Virginia safety Lex Long celebrates after successfully defending an Old Dominion passing play. — Matt Riley/Virginia Athletics

Five Observations From Virginia's Win Over Old Dominion

What we learned from UVA's dramatic 16-14 victory against ODU on Saturday

Author:
Matt Newton
Publish date:
Sep 18, 2022 1:10 PM EDT

In this story:

It certainly wasn't pretty, but the Cavaliers are 2-1.

Virginia defeated Old Dominion 16-14 on Saturday at Scott Stadium behind a 26-yard field goal by Brendan Farrell as time expired. The UVA defense played very well for nearly the entire game before giving up the lead on a late ODU touchdown drive with just over a minute remaining. Brennan Armstrong and the UVA offense, which had struggled to turn drives into points all game, drove down the field in less than 60 seconds and set Farrell up for a chip-shot field goal, which he made to win the game for the Cavaliers.

Barely getting by the Monarchs did very little to build confidence in this UVA football team moving forward, but there are definitely some positive things to take away from this game as well as some inevitable areas where improvement is needed.

Here's five observations from Virginia's win over Old Dominion:

1. More optimism for the Virginia defense

The performance of the UVA defense at Illinois last week was the one bright spot included as a footnote of everyone's takeaways from an otherwise horrendous team performance for the Cavaliers. In our "Six Overreactions" article on the Illinois game, we said that the UVA defense evoked "cautious optimism" with its play in Champaign. Today, we're going to start our observations with the defense, which almost singlehandedly won the game for Virginia.

The Cavaliers were really solid against the run, yielding just 89 yards on the ground and 2.8 yards per carry to the Monarchs. ODU's passing game was effective, particularly with Ali Jennings and Zack Kuntz, but UVA did well to bend, not break, and get off the field with defensive stands. Old Dominion punted eight times in the game, including five-consecutive punts in the second half. ODU was 4-15 on third downs. Virginia also turned the Monarchs over on downs on their first drive of the game, as Jonas Sanker stopped Tariq Sims on fourth down when ODU had driven to the UVA 23-yard line.

The Monarchs had just 58 yards of total offense in the second half before their final touchdown drive to take the lead. The key to Virginia's success on the defensive end after halftime was the defensive line. Much was said about UVA's depth on the D-Line coming into this season and that depth showed itself in the second half. The ODU offensive line seemed fatigued, while the Virginia defensive line was fresh. UVA sacked ODU quarterback Hayden Wolff three times in the second half with Chico Bennett Jr., Kam Butler, and Aaron Faumui getting to Wolff in the pocket.

The Virginia defense had two bad drives in the entire game and both occurred at the very end of each half. A Brennan Armstrong fumble gave ODU the ball back with 51 seconds left and the Monarchs drove 64 yards in 32 seconds and scored on a 29-yard touchdown pass from Wolff to Jennings. UVA defensive coordinator John Rudzinski took responsibility for the play-call that ended up leaving linebacker Josh Ahern in coverage on Jennings, ODU's best receiver. Rudzinski also said the UVA offense "bailed out" the defense at the end of the game after Virginia gave up an 11-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to ODU in the final three minutes. We're not sure we agree with that assessment since the UVA defense carried the offense for nearly the entire game, but Rudzinski's approach and mentality - that allowing even 14 points is too much - is a great sign of things to come for this Virginia defense that continues to improve and make the mess of the 2021 campaign a distant memory.

2. UVA secondary plays well despite injuries

Virginia delivered an impressive defensive performance despite being down a few key players in the secondary. It was announced right before the game that senior safety Antonio Clary would miss the game with an undisclosed injury. Tony Elliott also reported earlier this week that fifth-year safety Darrius Bratton was unlikely to play due to a bone bruise and a high-ankle sprain. Bratton didn't start the game and only made an appearance on the field briefly towards the end of the game.

The UVA secondary has been bolstered significantly by a few breakout performances from underclassmen. Sophomore safety Lex Long led the Cavaliers in tackling for the second-straight game. After recording 13 tackles at Illinois, Long had nine against ODU and also tallied a tackle for loss and two pass breakups. Fellow sophomore defensive back Jonas Sanker was solid as well with seven tackles, three of which were solo stops. UVA has developed some nice depth in the secondary with Long and Sanker coming along to join Anthony Johnson, Fentrell Cypress, and Coen King as well as Bratton and Clary when they are healthy.

