Virginia Falls At Boston College, Loses Close Game Again

The Virginia football team remains tantalizingly close, but excruciatingly far away from a win in 2023. The latest stomach-churning loss came Saturday at Boston College, who prevailed 27-24 to get its first ACC victory of the year.

UVA fell to 0-5 on the season and 0-2 in conference play with the loss. The overall losing streak grew to 8 straight with a single win among the last 12 games. The last W came against Georgia Tech on Oct. 20, 2022.

The most recent part of the losing streak added more frustration to the fire. The Hoos entered the fourth quarter for the fourth straight game either leading or within a single score, but stumbled into four straight losses. Against JMU, a rain delay and a disappearing act. Against Maryland, turnovers and a meltdown. Against NC State, a tie but a penalty parade. Against BC, a tie but not enough in the tank. It marked the second straight road game that Virginia took a 14-0 lead only to see it wither away and the second week in a row that UVA found a way to tie the score in the final minutes only to see the opponent drive back for a winning field goal as the answer.

Tantalizing. Excruciating. Frustrating. Losing.

“My heart hurts for the guys in the locker room,” Virginia coach Tony Elliott said, “’cause they battled through a lot to get this point and you see them having success and I’ve got to do a better job as a coach, along with the staff, of helping them make the transition to understand that when you have success, you can’t take your foot off the gas, you can’t become complacent – every play, every drive until the game’s over, you’ve got to be looking at how can I get better, how can I improve, how can I rely on my fundamentals even more. I think that’s where I’ve got to grow this football team up is helping them to understand you don’t press, you don’t change, you just focus more on the little things. … What I told them is we’re learning some very hard lessons as a football program, that football, man, it’s a hard game and it only gives you what you earn. It doesn’t give you what you deserve, it gives you what you earn. If you have 11 penalties and you don’t execute, then you’re going to get what you earn. Unfortunately, when you have those things typically that earns you a loss.”

The Virginia defense created multiple opportunities for a better outcome. The Cavaliers forced 4 turnovers on the afternoon with 2 interceptions and 2 fumble recoveries. The pair of picks came in the first half with freshman cornerback Dre Walker getting his first career interception in the first quarter and senior linebacker Josh Ahern following it up with his play in the second quarter. The Hoos did not get any points after the first one, but did get a touchdown after the second.

The two fumble recoveries came in the fourth quarter and helped the Hoos tied the game. Sam Westfall forced the first fumble and Dave Herard recovered near midfield, but UVA did not produced points from that takeaway after it decided to punt on 4th-and-4 from the BC 37-yard line. On the next possession, Coen King helped pop the ball free and Jonas Sanker recovered. The offense gained just 12 yards on the ensuing drive, but the field position was good enough to generate a 44-yard kick from Will Bettridge to tie the score at 24-24 with 7:10 remaining in the game.

Beyond those key plays, though, the Virginia defense could not consistently get stops. The Eagles ran up 203 rushing yards at 4.3 yards per carry with 162 of those coming after halftime. Running back Patrick Garwo had 23 carries for 87 yards and 1 touchdown, while Thomas Castellanos added 16 carries for 78 yards. Castellanos also posted 183 yards passing and 2 touchdowns despite completing 16 of 26 attempts with the 2 INTs. After a scoreless first quarter, BC scored on 5 of its final 7 drives, including 4 straight on both sides of halftime.

Defensively, Sanker led the Hoos with 12 tackles, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, and 1 pass breakup. James Jackson added 9 tackles.

“We ran the ball. I thought our offensive line did a nice job,” Boston College coach Jeff Hafley said. “Virginia came out with a lot of pressure. They were bringing guys off the edge, they were bringing two guys in the middle, and then I thought we adjusted between the offensive line and the coaches, I thought they did a really good job of adjusting to that.”

All told, the game eventually hinged on the offense’s inability to turn opportunity into points. Virginia scored just 10 points off of the 4 turnovers and managed only a field goal in the second half. After a touchdown drive to open the game, UVA punted on 4 of its next 5 possessions. Only a Hail Mary pass to end the first half broke up a string of 7 straight possessions without points. That spectacular play saw quarterback Tony Muskett deliver a high ball that Malachi Fields jumped over people to make the catch, but it also only happened because of a bit of bad luck for Boston College – a helmet came off a player on what appeared to be the final play of the half (a sack on intentional grounding) and it led to an untimed down that turned into the touchdown.

The Cavaliers created just 39 yards of offense in the second half and gained only 3 first downs. They had an interception, allowed 2 sacks, failed to convert a 3rd-and-1, punted on aforementioned 4th-and-4, and had 10-yard holding penalty in the mix as well. Blocking from the offensive line continued to be an issue and the final stats back that up as UVA gained just 95 yards rushing (and lost 36 to make it a net of 59) and allowed 5 sacks. UVA also had 11 penalties for 90 yards.

Individual bright spots statistically included Muskett, who went 22-34 passing for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns. Malik Washington made 9 catches for 97 yards and a touchdown, while Fields finished with 5 catches for 88 yards and 1 touchdown. Mike Hollins had the other touchdown catch on the opening drive from 2 yards out.

Collectively, it didn’t add up to enough to stop the losing streak.

“One of the things that we’re learning and I’m challenging these guys to internalize is that energy and passion alone don’t win this game,” Elliott said. “It takes a tremendous amount of focus, attention to detail, commitment, poise, all of those things as opposed to just pure emotion. I thought the guys came out understanding what we needed to do, treating it as a 0-0 ball game that we got to go win the second half, but unfortunately it didn’t carry over [after leading at halftime] and that’s on me. I’ve got to figure out how to do a better job of helping them be able to put a complete game together. That was a focus for us this week. Don’t worry about the outcome, let’s just go play a complete game, offense, defense, special teams all doing their job, playing complementary football, and we did some good things in the first half, but we didn’t finish.”

Final Stats