Concerns mount for Hoos after second straight loss
Bronco Mendenhall sat down at the table and told reporters that before he took any questions, he had something to say first.
Virginia’s football coach had some things he wanted to get off his chest.
Mendenhall was just minutes removed from watching his team lose 37-17 to Wake Forest at Scott Stadium. It was UVa’s worst loss at home since Boston College beat the Wahoos 41-10 four years ago.
Virginia never led on Friday night. The defense failed to make stops for a second straight week while the offense gave up more sacks and produced fewer big plays than it had all season.
Mendenhall’s opening statement spanned two minutes and 20 seconds. He began by crediting the Demon Deacons for a gameplan that was well designed and well executed. Wake consistently made plays in the game’s critical moments, Mendenhall said. The Deacs played like a well-coached and disciplined squad; the team on the home sideline did not.
“We weren’t able to play cleanly,” Mendenhall admitted bluntly, “and that’s a direct reflection on me as the head coach.”
Wake went 75 yards on nine plays on its first offensive possession to take an early lead. The drive proved to be a harbinger of the issues that would plague UVa defensively all night. The Deacs converted both of their 3rd-down attempts, first from 1 yard and the second from five. The only play that didn’t gain positive yardage was an incomplete pass. The drive ended with a breakdown in the secondary that led to Sam Hartman finding a wide open Taylor Morin for an easy 39-yard score.
That drive sparked Wake’s offense, as the Deacs scored on each of their first five possessions. Rewind to the second half of last weekend’s 59-39 loss at North Carolina, and the UVa defense allowed points on 12 consecutive opposing possessions. That streak didn’t end until the Demon Deacons took their foot off the gas midway through Friday’s fourth quarter.
That three-and-out marked the first time in 22 possessions, going back to the fourth quarter of UVa’s 42-14 win against Illinois two weeks ago, that the Wahoos had forced a punt.
Mendenhall thought UVa’s defense looked better on Friday than it had in Chapel Hill, “but still mistakes at critical times.” UVa failed to record a sack or a takeaway. Wake converted seven of its first 12 opportunities on 3rd down and went one-for-one on 4th. An offside penalty on Mandy Alonso gave the Deacs another 4th down conversion in the second quarter; they turned the other three into field goals.
Big plays were also a problem for a second straight week. Starting with Morin’s touchdown catch, Wake hit on six plays of at least 25 yards. They all led to points. UVa has now allowed 16 plays of 25-plus yards in four games this season. All but two have come the past two weeks. After giving up a combined 520 total yards in wins against William & Mary and Illinois to open the season, UVa has been gouged for 1,172 the last two weeks.
"We watched a lot of film this week,” UVa outside linebacker Noah Taylor said after Friday’s loss. “I thought we worked really hard, but I guess we’ve got to work harder.”
“Not anywhere close to where we need to be,” Mendenhall said of the performance.
With Wake largely running out the clock on its last three possessions, UVa actually out-gained the Demon Deacons 506-473 for the night. It was Virginia’s fourth straight game with 500-plus yards of total offense, but also the team’s lowest output in terms of both yards and points. The Hoos had hit the 17-point mark by halftime in each of their first three games.
Quarterback Brennan Armstrong continued his torrid start to the season by throwing for 407 yards and two touchdowns, with one fourth-quarter pick. Armstrong also ran for a season-high 33 yards, a total that was dragged down by the 37 yards lost on a half-dozen Wake Forest sacks. Those six Wake sacks, which all came after the Hoos had fallen behind by multiple scores, matched the total allowed by UVa’s offensive line in the season’s first three games.
UVa’s longest play on Friday was a 32-yard pass from Armstrong to tight end Jelani Woods in the third quarter. The Hoos hit on a season-low four plays of 25-plus yards. They converted half of their 16 attempts on 3rd down but went 0-for-3 on 4th down, managing just one touchdown and a field goal in five red zone attempts. UVa had scored on 13 of its 16 red zone attempts (11 touchdowns and two field goals) in the season’s first three games.
“We take that on us,” running back Mike Hollins said of the offense’s inability to keep pace with Wake. “We have to hit our pillar. We have to score a certain amount of points and when we don’t, that falls on us.”
The other number that jumped out on Friday night was Virginia’s 11 penalties, the most for a UVa team since the Hoos had 13 in a 2013 loss to Ball State. The Wahoos had nine penalties last week at UNC; they’d only been flagged a total of 10 teams through two games.
Afterward, Mendenhall lamented his team’s lack of poise and discipline. Frustration has been visible when the Hoos have fallen behind the last two weeks. He admitted that with so many veterans on the roster, he didn’t think the coaching staff needed to emphasize discipline with this team, “but it looks like I was mistaken.”
“The team has competitive spirit but they’re not channeling it into their execution,” Mendenhall said. “And the only thing that matters is between the whistles. After the whistle only hurts our team.”
The loss dropped UVa to 2-2 on the year, and 0-2 in the ACC for the first time since the 2013 team went winless in conference play. The team entered the season with the goal of winning another Coastal Division title, and Taylor reiterated that after Friday’s loss.
“Now our backs are against the wall,” Taylor said. “Now we don’t have a choice. Now we can’t lose another game. We can’t lose another ACC game. We can’t lose another game, period.”
History is not on the Hoos’ side. Only one team, Duke in 2013, rallied from an 0-2 start in ACC play to win the Coastal Division. That team won its final six conference games. Two teams, Virginia Tech in 2008 and UNC in 2012, won the division with three ACC losses.
They have a second straight short week to get ready for next Thursday night’s visit to Miami, where the Wahoos have lost their last five games against the Hurricanes, including each of the past two seasons.
As Mendenhall said as he wrapped up his opening statement to reporters on Friday night, “Effort alone is not gonna do it.”
“You have to execute. You have to be clean. You have to play with great poise,” he said. “And really not any of those things are in a place right now that I’m proud of or think that is good enough to win the Coastal Division. So yeah, we have lots and lots of work to do.”
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