Virginia’s defense plays ‘Havoc’ on Blue Devils with 7 turnovers, 5 sacks

By Jerry Ratcliffe

It didn’t take long for Virginia’s highly touted defense to be tested in Saturday’s season-opening win over Duke.

After Tavares Kelly lost the ball at the UVA 19 on the opening kickoff, the Cavalier defense’s collective backs were against the wall. They stonewalled Duke’s offense with a goal-line stand, forcing a field goal.

While Virginia’s offense sputtered throughout most of the first quarter, the Blue Devils scored their first touchdown on a blown coverage assignment and the Cavaliers found themselves down 10-0.

Duke didn’t generate a lot more offense in the game, scoring another TD late in the third quarter after intercepting a UVA pass at the Cavaliers’ 10 and scoring two plays later to take a 20-17 lead.

That was when the Wahoos slammed the door, shutting down the Blue Devils as UVA’s offense outscored Duke 21-0 in the fourth quarter for a 38-20 victory.

With eight starters returning to Virginia’s defense and another nine players returning with at least one start during their career, UVA dominated the Blue Devils in a performance that had to put a smile on Bronco Mendenhall’s face.

The “D,” which UVA’s defensive coaches like to call “Havoc,” put seven big reasons to smile on Mendenhall’s face. Virginia forced seven turnovers to go along with five quarterback sacks and 11 tackles for loss.

After one night of football, the Cavaliers are No. 1 in the nation in turnover margin (more defensive statistics later).

“That game was in the balance for a long, long time,” Mendenhall said after UVA’s sixth straight win over Duke. “Those turnovers really were the difference and those are forced and plays made, not just miscues by an opponent’s offense. I was encouraged and happy.

“That was the difference in the game in my opinion.”

The seven turnovers (five interceptions, two fumbles) were the most recorded by a Virginia defense since 2014. The five interceptions were the most by the Cavaliers since 2016 (against Duke’s Daniel Jones, now starting QB for the NFL’s New York Giants).

“A lot of it ties down into film study and just quarterback error sometimes,” said UVA senior safety Brenton Nelson, who posted two picks, the seventh and eighth of his career. “We’re working very hard. We’re known as ‘Havoc Hoos.’”

Virginia really shut down Duke’s running game, limiting the Blue Devils to 56 yards on 38 attempts (1.5 yards per rush). Of Duke’s 246 yards passing (40 attempts), 182 of those came on five plays, including a couple of blown assignments by the Cavaliers.

Bouncing back from being under so much pressure right off the bat, throwing up the goal-line stand, verified this defense’s resiliency.

“First off, I mean we kept saying it’s first-game jitters, first-game mistakes, it’s going to happen, and everybody just stayed the course,” said inside linebacker Zane Zandier, who led the team with a career-high 15 tackles, including two tackles for loss and a pass breakup. “We kept doing our thing on defense and getting the ball back to the offense as much as possible. We wanted to get Brennan (Armstrong) the opportunity to settle in.

“Even when we’re down in the third quarter, going into the fourth quarter, it seemed like everybody was cool, calm, collected and kind of feeling we were going to win. We just needed to make those plays to pull away and ended up doing it. Just being resilient is a huge part of this program and I think we’ve just trained that since I’ve been here for four years.”

While it’s only one game’s statistics, Virginia stands tall on the national stage with it’s nasty defense. As mentioned, the Cavaliers are No. 1 nationally in turnover margin (seven gained, three lost).

Here are some other eye-popping numbers for the Wahoos defense:

• No. 2 nationally in rushing defense after giving up only 56 yards on the ground.
• No. 3 nationally in interceptions with five. (The two teams ahead of them, Syracuse and Pitt, have each played three games).
• No. 4 nationally (tied) in tackles for loss with 11.
• No. 6 nationally in sacks with five.
• No. 6 nationally in first-down defense, giving up 17 (12 passing, four rushing, one by penalty).
• No. 8 nationally in team passing efficiency defense.
• No. 21 nationally in third-down conversion percentage defense. Duke was 6 for 18.
• No. 22 nationally in scoring defense.
• No. 22 nationally in total defense. Duke had 342 yards.

Those numbers likely won’t remain the same with Virginia’s next challenge against the nation’s No. 1 ranked team, at Clemson.

“Now we’ve got a big test next week, but it’s exciting,” Zandier said.