The Result: UVa won its first ACC game at home in more than two years, beating Duke 30-27 on Saturday afternoon at Scott Stadium. The Cavaliers never trailed and hung on to beat the Blue Devils for the sixth straight time in Charlottesville. UVa’s win improves its record to 3-8 and 2-5 in ACC play heading into the season finale against Virginia Tech.

The Turning Point: UVa took command of the game right after halftime, forcing Duke into a three-and-out and then answering with a touchdown pass to Malachi Fields to retake the lead. Then Caleb Hardy picked off a pass and UVa capitalized with another scoring drive, going up 24-10, a lead the Wahoos would never relinquish.

The Stat That Tells the Story: Despite a (very) lopsided penalty count, UVa was able to make up the difference by going +2 in turnovers and not giving any takeaways to the Blue Devils.

Wahoo of the Week: It’s freshman quarterback Anthony Colandrea, who had arguably the best game of his young career and certainly the cleanest. Colandrea threw for 278 yards and three touchdowns and went without an interception for the first time this season. He was also the team’s leading rusher with 66 yards on 9 carries.

Offense: UVa had a pretty consistent day and got to the 30-point mark for the third time this season. The offense finished with 448 yards with 278 through the air and 170 on the ground. As mentioned above, the Hoos did so without turning the ball over, their first turnover-free game since the opener against Tennessee. Virginia went 3-for-3 in the red zone, though the Cavaliers did have to settle for field goals on two of those drives. The offensive line allowed just one sack in the win, though Duke’s defense did record nine tackles for loss.

The passing game put together a solid performance against a good Duke defense and had some explosive plays along the way. Colandrea had eight passes of 15+ yards in the win, including two long touchdown plays of 29 and 34 yards. The freshman quarterback was in control of the game and did a good job steering the offense with a lead throughout the second half. The biggest area he needed to improve was taking care of the football so that his positive plays aren’t canceled out by interceptions or fumbles. And in this game, he took a major step forward in that regard, which is very encouraging for his long-term development.

Malik Washington has simply been consistently great throughout his lone season at UVa. He had one of his better games on Saturday too, catching eight passes for 112 yards and a pair of touchdowns, taking ownership of program records for receptions and receiving yards in a single season along the way. It’s hard to imagine where UVa would be offensively had Washington opted to transfer elsewhere. UVa fans have one more game to watch him in orange and blue and hopefully he can go out on a positive note in front of a home crowd following his ninth 100+ yard game.

Fields got back in the end zone Saturday too, and caught four passes for 74 yards and the score in the victory. He also had another possible touchdown catch in the fourth quarter but he wasn’t able to haul it in. UVa got Suderian Harrison involved in the passing game and the true freshman made a few plays down the stretch to help the Cavaliers seal the win. He finished the game with three catches for 42 yards.

Colandrea led the ground game, which was obviously without Perris Jones following his injury at Louisville. Kobe Pace and Mike Hollins split the load at running back and while the ground game wasn’t always efficient, the duo had a number of runs to extend drives and move the chains. UVa was also able to get Grady Brosterhaus in to take some successful QB sneaks on short-yardage plays.

Getting to 30 points against any opponent is a good effort for an offense and Duke’s defense is no slouch. You can see the development of Colandrea as he gets more experience and it was good to see him put together another good performance. There were some untimely penalties called (more on that later), but overall it was a job well done for Des Kitchings and the offense on Saturday.

Grade: B+

Defense: Duke’s offense moved the ball and scored points at the same rate as UVa’s offense and had quite a bit of success overall. But a lot of Duke’s productivity came once UVa had built a two-touchdown lead and the Blue Devils weren’t able to do enough to catch up.

UVa allowed 437 yards to the Blue Devils, 278 coming from the passing game. Duke went 5-for-14 on 3rd down, and UVa’s defense made a couple of critical stops on short-yardage plays to force stops and get the Cavalier offense back on the field. The Hoos also forced four three-and-outs on 12 Duke drives, including the big stop to start the second half and flip the game in UVa’s favor.

The big difference in the game was the turnover margin, with the Cavaliers coming up with a pair of takeaways. The first came on a promising drive for Duke in UVa territory, with Jonas Sanker forcing a fumble and Hardy coming up with the recovery. Hardy would have the interception later in the game too, and his emergence in the last few weeks has been another promising sign for the future. Hardy, Kam Robinson and Dre Walker could be the core group of the future UVa defense should they all stick together.

Duke went 4-for-4 in the red zone, but UVa did hold the Blue Devils to field goals on two of those drives. UVa did a good job avoiding big plays throughout the game, though Duke did have some chunk plays down the stretch, including a 58-yard touchdown with just over 10 minutes remaining.

Robinson once again led the Hoos in tackles with 11, including one TFL. When healthy, the freshman linebacker has been impactful. Sanker, James Jackson, Tayvonn Kyle and others had solid days and made some big tackles, and Michael Diatta came away with UVa’s lone sack in the ballgame.

The defense had a solid first half and the two turnovers proved pivotal enough to help the Cavaliers get a much-needed win. It wasn’t a perfect effort against a backup QB, but John Rudzinski’s group handled their piece of complimentary football for the most part. It would’ve been nice to see the defense find a stop late in the game and not have it come down to an onside kick, but a win is a win.

Grade: B-

Special Teams: Virginia’s special teams got the job done on Saturday afternoon. Will Bettridge was perfect on field goals, including a career long make of 46 yards. He has been very solid overall this season and made a couple of kicks down the stretch to solidify UVa’s position. There were no major issues in kickoff or punt coverage, and Daniel Sparks averaged just under 44 yards per punt. The biggest special teams win for UVa was recovering Duke’s onside kick at the end of the game, something that certainly couldn’t be taken for granted but was handled well. And on top of all of that, Duke missed a field goal of its own, so UVa actually ended up with a points advantage from special teams on the day.

The unit still needs quite a bit of work given what we’ve seen over the course of the season and that is something that can be tabled for the offseason. But Saturday’s effort was solid and helped the Hoos win.

Grade: A-

Coaching Staff: Kudos to the coaching staff for keeping the players focused this week in the midst of so many off-field concerns that the average college football program hasn’t had to deal with. Monday marked the one-year anniversary of last year’s shooting and while that was happening one of UVa’s key players and team leaders was still in the hospital in Louisville recovering from a significant spinal injury. UVa’s players still found a way to go out and out-execute a Duke team that has been very solid over the past two seasons and had handled UVa in Durham last year.

In his postgame presser, Tony Elliott took the blame for UVa’s penalty issues, saying that he told the players to go as hard as they could “through the whistle” knowing the type of effort they’d need to beat Duke. The Wahoos had eight penalties in the first half, many coming in the second quarter, and it disrupted their efforts to take control of the game. On the day, they had 12 penalties for 117 yards, which typically would prevent a team from winning a game. The defense had eight penalties for 96, and the ones you’d like to see cleaned up are the two roughing the passer calls, and Aaron Faumui’s post-whistle personal foul. It’s nice that Elliott took the blame for the penalties, but some of them seemed to be harsh officiating decisions and UVa certainly has had its fair share of tough luck calls in the last two weeks. Still, the Cavaliers can’t afford to have double-digit penalties in their rivalry game later this week.

The coaching staff did a nice job putting players in a position to get a solid win over a program with a winning record. Now, they’ll turn their attention to an even more important task and one that could really give the program some momentum with the fanbase and otherwise: beating Virginia Tech.

Grade: A-