The Result: Virginia stormed back with a two-touchdown fourth-quarter comeback, stunning Wake Forest on Saturday night in a 31-30 victory. The win pushes the Hoos to 2-0 and 1-0 in ACC play. Saturday’s win marked the first time they have been 2-0 since 2021, the first time they’ve won their ACC opener since 2020, the first time they’ve beaten Wake Forest since 2007, and the first time they’ve won in Winston-Salem since 2002.

The Turning Point: In any game like this, there are several turning points. But it felt like UVa’s comeback started late in the third quarter, after an Anthony Colandrea interception seemed to doom the night for the Cavaliers. Wake drove down the field to the UVa 12-yard line, but the defense held the Deacs to a field goal, keeping the margin at 13 points. Any more and UVa probably doesn’t win the game. From there, the Hoos punted, then scored back-to-back touchdowns while their defense forced a punt, a turnover on downs, and a fumble before the Deacs eventually ran out of time.

The Stat That Tells the Story: Virginia’s much-maligned pass rush forced six sacks while the O-line allowed just one in Saturday’s victory. Six different players recorded a sack each, too, so the success was shared amongst the defense.

Wahoo of the Week: There were several candidates, but we’re giving it to Malachi Fields, who had a spectacular game and was a big part of what UVa was able to accomplish on offense. Fields caught 11 passes for 148 yards in the win on 13 targets. He also had two big 4th-down catches on the game-winning drive, and also drew a pass interference penalty to move the ball forward.

Offense: It wasn’t always perfect but the offense did enough to win a tough conference game away from home. Before digging into the details, focus on the big picture: UVa scored 31 points in an ACC game and none of those points were on short fields off turnovers or were solely to the credit of special teams. That’s an accomplishment for any program, but for UVa fans it was a rare treat. Saturday’s win was Virginia’s second 30+ point effort on the road in the Tony Elliott era (31 at UNC last year).

Virginia finished with 430 total yards, heavily skewed towards the passing game, which produced 357 of those yards. UVa averaged 6.1 yards per play and 10.8 yards per completion but rushed for just 2.6 yards per carry. We mentioned the success protecting the quarterback and another feather in the offense’s cap is the performance down the stretch, as they won the fourth quarter 14-0.

There’s still plenty to clean up, though, and improvement areas that are needed. Obviously UVa is going to have to find a way to have a run game that at least makes defenders think twice. On Saturday, Kobe Pace had just five carries for 14 yards; one of those was a 10-yard run. Xavier Brown showed flashes with 35 yards on nine carries and perhaps he’s going to be a bigger part of the plan going forward. UVa was terrible on 3rd downs again this week, going 3-for-14; that’s now two games in a row with a lack of efficiency on 3rd downs and the lack of a run game has to be a factor there. Eight of UVa’s 14 attempts on 3rd down were plays requiring five or more yards. On those tries, they went 1-for-8. The good news is that UVa made up the difference on 4th down, where they were a perfect 3-for-3.

Looking at Colandrea’s performance, he was really good in stretches with a few plays he’d want back. The sophomore quarterback was 33-of-43 for 357 yards and three touchdowns to go with two interceptions. Colandrea was very efficient for the second straight week and has now completed 76 percent of his attempts this season. It was a choppy start for Colandrea, who had some nice completions mixed with some missed throws but he caught a gear in the second quarter and then finished the game strong as well. His first INT was a bit of bad luck with a deflection landing right in the lap of a Wake defender; the second interception was a bad decision forced into a dangerous area with the quarterback trying to get the Hoos back in the game. That was a costly mistake, but he more than made up for it on the subsequent drives. After the second INT, AC10 went 12-for-13 for 103 yards and a touchdown.

The skill success was led by Fields, who had his aforementioned big day in Winston-Salem. It’s nice to have a guy that can be the go-to on big plays, and Fields was that throughout the game. Trell Harris had a big game too, overcoming a big early drop to finish with 91 yards and a touchdown on seven receptions. Tyler Neville had a breakout game, too, and was a big part of UVa’s first comeback effort, catching two touchdown passes in the second quarter.

