Weekend Wrap: UVa's loss to Illinois was a wakeup call

In what was a regrettably frustrating performance on Saturday afternoon in Champaign, the Cavaliers fell to 1-1 on the year in a loss to Illinois. But it wasn’t the result itself—an early-season defeat on the road against a Power 5 team isn’t necessarily a harbinger of doom, after all—that leaves you feeling confused and nervous about what 2022 holds for this team.

No, it was the anemic offense and seeming inability to adjust and find a way forward that invites a significant amount of skepticism about what’s ahead.

In a classic two-things-can-be-true situation: This season isn’t over…but man was that disconcerting.

The schedule sets up well, we all thought before the opener against Richmond. And it did. If the constants about this team, if the bedrock baselines, held true.

Sadly, the 24-3 loss to the Illini makes one question basically all one of them. And invites a significant level of nerves about how this story unfolds.

Virginia’s defense was much better than the opener would’ve implied and the Hoos actually put itself in a position to win on that side of the ball. They turned the Illini over four times, including on the game’s second play from scrimmage. But the offense was abysmal: Only 180 yards through the air and a 1-for-16 mark on 3rd down.

“That was a rough day at the office right there,” Tony Elliott said as he shook his head to start his postgame presser. “But you live and you learn, you grow, [and] we’re going to find a way to get better from it.”

If there was anything Elliott and fans alike figured all parties could count on, it was No. 5. And this was by far one of the toughest games that Brennan Armstrong has had, especially since early in his first year as a starter. The O-line, fraught with inexperience, allowed five sacks and a slew of pressures. Armstrong looked uncomfortable from the jump.

“He didn’t trust his protection,” Elliott surmised. “He was moving in the pocket too much. He was throwing off his back foot. He had some wide open guys and just felt the pressure, never could get settled, to be able to go through his progressions.”

“Disappointed,” he added on the O-line. “You’ve got to win in the trenches and we did not do that.”

This was, on some level, an expected development. Or, better said, it was that group’s lack of development and experience that had many concerned since well before the season began. But with so many quality skill pieces and an offensive staff that would have months to prepare, the thought was things would be further along.

They are not.

“I think everything we [will] see on tape is fixable,” Elliott said, noting a few minutes later that much of what the O-line was doing was not far off but it was those small things that make larger problems: “If you’re a step too late? It’s bad,” he said. “If you’re a step too early? It’s bad.”

All of this is to say that UVa’s offense, for the first time in a long time, let its defense down. That’s a fact that Armstrong made plain too. Which is why it’s hard to see the progress that John Rudzinski’s bunch made from Week 1 to Week 2—against a physical, run-oriented attack no less—and be but so excited.

If the offense is going to struggle so consistently, how much can an improving defense matter?

This was not anywhere close to the calculus many of us had going into the season.

One might say, if the defense is going to improve while the offense gets its ship back on course….well, that sounds like a positive, right? Well, it is. but quarters with 9 yards and 6 yards, as UVa had in the first and third respectively, are hard to stomach. And even harder to process

“I thought in the second half, we couldn’t stay on the field to help our defense and they played too many doggone plays,” Elliott said. “Eventually, they’re going to give up a play or two.”

Which brings us to this coming Saturday afternoon against Old Dominion. It feels funny to call this a “big game” given the lack of conference impact and the fact that it’s September. But…yeah, this is a big game. The offense has to bounce back in a significant way. That much is clear.

All told, Elliott’s first season at the helm has already reached a nexus point.

“It’s a combination [of things],” he said of the issues UVa faces. “You can’t blame it on the young or the old. Offensively, it’s everybody.”

So too must the conclusion be as well.