The Result: Maryland shut UVa out in the second half on Saturday night, rallying for a 27-13 win at Scott Stadium. The loss dropped the Hoos to 2-1 on the season and completed a home-and-home series shutout against the Terps over the past two seasons.

The Turning Point: Out of the locker room, the game flipped rather dramatically. Virginia started the third quarter with the football but promptly went three-and-out. Maryland marched 68 yards in eight plays to take a lead that it would ultimately never surrender.

The Stat That Tells the Story: There were several but losing the turnover battle 4-0 was a glaring issue in Saturday night’s loss. Virginia’s last four-turnover game was last year’s meeting with the Terrapins in College Park. Yesterday’s loss was also the first game where the Hoos didn’t force a turnover since last season’s home loss to Georgia Tech (six games).

Wahoo of the Week: We’re giving it to Antonio Clary, who continued his great start to the 2024 season, leading the Cavaliers in tackles with 14, while also recording a TFL and two PBU’. He now leads the team in tackles, and has averaged 11 per game.

Offense: It was a night to forget for UVa’s offense, particularly after halftime. UVa moved the ball relatively well in the first half, with 288 yards heading into the locker room, but left a bunch of points on the table. The second half performance was much more straightforward and unproductive, with just 82 yards of offense and no points.

The offense was bad in all the ways that always cost teams games. We mentioned the turnover margin, and frankly it seemed the Hoos were overcoming two early giveaways headed into halftime. The first turnover, an Anthony Colandrea fumble on 3rd and Goal at the Maryland 5-yard line, proved very costly and certainly took at least three points off the board. UVa turned it over on two of its first three drives and then had a pair of giveaways and a turnover on downs in the second half. UVa’s final turnover of the game, a Malachi Fields fumble, led to points for Maryland, setting up the game-icing touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. UVa’s offense now has back-to-back multi-turnover games and needs to find a way to be cleaner there going forward.

Virginia’s 3rd-down and red-zone offense continues to be a work-in-progress, to put it nicely. UVa went an abysmal 3-for-15 on 3rd down in the loss, with an average distance to go of 6.5 yards. The three conversions all came on 3rd and 4 or less, and the Hoos were 0-for-9 on anything 3rd and 5 or longer. It’s a bit bizarre that UVa’s passing game is having such a tough time converting these, especially with a mobile quarterback, but we now have a three-game sample size. The 22.5 percent conversion rate on 3rd down for the season is 131st nationally; only Jacksonville State and Kent State are worse. UVa left some points on the field in the red zone, too: The Wahoos had four red zone trips in the first half, and scored 13 points against a maximum of 28 points. They were forced to take a couple of chip-shot field goals, including one from the Maryland two-yard line, and Colandrea’s freak fumble also took potential points off the board. The one touchdown came on the final scrimmage play of the first half, with Colandrea barely getting into the end zone before time expired. Conversely, Maryland got to the red zone four times, and scored 20 points.

Colandrea had one of his worst games as a Cavalier, throwing for 247 yards with two picks, a fumble, and no touchdown passes. He seemed off throughout the game, making some bad decisions and missing a few throws here and there. The hope is that he can shake this one off and get back to quality play next week, but UVa’s offense will need to figure out what its counter moves are, as Maryland bracketed Fields down the stretch and it didn’t feel like the offense figured out another way forward. The receptions were relatively spread out on the night. Chris Tyree had a team-high five catches, and unfortunately had a long touchdown early in the game wiped out by a holding call (Fields). Trell Harris had 72 yards on four receptions including a tremendous downfield diving catch in the first quarter. Kameron Courtney played in place of the injured Suderian Harrison and made the first two catches of his Cavalier career.

Virginia’s ground game had a bit of a low-key decent performance, with 123 yards on 30 attempts. Kobe Pace rushed 11 times for 46 yards, while Xavier Brown continued to impress, going for 43 yards on seven totes. The problem the run game needs to solve is better production around the goal line, the lack of which has been a big cause of the red zone woes. The offensive line allowed just one sack and three TFLs for a total of 10 yards. There was more pressure on Colandrea in this game than there was in the previous two, however.

