For Tony Elliott and his Wahoos, Saturday was once again about how much each play matters and how thin their margin for error truly is this year.

After a slow start, UVa mounted a rally and eventually took a 35-24 lead into a fourth-quarter weather break. On the other side of that delay, though, the Dukes outscored UVa 12-0 and stunned the Cavaliers on their home field with a late touchdown to win the game.

This game in particular clearly could have gone either way. The two teams were even in yardage and moved the ball well on their opponent. UVa allowed a costly special teams score but was a perfect 5-for-5 in the red zone, creating a slew of big plays in a stretch where the Hoos outscored JMU 35-10. Still, UVa was -1 on turnovers, allowed a bunch of penalties, and gave up costly fourth-quarter drives. It was just one too many mistakes and JMU deserves credit for going out and taking the game.

Elliott has been head coach for 12 games now, basically a full regular season. The Cavaliers are 3-9 overall. In our estimation, there have been 10 truly competitive opportunities in there, with Richmond last year a near sure win, and Tennessee this year a near sure loss, barring a very unlikely outcome. In those remaining 10 games, UVa is 2-8. Five of those games, half, have been decided by three points or less.

In those tight games, the Wahoos are just 1-4 under Elliott. They rallied to survive a scare from Old Dominion last year but lost to Syracuse and Miami by two points and UNC by a field goal. Then, last weekend, UVa saw JMU win by a single point at home in what felt like a true coin-flip game. In four of the five, UVa has led with 1:14 or less to go (UNC took the lead for good in the third quarter). In those four games, UVa is 1-3.

The Hoos simply haven’t been able to make as many plays as their opponents have, or had one too many costly error that turned a win to a loss. The exception to this is the loss to UNC, where they actually played pretty well and hung with a good team but came up a little short. Still, a play or two here or there, and Elliott would have had a major win under his belt.

Virginia coming up a little short in four of the five games has been costly for a coach in his second year. Flipping a couple of those results, even if the game wasn’t so pretty, could have really helped the vibe in the fanbase and given the locker room some belief. The good (or bad) news is that UVa is probably going to be in more of these types of games, so there will be opportunities to turn this around.

In today’s Deep Dive, we take a look at some trends within these five close games and some other recent program history, to determine what are the major culprits for the close losses, and what the Cavaliers could do differently to come out on the other end of things in the future.

How it happened: UVa blew a late lead in a game that shouldn’t have even been competitive down the stretch, allowing a go-ahead TD with 1:01 to play. UVa rallied, though, with a long kick return followed by a long pass play to set up the game-winning chip shot as time expired.

The Biggest Problem: Red zone offense. UVa scored just 32.6 percent of the points available in the red zone, getting 16 points off of seven red-zone trips.

Other Issues

End-of-Half Defense: UVa’s defense was good on the day but allowed touchdown drives to end both halves.

Turnovers: UVa had three on the day and was -2 for the game.

Penalties: Virginia had eight penalties for 80 yards.

Special Teams: UVa missed a 36-yard FG that would have sealed the game with just over three minutes to play.

How it happened: UVa came back from a 16-0 halftime deficit to eventually take a lead but gave up the go-ahead field goal with just over a minute to play.

The Biggest Problem: Penalties. UVa finished the game with a whopping 12 penalties for 105 yards, including a roughing the passer call that allowed Syracuse to complete its game-winning drive.

Other Issues

Special Teams: An argument could be made that this was the biggest issue of the game. UVa missed two field goals, though they were longer attempts, as well as an extra point. The Hoos also allowed a 57-yard kick return to begin the game and that good field position led to Syracuse’s only touchdown of the game.

End-of-Half Defense: UVa allowed field goals in the final 90 seconds of both halves.

How it happened: In the ugliest game of the year, neither team scored a touchdown but Miami crossed the goal line in the fourth overtime on a two-point conversion to win the game.

The Biggest Problem: Red zone offense. UVa scored just 21 percent of its red-zone points available (six) in regulation. In OT, the Cavaliers failed on another RZ trip and they also failed on a pair of conversion attempts in the third and fourth OT. UVa didn’t just squander red zone trips, it squandered ideal red-zone trips, with two failed drives that ended at the Miami 1-yard line.

Other Issues

Special Teams: Miami’s two field goal drives were set up by decent returns, one of 17 yards and one of 14 yards.

End-of-Half Defense: UVa shut Miami out except for a pair of drives, with a field goal ending each half.

Lack of Negative Plays Created: UVa didn’t force a turnover in the loss nor did it have one.

How it happened: UVa played arguably its best game of the year and hung with a good UNC team, falling short by a field goal at home.

The Biggest Problem: UNC was the better team. UVa played a pretty clean game, going 4-for-4 in the red zone (all touchdowns) and avoiding major special teams mistakes.

Other Issues

Turnovers: UVa had one turnover, but didn’t force any.

Lack of Aggression: UVa had Brennan Armstrong quick kick on 4th and 5 from the UNC 32 in the first half. That quick kick ultimately went for a touchback in a game they lost by three points.

How it happened: UVa took a 35-24 lead into the weather delay but JMU rallied for a late 36-35 win.

The Biggest Problem: Penalties. This was a tough call, but UVa had a few back-breaking flags, and ended up with the aforementioned 80 penalty yards on eight infractions.

Other Issues

Special Teams: UVa allowed a blocked punt to go for a TD in a one-point loss. Enough said.

Fourth Quarter Defense: JMU marched down the field for two eight-play, 80-yard scoring drives in the fourth quarter after the weather delay. Yikes.

