Cavaliers Well-Positioned in ACC Race

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — With the weekend’s games completed and November arriving soon, let’s look at the ACC football standings. Six of the league’s 17 teams have played five of their eight ACC games, nine have played four, and two have played three.

Only two teams remain unbeaten in ACC play: No. 7 Georgia Tech and No. 16 Virginia. The Yellow Jackets, 8-0 overall, have won all five of their conference games. The Cavaliers, 7-1 overall, are 4-0 in the league. (UVA’s lone loss, at NC State on Sept. 6, was scheduled as a non-conference game.)

The Wahoos entered the season with a goal of playing in the ACC championship game, and every win moves them a step closer to Charlotte. Virginia has four regular-season games left, starting next weekend in Berkeley, Calif.

In a game to air on ESPN2, the Hoos take on the California Golden Bears (5-3, 2-2) on Saturday at 3:45 p.m. ET.

“You’re right where you want to be,” head coach Tony Elliott told his players in the visiting locker room at North Carolina’s Kenan Stadium. “Do not relax.”

This has been a season unlike any other for the Cavaliers. For the first time in program history, they’ve played three overtime games in a season. Even more noteworthy: Virginia is 3-0 in those games.

The Hoos defeated then-No. 18 Florida State 46-38 in two overtimes at Scott Stadium on Sept. 26. Eight days later, UVA won 30-27 in overtime at Louisville. After rallying to edge Washington State 22-20 at Scott Stadium last weekend in a rare four-quarter game, the Cardiac Cavaliers had to work overtime again Saturday in Chapel Hill, where they prevailed 17-16 after stopping UNC’s two-point conversion attempt inches from the goal.

When the fourth quarter ended with the score 10-10, the Cavaliers felt comfortable and confident, defensive tackle Jason Hammond said. “We were like, ‘All right, let’s do this. We’ve been here before, let’s go win it.’ It’s nothing new to us.”

Even so, the heart-stopping finishes are taking a toll not only on UVA fans but on veterans like wide receivers Jayden Thomas, Jahmal Edrine and Trell Harris, who are 23, 22 and 21 years old, respectively.

“I was just joking with Trell and Jahmal that I don’t know if our bodies can handle any more of these,” Thomas said, smiling. “So we need to stop it. We need to lock in and start blowing people out.”

However nerve-racking they might be, the close games are going the Hoos’ way. That hasn’t always been the case during Elliott’s four seasons at UVA.

In 2023, when the Cavaliers finished 3-9, they dropped four games by three points or fewer and lost another one, to No. 11 Louisville, by a touchdown. From those painful defeats, Elliott said, the Hoos learned “that it’s much easier to lose a game than it is to win a game, if that makes sense. And then we were making some costly, critical mistakes to cost us games, where I think now we’re capitalizing on it, if an opponent makes a mistake, or we’re making the plays, because of the belief of the young men in that locker room … They say when you’re building a program, you have to first learn how to lose close and then win close, and I think because of the experience that we had in the past, it’s helped us get to where we are right now.”

The program’s ascent under Elliott has been slow but steady. After winning only one ACC game in 2022, when the regular-season finale against Virginia Tech was canceled in the aftermath of the shooting deaths of Cavalier players Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry, UVA went 2-6 in the conference in 2023 and 3-4 last season.

This season, the Hoos are off to their best start in 18 years. They’ve won six games in a row for the first time since that 2007 season, which also was marked by dramatic last-second victories.

“At the end of the day, we’re finding ways to win,” Elliott said.

Against UNC (2-5, 0-3), defense and special teams carried UVA for most of the game. The Hoos totaled only 259 yards on offense and gave up six sacks, one more than they’d allowed in the previous seven games combined. But defensive coordinator John Rudzinski’s group forced six three-and-outs, recorded three sacks and intercepted two passes while holding UNC to 353 yards.

Kicker Will Bettridge made his only field-goal attempt, Daniel Sparks averaged 48.9 yards on his eight punts, and Thomas, filling in for the injured Cam Ross, returned four punts for 58 yards, with a long of 31.

