Football is a game of inches.
It’s an adage that echoed throughout Virginia’s facility this week like thunder over the Blue Ridge Mountains. The phrase captioned an ACC Network social media post noting the Cavalier victory in Chapel Hill, N.C. Coach Tony Elliott invoked the sentiment repeatedly during his Tuesday press conference. It became a sort of mantra for Virginia this week.
The phrase occupies an interpretive grey area, riding somewhere between the embarrassment of defeat and the pride of victory — with the latter being the case as of late. On one hand, the Cavaliers left North Carolina with an overtime defeat of a conference rival. On the other, No. 15 Virginia struggled mightily against a program with zero Power Four wins in four opportunities, escaping with a victory by none other than a matter of, well, inches. Such is life for these Cavaliers over the past few games.
“In the first part of the season, we were able to take advantage of those inches, and those inches were easier to capture,” Elliott said. “As the season goes on, those inches are much more difficult to capture.”
Elliott and company understand that this weekend, the Cavaliers do not have many more inches to cede. Saturday, Virginia will visit conference newcomer California, a multi-hour flight away, for the first time in both programs’ histories.
But the staff has another focus — they are unfamiliar with their opponent. What’s more, the Golden Bears are a difficult team to evaluate. California is 5-3, with a true freshman quarterback garnering national attention. At the same time, those three losses were headlined by a 0-34 drubbing at the hands of non-Power Four San Diego State, and the Golden Bears’ two ACC victories came against programs posting a combined 0-8 in conference play. Virginia will not know which Golden Bears team it is going to get before it takes the field Saturday.
But regardless of which version of California shows up, Virginia needs to win the battle of inches. That starts with an offense that has been in a slump over the past month.
“[The] defense has been playing lights out,” offensive coordinator Des Kitchings said. “Special teams have been playing really good. We’ve just got to get back to scoring those points that we were the first half of the season.”
Those offensive struggles have come largely in the most recent three games. The Cavaliers’ last three contests have been their three lowest-scoring of the season, and their last four have been their lowest in offensive yardage. Through the Florida State game Sept. 26, Virginia had sent off no more than three punts in any given matchup. Against Louisville, Washington State and North Carolina, the Cavaliers punted a total of 19 times.
Why? It’s all about the inches.
“When the pad level gets an inch too high, [the effect is] magnified at this point in the season,” Elliott said. “For the backs — when your eyes are off by an inch, and it influences the decision to maybe bounce a ball when you should bang [on a run play], it results in a [tackle for loss], as opposed to a three- or four-yard gain.”
The run game marked a particularly dominant aspect for Virginia through those initial five games. Just once did the Cavaliers rush for fewer than 200 yards, and never did they record fewer than 160. Kitchings’ most recent three ground efforts, though, resulted in 88, 122 and 59 yards, respectively. The last of those three, at North Carolina, marked Virginia’s fewest rushing yards in just under a calendar year.
“It wasn’t very good,” Kitchings said. “It's not to our standard. And that's what we’ve got to get going, because the offense is really productive when we can run the football.”
The good news for the Cavaliers? That offense has not changed much since the early season.
“I think [the players] understand that the offense that was once being praised — that's now kind of being questioned a little bit — is the same offense that's sitting in this room.,” Elliott said. “It's the same guys. And as I tell them, it's not far from the penthouse to the outhouse.”
Though injuries have sidelined senior tight end Dakota Twitty and senior running back Xavier Brown long-term, the Virginia offense is otherwise unchanged since week one. Graduate quarterback Chandler Morris is nursing a shoulder problem but figures to play for the Cavaliers Saturday, according to Elliott and Kitchings. The offense will also welcome back graduate receiver Cam Ross back from a one-game injury absence.
Ross, a seventh-year speedster, has the potential to start Virginia on the right foot Saturday. Kitchings knows that — and could look to Ross to help kickstart the Cavalier offense.
“You look at Saturday [at North Carolina] — first play of the game, we have a sack,” Kitchings said. “You go back to Washington State — first play of the game, we dropped the flip. That play is probably going to get us six, seven, maybe eight yards, and then you're rolling.”
A team that does not start poorly does not have to play catch-up, either with long-yardage downs or a deficit on the scoreboard. And Ross, Virginia’s return specialist, can set up the Cavaliers better than anyone. As the Cavaliers travel 150 million inches to Berkeley, the re-entrace of a familiar face into the starting lineup may prove crucial.
Regardless of Ross’s impact, the success of the rushing game or myriad other factors, the Saturday contest will come down to the little things. After all, football is a game of inches. Against California, however, Virginia can only hope it is more than a few.
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