Run game gets moving: UVA had averaged 93.8 yards rushing per game and 3.0 yards per carry in its four games coming into Saturday. The Cavs improved upon those numbers on Saturday in their 26-19 loss at Pitt, gaining 139 yards on 31 carries, gaining 4.5 yards per rush.
And this came against a Panthers run defense that was ranked fourth nationally coming in, and had held Virginia Tech to nine (nine!) yards on the ground last week in a 17-13 Pitt win.
OK, so 71 of those yards came on Virginia’s first run from scrimmage, a near-breakaway by Albert Reid, who got the ball inside the Pitt 10 before being chased down.
As I wrote in an analysis column last week, everybody gets the bulk of their yards on big plays. What Virginia’s run game had been lacking was big plays.
Saturday was progress.
Pass game regresses some more: Matt Johns threw 33 passes, Taquan Mizzell, for some reason, threw one, and Johns officially had nine rushes.
Since Johns doesn’t run read-options, sneaks or naked bootlegs, we can count those as dropbacks.
Which gets us to 43 pass plays on the day that gained 201 yards. Pitt recorded four sacks, intercepted a Johns pass, with the return setting up a Panthers touchdown two plays later, and there should have been another INT, on that ill-conceived and, even for how ill it was conceived, even iller-executed pass by Mizzell.
D shows signs of improvement, with a couple of asterisks: The first asterisk comes because you have to discount the first quarter to call Saturday an improvement for the UVA D.
Pitt gained 217 yards in the first quarter and led 17-3, and it was easier than those numbers would make it seem.
Thereafter, Pitt ran 40 offensive plays and gained just 146 yards. Aside from the two-play, 20-yard drive after the Johns third-quarter interception, the Panthers had nothing and liked it.
But even that impressive showing, from quarter two through four, has its own asterisk. Because Pitt came into the game ranked 14th, yes, dead last, in the ACC in total offense, gaining 330.8 yards per game through its first four contests.
Holding down an offense that is nowhere near a juggernaut isn’t worth getting too excited about. Especially when you let them run and pass all over you for the first 15 minutes.
Baby steps improvement for Ian Frye: Ian Frye was on award watch lists before the season after his 22-for-27 stat line on field goals in 2014, then stumbled out of the gate to a 3-for-6 start on field goals in 2015.
Frye was 2-for-2 on field goals on Saturday, but both were chippies – 26 and 33 yards.
Frye had an extra point blocked in the fourth quarter, raising the spectre of the ‘Hoos thinking about going for two in the final minute assuming the final drive would result in a touchdown.
Big plays: UVA had four rushes of eight or more yards, gaining 111 yards on those plays, and seven pass plays of 10 or more yards, gaining 161 yards on those plays, for a total of 15 big plays for 272 yards.
Pitt had four rushes of eight or more yards, gaining 82 yards on those plays, and seven pass plays of 10 or more yards, gaining 176 yards on those plays, for a total of 11 big plays for 258 yards.
– Story by Chris Graham
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