CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Rivalry games are often fiercely contested affairs that aren’t decided until the fourth quarter. Nothing of that sort unfolded Saturday afternoon before 44,550 at Scott Stadium.
The 129th football game between ACC foes Virginia and North Carolina was a blowout. The Tar Heels led 24-6 at halftime and cruised to a 41-14 victory. UNC recorded 10 sacks, came up with two takeaways, and held Virginia to 288 yards, much of which came with the outcome settled in the fourth quarter.
The loss was the third straight for the Cavaliers, who fell to 4-4 overall and 2-3 in ACC play. UNC, which came in allowing an average of 30.4 points per game, improved to 4-4, 1-3.
“First of all, I owe an apology to the administration, to the players in the locker room, the staff,” UVA head coach Tony Elliott said. “I did not do a good job of having them prepared to play. So what you saw out there today, that’s on me. And I’ve got two weeks to really figure it out, to have us ready to play our best football down the stretch.”
Virginia entered Saturday’s game looking to build some momentum for a brutal closing stretch. Of the five teams left on UVA’s regular-season schedule, UNC appeared to be the most vulnerable, but the Heels dominated offensively and defensively on a picturesque fall afternoon.
The mood in the home locker room afterward was somber.
“Naturally guys are down in a situation like this,” Virginia tight end Tyler Neville said, “but we know what we’re capable of. We know our potential. So guys are down and it’s one of those deals where you’re down for a day and then you flush it. Harping on this loss, however bad it was, isn’t going to help us in two weeks.”
Elliott’s postgame message to his team? “We’ve got to take ownership of it,” he said. “At the end of the day, there’s nowhere to hide. It’s a life lesson, too. So whatever you’re running from in life, eventually it’s going to track you down, and you’re not going to be able to hide. And today, we missed an opportunity to grow and develop as a program, so we can’t hide from it. We’ve got to own it.”
The Wahoos learned Friday afternoon that starting center Brian Stevens would miss the game because of an illness. Already out was starting right guard Ty Furnish. In the revamped offensive line, Noah Josey moved from left guard to center, Charlie Patterson played extensively at left guard, and Ugonna Nnanna took Furnish’s spot at right guard.
On the defensive side, two of the Cavaliers’ most experienced and productive players—safety Anthony Clary and linebacker James Jackson—missed the game with injuries.
“There’s no excuses,” Elliott said. “It doesn’t matter who’s in there. The expectation is the expectation. And the other way you look at it is, guys got an opportunity, and they gotta to be ready. But that starts with me. So I have to make sure that I have them prepared and ready to go to be able to compete and execute at a high level.”
The game could not have started much better for the Hoos. They forced Carolina into a three-and-out and then, thanks to a 24-yard punt return by Ethan Davies, started their first drive across midfield. A 17-yard completion from quarterback Anthony Colandrea to tailback Xavier Brown set up first-and-goal from the UNC 1, but then the Cavaliers self-destructed.
Josey’s shotgun snap sailed past Colandrea, who fell on the ball at the 12. Two incompletions followed, and Virginia had to settle for Will Bettridge’s 30-yard field goal.
“You obviously want to get seven every time,” Neville said, “but the fact that we marched down there, we were playing with all the confidence in the world … And after going down there, we felt like we could go do it again and again and again.”
That didn’t happen. Bettridge’s second field goal, a 27-yarder, cut UVA’s deficit to 10-6 with 4:02 left in the first half, but the Heels scored two touchdowns in the final 92 seconds of the second quarter to blow the game open.
Elliott said he challenged his team at halftime, “trying to flip the mindset, trying to get the guys to snap out of wherever they were mentally. But obviously, I didn’t say the right things. So I gotta evaluate myself to make sure that, one, I have them prepared better mentally and then I can figure out which buttons to push when they’re having a tough time to get them back to where they need to be.”
Colandrea, under relentless pressure from a UNC defense that hadn’t recorded a sack in either of its previous two games, threw two interceptions in the second half. On the second one, defensive Jahvaree Ritzie deflected Colandrea’s pass, came down the ball and returned the interception 84 yards for a TD.
UNC’s offense had similar success against Virginia, which had no sacks and missed multiple tackles Saturday. Omarion Hampton, who came in as the ACC’s leading rusher, carried 26 times for 105 yards and two TDs, and wide receiver J.J. Jones caught five passes for 129 yards and two TDs.
“Every game is going to come down to the trenches,” Elliott said. “I’ve been very fortunate to be around some great skill guys, but at the end of the day, the game of football starts up front. And so you’ve got to be able to run the ball, you’ve got to establish the run, you’ve got to be able to protect the quarterback, and then you’ve got to be able to stop the run and then get after their quarterback. So we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
For Virginia, Colandrea completed 16 of 28 passes for 156 yards. With 10:42 to play and the score 38-6, he gave way to Tony Muskett, who capped his first drive with a 68-yard touchdown pass to wideout JR Wilson. Muskett, who started six games last season, finished 8-of-13 passing for 125 yards Saturday.
“Tony Muskett is the ultimate pro,” Neville said.
Now comes a daunting November for the Cavaliers, who’ll play three of their final four regular-season games on the road. Of UVA’s four remaining opponents, three are ranked in the latest Associated Press poll: No. 12 Notre Dame, No. 19 Pitt and No. 22 SMU. The Hoos’ regular-season finale, against unranked Virginia Tech (5-3, 3-1), is in Blacksburg, where they haven’t won since 1998.
“We have to go back to the drawing board, look ourselves in the mirror, figure out what we can do better,” UVA defensive tackle Anthony Britton said.
“We’ve got a lot of football left,” Elliott said. “We’re scrapping, we’re fighting and then also too the message to these guys is, I’ve seen it. That’s probably the most frustrating thing: I’ve seen these guys perform and play at a high level, so I know they’re capable of it but it all comes down to decisions, daily decisions, and today we just we didn’t have our minds in the right place, and again I take ownership, because that’s my fault. My job as a head coach is to make sure that collectively everybody’s on the same page, pulling in the same direction with the same mindset. And I failed at my job today.”
UP NEXT: The Cavaliers’ second bye weekend is coming up. They don’t play again until Saturday, Nov. 9, when they take on No. 19 Pitt (7-0 overall, 3-0) at Acrisure Stadium. The starting time for that game is likely to be announced Monday.
Pitt, which crushed visiting Syracuse 41-13 on Thursday night, meets No. 22 SMU in Dallas next Saturday.
Virginia’s all-time record against Pitt is 4-10. Since defeating the Panthers 30-14 in 2019 at what was then called Heinz Field, the Wahoos have dropped two straight in the series, losing 48-38 in 201 and 37-7 in 2022.