After storm of struggles, Virginia finds season-salvaging 28-25 triumph over Syracuse

When it rains, it pours — and Virginia football has learned that the hard way.

These Cavaliers (4-2, 2-1 ACC) have made self-inflicted errors that snowballed into frustrating losses against West Virginia and Florida State. Before that, just a few weeks ago, they were ranked. Recently, it looked as if they were on a beeline towards a spiraling season.

Then, on a night painted with a torrential downpour, Virginia somewhat rediscovered itself in a 28-25 win over Syracuse. A great, unrelenting rain — and even two rounds of home boos — drenched the Cavaliers.

They overcame it.

"I'm damn proud of my team that had a choice to make at halftime," Coach Tony Elliott said postgame. "And I feel like they made the the right choice."

That choice was to exercise a will to win. Strong special teams, a solidified defense and a breakout performance did that. The banner day came from running back Jekail Middlebrook, who rushed 17 times for 95 yards and two touchdowns using versions of the direct snap play that J'Mari Taylor used to run last year.

A win is a win — especially in an increasingly chaotic ACC. But this was a strange, stressful and gritty victory that did not inspire any confidence that Virginia can still win nine or 10 games.

The Cavaliers failed time and time again to handle in-game adversity. After they fell into a one-score deficit, they went three-and-out on three of their next four drives. In the second quarter, Virginia was outgained 142-27. However, miscues by the Orange (2-3, 0-3 ACC) and timely defense by the hosts ensured that the game did not get out of hand.

Syracuse missed two field goals in a game the Cavaliers won by just three points.

"We're not gonna apologize if if they outgained us," Elliott said. "They got to make field goals, right? You know, that's not on us, that's that's on them. But you know what? What we do after that is on us, and our guys responded."

Despite nearly sprinting away with the game in the second quarter, the Orange only scored 10 points in that timeframe. Syracuse just could not put the game away. Over the course of the whole game, Virginia was outgained 430-288 in total yards and lost the possession battle by over 10 minutes. That is not a recipe for victory.

This game could certainly be described as weird. There were penalties galore. The Orange had no business winning this game. Then they took complete control and ultimately had no business losing this game. Sometimes, this felt like a game that Syracuse lost, not a game the Cavaliers won.

"I'm not apologizing for winning," Elliott said. "Bottom line, I'm not going to apologize for winning the game in the ACC, right? And at the end of the day, our guys were down 10 points at half, and they found a way to come back and win an ACC game. So I mean, we're going we're going to enjoy this. We're going to celebrate it, right? We're not going to apologize for winning any football games around around here."

Virginia earned bouyancy Saturday. That is essential, especially because the next game is a road trip to No. 24 SMU. The gauntlet of ACC play is rigorous this year.

"There are a lot of things we got to clean up, and we'll go back to work on Monday," Elliott said. "And I guarantee you, this this group will take ownership of what they need to improve upon. But hey, we're not going to apologize for for winning games, and we're not going to look at no such thing as a ugly loss, right? There's a lot of teams in the country that aren't 4-2, right? There's a lot of teams that that lost to to teams that they were favored to beat, right? This is college football."

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