Mailbag: Why didn’t Virginia go for two, and other nagging ACCCG questions

Why not go for two?

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With 22 seconds left in regulation, when every Duke and JMU player, coach and fan were reeling from having had the wind knocked out of them by that final miraculous game-tying drive, the decision was made by the Virginia coaching staff to trot the kicking unit on to the field.

Why? Why prolong the game rather than having the confidence in the team and staff that had just engineered what could have been the penultimate program-defining drive in Virginia history (replete with all the accompanying momentum) and possessing the conference’s most productive and gifted running back to go take the win versus settling for the overtime extension.

I feel for the young men whose confidence and goals were sacrificed in the wake of that decision.

Vance

Vance is one of several readers who brought up the idea of going for two after the 18-yard TD pass from Chandler Morris to Eli Wood that got the score to Duke 20, Virginia 19, with 22 ticks left in regulation.

Have to admit, the thought didn’t enter my thinking at the time, and it wasn’t, apparently, on the minds of any of the other media types in attendance, because nobody asked Virginia coach Tony Elliott about the sequence in the postgame.

I’m frustrated here at how I can’t seem to find good information on success rates for two-point tries.

I mean, I found an article about the across-the-board success rate for 2024 being 45.8 percent, a new record, but this is clearly an area that could use more focus.

I can tell you that Virginia was 1-for-1 on two-point tries this season. That try was mandated; after Virginia scored in the second OT of the win over FSU in Week 5, the offense had to go for two, by rule.

If you remember, the existence of that particular rule was something that the Virginia staff didn’t seem to be aware of at the time; Elliott sent his kicking team out after the TD, a 4-yard keeper by Chandler Morris, before being told that, no, you can’t do that.

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ICYMI

• Mistakes, early, late, doom Virginia, in 27-20 loss to Duke in ACC title game
• Duke 27, ‘Hoos 20: Cardiac Cavs rally, force OT, but Duke scores, seals game with INT

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How little thought I put to these things is reflected in how I had to work to track down how that two-point play went down.

The play was a pass, and the conversion came with a pass from Morris to Trell Harris.

I can see why a coach would be reluctant to put a game, and in the case of Saturday’s game, a possible berth in the College Football Playoff, on a play with a less-than-50 percent success rate, that the team has only tried once all season, that one time being a try that was required by rule.

Where I would have done things differently wouldn’t have been there, but rather, with the coin toss ahead of the OT.

Linebacker James Jackson represented Virginia at the toss, with instructions to tell the referee that the ‘Hoos would want to start on defense if the tail landed our way.

I would have used the momentum that Vance talked about in his email to me to go on offense first, to put game pressure on Duke, who had led most of the night, before blowing a 20-10 lead in the final five minutes.

The conventional wisdom there, as with going for one to tie or two to win, is to play it safe, and start on D.

I get it, that you play the way you play – but if I’m deviating, that would be where I would’ve deviated, not by going for two after the late TD.

Vanilla play-calling

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Seemed to me like we played not to lose, maybe on both sides of the ball, but certainly offensively with the play-calling being very conservative, until the bizarre first down call in overtime. Whereas Duke, having gotten smoked by us a couple of weeks ago, played very aggressive, because they thought they had to.  The third-and-9 run even though we’re playing for four downs where we ultimately turn the ball over on downs would certainly be one example. And I know we had pretty good success running, but what I believe Des Kitchings needs to wrap his head around is, it’s great when something is working, but if you do it four times in a row, it’s not going to work that great.

Maybe it’s just that our passing game and receivers aren’t that good, and obviously they would know that better than me, and certainly we didn’t protect Chandler Morris worth a darn. But to me, for what they get paid, they should be able to come up with  quick-release plays and still be able to pass to some degree, maybe get Morris out of the pocket see if he can execute some keepers, because he usually does that a few times, and he had none last night.

Eric

Not an excuse, but clearly, left tackle McKale Boley was diminished going into the game with his ankle injury, and because he was limited in terms of availability, that was a huge factor in how things played out.

Looking at the play-by-play stats, Boley was only on the field for 50 snaps, with his backup, Ben York, logging 24 snaps at left tackle in relief.

York, to say the least, did not have a good night – he was dinged for four QB pressures allowed on 15 pass dropbacks.

