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Jake McGee soars to make the winning touchdown catch. |
Nine weeks ago at Scott Stadium, Michael Rocco led Virginia on a last-gasp drive to defeat Penn State with a touchdown pass to Jake McGee . 63 days later, No. 83 came through again for Rocco. This Saturday the duo connected on a touchdown play with 6 seconds remaining to stun Miami 41-40.
Rocco said he told his tight end to be ready to make a play as the team left the huddle. McGee, smiling broadly with reporters after the game, said he got the message.
“He basically told me don’t screw it up on the way to the line, in a nice way,” McGee said with a grin. “I knew the ball was going to end up coming to me unless I just did a terrible job and luckily that didn’t happen.”
Against PSU, McGee only had to sit down in an open area and make sure not to drop a wide-open pass. This game-winner carried a considerably higher degree of difficulty. Running toward the back of the end zone McGee elevated to near the height of the crossbar, grabbed the ball, and then somehow got one foot down inside of the back line for the 10-yard touchdown catch. That provided the exclamation point on the 16-play, 87-yard march to get the win. Rocco’s throw was placed where only McGee had a chance to make a play and, well, make a play he did.
“Coming to the line of scrimmage I said, ‘Jake, this one is coming to you, go catch it.’ And he did,” Rocco said. “I kind of knew pre-snap that I was going to throw it high in the back of the end zone and hopefully he was going to get it.”
“This one was definitely harder, but your mind blanks for a little bit and it becomes all instincts and it just happens,” said McGee, who finished with 4 catches for 26 yards.
The game-winning touchdown came on the tail end of what looked like an improbable fourth quarter rally as the Cavaliers overcame a 10-point deficit to get the win. It took two fourth down conversions on the final drive, a second leaping get-a-foot-down catch earlier in the quarter, two defensive stops in the final six minutes, and overcoming a safety to even set up McGee’s sensational moment.
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Miranda Mason reports on Virginia’s last-second win over Miami. |
But Virginia got the job done against Miami and left the 45,870 fans at Scott Stadium celebrating some late-game dramatics for the second time this season.
“First, I’d just like to say what a blessing that is to see something like that come to fruition at the end of the game, where there have been a couple of times we’ve come on the short end of that: muffed punt, or interception or something. To see the players and coaches be really resilient, I’m just so elated, so happy for those guys. Whether it is politically correct or not, I feel a tremendous blessing just occurred out there on that field, which is great to see,” Virginia coach Mike London said. “It was a great day for the program. I know we are what the record is, but at the same time, we’ve been struggling like that. You take a victory against a Coastal [Division] leader. I thought we played very well.”
The fourth quarter rally started with a 12-play, 71-yard drive to cut the lead to 38-35. Rocco went 7-of-7 passing on that drive, capping it off with a 5-yard pass to Darius Jennings . That catch was similar to McGee’s in that Jennings had to jump high to get the ball and then get a foot down, though the space wasn’t nearly as crowded for the sophomore receiver. Jennings finished with 7 catches for 57 yards and 2 TDs.
That drive for Rocco, meanwhile, was part of a record-setting streak for the junior. He completed 18 straight passes at one point against Miami, breaking the previous record of 14 set by Matt Blundin against Duke in 1991. Rocco, who started the game, continued to split time with Phillip Sims as well. Sims hit 11 of 14 passes for 88 yards and added a rushing touchdown. Rocco, meanwhile, finished with a career-high 4 touchdown passes to go with 300 yards in the air; he completed 29 of 37 passes. He surpassed Mike Groh for eighth place on the Cavs’ career passing charts. Rocco has 4,399 career passing yards while Groh finished with 4,366. As a team, Virginia tallied 482 yards of offense.
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UVa QB Michael Rocco posted 300 yards and 4 TDs. |
“I think that Michael has done an outstanding job the last couple games. We talk about how selfless he is. He’s a team player. He wants to win. He has a great relationship with Phil. No one cares about who gets the credit; we just want to win ball games,” London said. “He has a great understanding of the offense. Part of this time that we traveled down this season, you have to ask him, but it may have been a benefit to him as far as watching but also competing. The thing that makes everyone better is when you have to compete. Like I said, I think that [completion streak] may be a record, and very deserving. He’s a great teammate.”
While McGee and Jennings got the critical touchdown grabs, sophomore receiver Dominique Terrell actually led the team in receiving. He recorded new career-highs with 9 catches for 127 yards. Like McGee, he made a clutch play on the final drive as well when he caught a 9-yard crossing pattern as a secondary option on 4th-and-7. Terrell also drew a pass interference penalty on the drive’s second fourth down play.
“They run a lot of man so we had a lot of crossing routes,” Terrell said. “I got open.”
The Cavaliers needed a touchdown on that final scoring march because of a safety on the previous attempt at a late-game drive. Rocco tried to avoid pressure and then got hit as he attempted to get rid of the ball, which fell harmlessly into the flats. After a long official’s conference, the play was flagged for intentional grounding in the end zone and ruled a safety. A review of the spot upheld the call and left Virginia trailing 40-35.
That meant the defense needed to come up with its second stop in the final six minutes in order for the Wahoos to have a final shot at the comeback. After the safety kickoff, the Hurricanes took over at their own 47-yard line thanks to a 33-yard return by Duke Johnson, who had 214 return yards with a 95-yard TD and 368 all-purpose yards on the day. The UVa D forced a three-and-out for the second straight possession and the offense took over after a timeout with 2:38 to play. That was an important moment for the defense, which struggled to get stops for much of the day as Miami posted 420 yards of offense.
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Steve Greer led the defense with 13 tackles. |
“We want to create an identity for our defense – we’ve been talking about that all season – where we can come up big and get stops,” said Virginia linebacker Steve Greer , who led the team with 13 tackles. “We knew the offense was depending on us so we went out there with the mindset that we needed to get the ball back to the offense and we did. They came up big.”
Arguably, the whole team came up big when it needed it most and as a result the Hoos now own a 4-6 record with two games remaining. Considering how the team looked heading into an open date on the schedule two weeks ago, back-to-back wins seemed unlikely but that’s what Virginia pulled off against NC State and Miami. North Carolina comes to town Thursday for a 7:30 p.m. showdown on ESPN as the Cavaliers try to win three in a row.
“I knew that these players don’t quit,” London said of bouncing back from the losing streak. “I knew that you go back and look and you’re a play or two away, a third down conversion, or whatever it may be. Sometimes you can’t measure desire and you can’t measure heart. It’s tough when things don’t go your way. The players look to leadership to see if we’re going to tank it, or if we’re going to stay positive. I’m an eternal optimist. I choose to be positive. If you can reflect that with the young men you’re in charge of and responsible for, and you set the tone and the atmosphere of ‘you can if we do this and we do that’ and accept nothing less – whether it’s in the classroom, whether it’s in the community, or whether it’s on the field – then, you set a culture that all things happening on the negative side for us, you just believe things can turn around. Again, against a very good Miami team today, we turned a corner.”
