The Result: Virginia cruised past Coastal Carolina on the road Saturday afternoon, winning 43-24 on the teal turf. The win moves the Hoos to 3-1 to start the season, their best start since opening the 2019 campaign 4-0. UVa also crossed the 40-point plateau for the first time in the Tony Elliott era, and has now won two road games in September, the first time the program has accomplished that since 2000.

The Turning Point: We’ve probably never done this before, but we’re going with the first play of the game, which was a tone setter for the afternoon. Daniel Sparks kicked off, and Coastal fielded it off the turf. But safety Landon Danley brought the boom, and it spelled doom for the Chanticleers. Danley’s forced fumble was recovered by UVa’s Eli Wood, setting the Hoos up at the Coastal 13, basically stealing a possession. Three plays later, Anthony Colandrea hit Malachi Fields for a 7-yard TD pass and the Hoos never trailed from there.

The Stat That Tells the Story: Virginia’s ground game dominated, out-rushing the Chanticleers 384-82 in the victory. Saturday marked UVa’s first 300+ yard day on the ground since the 2018 season opener against Richmond (301 yards). The margin is even more impressive when considering Coastal Carolina was rushing for well over 200 yards per game coming into the contest.

Wahoo of the Week: It has to be Xavier Brown, who had a career day and then some, rushing for 171 yards on just nine carries. The big day included a 75-yard run, UVa’s longest scrimmage play of the season. Brown also caught a pass for 4 yards. Although he didn’t get into the end zone, Brown delivered for the Wahoos on Saturday.

Offense: Virginia controlled the game on Saturday and did it without really having to stress too much. We mentioned the Hoos having immediately jumped out to a lead, and that helped set the tone for the afternoon. UVa would roll up 43 points total, scoring five touchdowns and kicking three field goals. The offense recorded 525 yards of offense and still had time to get the backups two drives at the end of the game.

The run game was the story of the afternoon and, after taking a few deep shots on the first few drives, UVa settled in and dominated the line of scrimmage, continually handing it off for most of the game.

Seven different rushers racked up those 384 yards, at 6.6 yards per carry. Brown’s big day was the highlight, but Kobe Pace was very solid, too, rushing for 57 yards and a score. Colandrea, Jack Griese, Noah Vaughn, Tony Muskett and Donte Hawthorne all rushed for 10+ yards, too. Colandrea’s scrambles paid off throughout the contest, and he finished with 46 yards on nine attempts, including a 25-yard scamper. We mention all of that and still haven’t gotten to the fact that Grady Brosterhaus scored two goal-line touchdowns on Saturday, one from the ‘tush push,’ and the other from a new QB power look out of shotgun.

Virginia’s red zone and 3rd-down efficiency has plagued the Wahoos throughout the season, but on Saturday, they were much better. They got to the red zone six times technically, though the last was a kneel down scenario at the end of the game. On the five “real” red zone trips, they scored five times. More impressive was that they scored four touchdowns on those five attempts, and only had to settle for three one time. Three of UVa’s touchdowns came from “low red” scenarios too, close to the goal line, an area where the Hoos couldn’t cash in against Maryland. Third downs were better, too: UVa went 9-for-18 there and also converted two of three 4th-down tries.

There isn’t a lot to add about the passing game, as they weren’t really asked to do a whole lot. Colandrae was fine, throwing for 131 yards and two touchdowns on just 20 attempts. The best news is that he played a turnover free game and simply took what the defense gave him. And what the defense gave him was a pair of TD passes to Fields, the one early in the game and a 37-yard ball in the fourth to kill off the game.

It was a good afternoon for UVa to miss having Trell Harris, as UVa didn’t have to throw it much; no receiver had more than four catches, and only Fields, Chris Tyree (three) and Tyler Neville (two) had more than one catch.

Virginia’s offense took care of an overwhelmed Coastal defense, and got back on track after a disappointing outing against Maryland.

Grade: A

Defense: Statistically, it looks like the defense had a bit of a tough day against Coastal’s offense, but in reality, the Hoos were good for most of the game. The Chanticleers finished the day with 384 total yards, with 302 coming through the air. Going into the game, Coastal Carolina had a run-first offense, and it was a relatively obvious plan to try and shut that down and make the Chants throw to win. UVa did that and Coastal didn’t come particularly close to winning.

