Virginia beat Georgia Tech 48-27 Saturday night. The final score was 48-40 because …
“Could have been focus, could have been anything really that caused them to get up some points,” said defensive back Coen King, who had six tackles for the beleaguered UVA defense, which gave up 570 yards to the Yellow Jackets.
Funny, the 570 yards aren’t the big issue after this one.
The kick-return unit was a disaster in the fourth quarter. UVA had to burn a timeout after a Georgia Tech field goal with 8:59 to go when it became apparent that the Yellow Jackets were going to line up for an onside kick.
Then, after the timeout, and the insertion of the hands team, Tech kicked it deep, and Billy Kemp had to scramble back to cover it at the 4.
No harm, no foul – the offense, in four-minute mode, drove 96 yards, culminating in a 20-yard Brennan Armstrong-to-Ra’Shaun Henry TD pass, that made it 48-27 with 3:50 left.
Ballgame.
Right?
Georgia Tech took its sweet time, down three scores, to get an answer. It took a 37-yard TD pass from Jeff Sims to Kalani Norris with 1:16 to go to get it back to a two-score game.
From here, all that we had left was the Tech onside kick effort, the UVA recovery, then backup quarterback Jay Woolfolk running out the clock.
Except that: Georgia Tech recovered not one, but two onside kicks.
The first led to another touchdown, a 5-yard TD pass from Sims to Kyric McGowan with 22 seconds left.
The second gave the Ramblin’ Wreck a Hail Mary pass into the end zone on the final play that UVA had to knock down.
“It felt like it was over,” said Armstrong, who threw for 396 yards and four touchdowns, and ran for 99 yards and two more TDs on the ground.
He’s going to be your five-time ACC quarterback of the week come Monday.
“I don’t want to say I get nervous, but when you don’t have control over stuff, or when I’m watching any other games, it gives me anxiety sometimes, just watching it and knowing you can’t really have any control over the outcome,” Armstrong said. “I had confidence in the guys, though. Georgia Tech did a pretty good job getting the ball out of bounds and working the clock in their favor to hold as much of it as they could.”
Which is nice of Armstrong to say as a team leader, but seriously.
The hands team didn’t even get a hand on either onside kick. Guys were running from the ball like it was a hand grenade with the pin pulled.
The first time that happened, it’s bad, but you’d figure, the staff will address it, get it fixed.
When it happened again, it’s on Mendenhall to address it to the staff, to get them fixed.
“At the end of the game, we won, so he (Coach Mendenhall) just reassured us that, You know guys a win’s a win, so just keep moving,” King said.
Yeah, you can tend to forget that, given how the game ended.
It was a win, the fourth in a row, after the back-to-back ugly losses to North Carolina and Wake Forest had you wondering if this team could win another game with a defense that gave up a combined 98 points and 1,172 yards in the setbacks.
“To me, everything matters, and I think that the way we’ve been working and the way that things have been addressed, as you look at four straight wins, that’s not accidental,” Mendenhall said. “Onside kicks, that needs some work, but prevent and preserving victory, if you put it in that context, the rest of it looked to me like it just is a work in progress that’s making progress.”
Story by Chris Graham
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