After each Virginia victory, the Cavaliers’ player of the game gets the honor of taking a sledgehammer to a sacrificial rock as the entire team looks on.
The choice following Saturday’s 28-14 win at Duke wasn’t an easy one. Bronco Mendenhall had myriad of candidates to choose from and finally settled on cornerback Bryce Hall, who had an interception and three passes broken up against Blue Devils’ heralded quarterback Daniel Jones.
“I’m gonna need more hammers,” Mendenhall wisecracked upon exiting the visiting team’s interview room at Wallace Wade Stadium.
Nice problem.
That’s what happens when the coach’s dream of his team playing what he calls “complementary football,” begins a transformation to reality.
Virginia continued its mastery over Duke – four consecutive wins in the series – with a clearly dominating performance, and with contributions from all three phases of the game.
The Cavaliers, displaying some new formations born during the bye week two weeks ago, were solid on offense. Quarterback Bryce Perkins delivered another “Thorterback” performance with 61 yards rushing and two touchdowns to go with his 20-for-32 passing for 189 yards and another score. After throwing three interceptions and still beating Miami a week ago, there were no turnovers at all against Duke.
The defense puzzled and harrassed Duke’s Jones all game long and held the Devils to a mere 58 yards rushing on the day. Virginia’s secondary has become Jones’ personal house of horror as nine – count ‘em, nine – of his career 24 interceptions have come against the Wahoos, including two Saturday. He was also sacked four times for 27 yards in losses.
To make the win even more complete, Virginia’s special teams played perhaps their best game of the Mendenhall era. Returners Joe Reed (kickoffs) and Tavares Kelly/Chuck Davis (punts) collectively stacked up 146 yards in returns and gave the offense excellent field position, setting up three of UVa’s touchdowns.
Hall of Famer George Welsh used to refer to that as “hidden yardage,” and for the second straight week, that sort of yardage contributed to the Cavaliers upset wins over Miami and Duke.
“We’re starting to play more complementary football,” Mendenhall said. “That means if the defense stops, then the return game goes. It’s not neutral, but it actually builds off of that, and then hopefully the offense builds off of that. It’s been a while but the complementary nature of our team the last two weeks in particular is growing and becoming better.”
All that helped Virginia improve to 5-2 on the season and 3-1 in the scrambled ACC’s Coastal Division race, which appears anyone’s for the taking.
While the coach was delighted with how his team performed, he was even more pleased with how it managed its success. Beating Miami last week was a huge, program-accelerating victory for Mendenhall’s regime.
There was concern the team might still be on Cloud Nine upon its arrival to Durham. In fact, some national commentators said that Virginia would be ready its press clippings about how it beat Miami and that would be its downfall in Durham.
Not so.
“We’re coming off the Miami win last week and that presented a significant challenge,” Mendenhall said. “It was considered and labeled a lot of different things by folks as signature, breakthrough, or etc. Once that is out there, that really makes every game after more challenging, especially the next one.”
The coach was spot on.
In some ways, winning at Duke appeared harder. The Blue Devils were 5-1 coming into the game, although suspect overall. They boasted one of the ACC’s top defenses and a quarterback in Jones that was last week projected to be the No. 1 player at his position taken in the NFL Draft.
Virginia wasted no time in establishing itself. Reed’s return of the opening kickoff went for 37 yards and the Wahoos were off and running. Eight plays later, Perkins scored on a keeper off a read-option play from 23 yards out.
Two possessions later, Davis’ 27-yard punt return allowed UVa to set up shop at the Duke 38, a trend for the afternoon. In five plays, Perkins dashed over again from three yards out and it was 14-0 before you could blink.
Could’ve been 21-0 but for some odd reason the Cavaliers called for a throw to Kelly in the end zone on a fourth-and-three at the Duke 29, a pass that fell incomplete.
In the second half when things got just a little sticky after Jones connected on a 46-yard scoring strike, Perkins led UVa’s response with a 13-play, 67-yard drive that resulted in a Brian Delaney 37-yard field goal. The highlight of that march was a third-and-four where Perkins extended the play with his feet, patiently waiting until the last second for Jamari Peacock to come open on the scramble and a first down at Duke’s 38.
After another Delaney field goal (42 yards) for a 20-7 lead, Duke made the Wahoos sweat with some trickeration when receiver T.J. Rahming hit tight end Davis Kopenhaver on a reverse pass for a 22-yard TD, cutting the lead to 20-14.
Virginia quickly punted its possession away and then came the point where some former Cavaliers teams over its decade of losing would have come unglued.
Duke had the ball at its own 12 with 8:35 to play and Jones was desperate. He would remain that way as Virginia’s defense recorded three straight negative plays: a sack by Chris Peace, a tackle-for loss by Manny Alonso and Eli Hanback, and another shared sack by Peace and Charles Snowden, forcing a punt.
“That was probably the most important drive of the game because Duke had the momentum,” Peace said afterward. “We hadn’t consistently winning one-on-ones this whole year and (defensive coordinator) Coach Nick Howell did some great film work on pressures against them all year. It was a point of emphasis all week.”
Kelly, a freshman from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., flashed his speed at the sparse crowd of 20,227, with a 29-yard punt return to the Devils’ 28.
Perkins picked Duke apart from there, two quickies to Olamide Zaccheaus, who hauled in 10 catches including his 200th career grab, to the 23 from where Virginia snuffed out the Devils.
With an unblocked Duke defender charging at the mobile Perkins, the junior QB did what he does best, and went into scramble mode. He found tight end Evan Butts wide open in the end zone for a touchdown, then hit Zaccheaus on a nifty two-point conversion for the final outcome.
Perkins, who has been the difference in getting Virginia off to a fast start, was a thorn in Duke’s saddle all day, particularly as he put the final nail in the Devils’ coffin.
“Looking at film of the past games there were multiple opportunities every time i scrambled where [receivers] popped open so late [in the play],” Perkins said. “I definitely made it a point of emphasis to keep my eyes downfield longer until someone popped open.
“I saw Butts wide open and put it up. Believe it or not most times scrambles like that, corners or DBs lose track of the receivers and come up because they think I’m going to run. We work the scramble drill in practice, so Butts did a great job of getting open,” Perkins said.
Game officials reviewed Butts’ acrobatic catch, but he knew it wouldn’t be overruled. He knew his role in the scramble drill and worked it to perfection.
“There are times that you’re either covered up or a quarterback may not see you,” Butts said. “It’s part of our scramble drill coming to life with the play there. We have different spots on the field we have to go to. We work to get open and never stop until the play’s over.
“It was a tough catch but I knew I caught it. There was no doubt in my mind,” the tight end said. “I felt like that secured the game, so a memorable one for sure.”
The win gave Mendenhall a 3-0 mark against Duke’s David Cutcliffe, considered one of the best coaches in the country. Cutcliffe, as most coaches of his era are accustomed to doing, took the blame for the loss and said he didn’t prepare his team well enough.
That certainly wasn’t the case with Mendenhall, whose team now has three straight home games at Scott Stadium against North Carolina, Pitt and nonconference Liberty. His team is 3-1 in ACC play for the first time since the program did it in 2008 under Al Groh.
“As always in the ACC, the team that makes the most plays at the critical time wins,” Mendenhall said. “We made a few more plays than our opponent.”
Quite a few more in a performance that was perhaps more dominating than the final score indicated, a performance that was as complete a game as Wahoo fans could ask for.
Mendenhall’s right. He’s going to need more hammers. You might want to call your stock analyst and invest come Monday morning.
