The Result: Virginia cruised through its rain-soaked opener, rolling past Richmond 34-13 on Saturday evening at Scott Stadium. The win helped the Hoos start the season 1-0 and marks the first time they have been over .500 since September 2022. The win is also UVa’s eighth-straight win over an FCS opponent and moves the Cavaliers to 7-1 in their last eight season openers.

The Turning Point: UVa jumped out to a 20-0 lead but led by 13 when the game was delayed because of weather late in the second quarter. That’s the same lead the Hoos had last year when rain halted their game against JMU, and the Dukes outscored them 14-0 once play resumed. In this game, the turning point was when UVa came out of the delay and marched right down the field on the ground to extend the lead to 27-7, and put the game all but out of reach.

The Stat That Tells the Story: Virginia’s passing game was far too much for Richmond to handle, as the Wahoos went for 297 yards through the air, averaging 17.5 yards per completion.

Wahoo of the Week: It’s Anthony Colandrea, who threw for the aforementioned 297 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 49 yards (78 when removing negative sack yards) and his first career rushing touchdown. Colandrea was both safe and efficient on Saturday, and looked good in the season debut.

Offense: This felt like a game where the Hoos could have easily broken 50 points if they were going all out, but it felt like Des Kitchings and the offense simply took what Richmond gave them and just tried to get through this game with a victory.

Still, the offense did what it wanted for the most part, at least through the first three quarters, before a lot of the starters were pulled. UVa rolled up 497 yards of offense with 297 through the air and 200 more on the ground, the first 200+ yard rushing performance for UVa since the UNC win last year, and only the fifth 200+ yard rushing day since this staff arrived two years ago.

Starting with the positives, the Cavaliers moved the ball quite easily when the game was relatively competitive and didn’t punt until the fourth quarter. Colandrea looked in command and showed that he can move the ball both through the air and on the ground. He never really put the ball in dangerous locations and his misses were small for the most part, and of his six incompletions three were drops.

Kobe Pace had a solid game on the ground, going for 93 yards on 11 carries, and also hauling in a pair of receptions for 51 yards. And his backups had good moments, too. Xavier Brown showed his straight-line speed and rushed for 44 yards on eight carries, while Jack Griese made the biggest play of the game, catching a 57-yard touchdown pass on third 3rd. In the passing game, Malachi Fields was as expected, and was far too physical for the Richmond defenders. He finished with 100 yards on five receptions on six targets. Transfer Trell Harris caught his first touchdown as a Cavalier, and UVa’s first TD of the season, from 35 yards out. The tight ends didn’t have a lot of production, but were certainly involved. And though it’s just one game, it seems like targets and catches will be more spread out this year. Last season, UVa went to Fields and Malik Washington most of the time; in this game, nine players had a catch. The offensive line was mostly good as well, and won the battle as they should against an FCS line, despite being without left tackle McKale Boley where backup Jack Witmer filled in admirably.

Despite the fact that UVa dominated the game, there were a few statistics that stand out in a negative way, and hopefully are just outliers. Virginia was pretty inefficient in two key areas, 3rd downs and the red zone. The Wahoos converted just three of 11 tries on 3rd down and scored touchdowns on just two of their five red zone trips. Colandrea missed Sackett Wood for a would-be touchdown in the first quarter, and took a bad sack on 1st and Goal, when he looked to have Tyler Neville open for another score. UVa settled for field goals on both drives. Chris Tyree’s drops were also something to note, as he had three of them including at least two where the play was designed to go to him. Tyree, who was one of four captains for Virginia on Saturday, had just three drops on 37 targets last year and seven in his Notre Dame career on 102 targets, so maybe we give him the benefit of the doubt on what could have been an off night. Virginia did have a turnover, too, but it was a Tony Muskett interception late in the game on 4th down, so not much to get upset about there.

Virginia certainly needs to be more efficient in the red zone and on third down, but there wasn’t a ton to complain about in this one. UVa’s 34 points don’t really tell the full story, as the Hoos spent a lot of the game rotating in depth options across the offense and didn’t really seem to open things up much. We’ll see where this offense stands next week when they take on their first ACC opponent.

Grade: B+

Defense: The starting D was in control of the Spiders throughout its time in the game. Richmond didn’t cross 100+ yards through the air or on the ground until very late in the game, and finished with just 257 yards of offense, and just 110 through the air. The defense set the tone early, forcing a three-and-out on the first drive of the game and then forcing a fumble on Richmond’s subsequent possession. The Spiders did put together a 13-play TD drive right before the rain delay, but didn’t do much otherwise. One of Richmond’s field goals in the second half came on an 11-yard drive after UVa went for it in its own territory and failed, and their second field goal came against the backup defense.

Richmond went just 3-for-15 on 3rd down and scored one touchdown on three red-zone trips. UVa forced a pair of fumbles and was able to recover one of them, with Corey Thomas punching the ball out and Kam Robinson recovering on the Spiders’ second drive of the ball game. UVa allowed just 4.3 yards per play and 3.9 yards per rush, and 54 of their rush yards came in the 4th quarter when UVa was rotating depth options in. Virginia’s defense didn’t have a single penalty in the game, either.