Virginia’s offensive line didn’t create big holes in the run game and Wake did a good job bottling up the quarterback runs, but overall it’s hard to complain about the blocking. Colandrea had time to throw and remained upright throughout the game, despite having a backup left tackle with very little offensive line experience for the second straight week.

The fact that Saturday’s performance was full of both successes and improvement opportunities is a good sign, as it shows that the Hoos can be productive, move the ball and score points, even when they left some opportunities on the table, or didn’t play an A+ game. Their B+ game with multiple turnovers, no run game and lack of 3rd-down success was enough to generate 31 points and an ACC road win.

Grade: B+

Defense: The story here was similar to the offense, with some really good moments mixed in with some areas for potential improvement. UVa’s defense allowed Wake to go for 544 yards of offense, including 403 through the air in Saturday’s win. Wake averaged just under 15 yards per completion, but the run defense was pretty solid overall, allowing 165 yards when removing negative sack yards. Wake had 14 drives in the game, but just two were three-and-outs, and the Deacs averaged 39 yards gained per drive.

There were three major success stories for the defense, despite giving up a lot of yards and points. The first is the bend-but-don’t-break nature, which kept the Hoos in the game. Wake scored three touchdowns in the game and had to settle for three more field goals. All three of Wake’s FGs came pretty deep in UVa territory, all within the 21-yard line and two inside the 10. Those stops made the difference in a one-point win.

UVa also forced a pair of turnovers on downs with the Deacs in UVa territory; the first came late in the first half to keep it at a three-point game, and the latter came late in the proceedings with Wake clinging to their six-point lead. The second stop set up UVa’s game-winning touchdown drive.

The second big success was the pass rush. Wake’s offense is a bit of a curveball, with the slow mesh plays that require assignment-sound football and put a lot of pressure on all three levels of the defense. John Rudzinski seemed to have a pretty good plan at the line of scrimmage and brought a lot of exotic blitz looks that shook up Wake’s offense and killed off a bunch of drives. The fact that UVa had six sacks from six different players, most of whom were not edge rushers, shows how UVa found ways to bring pressure from all over. Only two of UVa’s sacks came on drives that ended in Wake points and both of those sacks came when the Deacs were well into UVa territory. Most of the time, if UVa got to the QB, the Hoos killed off the drive.

The third success was how UVa closed the game. After Colandrea’s second interception, down 10 in the third, it would have been easy for the defense to fold. Instead, they held Wake to a field goal, and then got a stop forced a turnover on downs, then Malcolm Greene and Antonio Clary came up with the big defensive play needed, stripping receiver Taylor Morin with Wake approaching game-winning field goal range late, and recovering the loose ball. That play put UVa in a position to seal the deal, and while the offense did a great job rallying, the defense had to hold Wake at 30 points and create a big play, and they were able to do that.

And a special hat tip to the defense for playing through so many injuries. UVa lost Kam Robinson in the first half and Corey Thomas later, and kept battling. Clary and Jonas Sanker again led the team in tackles with 21 total, and Trey McDonald had a great game in place of Robinson, recording nine tackles and his first career sack.

Wake’s offense put UVa under strain but ultimately the defense didn’t buckle when it matters. Virginia’s defense allowed just two legitimate touchdown drives (Wake’s second TD came on a nine-yard drive after Colandrea’s first INT), had six sacks, held the opponent to 33.3% on 3rd downs and pitched a shutout in the fourth quarter. It was far from perfect, but good enough to win this one.

Grade: B

Special Teams: Always an adventure, the UVa special teams. Ultimately there weren’t any special teams mistakes that were truly costly on Saturday, but there were two mistakes that could have been bad breaks. Daniel Sparks, who had a bunch of really good kickoffs, had a kickoff out of bounds in the first quarter after UVa’s first score of the game. This was a concern going into the season, and after a clean game against Richmond, Sparks missed this one, and Wake would take advantage of better field position and drove down for a field goal. After that mistake, Sparks was good on kickoffs, so hopefully just an outlier there.