On the ground, CCU ran 24 times for just 82 yards and one score. The leading ball carrier was QB Ethan Vasko, who had just 24 yards rushing. When the Chanticleers tried to run on early downs, UVa didn’t give them much, forcing them into longer third down attempts. As a result, UVa held the Chanticleers to just four 3rd-down conversions on 13 tries, and CCU also went just 1-for-4 on fourth downs.

Coastal threw for 302, but 80 of those yards and one touchdown came late in the game after Coastal had switched QBs and UVa had rotated in a bunch of backups on defense. The game was over at that point, so getting worked up about that late touchdown seems a little silly.

Still, the pass defense didn’t play its best game, particularly when it came to allowing chunk plays. The Chanticleers had just two runs of 10+ yards but had seven 15+ yard pass plays, including two of their three touchdowns, coming on passes of 15 and 29 yards. Coastal also had plays of 20, 31, 41, 58 and 65 yards in the passing game.

These big plays allowed were a mix of deep throws for big yardage and short throws that turned into big gains through bad angles/tackling. It didn’t end up costing the Hoos the game or even close to that and perhaps part of the problem was the defense’s preoccupation with the run, but Maryland and Wake also found success through the air, so there’s work to do on coverage during the bye week.

Virginia didn’t create a lot of pressure, with just one sack on the day, and four total TFLs. They did end up +1 in turnovers, though, with Antonio Clary recording UVa’s first interception of the season as he picked off a tipped pass in the first quarter.

It wasn’t a perfect defensive performance by any stretch but UVa made Coastal’s offense look nothing like what the Chanticleers did in their first three games, and the bonafide starting defense only allowed 17 points. Plenty to work on, but plenty to applaud as well for John Rudzinski’s group.

Grade: B

Special Teams: How about Virginia’s special teams, not getting bad grades so far this season?! That’s a welcome change after issues piled up over the last two years and clearly cost the Hoos some games.

In this one, the special teams takeaway on the first play of the game was a big boost of momentum for Virginia, playing on the road. Sparks’ kickoffs have been an adventure and the weakest part of special teams operation on the season, as he did kick one out of bounds after UVa’s first score. But after that, Sparks was solid, kicking for touchbacks. He only had to punt three times, and one of those was in garbage time. He averaged 46.7 yards per punt, and had a 60-yarder.

Will Bettridge deserves some praise as well, going 3-for-3 on Saturday, with makes of 22, 45 and 47 yards, the last of which tied a career high. Bettridge has been very solid this season, missing just once, against Richmond on a rain-soaked field.

The return game didn’t accomplish much; Tyree had one kick return for 16 yards on a shorter kick. UVa didn’t have any punt returns on three attempts, all fair caught. Coastal’s return game didn’t do much either, with 27 total yards on two run backs, including the fumble.

It’s good when the special teams write up is shorter than offense and defense, and though it’s just four games UVa’s special teams groups have now played two P4 opponents, dealt with rain at home and played twice on the road, including this game on weird turf, and have had very few issues. There’s reason to believe these groups will be cleaner this year than they were last season.

Grade: A

Coaching Staff: UVa had to play a game after a loss for the first time this year, and it seems the Cavaliers responded well. They shook off a lot of the issues they had against Maryland, playing a turnover free game, capitalizing on a few takeaways of their own, scoring touchdowns in the red zone, and controlling the game. It seems that UVa had a pretty solid game plan against a Coastal team that probably isn’t as good as its record and it felt like the staff knew the Hoos could exploit the Chanticleers in the trenches. The coaches have tried to make it a point to run the ball since they arrived in Charlottesville and Saturday’s win was easily their best ground game to date.

There weren’t many controversial decisions made in this one and not much to nit pick. The two-point conversion attempts late (one that succeeded but was called back for a penalty and another that failed) were surely a byproduct of UVa trying to go up 28 instead of 27, and worst case scenario, UVa got some more low-red work out of those tries.

The biggest issue UVa had on Saturday were the penalties. The Hoos had been one of the nation’s least-penalized teams coming into the game, but had seven flags for 75 yards. Some 45 of those 75 came from two players, Jam Jackson and Brian Stevens. Still, it’s hard to say the Hoos haven’t been disciplined this year, and hopefully the increase in flags was just a one-off.

Virginia went on the road for the second time this year and flew home with another win. The staff and the program are in a decent position at 3-1 heading into the bye week. There’s lots to work on in all three phases, but there are signs of growth, too.

Grade: A-