For the final time this season, let’s hand out some letter grades to evaluate Virginia’s 37-17 defeat to Virginia Tech in the Commonwealth Clash on Saturday night in Blacksburg.

In his first start in 13 months, Muskett struggled to find accuracy on his deep balls, couldn’t connect with Malachi Fields or Trell Harris, who was playing his first game since week 3, and had two bad overthrows for costly interceptions. Muskett settled in a bit in the third quarter and led the Cavaliers on back-to-back scoring drives, both of which he capped with touchdown runs. He was more effective running the football than Anthony Colandrea and made some nice throws outside the pocket, though his completion percentage was not great: 19/36 (53%).

For what it’s worth, I think it was the right call to roll with Muskett as the starter even with the hindsight of knowing that Colandrea bolted to the transfer portal less than 24 hours later. With the way Colandrea played in the back half of the season and the way he played against Virginia Tech last year, this was the right decision by Tony Elliott and company. And as you can see in the video below from Preston Willett, Tony Muskett clearly left it all on the field.

Suderian Harrison had a career night, catching five passes for 54 yards, including a 24-yarder on the sideline that stood as Virginia’s longest play of the game. It was a great game for Harrison, but the fact that he led the Cavaliers in receiving is not a great sign for the team, as it came as a result of Malachi Fields being neutralized (two catches for 20 yards on five targets), Trell Harris not being impactful in his return from injury, and Chris Tyree being removed from the passing game in order to give UVA an experienced option at running back. Virginia converted just four passes of 15 or more yards and none that went for 25 yards. The Cavaliers averaged just 9.4 yards per completion, barely more than half of Virginia Tech’s (18.1), and UVA’s 178 passing yards were well beneath the expected amount for a team that attempted 36 passes in the game.

Virginia gave up five sacks, which is actually a significant improvement over the nine sacks UVA gave up against SMU, but still not great. The Cavaliers attempted a flea flicker on their first offensive play of the game and it was blown up immediately by projected NFL Draft pick Antwaun Powell-Ryland, who had three sacks in the game. McKale Boley actually did a fine job against Powell-Ryland when he was lined up against him on the outside, but when Boley went down with an injury, Powell-Ryland blew right past Jack Witmer on the next play for another sack. Boley, Blake Steen, and Noah Josey all suffered injuries in the game, continuing a problematic year-long trend for the Virginia offensive line, which couldn’t stay healthy throughout the entire season. The Cavaliers also failed, unsurprisingly, to establish the run, which brings us to our next grade…

Virginia’s ground game has been given a lot of poor grades this season. With the exception of the Richmond and Coastal Carolina games, in which the Cavaliers had a distinct advantage at the line of scrimmage, UVA never found any consistent success running the football. Besides those two games, Virginia’s best game of the year running the football came against Pittsburgh, going for 170 yards and two touchdowns on the ground; not coincidentally, that was probably UVA’s best win of the season. Against Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers had 96 yards on 32 carries, averaging 3.0 yards per rushing attempt. Most of that was due to some effective quarterback runs from Tony Muskett, who had 62 rushing yards even with the negative sack yardage. With Xavier Brown and Kobe Pace out with injuries, Virginia moved Chris Tyree to the backfield along with Noah Vaughn. Tyree had 18 yards on eight carries and Vaughn had 16 yards on six carries. Getting little to no gain on first and second down run plays consistently had Virginia facing third and long. Virginia’s inability to run the football has been a problem all season long and for the last several seasons even dating back to the final years of the Bronco Mendenhall era.

Virginia’s scheme, playcalling, and execution were all subpar. By the time Des Kitchings and company “figured it out” with a couple of scoring drives in the third quarter, it was too little, too late.

For most of the game, Virginia actually held up fairly well against Bhayshul Tuten and the Hokie rushing attack. That was until Tuten broke a third down tackle from Kam Robinson and got loose for a 58-yard touchdown that essentially put the nail in the coffin. If you take out that play, the Hokies averaged just 3.7 yards per carry, which is pretty respectable for the UVA defense. The Cavaliers had trouble containing Pop Watson on quarterback keepers, but that is more an issue of UVA’s pass rushers not staying disciplined than with Virginia’s actual run defense. Virginia Tech did have success using misdirection to get the Hoos a step or two behind at the point of attack.

Where Virginia really lost the game was in pass defense. There was a massive error with a blown coverage on the 66-yard touchdown pass to Jaylin Lane from Pop Watson, who looked like a veteran quarterback out there dicing up the UVA secondary in his first-career start. It was just way too easy for the redshirt freshman, who threw for 254 yards and a touchdown and completed 67% of his passes. Virginia got very little pressure on Watson, who was sacked only twice, with the second sack coming late in the fourth quarter when Watson practically gave himself up with the game already in hand. John Rudzinski has, by most accounts, done a pretty solid job with this UVA defense over the course of his three season in Charlottesville. But the results so far in his two games against Virginia Tech have not been encouraging.

We must shout out Jonas Sanker, who was once again a picture of consistency in his final game as a Cavalier, just as he has been all season and throughout his career. The Charlottesville native doesn’t miss many tackles and never gives up on a play, as evidenced by his near chase down of Bhayshul Tuten on that long touchdown run. He has great tackling technique and this year in particular, Sanker has shown that he has the physical tools with his speed and athleticism to make it in the NFL. Sanker co-led Virginia with nine total tackles on Saturday night, finished the regular season as the ACC’s leader in solo tackles, and should have a First-Team All-ACC selection with his name on it as well as an NFL Draft pick in his future. It’s been a pleasure watching Sanker play football in a Virginia uniform for the last four years.

Virginia Tech racked up 456 yards of total offense and 37 points with a third-string redshirt freshman in at quarterback.

Virginia committed no major miscues on special teams. UVA had no problems in the return game on either side. Will Bettridge made his only field goal attempt. Daniel Sparks punted four times for 208 yards. That’s an average of 52 yards per punt with a long of 59 yards that came after an inexcusable delay of game penalty with the punt team on the field. That was pretty much the only significant blemish.

Four in a row. 19 of the last 20 overall. 12 in a row in Blacksburg. These numbers need no explanations because followers of UVA football are well aware of them by this point. Time and time again, Virginia fails to show up in this game. There is no tangible reason why the Cavaliers and Hokies seemed to have such a gap between them when both teams came in with an identical record. We’ve seen similar stories unfold in the Commonwealth Clash over the last quarter-century. The sample size is too big now. Virginia Tech owns this “rivalry” and has ultimate confidence that it will win every time this game is played. The Hokies hit harder, run harder, and execute better. This trend has extended beyond teams, players, and coaching staff. It has to change, but there are no signs of that happening anytime soon.

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