Don’t get what you saw tonight wrong. North Carolina, undefeated, ranked 10th nationally, looking ahead to the ACC title game and the College Football Playoff, didn’t give this one away.
Tony Elliott and his Virginia group took it away.
The Tar Heels turned the ball over once, on their last offensive snap, already down 31-27 in the final minute.
No excuses for them in that respect.
It was Virginia, the team with one win, over an FCS program, in a game that was still very much competitive into the fourth quarter, that turned the ball over twice, both times as the Cavaliers were about to score.
One was a Tony Muskett INT on a badly underthrown ball into the end zone.
The second was a fumble by Mike Hollins as he was about to score the put-the-game-away TD late.
Without those, this one is a blowout, for the team with the one win coming in.
Which means, hey, gotta give credit to Tony Elliott.
He was 4-12 at Virginia in a season and a half coming in, 1-5 at the midpoint this year.
Wasn’t going to be favored in a single game in the second half of Season 2, which, translated, would have had him finishing 1-11, probably on the hot seat, who knows, maybe about to get canned.
But all week, he told his guys, This is what you dream about.
Even at 1-5 six games in, his team had lost three games by three or less this season – blowing a double-digit lead in a Week 2 loss to JMU, losing by three on late field goals against NC State and Boston College.
Elliott’s message to his team going in: “If we can compete, which we’re learning how to do consistently and get the game to the fourth quarter, then hopefully we can flip it by finishing in the fourth quarter.”
That was Elliott on Tuesday.
Virginia scored first, led 14-7 at the end of one, rallied from a 24-14 deficit in the third to tie it, then found itself down 27-24 early in the fourth.
And then, flipped it.
And after the nifty 14-yard catch-and-run TD pass from Tony Muskett to Malik Washington gave Virginia the lead, the Cavaliers had to overcome a play that would have deflated any team in America, a fumble on a potential game-clinching TD run with four minutes and change to go.
The D got a stop after Carolina got to the red zone, then one more after the Heels got into plus territory in the final minute.
In doing so, the Virginia kids embodied what their coach had been preaching all week.
“Come on, man. It’s primetime. It’s 6:30. It’s on the road. Top-10 team. This is what you dream about. When you are a kid, these are the moments that you want to be in. We’re not going to make it something bigger than what it is, but be truly understanding of what the opportunity is.”
That, again, was Elliott on Tuesday.
He was that guy all week.
He doesn’t have anywhere near the accumulation of talent that Mack Brown had over on the UNC sideline Saturday night.
Brown has a succession of Top 20 recruiting classes filling his two-deep.
Elliott’s first class ranked 13th in the 14-team ACC.
He’s had to make do with what he has.
Brown has a quarterback in Drake Maye that is, well, was, on everybody’s Heisman watch list.
We can put the Maye-for-Heisman campaign right there with Ron DeSantis after tonight.
The ACC, no doubt, wants to have a word with Tony Elliott, because he just cost everybody a lot of money.
Elliott’s one-win Virginia team just exposed Drake Maye, and knocked North Carolina out of any hopes of a College Football Playoff berth.
The ACC will miss out on millions, but Virginia has a football coach.
This is the kind of win that a coach builds around, with recruiting, with getting the fans excited about coming out for home games.
This is good news, great news, if you’re a Virginia football fan.
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Chris Graham
