Take Two: Breaking down the loss at Illinois- Pres. by MPF

The Result: UVa had a disastrous road performance at Illinois on Saturday, losing 24-3 and dropping to 1-1 on the season. The Hoos took an early 3-0 lead capitalizing on an Illini turnover, and never touched the scoreboard again in one of the worst efforts from a Virginia offense in recent memory.

The Turning Point: A relatively easy choice here, the major turning point in the game came in the first quarter when Billy Kemp fumbled a punt return trying too hard to make a play, and Illinois recovered the loose ball in the end zone for a touchdown. UVa would have had the ball up 3-0 but instead quickly trailed 7-3, and the Hoos never recovered.

The Stat That Tells the Story: There are many bad stats on the offensive side of the ball to highlight, but going 1-for-16 on 3rd downs has to be the one that stands out the most. UVa had eight three-and-outs in Saturday’s loss and simply couldn’t get anything going.

Wahoo of the Week: It’s safety Langston Long, who had a bit of a breakout performance in Saturday’s game. Long finished the game with a team-high 13 tackles, including eight solo stops, and one tackle for loss.

Offense: If there was ever a time to give an offense an ‘F’ grade, it’s this time. The offense was totally listless throughout the day, finishing with three points, 222 total yards, one 3rd-down conversion, three turnovers, and just 3.4 yards per play. The problems start up front, where Virginia’s new-look offensive line got a reality check after doing an okay job against an FCS opponent last week. UVa allowed nine TFL’s and five sacks to Illinois, and the pressures disrupted UVa’s run game and its passing game, both of which struggled mightily.

The passing game was a major disappointment on Saturday, as Brennan Armstrong had the worst game of his career. He looked out of sorts all day and played like a QB that didn’t have faith in his blocking. UVa’s senior signal caller finished with just 13 completions on 32 attempts with no touchdowns and a pair of picks. Armstrong was definitely off but he can’t take all the blame. The receivers simply didn’t seem to win enough against Illinois’ man coverage and didn’t make many plays throughout the game. The offensive game plan didn’t really seem to have any counter moves for Illinois either (more on that in a bit.)

There isn’t much else to say about this performance, really. The coaching staff and the players simply have to take ownership and find ways to scheme around their flaws (blocking) and give the skill guys a chance to make plays in space. The staff also needs to find five guys that can block and figure out how to make that work. Because Illinois has put a blueprint out there for UVa’s future opponents to use, it’s certainly going to be duplicated. The good news is that the season is still young, and teams can get better. Whether that happens for this group or not, we’ll find out soon enough.

Grade: F

Defense: Illinois’ offense was far, far better than UVa’s when looking through Saturday’s stats but the Hoos did quite a few nice things in the losing effort. The Illini finished the game with 24 points and 394 total yards, with 196 through the air and 198 on the ground. But UVa’s defense only truly allowed 17 points, as the first touchdown came on the special teams blunder (though the Illini surely left a few points on the table throughout the game). UVa’s defense gave up plenty of rushing yards as everyone expected it would against a solid Illinois ground game. But the Hoos held Illinois to 5-for-14 on 3rd downs and 2-for-4 in the red zone. UVa allowed just three points in the second half despite being put in some rough positions and although the offense could never get going the defense did enough to give them a chance up until the last few drives.

Another bright spot was turnovers, with the Cavaliers grabbing four on the day. Anthony Johnson hauled in an interception on the second play from scrimmage, and Long recovered a fumble on the second drive. Fentrell Cypress and Jahmeer Carter recovered fumbles in the second quarter as well. UVa could only turn those four takeaways into three points, but the ability to force negative plays was a major positive for the Cavalier defense. Virginia also got a decent amount of pressure throughout the day, recording five tackles for loss and three sacks.

It wasn’t a perfect effort from UVa’s defense, but they did enough to give their offense a chance to win the game. Hopefully this performance is encouraging for the group and they can keep it up in the weeks to come, because they might need to if the offense continues to struggle.

Grade: B

Special Teams: The “third side” of the ball got in the way more than it helped the effort on Saturday. We already detailed Kemp’s fumble on a punt return, which was disastrous. He got away with not calling for a fair catch a couple of times against Richmond, but trying to do too much bit him badly against Illinois. Punter Daniel Sparks was having a nice game before he got hurt, averaging 46.2 yards per punt with two punts inside the 20, but Brendan Farrell averaged just 30 yards per punt when forced into duty. Punting duties will be something to keep an eye on going forward unless Sparks can come back right away.

Farrell made one of this two field goal attempts, good from 42 yards and missing from 41. Saturday’s loss didn’t come because the kicking game was bad, but clearly the offense couldn’t afford to leave points on the table, which is what they did with that miss. There wasn’t really anything remarkable on UVa’s kick returns, though the coverage unit did allow a long return on one Illinois punt return.

Simply put, not a great day for special teams. A few critical mistakes proved very costly and were even more glaring given the offense’s inability to make up for them.

Grade: D

Coaching Staff: There were plenty of individual mistakes by players on Saturday, without a doubt. Unforced errors, as well. But the performance on Saturday falls at the feet of the coaching staff, at least on the offensive side of the ball. The UVa offense, which had to carry the team throughout the 2021 season, simply looked lost and unprepared for this game.

Everyone knows that the offensive line is a work in progress. Issues with pass protection flared up in the win over Richmond, though the Hoos had the game in hand, so they may have gone under the radar. Those issues persisted in a much more significant way against a very solid Illinois front, and UVa didn’t seem to have any counter moves to change things up.

The passing game was very disjointed and relied too heavily on long-developing plays with a line that simply couldn’t hold their blocks. It’s not the coaching staff’s fault that the offensive line had so much turnover in the offseason but they are going to have to show that they can work around it. We’re going to learn a lot about this coaching staff and how flexible and innovative they can be, in the next few weeks after a really rough outing.

Conversely, John Rudzinski’s defense may be on the road towards improvement. There have been some encouraging signs in the first two games, but we would still like to see how they hold up against more efficient and potent offenses. Still, it seems that group may be a bit ahead of where they were last year, and they definitely seem to be getting more comfortable with their schemes and assignments.

Despite some bright spots from the defense, I have to give an F here. You play as you are prepared to play, and UVa looked woefully unprepared on offense for an Illinois scheme that wasn’t that much of a mystery having played two games already.

Grade: F