Despite all the miscues on a chaotic afternoon, Virginia had a chance to win the game with one minute to go. Its offense stood at the NC State 12-yard line with a timeout in hand and complete momentum as the clock wound down. A touchdown and a comeback victory felt almost inevitable.
Instead, graduate quarterback Chandler Morris made his only mistake of the game, throwing an interception to senior linebacker Cian Slone. With the ball back, the Wolfpack (2-0, 0-0 ACC) went into victory formation and locked up their win.
The Cavaliers (1-1, 0-0 ACC) were left with a bitter loss.
"I think all those guys in the locker room were hurting,” Coach Tony Elliott said. “They all came down here with the expectation of getting a win.”
Despite playing a non-conference game in week two of the season, Virginia knew its opponent well. In fact, the Cavaliers have played NC State 60 times before they came down to Raleigh, N.C. Saturday. The Wolfpack held a three game win streak in the series coming into the match, and extended their streak to four after a 21-point third quarter propelled them to a 35-31 victory.
The only way to describe this game is a true shootout. Both offenses started off hot and stayed dominant throughout the first half. Each of the first four drives of the game resulted in touchdowns, and seven of the ten drives in the first half ended in scores. While the offenses looked incredible, both defenses struggled to get any stops.
The driving forces for both offenses were the running backs. Graduate J’Mari Taylor had a career game, rushing for 150 yards and three touchdowns for Virginia. On the other side, sophomore Hollywood Smothers could not be tackled by the Cavalier defenders. Smothers tallied 140 rushing yards and constantly caused fits for Virginia.
"[Smothers] is good,” Elliott said. “If you watch him, he’s going to have some more big games. Prior to that big run, we were boxing him in a bit. But if you give him space, he’s going to make you pay.”
In the passing game, both quarterbacks were incredibly efficient. Sophomore quarterback CJ Bailey led the NC State offense fluently, consistently finding the open man downfield and making defenders miss on scrambles. For the Cavaliers, graduate quarterback Chandler Morris stunned with 30 completions on 43 attempts, gaining yardage play by play.
Where the tides of the game turned, though, was the second half.
After leading 24-14 going into the break, Virginia's offense started to sputter and its defense had a complete meltdown. Bailey led the Wolfpack to three consecutive touchdowns to open up the third quarter, turning a 10 point deficit into a four point lead by the start of the fourth quarter.
Yet, the Cavaliers would not go down without a fight. Virginia made its way into NC State territory on all three drives in the fourth quarter. The problem? The Cavaliers went on to score in none of those drives.
The first sign of offensive dysfunction came from a missed 47-yard field goal from senior kicker Will Bettridge. This would have cut the deficit to just one point, opening up more scoring options for later on. The second blunder came on a fourth down attempt. Instead of kicking a field goal in the red zone, Elliott elected to run a rugby-esque toss play to Taylor that failed and resulted in a turnover on downs.
“They made about three or four more plays than us in critical moments,” Elliott said. “That is where we have got to get better as coaches.”
Then came the final straw — Morris’ game-losing interception.
With this defeat comes much to learn for the Cavaliers. The defense has significant room for improvement, and will struggle against the best of the ACC without a bevy of fixes in run defense. The offense, while excellent, can not be expected to be perfect game after game. Even the coaching and play calling, which was pristine at times in this game, was spotty in the clutch moments and led to on-field miscues.
As Virginia looks to rebound against William & Mary next weekend, it will be imperative that it makes changes.
The Cavaliers will return home for their game next weekend, with kickoff slated for 12 pm. The game will be broadcast on ACC Network.
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