After a strong win over William & Mary to start the season, Virginia looked to continue its winning ways last weekend against Indiana. However, the Cavaliers (2-1, 0-0 ACC) were overwhelmed, losing 34-17 for their first loss of the season. Virginia looked to bounce back from that loss as they got ready to take on Connecticut in its third game of the season at home.
The Cavaliers responded in a huge way, thoroughly dominating the Huskies (1-1, 0-0 AAC) at Scott Stadium en route to a 38-18 win. Coach Bronco Mendenhall said that Saturday’s game was the team’s best performance this season.
“I think the team played better today than it played last week, and I think last week the team played better than the week before,” Mendenhall said. “So we are still improving — there are areas to address, however, the momentum that it generates and the start to the season is always helpful.”
Virginia started off incredibly strong, on a scoring drive taking 9:46 off the clock — the longest drive in program history. The Cavaliers would put up 31 points before Connecticut could respond.
“I think it was demoralizing for them more than it was exciting for us, just because we’d had the ball for so long … and just [held] their offense off the field almost the entire first quarter,” senior quarterback Kurt Benkert said. “It’s tough to sit on the bench when you’re on offense, so I think that was more of the important part than anything.”
The offensive explosion resulted in Benkert putting forth a record-breaking performance, passing for a school-record 455 yards. This led to three Virginia players — senior wide receivers Doni Dowling and Andre Levrone and junior halfback Olamide Zaccheaus — having over 100 receiving yards in the same game for the first time in the program’s history.
After a tough game against Indiana last weekend, Benkert showed up in a big way against Connecticut and repeatedly showed his ability to not only run the offense with balance and efficiency, but also connect on big, explosive plays.
“I think our quarterback had a very strong day — not only in accuracy and completion percentage, but on the downfield throws which we had talked about from a week ago,” Mendenhall said.
Zaccheaus put together a fantastic performance, tallying up 225 all-purpose yards. Mendenhall said after the game and talked about how important it is to put Zaccheaus in a position to succeed in the offense.
“[Zaccheaus is] versatile, and he is becoming reliable and there’s a lot of different things he can do,” Mendenhall said.
The running game, which hadn’t been as effective through the first two games as Virginia would have liked, opened up Saturday as Virginia tallied up 171 yards on the ground.
“[The] offensive front played their most complete game in terms of protection and targeting that allowed a more successful ground game and probably the most complete game offensively, at least in our short time here at [the University],” Mendenhall said.
Virginia’s defense played superbly, not allowing Connecticut to score until the second half. It added an interception and a fumble to their stat line, both occurring in the red zone, halting any momentum the Huskies were trying to build.
“Our defense did a good job,” Benkert said. “They had some really big turnovers in the red zone — I mean, that’s huge. Getting one turnover in the red zone’s big enough, but having two — that’s cooking so we were excited for how they played too.”
Overall, Virginia put together arguably its best performance in the Mendenhall era, and the Cavaliers will have plenty of confidence heading into a short week as they prepare to face Boise State Friday night. The game is scheduled to air on ESPN2, and kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday night in Albertsons Stadium in Boise, Idaho.
“I think this game was huge, and 2-1 is a lot better than 1-2,” Benkert said. “It’s good for us to go into this game [against Boise State] with momentum,” Benkert said.
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