Hootie: No Mystique About How Cavaliers Lost Game And Fell To 3-2

RALEIGH, NC – After Virginia couldn’t stop Indiana’s ground game in the second week of the season, Bronco Mendenhall went back to the drawing board. He thought he had the problem fixed.
Turns out, that was only a band-aid.
The Cavaliers, minus several starters missing on defense, had no answer for N.C. State’s running game at sold out Carter-Finley Stadium on Saturday, and paid the price, dropping a 35-21 decision to the Wolfpack.
While Virginia put together a furious rally from the mid-third quarter onward, it wasn’t enough.
“We played well enough to make it interesting but not well enough to win the game,” Mendenhall said.
There was no mystique about how the Cavaliers lost this game and fell to 3-2 on the season (1-1 ACC) with a bye week coming before they host Miami on Oct. 13. Virginia’s problems are as simple as cornbread: it struggles to stop good running games, and can’t mount much of a run game itself against good defenses.
Until Mendenhall can figure that out, this team is going to have rough sledding against the better teams in the ACC.
A few weeks ago, Indiana pounded the Cavaliers’ defense for 227 yards on the ground on 44 rushing attempts. In that case, the Hoosiers dominated the line of scrimmage and blocked certain UVa defenders out of their gap, putting pressure on linebackers and safeties to handle more than they could chew.
N.C. State must have Xeroxed that game plan, as will everyone remaining on the Cavaliers’ schedule. The Wolfpack, which hadn’t shown much a penchant for running the football in their three previous games against weaker competition, dominated between the tackles and gained 176 yards on 39 rushes. That’s 4.5 yards per carry.
There was no question that Nick Howell’s defense missed starting linebacker Jordan Mack (out six weeks with a shoulder injury), and starting end Richard Burney (gone for the season with a medical condition). Virginia was already missing linebacker Malcolm Cook to injury, and when strong safety Brenton Nelson left the game with a concussion midway through the second quarter, things only got worse.
“Defensively, I was really surprised about their ability to run the football,” Mendenhall said. “Some of the same things that appeared in the Indiana game in terms of assignment, consistency [were a problem in this game]. “
State’s running game had been suspect until Saturday. The most productive the Wolfpack had been on the ground was 125 yards collectively against Marshall. Freshman running back Ricky Person, who had missed two of State’s previous games with injury, almost had that amount alone against Virginia.
Person, an aggressive back, netted 108 yards and a 7.7 yards per carry average against the Cavaliers.
“No discredit to [Person],” Mendenhall said. “I’m not sure it matter who it was (running the ball).”
The UVa coach always positions himself to where he can clearly view the line of scrimmage, and he didn’t like what he saw.
“I could see the inconsistencies right in front of my eyes,” Mendenhall said. “Our execution doesn’t look like a flat wall. Every gap, we’re inconsistent. We saw it at Indiana, addressed it, and thought it was fixed.”
Person, who played at less than 100 percent, still was awarded the game ball by Wolfpack coach Dave Doren, who celebrated extending the nation’s seventh-longest winning streak with the win.
“[Person] really wanted to be on the field today,” Doren said. “That kid is a warrior. He’s a change of pace back and makes people miss and we’ve been missing that.”
UVa linebacker Charles Snowden, who was voted ACC Linebacker of the Week for his all around performance in the Cavaliers’ win over Louisville last week, said that Virginia’s defense emphasized two things in preparation for State.
One, was stopping the Wolfpack’s rushing attack. Two, was getting to State quarterback Ryan Finley.
Virginia did neither.
When Person & Co. wasn’t running railroad stakes down the Cavaliers’ collective throats, Finley was picking Virginia’s heralded secondary apart. While he wasn’t at his best, Finley completed 22 of 32 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns. He placed a couple of over-the-back-shoulder passes to perfect spots where neither rookie UVa linebacker Rob Snyder (a 14-yard TD pass to tight end Cary Angeline, making in 17-7), or Cavaliers veteran corner Bryce Hall (16-yard TD pass to wide receiver Kelvin Harmon) could prevent.
Both played good position pass defense.
What was it the great Tennessee football coach General Bob Neyland once said?
“There’s no defense for a perfectly thrown pass.”
That rang true in both of those cases Saturday and Virginia paid the price in a game where the offense played almost well enough to win, and the defense _ struggling to play assignment sound football _ didn’t.
The Cavaliers had practically zero pass rush. Give a sure-fire NFL bound Finley that kind of time and he’ll cut you to ribbons. While he was chased out of the pocket a couple of times, he was never really under any true duress, and wasn’t sacked a single time.
“We kind of pride ourselves on being able to hit the quarterback, and we didn’t,” Mendenhall said.