3. Virginia's offensive outing wasn't as bad as the 16 points would suggest

Okay, yes, it is true that scoring 16 points against Old Dominion is not good. But it is also true that the UVA offense took a positive step towards regaining its 2021 form on Saturday. The Cavaliers put up 513 yards of total offense, which is just a couple of yards below their season average from 2021 and nearly 300 yards more than they managed at Illinois last week.

For the second-straight week, Brennan Armstrong didn't throw a touchdown pass, but that was more reflective of UVA's struggles to punctuate drives in the red zone, which we will get to later. Armstrong went 20/37 from 284 yards. He was in sync with Keytaon Thompson, who was the offensive MVP on Saturday with nine receptions on 14 targets for 118 receiving yards. Star wideout Dontayvion Wicks, who has struggled mightily so far this season, had another slow start with a couple of drops, but recovered well in the second half and made some nice plays, finishing with 85 yards on four receptions. Lavel Davis Jr. caught only two passes, but one of them was a game-changing 30-yard reception in the final minute of the game to help the Cavaliers move into ODU territory.

The Virginia running game was more impressive. Led by true freshman Xavier Brown, who is beginning to build a solid case to be RB1, the Cavaliers totaled 229 rushing yards and averaged 5.1 yards per carry. Brown averaged 9.8 yards per rushing attempt, racking up 88 yards on nine carries and running with a level of speed and tenacity that has thus far been unmatched by the other UVA tailbacks. Perris Jones had a quality day with 56 yards on 11 carries and Brennan Armstrong ran the ball quite a bit as well, finishing with 14 carries for 54 yards. Mike Hollins scored Virginia's only touchdown of the game, but it was not a good day for the junior running back. Hollins had just 29 yards on eight carries and also fumbled inside the ODU five-yard line, the beginning of a disturbing trend for the Cavaliers in the red zone.

4. Red zone struggles and ball security issues ruined Virginia's solid offensive game

Mike Hollins fumbled at the ODU 4-yard line in the second quarter. In the third quarter, Brennan Armstrong was sacked and fumbled the ball on a play that started at the ODU 6-yard line. UVA fans would have been a lot less concerned with the team's offensive output had those two drives ended in touchdowns instead. That's not to say that Virginia's problems in the red zone and troubles hanging onto the football do not warrant concern - they certainly do. But it's a lot easier to address smaller problems like red zone execution or ball security than it is to address the larger, systematic, and borderline catastrophic issues that emerged with the UVA offense as a whole after the Illinois game.

The Virginia offense was able to move the ball down the field. There were signs of more creative play-calling to get Armstrong out of the pocket and move the line of scrimmage to help out the offensive line. The Cavaliers were much improved on third downs, converting on 7/16 attempts as compared to 1/16 last week. The UVA ground game was viable and Xavier Brown could be the future for the Cavaliers at the tailback position. Keytaon Thompson was the lead-man for a UVA receiving unit that had a moderately productive game with 284 receiving yards even without Billy Kemp, who missed the game with an illness. There's still a lot of work to be done - in particular with getting Dontayvion Wicks out of his slump and we'd like to see Lavel Davis Jr. get some more targets - but things are not nearly as bad as the 16-point scoring effort would indicate.

5. Virginia showed mental toughness

Ahead of last week's game at Illinois, we wrote that the game would tell us a lot about UVA's mental toughness and ability to respond to adversity. The Cavaliers failed that test miserably, becoming dejected and frustrated on the sideline as the offense went three-and-out on possession after possession. With a confident ODU squad coming to town, there were concerns about how the Hoos would respond if the Monarchs threw a few punches.

Well, the punch came. And UVA responded.

Old Dominion scored a touchdown to take the lead with just 71 seconds remaining. A Virginia offense that had managed just 13 points through the first 59 minutes was forced to drive the length of the field - well, not the length of the field thanks to a 37-yard kickoff return out of the end zone by Demick Starling (super clutch). Brennan Armstrong said after the game that he had utmost confidence that the Cavaliers would be able to move down the field since they had been able to do that all game long. He was not concerned that they would have only a minute to do so.

Indeed, UVA did not waver against the adversity. Armstrong found Lavel Davis Jr. on a crossing route for 30 yards into ODU territory. The lefty quarterback then took it himself for a 13-yard run to get it to the ODU 20-yard line. A pass interference call on a jump ball to Dontayvion Wicks in the end zone moved the ball inside the ODU 10. Brendan Farrell came on and kicked the ball through the uprights and the Cavaliers avoided a terrible loss.

If UVA can clean up its red-zone offense and continue to be solid defensively, the Cavaliers should give themselves a chance to win on the road at Syracuse in the ACC opener on Friday night.

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