By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
ATLANTA — There were flights to Champaign, Ill., and Syracuse, N.Y., and a bus ride to Durham, N.C., road trips which included games that tested the University of Virginia football team.
The Cavaliers failed those exams, but their visit to Georgia’s capital city produced a better result Thursday night. Behind an unyielding defense that recorded eight sacks, a total surpassed only once in program history, UVA held off Georgia Tech 16-9 before an ESPN audience and a crowd of 29,362 at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
The victory was the Wahoos’ first over the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta since 2008 and their first ACC win under first-year head coach Tony Elliott. It was past 2:30 a.m. by the time the Hoos landed in Charlottesville on Friday, but they won’t have to travel again for more than a month, and that’s no small thing for a team that’s been on the road for three of its past four games.
Virginia (3-4 overall, 1-3 ACC) has five regular-season games remaining, and the next four are at Scott Stadium.
“We know at all costs we want to protect Scott,” senior linebacker Nick Jackson said. “We have a bad taste in our mouth from last time we stepped out on Scott”—a 34-17 loss to Louisville on Oct. 8—”so we know we have a great opportunity to keep pushing. Four games at Scott gives us a great advantage, but we want to look at it as one game at a time, so 1-0 each week.”
In the locker room late Thursday night, record-setting quarterback Brennan Armstrong presented the game ball to Elliott. The Hoos were far from perfect against Georgia Tech (3-4, 2-2), but this was a game they desperately needed to win, and they found a way to do so, however flawed their overall performance.
“In the past, in the short past that I’ve been here, we’ve found ways to give that game away,” Elliott said. “But at least we came out with the win, so it’s an opportunity to build going into this home stretch that we have in Scott Stadium.”
Armstrong said: “Hopefully it catapults us into the rest of the season.”
A textbook example of complementary football, this was not. Special teams mistakes plagued the Hoos on Thursday night. Will Bettridge missed two field-goal attempts and an extra point, and Tech blocked one of Daniel Sparks’ punts. Moreover, Lavel Davis Jr., a 6-foot-7 wide receiver, committed a costly penalty on a fourth-quarter punt by the Jackets, who were backed up near their goal line.
The offense fared better, totaling 411 yards, but struggled to turn those yards into points. The Cavaliers had three turnovers, one of which was a first-quarter interception that Tech returned for a touchdown, and Davis, open in the end zone, dropped a pass from Armstrong with the score 13-9 in the third quarter.
“This game could have been solid in the end of the third quarter, and it wasn’t,” Armstrong said, “because of our offense not putting the ball in and putting points on the board.”
Fortunately for the Cavaliers, their defense dominated throughout. Virginia came up with two takeaways, made 10 tackles for loss, and held the Jackets to 202 yards.
“Our defense played their tails off,” Armstrong said. “They kept us in the game.”
Elliott said: “We talk a lot about playing complementary football, but at times as a team, there’s going to be certain occasions where [one unit has] got to compensate [for the other two].”
The defense, which is in its first season under coordinator John Rudzinski, did that and more Thursday night. Jackson, playing in his hometown, led the Hoos with eight tackles, including two sacks, and recovered a fumble. Not bad for a guy playing on an injured knee.
“He’s the epitome of what you want in a student-athlete,” Elliott said of Jackson. “He’s serious about his business in everything that he does. He’s all about the team. There’s not a selfish bone in his body, and there was no way he wasn’t gonna play in this game.”
Jackson’s second sack, with less than two minutes remaining, pushed the Jackets back nine yards to their 48, and they turned the ball over on downs on the next play.
It was a homecoming of sorts for Chico Bennett Jr., too. Bennett, who began his college career at Georgia Tech, plays the Bandit, a hybrid position that’s part defensive end and part linebacker. He made seven stops Thursday night, two of which were sacks. Bennett went down late in the second quarter after colliding with safety Jonas Sanker, but he soon returned to the game and resumed punishing his former team.
“I’m happy for him, happy for him to be back,” Elliott said, “and told him before the game, “I know you’re excited, but stay locked in it and just go play a heck of a game. Don’t get caught up in all the all the hoopla, just go play a game.’ It was a little scary there when he went down … but he popped right up and he was kind of fighting the trainers to get off the ground. That’s how much he wanted to be successful and play in this game and finish it.”
Defensive end Paul Akere, a graduate transfer from Columbia, also had two sacks for Virginia. In the secondary, Sanker and cornerbacks Anthony Johnson and Fentrell Cypress II each had two pass break-ups, and safety Coen King made a diving interception of a pass deflected by Cypress in the end zone, thwarting Georgia Tech’s second possession.
It seemed only fitting that the game ended with one last stop by UVA’s defense, which forced quarterback Zach Gibson out of bounds at the Jackets’ 37-yard line as time expired.
“Just really, really proud of how inspired those guys played throughout the course of the game,” Elliott said of his defense. “I wish offensively we would find a way to get out of our own way at times and just go finish drives as opposed to allowing penalties or drops to stop drives.”
The offense’s performance evoked memories of UVA’s 16-14 win over Old Dominion on Sept. 17. In that game, Virginia piled up 513 yards but needed a last-second field goal by Brendan Farrell to prevail.
Against Georgia Tech, the Cavaliers had numerous big plays in the passing game, and Armstrong rushed 13 times for 91 yards and one TD. But penalties, dropped passes and turnovers continued to hinder Virginia’s offense. The Hoos were 2 for 14 on third down and 1 for 3 on fourth down.
Breakdowns happen, Armstrong said, “but those are things we’ve got to clean up. We’ve got to put the ball in the end zone. We’ve got to make our field goals, and that’s bottom line. I’ve got to play better, the offense has got to play better, but we need points there, and that’s just how it is.”