UVA Football Report Card: Handing Out Grades for Virginia vs. SMU

It’s time to break down Virginia’s 33-7 loss to No. 13 SMU on Saturday by handing out some report card grades for various players, position groups, and other categories to evaluate the Cavaliers’ performance in week 13.

We’ll save the QB debate of Colandrea vs. Muskett and Tony Elliott’s handling of that situation for another time. We’re only interested in grading Colandrea’s quarterback play on the field… which left a whole lot to be desired. We’ll give Colandrea some slack because he was frequently under duress throughout the game and didn’t turn the ball over for the first time in over a month. What we won’t give him credit for is his artificial completion percentage. He completed 18 of 27 passes (67%), but fueling that (on paper) decent stat is Colandrea’s mind-boggling refusal to throw the ball away or attempt to push the ball down the field. The offensive line is not in good shape, but at least a few of those nine sacks were instances where Colandrea ran himself into sacks instead of getting rid of the ball. The one touchdown pass to Malachi Fields late in the fourth quarter represented everything good and bad about Anthony Colandrea all wrapped up into one play, as he retreated 20+ yards to evade pressure before unleashing a beautiful throw to a target he may or may not have seen open in the back corner of the end zone for a four-yard touchdown pass that traveled more than 30 yards through the air. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers have only seen but rare glimpses of that “electrifyingly good” version of Anthony Colandrea in the last several weeks.

Tony Elliott, at least partially, threw the offensive line under the bus in his postgame press conference on Saturday, citing the team’s inability to protect the quarterback as a reason why inserting Tony Muskett into the game would not have made much of a difference. While that point is debatable, it is true that UVA’s offensive line struggled mightily against SMU, giving up nine sacks and two more quarterback hurries, 12 tackles for loss for a total of -72 yards, and blocking for a ground game that averaged just 1.7 yards per carry. You’re not going to win a lot of games like that.

Something is seriously wrong with Virginia’s passing game and the responsibility is shared among several parties. Anthony Colandrea is scrambling too quickly before going through his reads, isn’t willing to throw receivers open, and hasn’t been able to hit on deep balls since early in the season. For their part, the Cavalier receivers have struggled to gain separation, nor have they been able to turn the short throws into big plays – Chris Tyree has not been nearly as impactful as hoped and Trell Harris is severely missed as a deep threat. We’ve already discussed the offensive line, which has to encourage Colandrea to stay in the pocket by keeping that pocket intact for more than a second or two. And of course, the coaches bear responsibility for not being able to adjust the scheme to put Colandrea and his receivers in better positions to connect, especially in the middle of the field. The outcome of all of this is that an SMU defense that came into this week ranked 13th in the ACC in pass defense managed to hold Virginia to a season-low 108 passing yards.

This isn’t surprising at this point, but it doesn’t make it any less of a problem. Virginia has had games of 73, 68, 7, and 65 yards rushing this season. Not being able to win the line of scrimmage is a big part of it, but Saturday added injury to insult as the Cavaliers lost Kobe Pace and Xavier Brown to injury, leaving Noah Vaughn as the team’s leading rusher in the game. Brown will be out for the rest of the season with a broken collarbone, while Pace is questionable for next week at Virginia Tech.

Virginia averaged 2.6 yards per play. That just about sums it up.

Virginia’s best stat of the game was that SMU running back Brashard Smith, who entered the week as the ACC’s third leading rusher averaging more than 100 yards per game and more than six yards per carry, managed just 63 total rush yards and only 3.3 yards per rushing attempt. The bad news for Virginia is that SMU more than made up for that in the passing game…

The Mustangs threw for 323 yards through the air, including a series of big plays as the Cavaliers were carved up by Kevin Jennings and company. Still, UVA managed to bend, but not break until the late stages of the game, holding SMU to field goals and even coming up with a couple of turnovers to try to set up the Virginia offense with good field position.

For the second week in a row, the UVA defense played well enough to make this a competitive game, only to watch as the UVA offense continued to drop the ball. This game was 7-0 late in the first half and it was even still within reach early in the fourth quarter. John Rudzinski’s unit has been playing well for the last three weeks.

There were no catastrophic special teams miscues, but Will Bettridge missed a 41-yard field goal, Chris Tyree and Kam Courtney both tried to catch a kickoff and fumbled it (barely recovering), and the Cavaliers allowed a 48-yard punt return to Roderick Daniels Jr. Daniel Sparks had a good day punting the ball, so that’s nice.

Virginia finishes the season with a 2-4 record at home, losing those four games by a combined 71 points. The announced attendance on Saturday was 36,305, which was the second-lowest attendance of the season. It seems to be a cyclical problem of poor performances contributing to poor turnout and the resultant poor atmosphere meaning the Cavaliers essentially have zero home field advantage.

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