It was a long night for the offense, which showed its potential in fits and starts, but couldn’t sustain drives, take care of the football, and didn’t really show up after halftime. The group will have to turn the page and get ready to take on a 3-0 Coastal Carolina team on the road.

Grade: D-

Defense: Virginia didn’t play a perfect game by any means, but did enough to give the team a shot on Saturday night. UVa’s defense held the Terps to just 141 yards of offense in the first half, and gave up just one scoring drive, against a talented offense. After halftime the game got more lopsided in Maryland’s favor, but a good deal of the fault for that should fall on the offense for continuing to turn the ball over.

On the night, Maryland finished with 391 yards and scored three touchdowns with a pair of field goals (and missed another FG). The Terps threw for 263 and were pass heavy on the night, and averaged 9.4 yards per completion. Maryland went to the run more down the stretch, but UVa held the Terps to 128 yards rushing on 37 attempts (3.5 YPC). Maryland went 8-for-19 on 3rd down and perhaps a bit more damaging, went 2-for-2 on 4th down, which helped them ice the game late.

The biggest negatives from the defense’s performance was the lack of turnovers and lack of pressure on Billy Edwards Jr. The defense had a few near interceptions and just wasn’t able to complete the play, and really could have used one in a game where the offense struggled to gain momentum. UVa had just one sack for 10 yards (Jahmeer Carter) and four TFLs, including 1.5 from Chico Bennett. Still, the defense needs to be more disruptive up front, and use that pressure to generate takeaways in the back end of the defense.

We mentioned Clary’s performance, and James Jackson and Jonas Sanker also got to double-digit tackles with 12 and 11 respectively. Jam Jackson led the team in solo tackles with six, and Trey McDonald had seven tackles and a PBU playing in place of the absent Kam Robinson at linebacker.

It wasn’t a defensive performance for the ages, but UVa’s defense hung tough with the Terps on Saturday night, and simply couldn’t come up with a game-changing play to help out their struggling offense.

Grade: C

Special Teams: Not a lot to report here, really. And typically, that’s a good thing for UVa’s special teams.

Will Bettridge made both field goals, from 19 and 29 yards, and hit his lone PAT. All of the kickoffs stayed in bounds, which was great to see. Maryland had one kick return for 19 yards and two punt returns for a total of 15 yards. For Virginia, Tyree averaged 23 yards per return on kickoffs and fielded a bunch of punts without any issues. There were no penalties on special teams, either.

It was a quiet night, but a mistake free one too, for UVa’s special teams units.

Grade: A

Coaching Staff: This is a bit of a cop out, but it’s a bit difficult to judge the staff on Saturday’s game. There weren’t a lot of 50/50 decisions that changed the game; it was really determined mostly by execution on “regular” downs, and Maryland clearly made more plays and fewer mistakes, particularly after halftime.

There are two key issues from Saturday’s game that will need a closer look going forward, though.

The first we’ve already discussed, with regards to the 3rd down and red zone performance on offense. UVa has one more game before its first of two bye weeks, and that will be a great opportunity for the staff to self-scout and work against any tendencies or issues causing poor performance on big downs. Fields has been great early in the season and UVa did get targets to a bunch of different receivers on Saturday, but the Hoos need more from their complimentary receivers and tight ends to force defenses to either double Fields and give up something else, or play him in single coverage and lose the battle there sometimes.

The other issue is just the overall performance in the second half, and particularly the third quarter. Virginia was down three at the half last weekend, and got outscored 10-0 in the third quarter by Wake. In this game, UVa was up six at the break and was outscored 10-0 in both the third and fourth quarter, and barely moved the ball. It felt like Maryland won the halftime adjustments, and UVa didn’t really come up with a counter. Poor execution by the 11 guys on the field was part of the sluggish performance, too, in addition to any play calling challenges.

Saturday’s game was a big missed opportunity for a 3-0 start, especially given how the Terps looked in the first half. Coaches are judged mostly on their record so we’re not giving a quality grade here, but if the staff can figure out how to address their main issues offensively, and turn around their fortunes on Saturday at Coastal Carolina, they can be back on track at 3-1 heading into the bye week.

Grade: D