Take Two: Breaking down the Carolina loss, Pres. by MPF

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The Result: UVa hung around until the end, but ultimately came up short, losing 31-28 to No. 17 North Carolina at Scott Stadium. The Hoos couldn’t hang on despite leading at the half and again in the third quarter, and in the process fell to 3-6 overall, 1-5 in ACC play with three games remaining.

The Turning Point: There wasn’t one specific play but the game turned in the third quarter. UVa led 14-10 at the break and then both teams traded touchdowns thereafter. But Carolina would go on to score two more, while the Wahoos failed to match and found themselves in a 31-21 hole from which they wouldn’t climb out.

The Stat That Tells the Story: UVa had the only turnover in the game, with Brennan Armstrong picked off in UNC territory. That play didn’t define the game, but a touchdown on that drive would’ve put UVa up 14-3 early.

Wahoo of the Week: We’re going with tight end Sackett Wood, who stepped up in a big way on Saturday. He had a career game, catching a team-high six catches for 94 yards and nearly scoring a touchdown in the third quarter, going out of bounds just before the goal line.

Offense: I’m going to preface everything I’m about to write with this: UNC’s defense isn’t very good. It’s possible that Virginia’s production was as much a result of the opposing defense not being able to get stops as it was an improvement from the Hoos.

With that out of the way, this was a much better effort from the offense, especially when you consider injuries to UVa’s top three receivers and the starting running back sent the Cavaliers into the contest very short handed. They finished the game with 418 yards of offense and had a balanced attack, throwing for 232 and running for 186. They had one turnover and allowed just one sack and two TFL’s in the loss. And perhaps most encouraging, the red zone offense was much, much better: UVa went 4-for-4 in the red zone, scoring touchdowns on all of those drives.

There were some missed opportunities, of course. Virginia marched into UNC territory on every first-half drive with the exception of the last one and came away with 14 points on those four trips. That’s not a terrible return, but with four drives at the UNC 39 or better, a third score, even if it was a field goal, could have proved quite useful. Armstrong made some nice throws but had some misses as well, and finished below 50 percent passing. The interception was probably his worst throw of the day, putting the ball behind Luke Wentz across the middle, with Carolina’s Storm Duck hauling in the deflection.

Still, it was nice to see a more competent attack in this game. And with the usual suspects at receiver out of the game, it felt like Armstrong and his teammates were doing a better job simply running the offense and making the play that is there to be made rather than trying to force the issue. We mentioned Wood’s big game, but freshman receiver J.R. Wilson was also a bright spot, catching five passes for 61 yards. Wood and Wilson, two players that didn’t factor into the attack much at all previously, combined for 11 catches and 145 yards; for comparison, Keytaon Thompson, Dontayvion Wicks, and Lavel Davis combined for seven catches for 103 yards last week against Miami. It will be interesting to see if the rotation at receiver gets shaken up a bit now, when the “big three” receivers return to action. The running backs deserve a hat tip, too. Mike Hollins took 16 carries for 75 yards, while Xavier Brown and Ronnie Walker both found the end zone for the first time this season.

It wasn’t a perfect effort, but it’s hard to fault the offense for Saturday’s loss. They ran and threw the ball enough to move the ball, and scored touchdowns on all of their red zone trips. The blocking was solid, with few negative plays allowed, and the offense turned it over just one time. The depth options stepped up and made plays with the offense decimated by injury. Not perfect, but it was a step in the right direction, and the first time the offense has scored four touchdowns in a game against an FBS opponent this season.

Grade: B

Defense: We knew the D was in for a rough afternoon against a dynamic UNC offense and that proved to be the case. The Hoos do deserve some credit for keeping Carolina to just 10 first-half points, helping the home team take a lead into the locker room. But after halftime, UNC’s offense was too much for John Rudzinski’s group. Virginia allowed 455 yards, with 293 through the air and 162 on the ground. UNC went 7-for-14 on 3rd down, including some back-breaking conversions, and a long touchdown pass on a 3rd and long with the Hoos up in the third quarter.

Carolina has a very good quarterback and a bunch of weapons at receivers, and OC Phil Longo did a nice job getting Josh Downs isolated in the slot, often matched up with Jonas Sanker or another safety. The results weren’t pretty for UVa, as Downs went for 15 catches, 166 yards, and a touchdown. Drake Maye also got loose quite a bit and rushed for 74 yards and a score in addition to his passing exploits.

The biggest concern for the defense right now is that the turnovers have dried up. UVa hasn’t forced a takeaway since the third quarter of the Georgia Tech game and with the offense struggling to find consistency, UVa needs the defense to force as many negative plays as possible. The Cavaliers did have four sacks on Saturday, but ultimately Carolina was able to overcome any negative plays the defense created.

For the defense, the best thing might be to just forget about this game and move on to PItt. UNC has the best offense Virginia will play this season, and while this game didn’t go UVa’s way, the Tar Heels do this to everyone.

Grade: C-

Special Teams: It wasn’t a perfect effort here either but special teams was relatively quiet on Saturday. UVa didn’t kick any field goals, and Will Bettridge made all of his PATs. Daniel Sparks averaged 46.8 yards per punt, though the group did allow two to be returned by Downs, including one that went for 38 yards. Demick Starling had a nice kick return of 34 yards to open the game and did a nice job not fielding one Carolina kickoff that went out of bounds and set UVa up to start its drive at the 35. The biggest frustration on special teams were the two timeouts that were called on punts, which is just totally unnecessary (more on that soon).

Grade: C

Coaching Staff: The staff deserves some credit for having the offense ready to play this week, given their injury issues. UVa doesn’t have a lot of depth at receiver after the three players that were missing, especially on the outside, with Malachi Fields and Dakota Twitty out of the season. Wilson, Starling, and Ethan Davies and others stepped up and helped the offense have their most-productive game of the season.

Still, there were some glaring errors and head-scratchers from Tony Elliott and the staff on Saturday that were difficult to ignore. We mentioned the timeouts wasted on punting plays. The first of those timeouts came with UVa in 4th and 2 at its own 22. Why not just take the delay of game if there’s an issue there? The timeout in a game that was still competitive is way more valuable than the five yards of field position. Same on the next timeout, that came on 4th and 10 at their 32. UVa also lined up on a 4th and 1, called timeout, switched running backs and ran a dive for the 1st down. The play worked, but using the timeout to call such a simple play seems avoidable (though that one was called on the field by Armstrong). All of that added up to UVa having no timeouts after Armstrong’s rushing touchdown with 3:24 to go, cutting it to a field goal game. So the Hoos had to try an onside kick that ultimately didn’t work, and they failed to get the stop they needed to keep the game going. This is not the first time Elliott and his staff have had issues with timeouts, or players not being on special teams units when they’re supposed to be.

I’m also not a fan of the Armstrong quick kick play that was called. UVa ran it on 4th and 5 at the UNC 32, so right on the edge of field goal range, but also not an unmakeable 4th-down try. UVa was up 7-3 against a Carolina team that can score regardless of where they start a drive. The result was a touchback, as it was when UVa ran it against Duke earlier this year, negating any worthwhile field position that could have been gained by a better punt. And, on top of that, UNC went down and scored to take the lead. Just as Duke did when UVa tried this play in Durham. So maybe rip that one out of the playbook?

I don’t think the coaching staff didn’t have the players ready to go or anything like that, but there were definitely times where Elliott looked like a first-year head coach, and he’s going to have to work through some of these game management issues and decisions that I would categorize as overly conservative.

Grade: C-