The UVA Football program is at 4-1 for the first time since 2019 with the 24-14 win over Boston College on Saturday.
BC (4-2, 1-1 ACC) got out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead, but Virginia (4-1, 2-0 ACC) was able to inch back into it with a pair of second-quarter field goals, and then seized control in an explosive fourth quarter in which the Eagles turned the ball over three times.
“Just super proud of the guys overall, because they accepted the challenge,” ‘Hoos coach Tony Elliott said. “You know, we knew that BC was going to come in here, and they were going to try and start fast, and they did. And, you know, we allowed some of it with some, just some uncharacteristic mistakes, but they found a way to persevere through it.
“They didn’t get down. They didn’t start pointing fingers. They all looked at themselves in the mirror and said, Hey, we’re gonna figure out what it takes. And just super proud that for the last 43 minutes they were able to keep them out of the end zone,” Elliott said.
Report card
I’m going to do this part of the weekly wrap a little differently this time, highlighting the top grades from Pro Football Focus.
The top guy on offense was left guard Noah Josey (PFF grade: 77.8), who played all 70 snaps, was dinged for two QB pressures on 39 pass dropbacks (97.1 percent efficiency rate) and had a team-best 79.4 grade on run blocks.
On defense, the honors go to safety Jonas Sanker (PFF grade: 72.3), who had six tackles, one QB hurry, allowed three catches on four targets for 16 yards (81.3 NFL passer rating, and had a 40-yard scoop-and-score TD in the fourth quarter to help put the game away.
Exceeding expectations
The ACC media foresaw Virginia finishing 16th in the now-17-team (for football) ACC in the preseason.
I got laughed at for suggesting, early and often, beginning in the spring, holding into the summer and through camp, that this would be the year that Elliott would get UVA Football back into a bowl game.
Now at 4-1, 2-0 in the ACC, the program is two wins away from what is starting to feel like the low bar in terms of goals for the 2024 season.
“It’s a football team that many people on the outside, you know, kind of wrote off at the beginning of the season. And I told these guys, man, we ain’t worried about that. We want to prove ourselves, right? And these guys believe that they had what it takes to be, you know, 2-0, and 4-1 in the league. Just super proud,” Elliott said.
Attendance (lack thereof)
The official attendance for this one was 38,325. The official capacity at Scott Stadium is 61,500, and we’ve had 64,947 in for a game (Southern Cal, 2008).
Average attendance through three home games in 2024: 40,149.
That’s 65.3 percent of the official capacity.
We’re down from last year’s average of 43,293, and back toward the 2022 average of 40,681.
The last even decent year attendance-wise was that 2019 year, which saw Virginia win nine regular-season games, earn its first trip to the ACC Championship Game, and get an Orange Bowl invite.
The average that season was still just 47,863, 77.8 percent of capacity.
Remember when we used to routinely get 60,000 in the stadium for games?
That means you remember 2007, when the average was 59,824.
Ground and pound
I had told WINA’s Luke Neer on his “Best Seat in the House” show earlier in the week that if Virginia was able to get 150 yards on the ground, the ‘Hoos would get the W.
They didn’t end up at 150; the final stats had UVA at 126 yards, sack-adjusted, on 35 attempts, an average of 3.6 yards per.
The damage was done in the second half: 85 yards on 18 attempts, 4.7 yards per.
“Kobe (Pace) got the hot hand, and X (Xavier Brown) had a couple of X type of plays, but he sparked us with a couple of with a couple of runs,” Elliott said.
Pace finished with 83 yards on 19 carries, 67 yards on nine attempts in the second half.
Brown had 20 yards on four attempts in the second half, and 22 yards on five tries on the game.
Elliott has been preaching about the need for Virginia to develop an effective ground game to be more balanced offensively since he was hired in December 2021.
We didn’t see much in terms of success at that in his first two seasons, but through five games, UVA is averaging 180.2 yards per game.
The last time I see anything comparable in the Virginia record books is back in 2018, when that team put up 173.2 yards per game on the ground.
“You know, I know it may not be the sexiest thing to have a 4-yard again, right? But that’s a big thing for offensive play calling, man,” Elliott said.
The return of McKale Boley
I mentioned that the highest PFF grade on offense went to left guard Noah Josey. Kudos are also in line for left tackle McKale Boley, who got a 72.2 PFF grade in his return.
Boley, who had missed the first four games recovering from a training-camp injury, went was in on 53 snaps, allowed two QB pressures on 33 pass dropbacks (96.6 efficiency rate), and had a 75.1 grade on run blocks.
Great work on Thomas Castellanos
OK, I should write there, great work, after the 11-for-11 start.
Thomas Castellanos completed his first 11 passes, the 11th completion going 29 yards to Kamali Morales for a touchdown that put BC up 14-0 in the first quarter.
At that point, he was 11-for-11 for 135 yards and two TDs through the air.
After the TD, Castellanos was 11-of-19 for 119 yards with two INTs as the Eagles offense came up empty on its last seven drives, with three punts, three turnovers (including a Castellanos fumble that was returned by Jonas Sanker for a TD) and a turnover-on-downs.
And Castellanos, who had 78 yards rushing in the 27-24 BC win over Virginia up in Chestnut Hill in 2023, did next to nothing on the ground on Saturday – 13 yards on five designed runs and one 6-yard scramble, while being sacked three times.
“Just overall, a couple of adjustments by Rud (defensive coordinator John Rudzinski) and staff, but more importantly, the guys made the adjustments and just started execute with more precision,” Elliott said.
“I thought they became a little bit more just disruptive as the as the game went on, from that standpoint, and the guys on the back end, man, just started doing their job with precision. And that was the message at halftime, right? The effort, like effort alone, is not going to get it done, like, we got to be precise in what we’re doing,” Elliott said.
Donovan Ezeiruaku had himself a game
It’s not all that often that you see a D end lead his team in tackles, but that’s what Boston College senior Donovan Ezeiruaku brings.
Ezeiruaku is listed at 6’2”, 247, so at the next level, he’s more standup outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense than defensive end anywhere.
He covered the field for BC on Saturday like an outside linebacker, with 10 tackles, seven on run plays, and nine QB pressures.
Yes, nine.
That was on 67 snaps.
His PFF grade was 81.5.
I was thinking as I watched the game, wonder what Chris Slade is thinking on the UVA sidelines, watching this guy play here the way Slade did back in his day?
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