UVa also had a punt blocked, an issue they had last season, late in the first half. The timing was a lucky break in itself, as Wake recovered just on the wrong side of field goal range with just enough time for one more play before half, so they weren’t able to turn that block into points. Despite the fact that Wake didn’t make UVa pay a terrible price for these two mistakes, they still need to be cleaned up going forward.

Other than those two, special teams were decent on Saturday. Will Bettridge was perfect on PATs and made his one field-goal attempt from short range. Sparks averaged 46.8 yards per punt, and did a great job on his punt late in the fourth quarter, avoiding what would’ve been a catastrophe if a block was allowed, and ended up pinning the Demon Deacons deep in their own territory with less than a minute and no timeouts.

The return game was solid; Chris Tyree had two kick returns for 52 yards and a punt return for 11. And Wake didn’t do much in the way of returns, outside of one 28-yard run back by Demond Claiborne.

UVa’s third phase of the game, like the previous two, was not perfect but didn’t end up on the wrong side of a special teams snafu that proved terribly costly. Work to do, but through two games, there’s some signs of improvement.

Grade: B-

Coaching Staff: Coaches ultimately get judged by their record. And through two weeks, UVa is 2-0.

It’s easy to quibble over a decision here or there, but ultimately those individual decisions are easier to forgive when the entire body of work is a successful result. This was certainly a strange game in many ways and included a lot of interesting decisions by both staffs, but UVa fans will take the win.

Defensively, it felt like the staff had a good game plan for what Wake does and the unit’s success came down to the execution by both teams. Credit to Wake, especially quarterback Hank Bachmeier, who played a clean game and made a lot of correct decisions and big throws. But for the most part, UVa’s plan of attack defensively seemed sound.

Offensively, it felt like it took Des Kitchings a bit of time to get into a rhythm, but in fairness, there were also a few player mistakes that disrupted that rhythm. On the first drive, UVa had a decent first play followed by a false start that put them off schedule. Then there was a big drop on a would-be touchdown on the next drive. Still, it was choppy at times throughout the game and the first red zone trip not getting into the end zone was a disappointment. Still, once Colandrea got going, it felt like the play calling got into a better rhythm, and the ball moved well.

From a decision-making standpoint, it felt like UVa’s staff did a better job than their counterparts on the other sideline. Elliott decided to play it safe early with a short field goal, but given how the first three plays of that red-zone trip had gone, a touchdown was far from a given. Ultimately, those three points proved quite important in a one-point win. UVa has to do a better job closing out those drives, and after that field goal, they were able to get into the end zone on their long drives. Most of UVa’s 4th-down decisions were obvious and luckily they were executed well. Both “Grady Bunch” decisions ended up being the correct ones, bailing on it on a 4th down and later opting to run it on the 1-yard line. A lot of those decisions look good if the players execute and bad if they don’t. Meanwhile, Wake’s staff had a few odd 4th and long attempts that didn’t pay off and got cute with a trick play in the red zone after gashing UVa on the drive up to that point; that one ended up being the field goal that kept UVa within two scores late.

The biggest credit we can give to the staff (and again, the players have to go out and do it), is that the team just kept fighting. Despite several two-score deficits, a bunch of injuries, and having to do it all on the road, Virginia stayed in the fight and eventually made the plays.

UVa was down 7-0 in a flash and down 17-3 a little later. They finished the first half strong and kept the game competitive, and rallied again after Wake dominated the third quarter. Elliott talked in his game-week presser about how crucial the fourth quarter would be for this team, and that certainly showed up on Saturday. Last year the fight was there and despite losing some leads late, UVa would battle to the finish, often in a talent mismatch against a better opponent. On Saturday, they kept fighting AND made the plays they needed, so that’s progress.

The challenge for the coaching staff this week will be having the team come out with that same focus and energy against Maryland.

While the Wahoos fought in a lot of close games last year, they also had a few where they were mentally not in the game, almost from the start. We’ll see if the program can handle success and keep it up against another quality opponent on Saturday night.

Grade: A-