I don’t do this often—if ever, now that I think about it—but I’m going to break the fourth wall here, so to speak. But I truly did start to write my final Weekend Wrap of the season and I sat for a long time, struggling to put anything on the page.
How does one encapsulate all that happened to UVa in its demoralizing, disappointing, and altogether deflating 33-15 loss at Virginia Tech on Saturday night?
The truth is that it is multilayered…and not in a good way. There’s so much to unpack that the lines blur between one concerning/bewildering portion and another.
Let’s start with this: Virginia Tech’s offense did pretty much anything it wanted. The Hokies put up 464 yards, 252 of which came on the ground to the tune of 5.6 yards per carry. The Wahoos failed to register a sack and Tech was 9-for-16 on 3rd down.
Big plays doomed the Cavaliers, as did shoddy tackling, an overall lack of depth, and a persistent inability to get stops or make game-changing plays when they presented themselves. A missed sack in the first quarter, a near INT later, and terrible tackling on a 60-yard TD by Tayvion Robinson were glowing mistakes amid a host of others.
It was, though, somewhat expected, right? Even with Noah Taylor and Jahmeer Carter back, there was plenty of reason to expect that UVa would probably struggle to get stops in what was almost certainly going to be a shootout.
Which brings us to the second layer: This was a woefully disappointing offensive showing by the Hoos. Having come in red hot, the offense looked nothing like the creative, aggressive, rhythmic group we’ve seen. The Cavaliers were predictable, tentative, and frustratingly bland. They put up an impressive, tone-setting drive on their first possession: 14 plays, 75 yards, 5:39 off the clock, and seven points to take the lead with 5:33 left in the opening quarter.
The rest of the night, UVa would go punt, field-goal miss, punt, punt, punt, TD, interception, punt, interception, and a turnover on downs.
So, yeah. Not great.
After his best two games of the season, Brennan Armstrong didn’t look anything like the confident and decisive dual-threat we’ve seen. It felt at times like UVa wanted to make him Bryce Perkins. He finished 25-for-46 passing for 259 yards with the aforementioned two TDs and two picks. But it was his 15 rushes for a net of 23 yards and the fact that UVa had just four carries combined for Shane Simpson and Wayne Taulapapa that really stands out.
Whatever the gameplan was coming in, this couldn’t have been all of it. Staff writer Justin Ferber may have said it best yesterday in his Take Two: “In a game that had all the makings of a shootout, Virginia didn’t bring its best gun and paid the price.”
And then there’s the emotion. With UVa now having formally announced its decision to not accept a bowl invite, the 2020 season is officially over. And if we’re honest, we all knew this was the case well before the Cavaliers loaded up the busses and headed down 64 and 81.
If that’s the case, how do we square what that would imply and what we saw? If anything, the energy should’ve been through the roof. But it certainly didn’t appear that way. It may have been early but once this thing turned it didn’t look like UVa was in the same place to be able to turn the page and really get back in it.
Which, of course, conversely makes one wonder about the pandemic and the protocols and the grind of it all. July was a long, long time ago. It’s understandable given the human side of this, to think that they simply didn’t have anything left in the tank. So, once the game started going sideways, the emotion went against them rather than with them. And that certainly could play into execution on both sides of the ball.
But, you might be thinking to yourself, this was Tech. It was for the Cup. It was not only UVa’s de facto bowl game but the Hoos had the potential to truly show some dominance over their in-state rival.
And it….just didn’t come close to happening.
I’ve always been an Occam’s Razor guy: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the right one. Here, that applies pretty cleanly: UVa’s defense was a little worse than we thought, never able to see the bump from its returning experience especially once the injuries mounted, and the offense wasn’t nearly as good as it seemed, as the production of the last two weeks was more situational than consistent.
Neither of those two realities sets up particularly well for next season. The Cavaliers could return a great deal of talent but with the expected boom in the transfer market approaching, the program will almost certainly lose a number of guys who could have come back and seen significant playing time. Then again, Virginia has recruited better—and is primed for a nice early NSD on Wednesday—with a number of guys looking to enroll early. I feel like the offense will be really good. But then again, I thought the same about this year's D.
All of the “future depth chart” conversations can wait for the long offseason ahead. With uncertainty surrounding spring football and where everything goes from here, it’s fair to be really confused about the way 2020 ended and yet somewhat optimistic about what’s coming.
And it’s worth noting too that we should be thankful we got a season at all. I recall thinking for weeks going into the opener (the original one) that it all felt precarious at best. Credit should be given to all those who made it happen. And it's a long list. It’s pretty remarkable and extremely worthy of praise.
But when you analyze what 2020 meant on the field, it’s impossible for it to not be a mixed bag that leaves a whole bunch of questions even if some of the potential answers are positive.
Trying to sort through all of that and make sense of it in order to form one nice, easy narrative is a tall task. The closest may just be this: It was a rough night and a rough ending to an unprecedented and unpredictable season that had a lot of lows and a bunch of highs. The Wahoos clearly have some work to do to take the next step forward.
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