State gave their quarterback solid protection and many of his receivers simply outplayed VIrginia’s defensive backs and linebackers on several 50-50 balls.
Finley didn’t really make any serious mistakes but considering his skill set, it wasn’t one of his better games. Virginia’s defensive staff believed Finley was the best passing quarterback they have faced in their three seasons in Charlottesville, but for once, it wasn’t Finley’s arm that beat the Cavaliers. It was State’s running game.
Consequently, UVa’s running game, which has been solid against the Ohio’s, Richmond’s, and Louisville’s of the world, didn’t manage diddly squat against the Wolfpack.
Virginia was held to less than 100 yards for the first time this season on the ground, and senior running back Jordan Ellis, the second-leading rusher in the ACC, had but 30 yards on 13 carries. UVa had a mere 93 yards running the football, and it can’t win in the ACC with that lack of production.
Give N.C. State defensive coordinator Dave Huxtable, a longtime veteran defensive guy, credit for coming up with a game plan to take away Virginia’s strengths _ mainly containing quarterback Bryce Perkins.
The Wolfpack’s entire defensive focus was to stop Perkins. They sold out almost everywhere on the field to try to prevent Perkins from beating them, and they did a good job for the most part, although for a fleeting moment it appeared the dual-threat quarterback might stage a dramatic comeback.
Perkins, who entered the game second only to Finley in the ACC in total offense, was held to 24 net yards rushing and 258 passing, thanks to a second half rally that made the must have made the Wolfpack’s fur stand.
“Defensively, we had an excellent game plan, especially in the first half,” Doren said. “[Virginia] changed some things up at halftime and we had to adjust as we went.”
Huxtable exposed his corners some one-on-one against dangerous UVa receiver Olamide Zaccheaus, gambling that his defense could pressure Perkins into a mistake.
“We felt like if [Perkins] couldn’t run the ball today then it would be hard for them to beat us,” Doren said.
Talk about a Xerox being passed around ACC defensive offices, everybody’s gonna look at this N.C. State tape.
Perkins actually gained 62 yards, most of it on scrambles when receivers were covered, and most of it in the second half during a heroic effort by the Virginia quarterback. But he was sacked four times for 38 yards in losses (college football subtracts sack yardage from a quarterback’s rushing totals, unlike pro football where it is subtracted from passing totals).
By stuffing the tackle box and putting pressure on Perkins’ running ability, Mendenhall’s offensive staff had to settle for possession throws, those methodical, seven, eight, nine yard gains. There were a few shots further down field like a 35-yarder for a TD to Zaccheaus, a 32-yarder to freshman Tavares Kelly, and a 23-yarder to Hasis Dubois, but mostly short stuff.
Virginia couldn’t really throw it because it couldn’t run the ball well enough to become multi-dimensional and some of that blame falls on an offensive line that sometimes just goes AWOL.
“It’s the offensive front versus [State’s] defensive front,” Mendenhall said. “Similar things manifested in the Indiana gmae. This defensive front was better, so we’re getting a clearer idea of what that looks like against the better opponents [remaining on the schedule].”
After State took a 27-7 lead midway through the third quarter, Perkins drove the offense down the field, patiently scrambling and finding receivers (Dubois for an 11-yard completion and a first down) on a third-and-four scramble at his own 35, then again on third-and-goal at the State nine, when he found Zacheaus, who had come free in the back of the end zone, for a TD.
Perkins kept looking, looking, avoiding pressure before he spotted his favorite target.
At that point, late in the third, Virginia had cut State’s lead in half to 27-14.
The Cavaliers got the ball back via a punt and Perkins went to work again, marching methodically down the field from his 18 to the Wolfpack 27 with a first down.
He scrambled for a sliding six-yard gain to the 21, threw an incompletion after his protection forced him out of pocket again, setting up a third-and-four. The play was a read-option, and Perkins handed the ball off to Ellis on a straight-ahead play that gained nothing.
Fourth-and-four, he overthrew Kelly down the left side, and Virginia was essentially done. State scored to go up 35-14 with 7:25 to play.
Perkins wasn’t done, though. He drove Virginia 75 yards on 11 plays and Ellis did score on an 8-yard TD run, his longest run of the day. Then A.J. Mejia pulled off a perfectly executed onside kick, giving UVa the ball at midfield.
Virginia threatened but couldn’t punch it in.
Perkins said he felt the momentum shifting during that fourth-quarter episode, but either the Cavaliers waited to late or simply ran out of time.
Still, had Virginia managed to do a better job of controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, it could have possibly won this game, same as Indiana.
“Our inability to run the ball consistently and their surprising ability to run the ball, those two things were the back story to what led to the outcome as it was,” Mendenhall said.
If the Cavaliers can’t fix that before the Hurricanes come to town in two weeks, it not only will be the back story. It will be the same old story.