Fullback Rashawn Jackson (31) ran for a two-yard touchdown with 1:43 remaining in Saturday’s game at Maryland to give Virginia a 20-9 victory. The senior touched the ball on every Cavalier offensive play of the fourth quarter. Photo by Jim Daves.
When Virginia traveled to College Park Oct. 20 two years ago, the team was riding a six-game win streak that featured three 130-yard rushing performances by then-junior running back Cedric Peerman. Jameel Sewell threw seven touchdown passes to only three interceptions during that span.
Senior defensive end Chris Long built his résumé as a top draft pick, compiling sack after sack in almost every contest.
When Peerman went down, then-sophomore tailback Mikell Simpson was asked to step up against Maryland. And in one of the most incredible individual performances in recent Virginia football history, Simpson accumulated 271 total offensive yards and two touchdowns. On Virginia’s final drive with the Terrapins leading 17-12, Simpson touched the ball on 14 of the 15 total plays the Cavaliers ran. He amassed 90 yards on the drive and sealed his fate as an iconic figure in the Virginia-Maryland rivalry with a one-yard plunge into the end zone to take the lead for the Cavaliers and secure the team’s seventh straight victory.
But with the spotlight cast directly on Simpson, Rashawn Jackson was nowhere to be found.
“I didn’t even go on the trip because I hurt my hamstring the week before,” Jackson said earlier week, reminiscing about the Cardiac Cavaliers’ dramatic finish against the Terrapins. “Watching it on TV — it was really painful because those were my guys out there and I couldn’t be there, and it was pretty upsetting for me.”
Turn the page to 2009. As the team’s starting fullback, Jackson sees more offensive touches in his senior season, averaging just more than six per contest heading into Virginia’s homecoming game against Indiana. Still, he primarily serves as a blocker for Simpson, who helped give life to a previously winless Virginia team with a 145-yard, one touchdown performance in a 16-3 victory against North Carolina.
Simpson continues his spectacular play with four touchdowns and 149 total yards. With less than just seven minutes to play in the third quarter, however, the Cavaliers’ workhorse suffers an above-the-shoulders injury. Jackson, along with redshirt freshman Torrey Mack, carries the load the rest of the way to complete Virginia’s 47-7 blowout victory.
Once again, the Cavaliers travel to College Park — this time riding a more modest two-game win streak. And with Simpson wearing a headset on the sideline, Jackson is asked to do the heavy lifting on a day during which most people preferred to stay indoors. His recollection of Simpson’s 2007 performance is still well ingrained in his memory.
“I remember that touchdown — it was so, so — the energy in the stadium deflated for them, but our plans pretty much erupted,” Jackson said. “It was a pretty good play. Mikell hit the hole, had nowhere to go, jumps over the pile. I was a little bit scared of the way he was falling, but nonetheless we got the touchdown and won the game.”
The enthusiasm with which Jackson searched for words to describe the touchdown gave me the sense that the senior was well aware of the magnitude of a road game at College Park and mindful of the task that lay before him.
Through three quarters of play, Jackson carried the ball 10 times for an efficient 47 yards. But it was the fourth quarter that truly distinguished the senior.
“Rashawn was magnificent,” coach Al Groh said. “We made a decision some weeks ago that he was gonna be one of our key guys. When it came down there at the end, we had no plan other than to keep givin’ it to the guy who had proven that he was up to it tonight, and he did a terrific job for us.”
Indeed, Jackson totaled 44 rushing yards in the fourth quarter — nearly half of his production through the first three quarters — and did so even after Virginia’s other premier rushing threat, senior quarterback Jameel Sewell, suffered a right ankle injury late in the third quarter. In a sense, Jackson had to fill in for both Simpson and Sewell, as everyone along the Atlantic Seaboard knew backup senior quarterback Marc Verica wasn’t going to throw the ball — at least not successfully.
“We went to a more power-run-oriented game,” Groh said. “We got a power-runner back there.”
As Virginia clung to its four-point lead, Jackson was the only option. He was involved in every offensive play in the fourth quarter for the Cavaliers — rushing or receiving — and punched in the final score of the game from the Maryland 2-yard line for his first career rushing touchdown.
The fullback had a chance to break the 100-yard rushing mark with 3:07 remaining in the game, when he found a hole to the left and burst down the sideline for what would have been a 54-yard touchdown — but it was called back for a holding penalty.
“I honestly feel like that was just a great block,” Jackson said. The officials “maybe don’t see that too much around here.”
The 90 yards he gained still set a career high for Jackson, who — in the spirit of Simpson — played his best when the game was on the line. Knowing his teammate would most likely be sidelined for the contest, Jackson prepared accordingly.
“I prepared this week knowing that I had to be the next man up.”
It’s a mentality that permeates the entire football team, as Saturday’s game clearly demonstrated. When sophomore defensive end Matt Conrath — perhaps the anchor of the defensive line — went down with an injury to his right ankle at the end of the first half, sophomore Zane Parr stepped in to take Conrath’s place, playing on the opposite side of the line he usually does. Parr’s effort, coupled with the relentless play of Collins and senior linebacker Darren Childs, effectively made up for Conrath’s production.
But the main figure in this “next man up” mentality is Jackson. Two years ago, he saw Simpson tear apart the Terrapin defense. And while he didn’t gain 270 total yards, Jackson played the game of his life — I hope you TiVo’d it, Rashawn.