UVA Football (4-3, 2-2 ACC) hosts North Carolina (3-4, 0-3 ACC) at noon ET.
Details
Saturday, Oct. 26, Noon ET
Series: North Carolina leads series, 65-59-4
Last meeting: Virginia, 31-27 (2023)
The CW: Thom Brennaman (play-by-play), Max Browne (analyst), Carla Gebhart (sideline)
SiriusXM Radio: SiriusXM 138 / SiriusXM 194 / SiriusXM 390
SiriusXM App: SiriusXM 956 / SiriusXM 970
Line: Virginia -3.5
Over/under: 59
Forecast final score: Virginia 31, North Carolina 27
Red zone woes continue
Virginia had first-and-goal at the 1. The snap from Jack Whitmer overshot Anthony Colandrea, who recovered the fumble at the UNC 12.
Two incomplete passes later, and Will Bettridge connected on a 30-yard field goal.
Virginia is 103rd in the nation in red zone offense for a reason.
Virginia 3, North Carolina 0, 8:36/1st
UNC scores on a wide-receiver screen
JJ Jones scores on a 37-yard wide-receiver screen.
Drive: nine plays, 75 yards.
The big play was a 19-yard scramble from QB Jacolby Criswell on a second-and-20.
North Carolina 7, UVA 3, 5:23/1st
The UVA offense: completely befuddled
How do you get a delay of game after a change of possession?
Rhetorical question.
That delay of game, plus two sacks, and UNC gets the ball in plus territory after a short punt.
UNC extends the lead
Noah Burnette good from 30 yards as the UNC offense bogs down in the red zone.
The Virginia offense has done less than nothing since the opening possession – a net two yards of total offense on its other two drives.
North Carolina 10, Virginia 3, 7:51/2nd
Another red-zone field goal
A first down in the red zone is the worst thing for this Virginia offense.
After a big gainer to Malachi Fields for a first down at the UNC 12, there was an Anthony Colandrea scramble and two incomplete passes in the general direction of Fields, ahead of another short Will Bettridge field goal.
North Carolina 10, Virginia 6, 4:02/2nd
Swiss cheese
North Carolina drives 75 yards in seven plays. Too easy. Never under any duress. Didn’t have a third down.
North Carolina 17, UVA 6, 1:32/2nd
How is that a TD?
JJ Jones scores the first receiving TD in many years in which not a single part of his body touched in play as he made the catch.
Amazing.
The officials didn’t even review the play.
North Carolina 24, Virginia 6
First half wrap
That’s about as bad as you’re going to see a home team in a rivalry game play.
A North Carolina defense that had been giving up 505 yards per game in the past four, all losses, held the Virginia offense to 77 yards, and sacked Anthony Colandrea six times, on the way to a 24-6 lead at halftime.
Colandrea is 5-of-14 for 73 yards. The run game has gone for 49 sack-adjusted rushing yards.
Colandrea has 37 scramble yards. Kobe Pace has 19 yards on six attempts.
The two scoring drives got into the red zone, and ended with short field goals.
Will Bettridge adds to his nation-best total of red-zone field goals.
The UNC offense has 275 yards.
Jacolby Criswell is 12-of-19 for 180 yards and two TD passes.
Omarion Hampton has 71 yards on 17 rushing attempts.
I’d expect to see a lot of Hampton in the second half. UNC probably plays its normal tempo on its first possession, looking to add to the lead, and then goes into clock-management mode after.
Virginia will need to play two-minute offense the rest of the way.
This Virginia team, once 4-1, is staring 4-8 squarely in the face at the moment.
And … yeah
The relative few who came back after halftime are leaving.
Anthony Colandrea was INT’d on third-and-7 on Virginia’s first series, and Omarion Hampton scored on an 8-yard run.
It’s 31-6 Carolina, 12:07 to go in the third.
Here’s how much of a sh-tshow today has been for UVA Athletics
To the credit of UVA Athletics, they worked hard to get people here, and it’s now been announced yet, but my guess is the announced attendance will be in the 45K range.
Tony Elliott talks about complementary football. Today, that would involve, you get the biggest crowd you’ve had here since Bronco Mendenhall was run out of here, you actually give the people who come out for the first time in a while something worth watching.
Not happening.
I’ve already analyzed the hell out of that.
On the gameday experience side, I inadvertently was able to see firsthand what fans deal with in terms of parking, because I only realized at about 10:30 that I had lost my media parking pass, which made it so that I had to park at JPJ.
The hope was to be able to take the bus, but the line for the bus was 200-plus deep, and with no buses coming in the 15 minutes that I was in line waiting.
So, I walked the 1.42 miles.
I’m fit and trim, so I can do that.
Not everybody can.
There were thousands of fans in the parking lots at JPJ when I trekked out. I doubt that many made it to the game at all.
They certainly weren’t there by kickoff. I hustled and made it in with 1:39 on the pregame countdown clock.
Good crowd, though, as I said, for the first half.
The folks sitting in the section below the open-air press box started saying good-bye to each other after the final Carolina TD of the first half that made it 24-6.
The parking lot outside the stadium was filled to capacity at halftime. They’d already voted with their feet.
We checked the concession stands at halftime. Some were closed. One employee told us, they don’t pay people enough to fill all the jobs.
So, not enough buses, closed concession stands.
The awful lack of preparation by the coaching staff, the poor performance by the kids.
This is the worst of all worlds.
Carolina gets a fat-guy TD
Jahvaree Ritzie, a 6’4″, 290-pound dude, returned a batted-ball INT 84 yards for a TD, taking what felt like five minutes to traverse the 84 yards down the sidelines.
That was another red-zone failure there.
At least it wasn’t another field goal, right?
It was already 31-6, so, I don’t want to overstate this, but a fat guy rumbling, bumbling and stumbling 84 yards in a time that you could measure using a sun-dial is a reflection of a team that has given up.
The wideouts and running backs should have been able to chase the fat guy down.
Nobody did. Nobody even tried.