7 lead.
”Ball security was an issue for our team today and that surprised me, but again my job is to make sure there are as few surprises as possible so that caught me a little off guard that we would have ball security issues,” Mendenhall said. He later added: “Hadn’t seen it from where it showed up today and so that’s why it was somewhat of a surprise.”
UVA finally found some offense late in the game with Benkert hitting Zaccheaus and Keeon Johnson for touchdown passes in the fourth quarter; Doni Dowling had a TD catch in the first half, but left with an injury. Benkert finished 26-of-34 passing for 264 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 1 interception. Zaccheaus had 5 catches for 75 yards in one half of action. Johnson added 5 catches for 46 yards, while Dowling ended up with 4 catches for 53 yards.
The running game never got going outside of Albert Reid’s 28 yards on 6 carries and some late scrambles from Benkert. The Cavaliers managed only 38 rushing yards and 1.8 yards per carry. That poor output on the ground plus the day’s overall issues with turnovers and defensive miscues – Richmond piled up 524 yards of offense (337 passing/187 rushing) – was simply too much to overcome.
Mendenhall sensed some slumping body language at times during the game as those challenges unfolded and noted that the team still has a long way to go to break old habits.
“I think they want to be resilient and I think they want to believe and have new habits,” Mendenhall said. “But there is some history and so there was some reversion to that today, maybe by what they know, but again my job is to help them build great habits. And when things don’t go as well as you hoped and don’t go according to plan, that’s usually when some of that reversion comes back and I pointed that out to them a number of times. But that’s where we currently are and that’s where we are launching from and I have clearer feedback now.”
