Not to take anything away from this win, but the 34-6 victory the Cavaliers produced over Richmond was expected.
But for those of us who remained for the second half (yes, all 10 of us), it was nice to know the team had the discipline to stick around too - especially the defense.
The Cavalier defense matched the offense's 300-yard, 27-point first half performance by sending the Spiders into halftime without a score.
Much of the same stifling defense remained intact for the second half. The only touchdown allowed came on a 3-yard run on fourth down by Richmond quarterback Sean Gustus with less than 12 minutes remaining in the game.
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"I think we did a really good job on defense," coach George Welsh said. "We responded all right from the loss last week. We concentrated and did a good job on the wishbone and shut them down pretty well for being a new offense."
Richmond was held to 55 yards and two first downs in the first half, despite holding the ball for a respectable 11:18. The defense showed its anger from last week's meltdown and responded with controlled execution of "assignment" football to combat Richmond's option attack.
"We were eager to get out there and perform because we felt like we let a lot of people down and ourselves down last week," senior defensive captain Byron Thweatt said. "We wanted each person to carry out their responsibilities today and it worked for us."
In the second half, Richmond made the offensive adjustments necessary to finally cross into Virginia territory, but not until under two minutes remained in the third quarter. By that point, the game was already firmly in Virginia's hand and reserves were playing, including true freshman Almondo Curry, who finished with four tackles.
The shaky tackling that plagued the Cavaliers last week seems to have disappeared, though the secondary was never truly challenged. D'Arcy Wills, Richmond's backup quarterback, completed one pass for seven yards and Gustus completed a pass for six yards. That's all. The Spiders' final passing total was 13 yards on nine attempts.
On the other hand, Richmond's wishbone offense did produce for 220 rushing yards, though all but 55 came in the second half.
After the game, senior linebacker Yubrenal Isabelle remained focused on the coming weeks by expressing some concern about producing a complete 60-minute effort.
"We still didn't play the way that we should have played, but a win is a win," Isabelle said. "We still have to put together a full 60 minutes. More than anything we want to continue to play fast and play hard for however many downs it takes to win"
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