The Virginia offense got back on track in Saturday’s 31-21 win at Cal, even if it left some points on the field.
Virginia had averaged just 265.7 yards per game over its last three coming into this weekend; in the win at Cal, the O put up 456 yards.
QB Chandler Morris passed for 262 yards; the ground game gained 194 net yards, and was over 200 after accounting for sack yardage.
“It’s the month of November, right? And the way we kind of outline our season, man, this is go time. This is where we got to be trying to prime up and get rolling on all cylinders,” UVA Football coach Tony Elliott told reporters after the win.
ICYMI
Morris completed 24 of his 36 pass attempts – a 66.7 percent completion rate.
Over the past three coming into the Cal game, he had completed 59.3 percent of his pass attempts, and averaged 176.0 yards per game.
The ground-and-pound attack had a big afternoon, led by lead tailback J’Mari Taylor, who had 105 yards and two TDs.
Over the previous three coming into Cal, the offense had averaged 89.7 yards per game on the ground, after averaging 243.4 yards per game in the first five games of the 2025 season.
“Everything starts really for us off the run game. We’re at our best when we can run the football and have play-action set things up,” Elliott said. “You know, a second-and-5 call is a whole lot easier than a second-and-10 call. I thought Chandler did a good job in the passing game with checking the ball down, keeping us ahead of the chains, and then we were when we handed it off, I thought we were effective enough, and then we finally popped a couple. But staying effective, staying ahead of the chains, gives you the ability to really access all of your offense.”
Left some on the field
Virginia scored on its first three offensive possessions, though it should have been three TDs – the ‘Hoos had to settle for a field goal on their second possession after getting themselves into a first-and-goal from the Cal 5.
Will Bettridge missed a 48-yard field-goal try on the final play of the first half after Morris ran the two-minute offense to perfection.
Then Elliott flubbed things up by calling for a fake on a field-goal try in the red zone early in the third.
“We could have took three, you know, and it could have changed everything. That kind of, you know, that’s one of those deals where you don’t get it, and the momentum kind of changes a little bit,” Elliott conceded.
You’ll read more about the failures in the red zone in Greg’s Grades tomorrow.
My back-of-the-envelope math suggests – four points on the second drive, three on the field-goal miss at the half, at least three, maybe seven, on the failed fake field goal.
I won’t count the failure in the red zone in the final minute, because Elliott went for the fourth-and-2 at the Cal 14 thinking a first down there ends the game, with Cal out of timeouts.
Still, I’m looking at between 10 and 14 points left off the scoreboard, in a game that inside of a minute to go was a three-point game.
Remember, this was also the defining issue in the only loss for the ‘Hoos to date this season – the 35-31 setback at NC State in Week 2, which included a red-zone field goal in the second quarter, and no points on two red-zone drives in the fourth quarter.
Quick hits
- The defense, over the past four weeks, is giving up 329.3 yards per game – Cal had 263 yards of total offense on Saturday. Really, aside from the NC State (416 yards) and FSU (514 yards) games, the D has been stout all season.
- The O line had a nice bounceback day after the debacle at UNC last week. Morris was pressured on just six of his 41 pass dropbacks (last week: 17 pressures on 42 dropbacks). The pass-block grade from Pro Football Focus for the Cal game was a season-high 89.0.
- Slot receiver Cam Ross was a difference-maker. After missing last week’s 17-16 OT win at UNC, Ross was back in the lineup, and had five catches on seven targets for 59 yards, with a 26-yarder on the final drive that moved the chains on a third-and-6. Ross also had 41 yards on four punt returns and a 24-yard kickoff return.