The road continued to be unkind to the Virginia football team Saturday night. The Cavaliers stumbled early to fall behind by three touchdowns and never really recovered in a 38-17 loss at Duke. That snapped a seven-game winning streak in the series.
With the loss, UVA dropped to 2-3 on the season and 0-2 in the ACC. All three losses have come on the road. The Hoos struggled mightily in a 24-3 setback at Illinois. They also fell behind early at Syracuse before rallying to the lead only to lose 22-20 in the final two minutes anyway. The ‘trailing early’ pattern continued against the Blue Devils and Virginia didn’t have a comeback in the tank.
Cavalier coach Tony Elliott said the tough starts and losing momentum early in the game is difficult.
“Football is all about confidence,” Elliott said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “Right now, I’ve got to do a better job of figuring out how to get these guys’ confidence in the right place – in their effort, in their technique, in their discipline, in their ability to adapt and make adjustments and right now our confidence is not in that.”
UVA’s confidence was challenged quickly in Durham.
After the defense got a stop on its first drive of the game and the offense followed with a decent drive to flip the field, things unraveled for the next 15 minutes of action. The Hoos gave up a 17-yard pass play and a 12-yard run early in Duke’s next drive. Aaron Faumui also got flagged for a personal foul penalty after the latter play. On the next snap, Ben Smiley III picked up a penalty for illegal hands to the face. The Blue Devils took advantage of the free yardage to eventually score on a 19-yard touchdown pass from Riley Leonard to Jalon Calhoun that made it 7-0.
Virginia squandered good field position after a Duke unsportsmanlike penalty led to a drive starting at the UVA 40-yard line. The Hoos gained 12 yards and a first down to get into Duke territory, but the drive stalled with a 5-yard loss on first down and an incompletion on third down. They spent a timeout ahead of a punt attempt, but still allowed the Devils’ to block the punt and start from their own 48-yard line as a result. The hosts capitalized on their field position with a steady diet of running plays and a roughing the passing penalty on Jack Camper. Leonard finished it off with a 2-yard touchdown run for a 14-0 lead.
A few moments later, Demick Starling negated a 38-yard kickoff return with a mid-air fumble that occurred without contact while leaping over a would-be Duke tackler. Gifted great field position once again at the UVA 41, Duke scored on a third straight drive when Jordan Waters dove into the end zone from one yard out. That 21-0 lead at the 10:25 mark in the second quarter left the Hoos in a deep hole, especially considering that the offense has averaged less than that throughout the season to date.
Between three personal foul penalties that aided Duke drives, the blocked punt that’s similar to a turnover, and the special teams fumble, that’s a lot to overcome for a football team still trying to find its way under Elliott.
“I’ve got to somehow get the guy’s attention to understand that you can’t beat yourself,” Elliott said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “If you want to win, you’ve got to do the little things better than everybody else and you’ve got to understand situational football, and you’ve got to be disciplined.”
The Wahoos briefly revived their hopes just before halftime with an 11-play, 83-yard touchdown drive. Keytaon Thompson started it off with a 10-yard carry on an end-around run. The Hoos converted third downs twice with Brennan Armstrong hitting tight end Sackett Wood Jr. for 9 yards on 3rd-and-4 and then scrambling for 9 yards later on 3rd-and-3. The drive finished with an Armstrong 24-yard completion to Dontayvion Wicks, a pass interference penalty against Duke, and an 11-yard swing pass to Perris Jones for the touchdown just 1:12 before intermission.
With Virginia getting the ball first to start the second half, another scoring drive could have created comeback possibilities. However, the Hoos went three and out to start the second half. Duke responded with a touchdown drive, which featured another UVA penalty (Anthony Johnson got hit with a pass interference flag when his feet got tangled up while running with the intended target), as Leonard scored on a 1-yard run. The Cavaliers did produce two more drives with points later in the game, but it was too little too late.
Armstrong completed 19 of 37 passes for 202 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Duke did bat down 5 pass attempts in the game to disrupt things. The TD throw tied Armstrong with Shawn Moore for second all-time on UVA’s career passing touchdown list with 55. The 200-yard passing game also gave Armstrong the most of those in school history. He added a rushing touchdown as well.
Thompson recorded 6 catches for 61 yards, while Wicks had 4 catches for 51 yards. Jones had 8 carries for 41 yards to lead the rushing attack.
“It’s still a rollercoaster right now,” Armstrong said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “There’s some good drives, there’s some bad drives. … I’ll have to look back at the film. We’re only scoring 17 points … 17 points isn’t going to get the job done either. We’re going to have to figure it out.”
Defensively, Jonas Sanker led UVA with a career-high 11 tackles. Nick Jackson added 10 tackles despite missing the first half following a targeting ejection against Syracuse. That marked the 17th double-digit tackle game of his career and pushed his career total to 301 tackles.
After holding opponents to 8 touchdowns combined in the first four games, the Virginia defense did not have the same level of success in this matchup. As noted above, Duke ripped off 3 touchdowns in the first 20 minutes and eventually finished with 5 touchdowns plus a field goal. A lot of the damage came on the ground as three different Blue Devils surpassed 59 rushing yards in the game. Jaylen Coleman led the way with 19 carries for 97 yards, while Jaquez Moore chipped in 67 yards on 3 carries. That included a 59-yard touchdown run. Leonard caused problems all night with his legs, tallying 59 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also completed 18 of 24 passes for 129 yards with Calhoun catching 6 passes for 65 yards and a score.
In the end, it all added up to a disappointing Saturday night for the Cavaliers. They had multiple penalties on defense, lost pocket contain with rush lanes, and had some poor pursuit angles on running plays at times. They had another costly special teams turnovers. They continued to struggle with any level of consistency on offense.
Elliott said he sees those miscues leading to breakdowns piling on one after another when he wants a more resilient response.
“The harder it gets, the better you play – that’s got to be the mindset. Right now, the harder it gets, we’re just looking for a way to get out,” Elliott said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. “…That’s where we’ve got to grow up as a football team and understand that regardless of what the situation is we don’t abandon our fundamentals, we don’t abandon our core values, and our core values start with giving effort, behind humble, being accountable, respecting the game, and playing with physical and mental toughness.”
This program is headed in the wrong direction.
I disagree. It is not headed in the wrong direction. We have a new head coach, a new offensive and defensive system, and we lost our entire starting offensive line. This was always going to be a tough rebuilding year. We need to give Tony Elliott some time to get his system and people installed and functioning. Elliott deserves some slack- Mendenhall’s abrupt decision to leave left the program in a bad place. Please give Elliott some time– he is a very good coach and an even better man.
First TE quote I’ve seen that is a realistic summary: when things get hard, this team wants out. We won’t see an improvement until Elliott gets to recruit his own team – including a new QB.