I wasn’t sure I’d ever see another UVA Football team with a 4-1 record, but here we are.
That one, folks, was a gut check.
Boston College had a 14-0 lead 10 minutes into the game.
At that point, BC had two touchdowns; Virginia had one first down.
The 24-14 ‘Hoos win didn’t exactly escalate from there.
Virginia finally got on the board with 4:46 on the clock in the second, after a 14-play, 39-yard drive, the only thing missing on that funereal march being the cloud of dust, and it still just resulted in three points, on a 35-yard Will Bettridge field goal.
The game turned on its head in the final two minutes of the first half. Virginia took over on its own 3 after a BC punt, and seemed content, with the bad field position, to try to burn clock and make the Eagles burn their timeouts.
A targeting penalty on Boston College safety Khari Johnson got the ball out of the shadow of the end zone, and Virginia took advantage, driving into the red zone before settling for a short Bettridge field goal to go into the break down 14-6.
The second half was all Virginia. The Cavaliers had 16 yards of offense in a disjointed first quarter, but the offense was hitting on all cylinders in the second half, outgaining BC 223-126.
There was one blip. Still down 14-6 in the third, Tony Elliott decided to leave the offense on the field on a fourth-and-goal at the 2, and after a timeout, Anthony Colandrea missed on a pass to Andre Greene Jr.
BC got the ball out of the shadow of its end zone with a 30-yard pass play, but the UVA defense stiffened, and the special teams got a nice punt return out of Ethan Davies, setting up the offense near midfield.
Which just led to another field goal, with the offense bogging down, again, in the red zone, the issue there being a snap-infraction penalty that set the O behind the chains, and forced another short Bettridge field goal that made it 14-9 with 13:29 to go in the game.
This is where things went crazy.
Defensive tackle Anthony Britton got his hands up in the face of BC quarterback Anthony Castellanos on a first-down pass, batted the ball into the air, and edge rusher Chico Bennett Jr. came down with the INT.
The game didn’t go to a break after the change of possession, and the Virginia offense went into fast-break mode, getting a 20-yard run from Kobe Pace on the first play of the drive, then, going tempo, quick-snapped as BC was still getting set on D, and Colandrea found Malachi Fields down the left sideline for a 30-yard TD pass.
Colandrea hooked up with Greene for the two-point conversion, and just like that, 10:39 on the clock, it was 17-14 Virginia.
BC was able to move into plus territory while also eating up clock, getting two first downs to get to the UVA 47 as the clock ticked toward the six-minute mark.
A holding penalty forced a second-and-19, and Castellanos, flushed out of the pocket to his left, lost the ball as he tried to pass, and Virginia safety Jonas Sanker scooped it off the turf and took it 40 yards to the house for the score.
The announced attendance was in the 38,000 range – the stadium still holds 61,500, so, work to do there – but it was as loud as it has been probably since the fumble-recovery TD that clinched the win over Virginia Tech back in 2019.
BC’s last two possessions ended with a turnover-on-downs and another INT.
Game Notes
Colandrea was 15-of-26 for 179 yards and a TD through the air, and had 28 yards on six rushing attempts.
Pace had 83 yards on 19 carries.
Virginia ran for 126 yards (sack-adjusted) on 35 rushing attempts.
Fields had four catches on six targets for 63 yards and the TD, and he completed a 29-yard pace to Pace on a double-pass.
JR Wilson had four catches on six targets for 44 yards.
Greene had four catches on six targets for 25 yards, and the two-point conversion reception.
The defense, after giving up two touchdowns and 122 yards to BC in the first quarter, held the Eagles scoreless with 197 yards of offense and three turnovers in the final three quarters.
Outside linebacker Kam Robinson had eight tackles, including a sack.
Middle linebacker James Jackson had seven tackles and a sack.
Defensive end Kam Butler had the other sack, among his five tackles.
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Chris Graham
