ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips may have wished he had not chosen to make Saturday a doubleheader of football, instead just make the trip from Greensboro straight to Chapel Hill’s evening contest between Pitt and UNC.
Phillips, however, chose to come to Charlottesville first and take in the 12:30 game between Miami and Virginia. Just imagine driving down 29 south to make the Panthers-Tar Heels 8 p.m. kickoff after that one.
OK, there was a positive aspect to the early game between the Hurricanes and Cavaliers. Both teams were perfect in one respect; they each attempted four field goals and connected on all of them.
And if you liked punts, well, there were 14 of those.
Otherwise, Phillips watched just another typical Saturday afternoon of poor-to-mediocre ACC Football. There were no touchdowns, and surprisingly no turnovers, either. Both offenses were abysmal, if not worse. Miami gained just 272 yards of total offense in four quarters and four overtimes.
Virginia, ditto. The Cavaliers offensively sputtered all afternoon, accumulating just 327 total yards.
This was a Miami team that was the preseason pick to win the Coastal Division and make a run for the College Football Playoff. Virginia, with starting quarterback Brennan Armstrong returning, was hoping for an improved defense to make a run at the Coastal title.
Virginia was facing its third straight backup quarterback and contained Miami quarterback Jake Garcia, except in the game’s most critical moment, as Garcia, on a keeper, went around end and just crossed the goal line before stepping out of bounds to give the Hurricanes the win in overtime number four.
It wasn’t the Virginia defense that cost the Cavaliers this afternoon, though. Once again, it was an inept offense that continues to look for an identity, eight games into the season.
Somehow UVA still hasn’t figured out how to fix an offense that entering the season wasn’t broken.
The Cavaliers were inside the Miami 5 line three times in the second half but walked away with just two field goals. The only team to reach the endzone was Miami, on the final play of the game, on a “drive” that started at the Virginia 2. Even that play was reviewed.
A year removed from boasting one of the top offensive teams in the country, the Cavalier offense has been dismal-to-dysfunctional during the team’s first eight games, leading to a 3-5 record. Not one playmaker on the Virginia offense has near the type of year that was achieved during the 2021 season, including Armstrong, who has regressed more than any other starting quarterback in the conference.
The offensive line followed former head coach Bronco Mendenhall out of town after the season, and for some reason the new staff had Armstrong setting up in the pocket significantly more this season. At times under pressure, Armstrong has been unable to make one or two reads before being forced to break the pocket and scramble.
The new Virginia coaching staff has yet to reach the team’s capabilities, by using the players’ talents and abilities, instead seemingly forcing its style into the game plan. That worked at Clemson, where there was NFL talent at every turn, and thus Elliott implemented more of an NFL-like system.
So far at UVA, though, this approach has made life extremely difficult for Armstrong and company. Last year, Armstrong was clutch in critical situations; this season, not so much. Under the previous Virginia coaching staff, Armstrong was most effective running the offense primarily from the shotgun, getting the ball to his receivers with pinpoint accuracy in the open field.
To blame this fiasco of a season all on the UVA quarterback and new offensive strategies would be incorrect. Penalties, pass drops, fumbles, poor special teams play, have all been contributing factors as well. With these errors continuing to plague the team, again eight games into the season, it may not make a difference as to what offensive design Elliott chooses to run; you cannot expect to win making the same mistakes every game.
Elliott, in his first year at UVA, has some time to make some changes that will bring back the fireworks, but it doesn’t look like it will happen this year.
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