Turnovers: UVa had one but once again didn’t force any.

Some of the issues in these games are straightforward. UVa only had a positive turnover margin in one of the games, with Syracuse coughing the ball up four times. Unfortunately for the Wahoos, they also had a pair of turnovers which negated those gains somewhat. They had 47 penalty yards or more in each game, with three games of 80+ yards (which is quite bad). The red-zone offense issues shouldn’t be a shock to UVa fans. In two games (against ODU and Miami), UVa threw away most of the red-zone points available. In the losses to Syracuse, UNC, and JMU, UVa had success in the red zone, scoring a touchdown on each red-zone trip, and it’s no surprise that those were its best three performances on offense, and overall, of these five games.

One area that stood out though was the defense’s inability to get stops at the end of halves. UVa plays a bend-but-don’t-break style, which has been effective through the middle parts of games but doesn’t seem to hold up as well against hurry-up offenses going for points before the end of a half or game.

In these five games, UVa gave up points to end the first half in three of them (ODU, Syracuse, Miami). In the losses to Syracuse and Miami, the points allowed were more than the margin of defeat. In the two games where the Hoos didn’t give up points, UNC and JMU, the Tar Heels got the ball back in their own territory with 15 seconds left and still got into UVa territory before they ran out of time. The Dukes didn’t attempt a score, deep in their own territory, simply running the block out and going into halftime.

The end-of-game scores are more concerning, though, and proved very costly. In four of these five games, UVa allowed the go-ahead score with 80 seconds or less remaining in the game. Only against ODU was UVa able to rally and win the game anyway. In the fifth game, UVa didn’t give up a go-ahead score to UNC but did allow the Tar Heels to run out the clock with the ball up three points.

The ODU and JMU drives allowed are the most concerning. Both of those teams needed a touchdown to win the game, a field goal did nothing for them. That feels like a great time to have a bend-but-don’t-break defense, but UVa allowed passing touchdowns to both the Monarchs and Dukes. Both scores came with right around a minute to go; the difference is UVa couldn’t come up with a counter against JMU, with just 55 seconds left to work with.

On a closer look, we found that in 24 halves under this coaching staff, UVa has had 18 halves that ended with the teams actively playing to win the game (in six of the second halves, the game was over and it was clock killing time.) Five of those 18 halves ended with the other team just running the ball to get into the locker room or taking a knee with no effort to score. That leaves 13 competitive halves and opportunities for the UVa defense to get a stop. They forced exactly three stops: 1) a turnover on downs to end Richmond’s last first-half drive, 2) a sack that led Illinois to pack up shop up 18 points, and 3) the stop late that sealed the win over Georgia Tech, the only truly meaningful stop forced.

So, in 13 opportunities opponents scored on UVa’s defense 10 times to end the half; 46 total points, including four potential game-winning scores, another game-tying field goal to force OT (in an eventual loss), and two more field goals that took UVa from going into halftime tied, to losing (Louisville and Miami last year).

In fairness, it’s also worth noting that the defense more than kept UVa in some of these games. Against ODU and Miami, for example, the end-of-half scores were the only points the team allowed in the game. And against Syracuse, the Orange moved the ball but UVa held them to field goals while also forcing a bunch of turnovers. So it’s not all bad, but it seems pretty clear that the defense UVa plays in the middle of the first and third quarter hasn’t always translated to the high-leverage situations.

The margins have been so, so small for UVa in the Elliott era, and the Hoos have just not quite been able to make the plays they needed to come out on top in a lot of those games. The one close one they did win was a game that probably shouldn’t have even been close to begin with. In two of the four games decided by three or less, UVa out-gained its opponents. In two more, the Cavaliers were out-gained. And against JMU, both they and Dukes had the exact same number of yards (395). It doesn’t get much closer than that.

And these types of games can make or break seasons, and make or break coaching regimes. For example, in Mike London’s second season in 2011, the Cavaliers went 8-5. London won ACC Coach of the Year and got a contract extension. On a closer look, though, you’ll find that that team had four games decided by a field goal or less, and they won all of them. Two of them were against terrible teams, Indiana and Idaho who combined for a 3-20 record. The first game required a game-winning kick as time expired and the other came down to a missed two-point conversion for the win in OT. UVa did beat a pair of solid teams in Georgia Tech and FSU, but both of those were decided by a play or two. If you flip two of those four wins to losses, the London era probably ends two years sooner. That’s the type of thing Elliott would be wise to avoid.

London’s Cavaliers only won two more games in his tenure that were decided by three points or less: The 17-16 win over Penn State where Sam Ficken gifted the Hoos a win by missing four field goals and an extra point, and the 19-16 win in 2013 over his successor and BYU.

Bronco Mendenhall had a similar second season, by the way. That season helped turn the program around and that UVa team had three games decided by one score. And guess what their record was in those games…3-0. And that’s the difference. That and an out-of-nowhere drubbing of a good Boise State team on the road. Those close games were the difference between another rough year, probably with three or four wins, and the program’s first bowl appearance in six years.

And that’s likely where Elliott and UVa will be in the weeks to come, on the tightrope between winning and losing, at least against some of the teams on the schedule. A missed field goal here and a bad penalty there can be devastating. But conversely, a time or two where UVa pulls out ahead in a coin-flip game can get the ball rolling.

The ultimate goal is to win games comfortably but that’s not going to happen overnight. For now, UVa needs to find a way to scratch and claw, and make a few more plays than its opponents to win games. The Hoos have come up a little short to date but perhaps one game going the other way will make the team believe they can finish contests.