Take Two: Breaking down Virginia's win over the Spiders

The Result: Virginia opened up the Tony Elliott with a win on Saturday, doubling up the Richmond Spiders 34-17 at Scott Stadium. The Hoos shrugged off an early 7-0 deficit and took a 28-10 lead into halftime, seeing out the game in a relatively uneventful second half. The victory is the sixth-straight win in season openers for the Cavaliers.

The Turning Point: After falling behind 7-0, UVa turned the game in its favor on the ensuing drive, when Brenan Armstrong hit Lavel Davis for a 56-yard touchdown pass to get the game back square. That was the first of four straight TD drives for the Wahoos, all but putting the game out of reach by halftime.

The Stat That Tells the Story: UVa rushed 42 times for 259 yards with three rushing touchdowns on the afternoon. The Cavaliers also had two players go over 100 yards rushing and their first running back to go over 100 yards rushing in a game since Jordan Ellis did it in the 2018 Belk Bowl, 36 games ago.

Wahoo of the Week: It’s Perris Jones, the aforementioned back that crossed the 100-yard mark on Saturday. Jones finished the game with 104 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries, averaging 5.5 yards per rush. He also made his mark in the passing game, hauling in a pair of passes for 14 yards and a touchdown in the win.

Offense: Virginia got the job done on offense with some bumps along the way. There was a lot of talk during spring football and fall camp about trying to be a balanced offense. And on Saturday, the Cavaliers were incredibly balanced, rushing for 259 yards on 42 attempts and throwing for 246 on 33 attempts.

Frankly, the offense was likely a bit more run-heavy than it’s likely able to be against FBS opponents and, with a relatively comfortable lead by the second quarter, UVa didn’t need to put the ball in the air down the stretch.

UVa finished the game with 505 total yards and averaged 6.7 yards per play. The Hoos went 3-for-3 in the red zone, all touchdowns, and showed that they could run the ball in once they got near the goal line. Jones and Mike Hollins (eight carries for 24 yards) received most of the carries, with freshman Xavier Brown seeing some time late in the contest (four carries for 25 yards). Jones was the star, though, and looks like he has staying power as the team’s lead back.

Armstrong had another winning performance, accounting for 351 total yards and three scores. His 64-yard touchdown run in the second quarter felt like a play Richmond wouldn’t be able to come back from and he had a few other chunk plays on scrambles as well. Armstrong’s receivers were about as expected, and it was great to see Davis back in the end zone on another big play. Keytaon Thompson and Billy Kemp had nice games, combining for seven catches and 80 yards, and although he finished with a team-high six catches for 47 yards, Dontayvion Wicks had a bit of an up-and-down game with at least one drop and a fumble early in the third quarter. He’ll be back on track soon enough, we’re sure.

The offensive line was the team’s biggest question mark coming into the season given their lack of experience in games or playing together. You have to grade on a curve given the opponent, but the line held up fine on Saturday. UVa allowed one sack on the day, and Richmond had just three tackles for loss. The offensive line did account for four penalties, three of which belonged to John Paul Flores, who at one point was replaced by Noah Josey at guard. Flores did come back into the game later, however. Overall the line did a nice job, and we’ll learn more about how good they can be next week when they play a much more physical Illinois front.

In addition to plenty of success, the offense did have some struggles on Saturday too. The Cavaliers didn’t score on their opening drive after a decent start but then reeled off four touchdowns in a row. But from there, the offense was sort of stuck in neutral for the remainder of the game. With a three-score lead it didn’t ultimately matter much, but the Cavaliers were outscored 7-6 in the second half and their inability to wrap the game up earlier meant the starters had to play until the final drive of the game. And UVa had chances to put the game on ice early in the second half, but hurt itself with back-to-back turnovers, first the Wicks fumble and then an Armstrong interception.

Elliott said after the game that the offense needs to a better job finishing, and although the stakes never got too high despite some uneven play an effort like we saw from the Wahoos on offense after halftime isn’t going to get the job done going forward against 11 FBS foes.

Overall, it was a decent performance with plenty still to work on, as expected in the first game with a new staff and schemes.

