Year 3 of the Tony Elliott era opens Saturday for the UVA Football program with the ‘Hoos hosting Richmond, a 2023 FCS playoff team.
Rain is in the forecast here in Charlottesville for the 6-9:15 p.m. ET game window, and there are storms in the area, so, beware.
The ACC is about as wide open as it could be, with preseason favorites Florida State and Clemson both losing their season openers, and sleeper title-game pick Virginia Tech losing its opener today at SEC bottom-feeder Vanderbilt.
Don’t get too exicted: the media picked Virginia 16th in the 17-team ACC in the preseason.
Pregame
Update: 5:56 p.m. As you can see from my photo here, there were plenty of good seats still available a few minutes before kickoff, with the marching band on the field, moments before the national anthem.
We’ve written extensively this spring and summer about the historically low season-ticket sales.
The chickens are coming home to roost, or rather, they’re not, which is why there are thousands of empties.
‘Hoos score first
Update: 6:08 p.m. Impressive first drive for Virginia culminates in a 35-yard TD pass from Anthony Colandrea to Trell Harris.
The drive: three plays, 77 yards.
Colandrea also had a 35-yard run on a designed run to start the drive.
Trell Harris scores on the opening drive
Trell Harris’ first career reception as a Hoo is a gem 💯 pic.twitter.com/sB3ouRsUAZ
— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) August 31, 2024
Fumble!
Update: 6:19 p.m. Kam Robinson recovered a UR fumble at the UVA 46. Richmond had just gained enough to pick up a first down on a third-and-long.
The forced fumble was credited to Corey Thomas.
Drive stalls, but more points on the board
Update: Saturday, 6:23 p.m. Will Bettridge good from 21 yards. The drive stalled in the red zone. Colandrea had Sackett Wood in the flat on a play-action, but the throw was rushed by pressure, and was a little high.
Wood still should have had it.
UVA leads 10-0 with 6:23 to go in the first quarter.
Three and out
Update: 6:29 p.m. Richmond had a third-and-1 at the UVA 34, but the front bowed up, with Antonio Clary and Jonas Sanker coming in from the secondary to stop Jamal Brown in the backfield.
Touchdown!
Update: 6:33 p.m. Colandrea, on a third-and-4, scrambled to his right, and found Jack Griese, who had leaked out of the backfield, open down the right sideline.
Griese got behind the D to complete the 57-yard catch-and-carry TD.
UVA leads 17-0 with 2:41 left in the first.
Griese to the house!
GRIESE TO THE HOUSE 🚂
That’s his longest career reception and first receiving touchdown. pic.twitter.com/bheRNm8rBu
— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) August 31, 2024
End 1: UVA 17, Richmond 0
Update: 6:41 p.m. Colandrea is 7-for-9 for 188 yards and two TDs, and he has 44 yards (sack-adjusted) rushing.
Another FG from Bettridge
Bettridge was good on a 33-yard field goal to push the lead to 20-0.
We’re just now getting a warning about severe weather in the area. The game is not delayed, yet, but the bad weather is coming, per the radar.
As you can see, it doesn’t look promising.
We’re going to go into a delay at some point in the next half-hour, and might be in it for about 45 minutes to an hour.
Richmond TD, and then … weather
Richmond went 75 yards on 13 plays in 6:56, and converted two fourth downs.
And …
The weather delay is nigh.
Lightning has been detected in the area, so the stadiun is being cleared.
The radar does not look promising. Crystal Graham, back at the AFP home office, reports that Waynesboro has already received 0.92 inches of rain from the storm, which hasn’t gotten here yet.
Bad news on the weather front
Update: 7:19 p.m. The in-house meteorology folks are thinking the game will resume, best-case, at 9:30 p.m.
Worst-case: 10:15 p.m. restart.
We have a restart time (fingers crossed)
Update: 9:00 p.m. We have an anticipated resumption time of 9:17 p.m.
The teams take the field (yay)
Not many people hung around
Update: 9:10 p.m. We might get lucky and have 1,000 people here when we get going again.
It feels like the COVID year again.
Virginia storms out of the locker room
Update: 9:20 p.m. Kobe Pace goes four carries for 54 yards, scores on a 3-yard TD run, and UVA bumps the lead back up to 27-7.
The plan coming out, obviously, was to put hat on hat and push ’em back.
Decent crowd coming back, actually
Tonight’s announced attendance: fake news
Update: 9:33 p.m. They actually had the temerity to announce the attendance at 40,811.
If it was 25,000, I’ll eat my hat.
Bettridge shank ends the first half
Update: 9:37 p.m. Will Bettridge missed badly on a 36-yard kick to end the half.
Quick halftime stats update:
- Anthony Colandrea: 11-of-16, 257 yards, 2 TDs, 51 yards rushing (sack-adjusted)
- Malachi Fields: 4 catches/5 targets, 94 yards
- Kobe Pace: 8 carries, 78 yards, 1 TD
Pouring it on
Update: 9:50 p.m. Virginia comes out of the locker room, in a manner of speaking, scoring on a 12-play, 75-yard drive.
Colandrea got the TD on a 7-yard run.
Virginia leads 34-7 with 8:31 to go in the third.
First mistake of the night
Update: 10:10 p.m. Tony Elliott, for some reason known to him and few others, went for a fourth-and-1 at the UVA 29, trying to get another look at the Grady Brosterhous tush-push play that worked in the first half on a fourth-and-short.
Didn’t work this time, setting up Richmond inside the UVA 30.
Richmond stalled at the UVA 17, and Brandon Peskin was good from 35 on a field-goal try.
End 3: UVA 34, Richmond 10.
It’s getting sloppy, predictably
Update: 10:41 p.m. Tony Muskett relieved Colandrea, and missed an easy third-down pass, then threw an INT.
Richmond converted with a 33-yard Preskin field goal to make it 34-13 with 4:46 to go.
Putting a capper on this one
Update: 10:47 p.m. We just hit the two-minute warning. It’s been a long day.
My assessments:
- Good win. The offense looked good early, scoring on its first five possessions, and it would have been six, if not for the missed chip-shot field goal before the half.
- Anthony Colandrea was 17-of-23 for 297 yards, two TDs, no INTs, and had 78 sack-adjusted rushing yards. Solid day in his first week as the defined QB1.
- The ground game gained 229 yards (sack-adjusted), with Kobe Pace going for 93 yards on 11 carries.
- Malachi Fields had 100 yards receiving on five catches (on six targets).
- Tony Muskett looked lost: 0-for-3 with an INT in mop-up duty.
- This isn’t official, but Chris Tyree had three drops, and it is official that he didn’t record a catch.
- Defense: Antonio Clary and Jonas Sanker each had eight tackles. The line didn’t get a lot of pressure: no sacks, just two hurries. We’ll have more details on that tomorrow with the report card.
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