Virginia pulls out a miraculous ‘program win’ at Wake

By Jerry Ratcliffe

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Tony Elliott came to Winston-Salem hoping to use Saturday night’s game against Wake Forest as a measuring stick. Little did he know it would be decided by inches and one point.

Having to come back twice in the game, particularly after the host Demon Deacons dominated the third quarter, Virginia pulled off an improbable win by the hair of its chinny-chin-chin, edging Wake, 31-30. As a result, the Cavaliers are off to a 2-0 start for the first time since 2021.

Wake roared out of halftime to outscore Virginia 10-0 in the third quarter, limiting the Cavaliers to a mere eight offensive plays, and expanded its lead to 30-17. Commanding a 13-point lead and the momentum heading into the fourth quarter, things looked gloomy for UVA.

Elliott said after the game that the Cavaliers managed to flip the script because of one simple word: Belief.

“It’s gonna sound like cliche, but belief, man … the guys believed,” Elliott said. “Who cares what the circumstances are? Who cares what the score is at halftime?”

The coach told his team at halftime, trailing 20-17, just to get the game to the fourth quarter.

“I told them at halftime, the least important thing is the score at halftime … get the game to the fourth quarter and then go win the game,” Elliott said.

That’s exactly what the Cavaliers did. This wasn’t the Virginia team of two years ago when it couldn’t score, couldn’t move the chains, had sure-handed receivers dropping the ball all over the place.

This wasn’t the UVA team of last year, snake-bitten, always beating itself with self-inflicted issues, losing close games it could have just as easily won.

That’s why, when it was over, Elliott called it “a program win.”

The Virginia coach has the utmost respect for Wake coach Dave Clawson and how he has built a winning program at the ACC’s smallest school, and has given the league’s major programs fits with his unique offense over the years.

So, for Elliott, a win in Winston meant the world in giving him an idea of where his program stacks up. A loss could have been devastating.

“I felt like it was an opportunity to see where we were relative to [Wake] because [Clawson] has been there for a while, so I felt like it was a program win from that perspective.

“We wanted to win our ACC opener, something we haven’t done prior to tonight, and a chance to go 2-0, which has happened only two other times since 2013. So there were many opportunities  for us to kind of take the next step.”

A lot had to happen in that fourth quarter to breathe life into Virginia’s belief that it could overcome a 13-point deficit and shift the momentum on Wake’s home field, although it seemed half of the crowd didn’t stay for the second half.

Colandrea, who was picked off twice earlier in the night, was spectacular down the home stretch as he finished the night with 357 yards passing and three touchdowns on a 33-of-43 performance.

You want a quarterback to be at his best in Crunch Time, and that’s exactly what Virginia got out of Colandrea, who completed 10 of 11 passes for 95 yards in the fourth-quarter comeback. Oh, and the one incompletion? It was a throw-away.

On UVA’s first possession of the final quarter, he methodically drove the Cavaliers 65 yards on seven plays, the big play being a 24-yard touchdown strike to Trell Harris with 10:37 left in the game, chewing into Wake’s lead, 30-24.

The Deacons moved the ball to Virginia’s 36 on the ensuing possession but stalled, and Clawson rolled the dice on a fourth-and-9 gamble that backfired in the Cavaliers’ favor.

Middle linebacker Trey McDonald, playing for the injured Kam Robinson, got through his blocker on a stunt and sacked Wake QB Hank Bachmeier for an 8-yard loss with 7:20 to play.

Colandrea continued to move the chains with his accurate arm, hooking up with the lethal Malachi Fields (11 catches, 148 yards), including a huge completion on fourth-and-two at the Wake 1. Grady Brosterhous finished it off with a “Tush Push” for the go-ahead touchdown with 2:07 to go.

Wake, desperate to make something happen, fumbled the ball away on its next possession and even though it got the ball back again with 57 seconds to play, couldn’t move the football.

Now, Elliott knows where his program stacks up, at least against a successful program like Wake Forest, with an old, familiar nemesis, Maryland, coming to town next Saturday.