Virginia, at least briefly, halted the downward trajectory of its season Saturday by beating down a wretched Duke squad 37-0, in a game that was about as tedious to watch as anything on C-SPAN.
You haven't seen a terrible football team play until you've attended a Duke game, and you haven't seen a pathetic football atmosphere until you've spent a Saturday afternoon at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham. While Duke's basketball program is among the most prestigious in the country, its football program is an absolute joke and stands as an embarrassment to the ACC.
Perhaps the ACC should consider penalizing the Duke men's basketball program until the school takes steps to make its football team at least bearable to watch.
Virginia students may not be among the best college football fans in the world but at least they actually show up at games in the thousands. The Duke student section certainly did not have more than a few hundred students in it at any point during Saturday's game and was entirely empty, save perhaps a dozen drunken souls, by the start of the third quarter.
To Cavalier fans upset with where the Virginia program currently stands, Saturday provided some healthy perspective. Things could be much, much worse.
In fact, if Virginia's early season struggles reappear in the coming weeks, the athletics department could adopt a new marketing mantra for Virginia football: At least we're not Duke.
On the football field itself Saturday, Virginia's defense put forth another solid performance as it posted its first shutout since a 16-0 home win over Maryland in 2004. Saturday's shutout was the first on the road for the Cavaliers since 1998.
The most firepower put forth by Duke was pre-game, when fireworks went off as the Blue Devils took the field. Honestly, this Duke team probably couldn't even score points against many high school teams.
(As an aside, despite its 5-0 record, Wake Forest cannot be that good if it allowed 13 points to Duke three weeks ago. We will see how well the Demon Deacons fare when they enter the meat of their conference schedule.)
Redshirt freshman defensive end Jeffrey Fitzgerald is an absolute beast. He has been the one consistent bright spot for Virginia this entire season. The Richmond native made both a fumble return for a touchdown and an interception Saturday. For the season, he has 25 total tackles, seven tackles for a loss and 2.5 sacks. He has helped take some of the load off fellow defensive end Chris Long as teams have had to begin developing ways to counter both players at once.
Other defensive leaders for the Cavaliers against Duke included Nate Lyles (two sacks, two tackles for a loss), Jon Copper (two sacks, two tackles for a loss), Nate Collins (one sack, 1.5 tackles for a loss), Alex Field (one sack, one tackle for a loss), Allen Billyk (one sack, one tackle for a loss), Marcus Hamilton (two interceptions), Byron Glaspy (one fumble recovery) and Clint Sintim (one sack, one tackle for a loss).
Virginia's offense had some nice moments, but was mostly set up for success by Virginia's defense. The longest scoring drive of the day for the Cavaliers was 46 yards during garbage time late in the fourth quarter. Virginia's other four offensive scoring drives averaged a mere 12.75 yards in length.
The touchdown pass by Byers to Mines was the second of Byers's career (he threw a 90-yarder to Deyon Williams at Miami last year).
The Cavaliers may need to keep using trick plays like that to score points as quarterback Jameel Sewell performed satisfactorily, but not great, against the Blue Devils. Because of how inferior Duke is, it is hard to judge how much Sewell improved from his first start at Georgia Tech.
The offensive line continued to struggle to open up holes for the running game as Virginia's running backs totaled 106 net rushing yards at an average 2.8 yards per carry.
Ten of 12 ACC teams have averaged more than 2.8 yards per carry over the course of the season. Virginia's season average is 2.4.
The rushing numbers would have been worse for Virginia had Jason Snelling not run for two consecutive runs of 24 and 27 yards, respectively, in the third quarter.
This year's Virginia team will take a win any way it can get it. But while Cavalier fans should enjoy this win, just remember the opponent. As my friend Catherine at Duke said to me, "Congrats for beating the worst team ever."
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