As far as individual standouts, Antonio Clary had a nice game after missing the last two years and tied with Jonas Sanker to lead the team with eight tackles. Sanker was probably the best player on the field, finishing with 1.5 TFL’s and four solo stops. Ben Smiley had a nice performance as well, despite not featuring on UVa’s initial depth chart; the senior D-lineman had four stops, three solo, including a half sack and 1.5 TFL’s. James Jackson didn’t have a huge statistical performance but flashed early, recording a TFL. He also wore the “green dot” on his helmet, getting the play calls in from the sideline and calling them out to the defense. Virginia’s cornerbacks had a quiet game, which is a good thing, because they didn’t allow much of anything to Richmond’s quality receiver group.

There are only two real negatives to talk about, and one is probably more of an outlier. Richmond was 3-for-3 on 4th down in the game, and two of those conversions came on the touchdown drive in the second quarter. It’s hard to get too worked up about this when Richmond struggled so much on 3rd down, but it’s something to keep an eye on. The bigger issue was the overall lack of pressure, particularly from the front four. Against an FCS offensive line, UVa recorded just one sack, and just one more hurry on a true passing play. This was a critical area of improvement needed this year after UVa was worst nationally in sacks a year ago, and through one game (despite a UR gameplan that was clearly predicated on trying to get the ball out fast), it’s hard to feel great that Virginia’s pressure is going to be better against more physical offensive lines in the ACC.

UVa’s defense was in control on Saturday, and while they have things to work on, the overall performance is what you’d want to see against an FCS foe, and the defense played a clean game.

Grade: A-

Special Teams: UVa’s special teams did the job on Saturday and that’s more than we could have said about a lot of last season’s games.

It was a relatively quiet night for special teams, with just two punts, but both of them were quality from Daniel Sparks, as we’ve grown accustomed. Sparks also handled the kickoff duties, which was a bit of a mystery coming in, but UVa’s punter did a solid job there. Richmond did have a pair of kick-return attempts but neither exceeded 22 yards. In the return game, UVa fair caught the ball most of the time, but Brown did have a pair of quality returns, one going for 37 yards. Clary fielded most of the punt returns, and made two return attempts, neither of which went very far.

The placekicking game was fine, with one exception. Will Bettridge made all four of his PATs, and hit field goals from 21 and 33 yards. But he did miss one very far wide left on the last play of the first half, from 36 yards out. This seemed like a bad hold or snap, and given the field conditions when the teams returned to the field, we’re inclined to chalk this one up as a one-off. Still, with a new long snapper and holder this year (Sparks), that part of the kicking process will be worth keeping an eye on.

There were no major complaints about special teams from this one, which is good to see. UVa’s units will be under more pressure against better opponents, however, and their performance will have a bigger overall impact on the results going forward.

Grade: B+

Coaching Staff: UVa won the game and that’s what’s important. It’s always interesting to see how things go in an opener, but for the most part, the team organization seemed on track. UVa had just three penalties in the win and of those, one was a holding penalty on a receiver (Fields) and the other two came from backup offensive linemen in the second half.

The staff had to deal with a couple of other hurdles in this one, as well. Saturday marked the first game with in-helmet communication, and there didn’t seem to be many major issues. There may have been a miscommunication on one 3rd-down play in the red zone that fell incomplete, but UVa didn’t have any procedural issues or have to waste timeouts unnecessarily.

The other hurdle was the two-plus hour weather delay. After coming out very flat against JMU last year after the pause, UVa seemingly learned from that error, got the team fed and made sure guys stayed focused. The team played quite well right after resuming, scoring a touchdown, driving down for another potential score before half (missed FG), and then scoring to open up the second half, virtually putting the game away. It’s an FCS opponent, but it was good to see growth in this area from last year.

The only in-game decision(s) to quibble with were the two 4th-down tries in UVa’s own territory, which seemed oddly aggressive for this sort of game. The first was converted, but came with UVa up late in the first half at its own 35 with 1:22 until halftime. The second one failed because of a fumbled snap, and gave Richmond the ball at the UVa 28 with 2:33 left in the third in a game that was basically over. That mistake led directly to three Richmond points. Perhaps it’s a good thing long term that the staff knows that the “Grady Bunch” play isn’t a sure thing, as trying and failing in similar field position in a close game could prove disastrous.

The staff also did a nice job rotating in a lot of players, getting through the game seemingly healthy heading into the conference opener. It seems they were intentional about mixing up lineups and limiting snap counts for key players, especially once the game was in hand.

There’s no reason to try and beat Richmond 51-13 instead of 34-13, so the strategy seemed like a good one, especially with a conference opponent next week, and not wanting to show all of the looks and schemes ahead of a critical game.

Grade: A-