Virginia’s Defense Stymies Duke With Five-Takeaway Nightmare

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Having allowed a likely win at Miami slip away a week ago, there was a heightened sense of urgency around the Virginia camp this past week.

The Cavaliers were in a two-game tailspin and hosting Duke in a battle for first place in the ACC Coastal Division, a Duke team that was scoring 40 points a game.

Absolutely no one saw Virginia 48, Duke 14 coming. Not Bronco Mendenhall, not David Cutcliffe. Nobody.

“This is a huge setback for us tonight,” Cutcliffe said of his Blue Devils’ lopsided loss. “To be honest, there is a little bit of a shock factor.”

Mendenhall, whose team improved to 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the ACC, was expecting a close game, perhaps down to the wire.

The difference was Virginia’s defense, ranked 11th nationally coming into the game, a ranking that will surely rise in the days ahead. Defensive coordinator Nick Howell challenged every player on his unit individually during the week with a text, emphasizing the sense of urgency and emphasizing gaining turnovers.

While the Cavaliers were considered one of the nation’s elite defenses coming into the weekend, and had rankings to prove it in almost every statistical category, their Achilles’ Heel had been takeaways. Halfway through the season, UVA’s defense had managed only five takeaways, which ranked Virginia No. 119 in the country out of 130 FBS teams in turnover margin.

That all ended Saturday when the Cavaliers had as many takeaways against the Blue Devils as they had in the first half of the season combined. Three fumble recoveries, two pass interceptions, leading to 20 of UVA’s 48 points.

Toss in the fact that UVA’s defense completely stonewalled Duke on a pair of fourth-and-one gambles — one at the Devils’ own 34-yard line, leading to yet another Cavaliers touchdown — and we’re talking complete domination. Heck, Duke didn’t even cross midfield until there was only 5:58 showing in the third quarter, and that came off a fake punt.

The Blue Devils finished with a mere 250 yards of total offense, making the seventh opponent this season to post less than 400 yards, the first time since 1995 that a Cavalier team started the first seven games with those kind of numbers.

“You’ve got to give [Virginia] a lot of credit,” said Duke quarterback Quentin Harris. “I thought they had a good game plan defensively. They got pressure on us on passing downs and they penetrated the line of scrimmage on run plays. They were hitting our guys behind the line of scrimmage.”

UVA linebacker Charles Snowden, who recovered one of those three fumbles, said that Howell had made turnovers a point of emphasis during the week’s preparation.

“My English professor would have been proud [of Howell’s challenging texts],” Snowden said. “It was three paragraphs talking about what I’ve done, what I’m doing now, and what he expects going forward. Written out beautifully.”

Snowden said Howell’s message was about truly understanding what total effort was.

“We talk about it, but he wanted us to understand it and practice it, and so practice definitely looked different this week. We set the tone early and throughout the whole week didn’t let it slip,” the junior linebacker said.

Senior defensive end Eli Hanback said that takeaways were a strong point of emphasis all week, stripping the ball away from offensive players.

“I guess it showed. Usually when our coaches emphasize something we answer the call and we did that this week,” Hanback said.

But neither he nor Mendenhall could explain Virginia’s incredible run of luck against Duke when it comes to turnovers. The Blue Devils have turned the ball over 15 times — including 12 interceptions — in the last four games to the Cavaliers, a huge factor in Duke’s five-game losing streak to UVA.

Most of those takeaways left the Cavaliers’ offense with short fields to work with and they took full advantage.

“I don’t know,” Hanback grinned. “Maybe special magic. Maybe we’re in the right place in the right time when we play Duke. I don’t know what it is. We were ready for a close, low-scoring game. Luckily it didn’t end that way.”

Certainly the five turnovers were a major factor in the outcome, but so was the fact that Virginia got off the offensive schnide, finally able to score touchdowns in the red zone. Last week, in a 17-9 loss at Miami, UVA could muster only three field goals on six trips inside the Hurricanes’ 25.

This time around, quarterback Bryce Perkins rushed the ball 22 times for 62 yards and three touchdowns, and passed for another 141 yards. The Cavaliers, who had come under heavy criticism for poor offensive-line performance, managed to pick up 154 yards rushing and five TDs on the ground (Wayne Taulapapa led the way with 77 yards and two scores), and protected Perkins, who had been sacked 13 times in the previous two outings. Duke recorded only two sacks.

Joe Reed returned another kickoff for a touchdown, this time 95 yards, his fifth for a TD during the senior’s UVA career, which tied him for third in ACC history.

It all combined for the most points by the Cavaliers against an ACC opponent since a 48-0 rout of Miami in 2007, the last game played in the old Orange Bowl stadium.

For the terrific defensive game plan, Mendenhall selected Howell to “break the rock,” an honor normally bestowed on the player of the game.

“I credit our defensive staff especially for the number of turnovers,” Mendenhall said. “Simply the field position and the number of opportunities we had was too great for our opponent to overcome and those were all executed well by us. I don’t think it was luck and I don’t think it was random.”