Grade: B-

Defense: Like the offense, the defense had some highs and lows on Saturday but ultimately helped the team win comfortably, as expected. John Rudzinski’s group forced a three-and-out to start the game but on the next drive allowed the Spiders to march the field and open the scoring on an 11-play, 80-yard drive punctuated by a rushing touchdown where the running back went untouched right through the heart of the defense. Richmond had a few runs on the scoring drive that went right up the middle, with no Cavalier defender (particularly linebacker) in the area. Rudzinski and Co. seemed to adjust to whatever Richmond was doing to draw linebackers away, and they didn’t get gashed as much after giving up the touchdown.

After the scoring drive in the first quarter, the defense did a solid job. Both of Richmond’s other two scores came on short fields, and as Elliott said after the game, the offense put their counterparts in bad spots a couple of times and the defense was forced to deal with adversity. UVa turned the ball over on back-to-back drives and the D allowed just seven points off those Spider takeaways, which was enough to keep the Hoos in a comfortable enough position.

Virginia’s defense surrendered 330 yards on the day, 170 on the ground and 160 through the air. The Cavaliers kept the Spiders from making many plays down the field and made some short-yardage stops when they needed to, including a pair on 4th down. We didn’t see UVa make a lot of game-changing plays, though, with just three tackles for loss, a pair of sacks, and no turnovers forced. That may have been by design, however. Without having reviewed the Pro Football Focus numbers, it didn’t seem like UVa blitzed much and simply attempted to avoid big plays, get pressure with its front, and make the tackles it needed to. And for the most part, the Hoos did that without issue.

As far as individual standouts on defense, there were a few guys that started the season off on the right foot. Linebacker Nick Jackson was consistent as always, making a team-high 14 tackles in the win. Defensive backs Antonio Clary and Fentrell Cypress had eight each, and Cypress also added a game-high three pass break-ups. Josh Ahern had to sit out the first half but made an impact after the break, recording five tackles and one of UVa’s two sacks.

We’ll learn more about the defense in the weeks to come and they’re clearly still a work-in-progress. But ultimately UVa’s defense took care of business against a Richmond offense that might end up being one of the best at the FCS level.

Grade: B

Special Teams:Virginia had a relatively quiet game, which is usually a good thing, In the return game, Hollins returned three kicks for 74 yards total. Demick Starling, who was thought to be the most-likely kick returner, didn’t play on Saturday. Hopefully we’ll see what he can do in returns soon enough. Kemp did his job on punt return and didn’t really get any opportunities to break one. Punter Daniel Sparks looked good in his UVa debut, averaging 48.7 yards per punt on three tries, including one downed inside the five yard line. The one negative to report was Brendan Farrell’s missed PAT in the fourth quarter, but hopefully that was just a blip on the radar.

Grade: B

Coaching Staff: Whenever a new coaching staff comes in, it’s always interesting to see how the new group communicates and operates on the sideline and so on. On Saturday, we got a glimpse of how Elliott’s staff will do that and for the most part things went fine. After an empty drive on offense to start the game, the coaches and players made some adjustments and scored four times in a row. And following the Richmond scoring drive where the Hoos got gashed on the ground, especially right up the middle, the defensive staff figured out how to stop the run for the most part, and got back on track. Still, there were a few hiccups that could be learning experiences as well.

There were a few issues with substitutions in rapid succession and Elliott took the blame in his postgame presser, though it was clear he wasn’t happy with the delayed changes when they occurred. He talked a lot about making sure players got on and off the field when they were supposed to and being clean in that area in the days leading up to the game, so hopefully the staff can get that corrected going forward. And the decision not to push the pedal to the metal at the end of the first half seemed like a mistake after Richmond cut the deficit to 28-17 off of a turnover and then got the ball right back on another. UVa was up 28-10 with the ball and plenty of time to get another score and chose to take it into halftime. In reality, this wasn’t some sort of disastrous decision, and at the time, it didn’t exactly feel like Richmond was about to put together some big comeback. But still, UVa’s starters had to nearly finish the game, and that might not have been necessary if the Hoos went down and made it 35-10 going into the break. Still, I wouldn’t read this as a coach not knowing how to manage the clock, but more that he went maybe a bit too conservative in a game that was in UVa’s grasp, but not over.

Still, the coaches made adjustments and did what they had to do to get out of the game with a comfortable win and will still have things to clean up this week before the road trip to Illinois.

Grade: B