Kevin Ogletree wasn’t able to hang onto this third quarter deep ball. |
As Maurice Covington watched the ball slip out of Cedric Peerman ’s normally sure hands Saturday afternoon, taking with it with it the Cavaliers’ four-game win streak and handing Miami the 24-17 win, he was stunned.
“I was standing right by him and my heart just dropped,” Covington said.
Peerman’s fumble, certainly not characteristic of him (the first lost fumble of his career), seemed to signify what went wrong for the Cavaliers. Quite simply, it just slipped away.
While the game could have been won or lost at any number of points as Groh pointed out after the game, the offense’s inability to capitalize on its chances, scoring zero touchdowns off turnovers, seemed to be one of the toughest to swallow.
Marc Verica agreed.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “The defense was doing a really good job of really holding them. They gave us a couple of really good field positions and we just failed to capitalize on it. To have all those drives with all the field position and not come away with any points or anything is really frustrating and we can’ do that in the future.”
The Cavaliers left 18 points on the field after Miami turnovers and failed to score in the second half despite an average field position of their own 45-yard line, including two drives which began in Miami territory.
So what happened? Simply put, Miami neutralized the running game, forced Verica to turn to the air, and UVa couldn’t consistently deliver. According to Covington, working on pass plays has been a large focus in practice lately.
“We have the skill and talent to go downfield and make those type of plays but I guess we didn’t make enough of them today,” he said.
The focus on the aerial attack became problematic when it became clear that the offense wasn’t clicking on all cylinders. The coverage was a non-issue, as it appeared for much of the game that Miami struggled to handle Virginia’s multiple-receiver sets. On repeated plays in the third quarter, Verica took deep shots to Ogletree and Covington and missed his men. Verica’s end zone shot to Ogletree in the third quarter, which may have put the game out of reach, slipped out of the receiver’s hands while other passes sailed out of reach. The back-to-back turnovers by Miami in the third quarter yielded a measly 16 yards combined and Virginia came away without points despite the advantageous field position.
“I wouldn’t say just Marc was off,” Covington said. “The offense was off a little bit. We had a chance to capitalize on turnovers but as a whole the offense was off.”
Yannick Reyering missed two second half field goals against Miami. |
While the offense couldn’t find the end zone, Yannick Reyering’s two missed field goals, 38 and 47 yards respectively, had a strong impact on the final score as well. Groh confirmed that Reyering has made field goals in practice of up to 50 yards; Saturday, the distance wasn’t much of an issue, but both kicks missed wide right.
“Certainly those were one of our opportunities,” Groh said. “That was the special teams phase of things where we had the opportunity to perhaps take the game. We had opportunities on offense, clearly we had opportunities on defense but you know as often is stated in this way, we had some opportunity to put some points on the board and we didn’t.”
Despite his back-to-back missed field goals, Reyering said it didn’t go back to the knee injury or the time he missed because of it.
“I’m fully healthy … that had nothing to do with it. Its not that I was out of my rhythm or anything,” Reyering said.
It looked like Reyering would get a chance to redeem himself in the game’s final minute as the Cavs drove down the field in what has become their typical fashion. That chance was ended when Verica fumbled the ball on his own carry to give Miami the ball back.
“That would have been a good end of the game,” Reyering said. “Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance. I should have made the two field goals before that so we wouldn’t even be at that point.”
While Groh acknowledged the struggles of the offense, he refused to let one phase of the game shoulder the blame alone.
“We definitely had some things there that we didn’t take,” Groh said. “We left points on the field on offense. We left points on the field on special teams. We gave points back on defense that we could have stopped if we got some third down stops. We all had our chances.”