By Jerry Ratcliffe
One of Tony Elliott’s dreams revolved around running out of the tunnel to a full house at Scott Stadium, making Virginia’s ancient arena an impregnable football fortress.
UVA’s coach is getting his wish.
The Cavaliers are 5-0 at home this season, and for the first time in a long time, fans are showing up and making noise — a lot of noise. In fact, several players and coaches have mentioned over recent weeks that the crowd noise has had a negative impact on visiting teams, all part of a home-stadium advantage.
Elliott started the season with a 6-12 home record over the previous three years. Now, he’s 11-12 with two more home contests to go.
“You think about the last two home games that went down to some critical plays late in the game that were triggered by false starts,” Elliott pointed out. “Florida State, we had three of them in a row and that’s huge, because we had an opportunity to be a little bit more aggressive and then [FSU] became a little more conservative, so to speak, because they’re first-and-25 because they got three straight.”
There was no question that Florida State’s players had difficulty communicating, even though today’s players use hand signals more than verbal communication.
Same thing last Saturday night when Washington State was backed up in the enclosed end of the stadium when it got three straight illegal procedure calls, the Cougars showing signs of panic in the shadow of the end zone as Ja’Son Prevard picked off a third-and-19 pass at the Wazzu 35-yard line, leading to a tying field goal with 2:55 to play.
On Washington State’s next series, it went like this with the Coogs backed up in the same end zone with rowdy Virginia fans screaming their brains out: incomplete pass, illegal procedure (to the 1-yard line), another incomplete pass, safety as Kam Robinson pinned WSU’s running back behind the goal line. Virginia 22, Washington State 20.
“It’s going to take games like this, finding a way to win, taking a quote/unquote not a sexy win, but a win is a win, right?” Elliott said. “So we’re learning, we’re growing, and then to have the crowd have an impact on it, man, that’s huge.
“When the energy is up and it’s third down and the crowd is loud, it just creates more juice and excitement for those guys on the field. It was awesome to see the crowd, so I appreciate everybody showing up. The students were awesome.”
No question the crowd noise bothered Florida State and Washington State.
Cougars coach Jimmy Rogers said, “We practice with crowd noise. It’s a focus thing more than anything. We’ve got to lock in because we play in tough venues and if we expect to win in them, we’ve got to focus.”
Prevard said Virginia’s players definitely noticed the noise, which got them even more fired up.
“Oh yeah, moments like that, I said a couple of weeks ago, those are moments you dream of, big home crowd,” Prevard said. “They’re actually giving us an advantage. I think [Washington State] got like three false starts, so I was just embracing the environment, embracing the moment.”
Defensive back Devin Neal said it’s all part of building a home-field advantage.
“Coach always sends a message that we’ve got to defend Scott Stadium,” Neal said. “No one comes on our grass and takes it from us. That first half wasn’t like us, like they’re taking it from us. We can’t allow that.
“As you’ve seen in the second half, just rallying back and just getting back into the game, then fans felt that too. They saw we wanted it and that got them into it too. That noise had Scott Stadium rocking.”
That’s a benefit of having announced crowds of 50,107 for the Florida State game and 56,048 for Washington State.
Elliott wants what George Welsh had, what Al Groh had for a span and what Bronco Mendenhall had between 2018 and a portion of the ‘21 season. During that span, Bronco’s Cavaliers won 22 of 25 games in Scott Stadium.
Now that’s a home-field advantage.
