Oh what could have been? Virginia won every measurable category and posted good grades last Saturday against the Yellow Jackets and lost by two scores.

The Hoos took advantage of Georgia Tech’s deeper coverage and actually completed passes underneath and between the seams. The defense stifled a Tech running game that came into Saturday’s contest averaging 267 yards per game (good enough for 11th nationally) and held the hosts well below their seasonal average. In fact, outside of two 60+ yard runs the Jackets managed just 72 yards on 29 carries. But Tech did get those 127 yards on two plays, both concluding with touchdowns.

Oh what could have been? When you get five possessions inside the opponent’s 24-yard line an offense, you must score more than 17 points. Be it poor play-calling, bad execution, or the inability of a Virginia kicker to consistently connect on a field goal of 40 yards or less, that kind of production, in this day and age of college football, is inexcusable. I don’t care about depth, the number of rookies that are playing, or who the quarterback is. I’ll give the 2016 coaching staff a semi-pass for this game because for most of this season the offense has been scoring TDs when in the red zone. But this was a constant issue with the previous regime and long-suffering fans won’t extend much more grace if the inability to consistently put the ball in the end zone continues. Nor should they.

Finally, in games one and two, Virginia lost the turnover battle and both games and were at a minus six overall. In games three through eight, UVA was 4-1-1 in turnover margin and went 2-4 in the standings, coming out of those contest at plus-5 overall. Over the last three games, however, the Hoos have turned the ball over nine times and collected only two takeaways – they have lost all three contests by and average margin of 13.6 points. Of note, the average points off turnovers in those three games was 11.3 points.

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