“As a team, we love to play complementary football,” said defensive end Mitchell Melton, who broke up two passes, one of which he eventually intercepted, and had two quarterback hurries. “Regardless of what’s happening on the offensive side, if they’re having a good or a quote-unquote bad day, whatever the case may be, we know that if we have their back, they’re going to have ours.”

The victory was the Cavaliers’ fourth in their past five visits to Kenan Stadium, and the game came down to a single play.

After a second half in which neither team scored, the longtime rivals went to overtime. UVA had the ball first and scored on tailback J’Mari Taylor’s 1-yard touchdown run, after which Bettridge’s extra point made it 17-10.

The Tar Heels answered with a TD to make it 17-16, and they could have extended the game with an extra point. Instead, they lined up at the 3-yard line and opted to try to win on a two-point conversion.

Carolina quarterback Gio Lopez rolled to his right and passed to tailback Benjamin Hall in the right flat. After an initial hit by Emmanuel Karnley on Hall along the right sideline, another UVA defensive back, Ja’Son Prevard, finished the job, stopping Hall inches from the right pylon.

“You showed the heart of a champion,” Elliott told his team afterward.

Getting their offense humming again will be a major priority for the Hoos as they prepare for their first-ever meeting with Cal. When they left Charlottesville for Louisville early this month, the Hoos were averaging 45.6 points and 539.6 yards per game. Since then, they’ve totaled 237 yards against Louisville, 301 against Washington State, and 259 against UNC.

“It’s a game of inches, and we’ve got to get our rhythm back,” Elliott said. “We’ve had to kind of plug and play with some guys.”

Starting center Brady Wilson returned Saturday after missing three games with an injury, but Ross, the team’s most dynamic player, was unavailable, and tailback Xavier Brown is out with a season-ending knee injury.

“Continuity is a big thing,” Elliott said. “So we’re just kind of getting in rhythm with all the different pieces that are there, and now people have got more film to be able to find ways to try and stop us. And then we got to make some plays. There’s some plays that that we’ve made before and right now we are just an inch or two off.”

That quarterback Chandler Morris’ non-throwing shoulder is hurt hasn’t helped matters for the Cavaliers.

“It’s October, getting ready to go into November,” Elliott said. “None of these guys are 100-percent healthy. They’re all dealing with stuff, but he’s battling. I think that we all know that the shoulder got hurt early [in the season], and that’s something that’s going to linger.

“I think back to [former UVA quarterback] Tony Muskett. The same thing happened to Tony Muskett early in the [2023] season, and it’s just something that you’ve got to battle through throughout the course of the season. But [Morris is] a warrior, and he’s going to do everything he possibly can to be ready to go. And I know that at the end of the day, there’s nobody in that locker room that wants to play their best more than Chandler.”

Morris completed 20 of 35 passes for 200 yards and one touchdown Saturday, with an interception. Against Washington State, he was 15-of-25 passing for 179 yards, with no touchdowns (or interceptions).

“I haven’t played well,” Morris told reporters at Kenan Stadium. “It’s as simple as that. I think last game I didn’t play well and today I didn’t play very well either. So I’ve got to kind of get back into it. I was really trying to focus on getting it back this week. Didn’t go as planned, so I got to get back into it, get in the film room, and just kind of watch some successful things that I’ve done this year, kind of get my groove back.”

UVA’s coaches want No. 4 to avoid contact whenever possible, but in overtime Saturday he didn’t hesitate to put his body on the line, as he has all season. On third-and-7 from the 10, Morris called an audible and kept the ball himself, gaining 7 yards to set up first-and-goal from the 3.

“I know that the quarterback position gets the most scrutiny,” Elliott said. “They get probably too much credit when things are going good and they get all the blame when things aren’t. But if you question Chandler Morris’s commitment to the Virginia Cavaliers and our University, our program, then I don’t know what else to tell you, because there’s nobody in our locker room that’s more committed to our program.”

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