Another lineman, right guard Drake Metcalf, wasn’t able to go the entire way, either – Metcalf was on the field for 58 snaps, with backup Ethan Sipe getting 16 snaps at right guard.

I can see here why Kitchings would go more conservative with the game plan and the play-calling, knowing that his O line wasn’t anywhere near 100 percent.

The idea was to get the ball out quickly to reduce the exposure on Morris; the problem was, lack of productivity in the short passing game.

Morris was 3-of-5 for just a single yard passing on passes behind the line of scrimmage, the issue there being one of his pop passes going for a 12-yard loss.

On passes between 0 and 9 yards from the line of scrimmage, Morris was 11-of-15 for 77 yards; between 10 and 19 yards downfield, he was 4-of-9 for 68 yards, with one INT.

To Eric’s point, I agree that the sum effect of the offensive game plan appeared to be, don’t make mistakes.

If that’s the plan, you’re putting the game on your defense and special teams.

The D did its job – the Duke offense put up 308 yards in regulation; you’re going to win a lot of games holding the other guys to 308 yards.

Special teams was the sore thumb here: an offsides call on the punt unit extended one Duke drive that ended with a TD; a fake punt extended a second drive that ended with another Duke TD; the return team allowed Duke to down a punt that hit outside the 10 at the UVA 1, field position that turned into a Morris INT that netted Duke a short field goal.

There was also a missed field goal that factored into Elliott’s decision to forego another field-goal try on a drive that ended with a turnover on downs.

Your special teams can’t give the other guys 17 points and keep six off the board on your side in a championship game.

Bottom line.

Flea-flicker?

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I’ve gotten several questions on the play call in the OT, the offset flea-flicker that went disastrously wrong when Morris tried to force the ball into a tight window for Eli Wood, and was intercepted.

I’ve read and re-read the transcript on that one several times, and my first read was, no, I don’t think Elliott was telling us he thought he needed a chunk play because the ball was placed at the 40 after the dubious roughing-the-passer penalty on the fourth-down Darian Mensah TD pass.

I’m not so sure now.

OK, first, here’s the quote from Elliott:

The 15-yard penalty there that carried over into overtime kind of puts you in that friend zone where you’re trying to get a chunk play, and that’s where you have most of your plays like that designed in that area, so it kind of puts you back there.

I’m with y’all now; looks like TE is saying there that he thought the offense needed a chunk play, which it didn’t.

Downs in OT aren’t timed, and everything I saw live Saturday night, and am seeing now from the official play-by-play, didn’t have it that the officials had decided to make the first-down play a first-and-25 instead of a first-and-10.

Roughing the passer isn’t a dead-ball foul, which would tack on both the yards of field position, and yards to achieve a fresh set of downs.

Translation: it was first-and-10 at the Duke 40, so, timing is not an issue.

You could run three yards and a cloud of dust to your heart’s content, four-down it all the way to the end zone, if that was the desire.

That all said, the play call being what it was, Morris didn’t need to throw that ball, though I’d be curious to know if he thought he needed to throw that ball.

The term of art “fog of war” is in the headlines these days; wonder if that was what was going on here, with Elliott, Kitchings and Morris.

You’re forgiven, though, for having flashbacks to the screen pass to the left tackle that ended the 2021 Virginia Tech game, and as it turned out, the Bronco Mendenhall era.

Fourth down

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Also got several inquiries on the decision, down 17-10, a minute into the fourth quarter, to go for the first down on a fourth-and-5 at the Duke 24, instead of kicking – with the play ending in an incomplete pass from Morris to Harris in the end zone.

Our photo from Mike Ingalls shows you that the pass was a bit closer to being a TD than it looked live at full speed, but even so.

The way the question was phrased to Elliott in his postgame didn’t lead him into discussing the decision to try to convert as opposed to trying a 41-yard field goal, so, we don’t have any insight into that part of things.

We did get an answer on: why go for everything instead of just trying to keep the chains moving.

“The fourth-and-5 where he goes to the end zone with Trell, you’re looking for different coverages, and the play was primarily designed to go underneath, but they took that away, and that forces him to go through his progression, and that’s his second progression on that particular play,” Elliott said.

I assumed that based on what I saw live.