Rashawn Jackson finished with 83 yards rushing. |
The reaction was instant. After Duke’s Charlie Hatcher scooped up a Jameel Sewell fumble on the Virginia 7-yard line and walked it into the end zone with 3:22 remaining in regulation, fans began to flood out of Scott Stadium. Following a Duke extra point, the Cavaliers still trailed by just a score. No matter. Virginia was probably going to drop to 3-5 and lose to Duke for the second consecutive season, and a significant number of the season-low 41,713 fans in attendance had already seen enough.
After Virginia failed to gain a yard on its next possession, the Blue Devils quickly sealed the Hoos’ fate with a subsequent field goal. With time winding down and the scoreboard blaring the ultimate final score of 28-17, only a few fans stuck around – some maintaining fierce support, some only to boo Virginia into the locker room – as the Cavs became the first ACC team to bow to Duke in back-to-back seasons since Wake Forest in 1998 and 1999.
“This is UVa – this isn’t Michigan, or LSU, or Tennessee, or Virginia Tech,” tailback Rashawn Jackson said. “It’s human nature sometimes when things aren’t looking good to – I don’t want to say tuck your tail – but just to turn your back.
“There were a few fans that really stuck out to me who were screaming on the sideline, ‘Rashawn! UVa! Hoos, we love you! We’re here for you!’ Those were the guys who made this loss feel even worse, because they were really hanging in there for us, and they were really giving us their all.”
While the score remained close for much of the contest, the statistics were lopsided in favor of the Blue Devils. Virginia gained 196 yards of offense, its fourth total of 201 yards or fewer this season (TCU, Maryland, Georgia Tech and Duke), while Duke’s rapid-fire passing offense picked up 424 yards. Duke gained eight more first downs. Overall, the Blue Devils’ offense appeared fluid and composed, while Virginia’s more balanced attack was more often helpless than productive.
Yet, thanks to a Virginia defense that held Duke to four field goals despite four trips to the red zone, the two teams traded leads four times in the second half. When Sewell hit tight end Joe Torchia on back-to-back plays to get into the end zone early in the fourth quarter – first a 21-yard gain on 4th-and-1, then a 19-yard reception into the end zone – Virginia took a 17-12 advantage, and appeared to finally have a grip on the momentum. When corner Chase Minnifield wrestled a pass away from a Duke wide receiver in his own end zone on the Devils’ next drive, a Cavalier win seemed to be in order.
Nate Collins contributed 2 sacks to UVa’s total of 6. |
“Pretty positive mood on the sideline after the interception,” Minnifield said. “But, as a defense, we knew that we had to go out and make another stop.”
But Thaddeus Lewis would not let that happen as he showed why he is the leader of the sixth most prolific passing offense in the nation. On 3rd-and-9 on the Cavalier 42, Virginia did to Lewis what it had done all day – it brought pressure, and lots of it. With linebacker Cameron Johnson just a step away from a ferocious hit, though, Lewis stood tall and fired a bullet to wide receiver Conner Vernon cutting across the field. UVa corner Chris Cook was a step slow as he attempted to jump Vernon’s route and bat the ball down; the true freshman Vernon made an easy catch with nothing standing between him and the end zone.
Lewis completed 24 of 40 passes for 343 yards Saturday. His lone touchdown pass was his longest and it came under the most duress, after he had already been sacked six times on the day.
“He made the difference for his team,” Groh said. “Despite some challenging times there, a lot of pressure that he was under and so forth, he came up with a couple throws that had to be made.”
The Cavaliers’ six sacks and frequent pressures of Lewis are largely what kept them hanging around. For the second straight week, Nate Collins and John-Kevin Dolce played significant snaps on the defensive line with several sub defenses on display by the Hoos; it paid off – Collins ended with two sacks, while Dolce tallied a career-high 2.5.
“We had some real good push early,” Groh said. “We had some schemes we thought we could get some pressure with. They did a real good job all week of tuning into what those particular things were and executing them during the course of the game.”
Three of Virginia’s four sacks in the first half came inside the Cavalier 25 – two of those were on back-to-back snaps after Duke faced 2nd-and-goal at the 6-yard line. The Cavaliers’ pass rush was the cornerstone of a defense that held Duke to nine points on three trips inside the 25 in the first half. So, though Virginia gained just 81 first-half yards compared to Duke’s 178, and though Duke won the time of possession battle by nearly a 2:1 ratio, Virginia trailed at halftime just 9-3. The Hoos needed just one burst of offense to put them in the driver’s seat.
And that is exactly what transpired. Behind three of Sewell’s eight completions on the day, and behind some big gains from Jackson – who was Virginia’s most potent weapon, with 83 rushing yards on 16 carries – Virginia found the end zone on a QB sneak by Sewell.
Eventually, however, Duke won the seesaw battle in the fourth quarter as Lewis finally found the end zone to put Duke up for good. Clearly the team who won the game Saturday was the team with a far superior passing game. Sewell ended up 8-22 passing for 86 yards, with one touchdown, an interception, and a fumble. Marc Verica also saw some snaps after Sewell went down in the second quarter, but his numbers were worse – he completed 5 of 16 passes for 21 yards.
“Protection would certainly have to be better, we can all see that,” said Groh when asked about the problems in the passing game. “We dropped some balls when we were open, we can all see that, and we missed some receivers when they were open, and we can all see that.”
When asked if he thought Virginia is better than its record shows, Jackson was torn. The Hoos are better than their record indicates, he said, but he also said he stands by the Groh mantra that “You are what your record says you are.” And what Virginia is, is 3-5, and coming off a loss to the former laughingstock of the ACC.
“When you’re born, your Mom either had a boy or a girl,” Jackson said. “There’s no in between.”