All week, the question for the Tony Elliott and the Virginia Cavaliers was how to follow up the upset win over Florida State?
The Cavaliers were heading on the road to Louisville, which was coming off a comeback win at Pitt.
Virginia (5-1, 3-0 ACC), a 7.5-point underdog, went on the road and followed up the win over the Noles with a gutsy overtime win.
What was the most impressive thing about the win? Virginia won a game on the road where they had to make timely plays. That’s what good teams do. They win games like this when they don’t play perfectly.
“We needed a game where everything wasn’t clicking,” said head coach Tony Elliott.
Louisville’s (4-1, 1-1 ACC) quarterback, Miller Moss, was 21-26 for 200 yards in the first half. Chris Bell was hurting the Cavaliers so much in the first 30 minutes (9 catches, 138 yards). The 138 yards were a career-high.
The highlight of the first half for the defense was a scoop-and-score by Donovan Platt.
Those numbers should mean that Virginia needed a comeback in the second half, but that wasn’t the case. As both teams headed to the locker room for halftime, the game was tied at 14.
The last drive of the first half was game-saving, even if Virginia didn’t know it at the time.
With Louisville driving, the Cavaliers held the Cardinals to a field goal attempt after some good stops and the Cardinals’ coaching staff’s mismanagement of the clock. The led to a Louisville missed field goal.
In the second half, Virginia sent more people at Moss, and it made a difference. The Cavaliers recorded five sacks in the final 30 minutes, with Mitchell Melton getting two of them (I’m not going to bring up the almost interception).
The Cavaliers’ pressure on Moss led him to make one of his worst decisions of the day. With Christian Charles and Daniel Rickert draped over him, Moss fired a ball downfield as he was falling. The pass was a perfect strike to Virginia defensive back Kam Robinson, who returned it 47 yards for a touchdown to give the Cavaliers a 21-14 lead.
As for Bell, the Cavaliers’ defense held him to three receptions after halftime, with one of them being a 13-yard touchdown catch with Platt draped all over him.
With 1:23 left in the fourth quarter, and the Cavaliers hanging on to a 24-21 lead, Louisville had 3-and-2 from Virginia’s 32. Once again, Virginia brought an extra guy, and Robinson forced an incompletion. The Cardinals settled for a game-tying field goal.
In overtime, Devin Neal made the most important play. With Bell slightly open near the pylon, Neal broke up the play. Two plays later, the defense stopped Louisville on 3-and-2, holding the Cardinals to a field goal on the first possession of overtime.
The Cavaliers’ offense would seal the win with a J’Mari Taylor touchdown.
Elliott summed it up perfectly. “At the end of the day, finding a way to win is the most important thing.”
