Anthony Harris created two turnovers as the UVa defense smothered Pitt.
With the offense struggling at an alarming rate, the Virginia football team committed two early turnovers and that eventually erased its chances of a road win at Pittsburgh. Those costly fumbles squandered a dominating performance from the UVa defense as Pitt turned both into touchdowns en route to a 14-3 victory.
The Cavaliers have now lost 7 of their last 8 road openers. They also fell to 0-6 when facing a new ACC member for the first time in conference play. Virginia owns a 6-12 record since a 14-13 win at Florida State in 2011 – that contest capped a run where the team won 6 of 7 games.
Needless to say, the result at Pitt was a disappointing one. Virginia now stands at 2-2 and 0-1 in the ACC. The Panthers, on the other hand, were happy to grab the win and improve to 3-1 and 2-1 in the ACC.
“It felt great to go three in a row. That’s what we’ve been talking about all week,” Pittsburgh defensive lineman Tyrone Ezell said. “It’s something we haven’t done in a while here at Pitt, and it feels great right now.”
Both defenses set the tone for the game as the two teams combined for just 387 yards of offense. They were a combined 8 for 36 on third downs in the contest.
Virginia’s D came up with a near perfect performance outside of sudden change situations. The Cavaliers held the Panthers to just 8 yards rushing and 191 yards on 41.9% passing. The visiting defense also produced 7 sacks and 13 total tackles for loss. Virginia created 3 turnovers with 2 interceptions of Pitt QB Tom Savage and a forced fumble against recevier Tyler Boyd .
Henry Coley , Daquan Romero , and Anthony Harris led the way with 8 stops each. Coley had 2 tackles for loss, while Harris recorded two of the turnovers. He forced the fumble that Jake Snyder recovered and picked off a pass. Demetrious Nicholson added the other INT with 5 tackles to boot. Brent Urban , meanwhile, piled up 7 tackles (4 tackles for loss) and another pass break-up. Freshman starter Max Valles finished with 2.5 sacks, while Maurice Canady (2 sacks) and David Dean (1.5 sacks) got in on that pocket attack too.
“My teammates gave me the confidence all week. They told me every day that I’m a great player and that I just needed to show it,” Valles said. “I really credit the older guys for giving me the confidence to go out there and play.”
“We played a heck of a game. We played aggressive, and we played hard. We created turnovers, we sacked the quarterback and we hit the quarterback,” Virginia coach Mike London said. “When we can do those types of things, you expect the opportunities on the other side to give you a chance to score points.”
Ultimately, points off of turnovers decided the outcome. Pitt’s offense made the most of two gift turnovers – running beside a bouncing punt and a short shotgun snap shouldn’t be called take-aways – by Virginia.
On the first, punt returner Dominique Terrell did not field the punt and then jogged along with the ball as it tumbled toward his own end zone. It took a little sideways hop into Terrell’s leg and the Panthers recovered on the 19-yard line. Four plays later, the hosts had a 7-0 lead after a James Conner touchdown. Terrell, who remained in the game at punt returner after the gaffe, said he did not do what he is instructed to do on the play.
“I killed the play. I just tried to catch it to keep it down, but it slipped past me and hit my leg,” Terrell said. “I’m supposed to get away from it, but I tried saving us field position.”
The second critical turnover came on the Hoos’ next drive. After a penalty on the kickoff pinned the offense deep in its own territory, the Cavaliers faced a 3rd-and-10 situation with 3:09 to go in the first quarter. The shotgun snap from Ross Burbank came out low and quarterback David Watford could not come up with it. Pitt recovered at the 18-yard line and on the second play of the drive Savage hit Devin Street with a 15-yard touchdown pass.
“Early on you create a sudden-change situation where we muff a punt and they recover it, we have a bad snap and they get it in the red zone,” London said. “Anytime an offense can use a short field to score touchdowns or points, it’s always going to have an impact on the game. Obviously at the beginning, those 14 points had an impact on us.”
Virginia’s QB David Watford completed 15 of 37 passes.
The impact was that an anemic offense – UVa has averaged a startling 3.2 yards per play against Football Bowl Subdivision teams in 2013 – had to play from behind on the scoreboard. The Hoos tallied just 65 rushing yards as Kevin Parks led the way with 34 yards on 16 carries. Watford, meanwhile, finished 15-of-37 passing for 123 yards on the day.
Trailing on the scoreboard also led to bypassing two potential field goal attempts from 44 and 45 yards in the second quarter in favor of going for it on fourth down. The team converted neither chance. The Hoos went for another fourth down try in the final moments too. After what was easily the best drive of the day for UVa’s offense (15 plays and 77 yards or 40% of the 188 total yards), the coaching staff opted for back-to-back passing plays from the Pitt 3-yard line. That included a passing play on fourth down when the coaches decided to go for it on 4th-and-2 while still needing two scores in a 14-3 game.
“We were down there and had the opportunity to get the first down. Even if you don’t get the touchdown, there is still that chance that you get the first down. Talking to players and coaches, I said ‘let’s go for it,’ London said. “We are on the road. We had two downs to get it. Obviously we didn’t do a good job of executing today. It’s disappointing to have had that many drops and to not be that efficient on third downs.”
The Cavaliers have one week to try to clean up those execution errors on offense. The Hoos welcome Ball State to Scott Stadium next Saturday at noon.
we have more to clean up than Congress does