COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Mikell who?
His name is Mikell Simpson, and he's Virginia's hybrid tailback/wide receiver. And going in to Saturday's game, he had two rushes for -9 yards and four receptions for 31 yards.
Saturday, Simpson had the breakout game of his career, leading No. 21 Virginia to an 18-17 win over the Maryland Terrapins.
After settling with attempting two field goals earlier in the game, the Cavaliers got the ball with 7:42 left in the game, and everyone knew Virginia couldn't cut this drive short. For the Cavaliers, it was touchdown, or a long, sad drive back to Charlottesville.
With 49 seconds left in the game, Virginia sat at fourth and four on Maryland's 14 yardline. Simpson had made the last three carries, and Virginia coach Al Groh had to decide whether to go back to his star player. Virginia called a time out to set up the play and then took the field in shotgun formation. Having seen the formation, Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen called a time out, stopping the game for 30 more seconds, holding the sell-out crowd in suspense. Sewell threw the ball to Simpson in the left flat, who dove at the sideline toward the first down. After the place, referee Tom McCreesh pulled the chain and the ball was an inch long enough to be a first down.
Then the play went under review.
"I didn't know if I had it," Simpson said. "If it was by an inch, or no matter what, I was just hoping that we got the first down."
McCreesh returned to the field and upheld the call as Friedgen shook his head with chagrin.
After completing another pass to Simpson, Virginia stood at the one yard line and called another time out with 28 seconds remaining. The handoff went to Simpson again, who dove over the pile to the endzone and the Virginia crowd went wild.
At the same time, Maryland fans cheered, having seen a fumble by Simpson on the goal line. Again, the play was called under review. After carrying the ball and the whole team, had Simpson's hand slipped and the ball dropped before crossing the plane of the endzone, it would have all been for naught.
McCreesh came back again and confirmed another call for the Cavaliers, giving Virginia the one-point lead.
"The [defender] just dove at my knees, so I just jumped up in the air and reached the ball over, and it crossed the line," Simpson said. " I knew I scored, because I looked down to see the yellow line and I saw the ball cross it and they hit it out, so I wasn't too worried about that play."
Simpson accounted for 92 yards on the final drive and touched the ball 14 of the 15 plays.
But Virginia wouldn't have escaped with the one-point lead if it hadn't been for an all-around effort by the Cavaliers. Somehow, senior Chris Long finds a way to change every game.
With two seconds left in the third quarter, senior Chris Gould punted from just inside Terp territory. Maryland started with the ball at its own 8 yard line. Freshman Chris Turner went back in to his own endzone with a spread offense. Long, lined up in the middle of the defensive line, cut through Maryland's blockers and hit Turner head on, bringing him down for a safety and two points.
"I knew exactly what was going to happen," Long said. "When we've got them trapped down there, we just want to be suffocating on defense."
Virginia has tallied only 5 points in the third quarter all season, and now Long as accounted for two of them.
"Clearly, there is no better player in college football than Chris Long," Groh said. "That's trying to be objective to every other player."
Last week, it was senior Chris Gorham, this week, Mikell Simpson. As the Cavaliers sneak out victories one after another, a new, unknown player emerges as the hero. Senior tight end Tom Santi was injured in the first play of the game, and now Virginia has had to play without its top tailback, wide receiver, tight end and fullback at one time or another during the season.
"We've been able to take punches like that all year," Long said. "When Santi went down, it went through my head, 'we've been through this before."
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