Devin Neal. Photo: UVA Athletics
Man, we UVA Football fans got fat and happy this season, so much so that winning the Gator Bowl to get to 11 wins for the first time in program history isn’t satisfying enough for everybody.
Tell you what: I’ll take it.
Yes, the offense was conservative, again.
And Tony Elliott took too long, again, trying to figure out when to go for fourth downs and when to kick.
Special teams left three off the board with a field goal try that looked like Will Bettridge was kicking a leftover Tom Brady Deflate-gate ball.
Cam Ross, who has been in college since before COVID, tried to field a punt that bounced 10 yards in front of him, and it was only by the grace of whatever higher power exists that the defense kept points off the board just before the half.
Then Virginia went out and utterly dominated the second half, but couldn’t put the game to bed, and Missouri had two passes into the end zone to win the game in the final seconds, the final one with one tick left on the clock.
ICYMI
Harrison Waylee. Photo: UVA Athletics
This team has been trying to kill all of us all season long, which is why we started calling them the Cardiac Cavs.
The ACC media picked them to finish 14th in the 17-team ACC.
They won the ACC regular-season title, were a play away from getting into the College Football Playoff, and just won the Gator Bowl, to get to 11.
They had to win three games in OT.
North Carolina was thisclose to an OT win in Chapel Hill.
Needed two defensive TDs to win at Louisville, a safety to beat Washington State.
They ruined Florida State’s season, exorcised the Virginia Tech demon.
No, the 13-7 win over Missouri wasn’t pretty.
It was indescribably beautiful.
It didn’t start out that way
Note that Missouri’s side of the 13-7 was the seven.
The Tigers got their seven on their first drive, which was too easy, in terms of how it played out.
Seven plays, 74 yards, three minutes, a couple of big plays, a 5-yard TD run.
Second possession, the Virginia D got a stop on a fourth-down play just outside the UVA 30.
At that point, Mizzou had 114 yards of total offense.
They had 37 yards in the second quarter, 13 in the third, and 35 in the fourth, ahead of the two-minute drill that got them to the edge of the red zone.
That’s 85 yards on 34 snaps.
In between all of that, yes, there were shenanigans from our guys – a failed fourth-down play in scoring territory, then a missed makeable kick, six points off the board there.
The Ross fumble, somehow, didn’t get converted into points.
The drive of the game, the season, was Virginia’s first possession of the second half.
Nineteen (!) plays, 75 yards, 10:07 of game clock.
Two fourth-down conversions, three third-down conversions.
The Missouri offense, on the sidelines since the second Obama administration, coughed the ball back to Virginia on the next series, on a Matt Zollers INT that set up a second Bettridge field goal.
That would be it, in terms of points, for the night; it felt like the Virginia offense could have gotten a little more space, but the Missouri D came up with a big stop on a fourth-down play at its own 39, pressuring Chandler Morris into an incomplete pass.
After the UVA D got its own fourth-down stop with 1:57 to go, the offense had a chance to ice the game, if it could just get a first down.
A third-and-3 direct snap to Harrison Waylee came up short, setting up the last-minute theatrics that we’ve come accustomed to from our Cardiac Cavs.
Player notes
J’Mari Taylor did not play. No, he will not have to cough up any of his NIL money.
Waylee, himself a grad senior, had 20 carries for 68 yards and a TD. It’s nice having a backup with 3,199 career rushing yards coming into the season to go to when necessary.
True freshman Xay Davis had 41 yards on 12 carries. Coming into the game, he had run 11 times, all in mop-up duty, for 45 yards.
Morris, who we’re hoping to have back for one more run, was 25-of-38 through the air for 198 yards.
Redshirt junior wideout Eli Wood had 71 yards on four catches, and was the guy who helped down a Morris quick-kick punt at the Mizzou 2 in the fourth quarter, a key special teams play if there ever was one.
Safety Devin Neal and linebacker Landon Danley each had 10 tackles to lead the defense.
Safety Antonio Clary, whose college career, like that of Cam Ross, started in 2019, and was extended by redshirts due to COVID and injuries, had seven tackles and a pass breakup in his final game in a Virginia uniform. At least, I think it was his final game in a Virginia uniform. They may just let him play forever.
Team notes
Virginia put up 308 yards of total offense. Might not sound like much, but the Missouri D was second in the SEC this season, allowing 274.8 yards per game coming in.
Virginia had a 17-minute advantage in time of possession (38:34 to 21.26) and a 79-55 advantage in plays from scrimmage.