Week 6 UVA Review

First, I apologize for not being as thorough as usual. I didn’t get a chance to review the game in quite as much detail at my friend’s place as I do at home (my DVR is on the fritz… avoid bright house networks at all costs).

However, I think the analysis below is very telling. I have made tables showing each drive for both teams. I highlighted the number of third downs and fourth downs converted because I think that does a good job of showing how hard the defense made the drive.

GT First Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
GT 27	8	49	6.1	None	None	Va 24	FG
GT 16	8	51	6.4	None	None	Va 33	Fumble
GT 33	5	28	5.6	None	None	Va 39	Downs
GT 32	6	57	9.3	None	None	Va 11	FG
GT 43	7	49	7.0	1 (3 yds)	None	Va 8	INT
GT 41	10	59	5.9	2 (5, 4 yd)	None	Va 0	TD

The first thing you should notice is the consistency of our drives. We moved the ball every time, and our yards per play are very good. Those numbers are high for only 13 points.

On the first drive, we maybe score a TD if Nesbitt and Roddy are able to convert the third down pitch. BUT, Roddy didn’t look quite ready for it, and Nesbitt maybe didn’t throw it so well. Ended up being a big fumble and loss of 13, on a play that looked promising.

On the second drive, Nesbitt said he thought Allen was taking the ball on the third down fumble, and he probably should have. It was 3^rd and 7 from UVA’s 35 or so, and Allen would have been close to the marker. At least close enough to go for it on 4^th.

Third drive, they just stopped us on 4^th and 4. Nesbitt had nowhere to throw or run. Good defense.

Fourth drive we had another pitch problem on third down, again from around UVA’s 10. This time Nesbitt just didn’t pitch. If he does pitch, Roddy gets in easily. He had tons of space and blockers, against 2 defenders who weren’t really in position. Poor read.

Fifth drive - crazy stupid play to turn the ball over here. Nesbitt should know better. We at least should have had a FG.

Sixth drive, we finally score. And we should have.

On the half, I will say the worst case scenario realistically was about 6 - 9 points, if we turn the ball over some and only get FG’s out of a few drives. The best case scenario was 35 points, as they only really stopped us once. We got into the red zone on four drives and were headed there on the other one until the fumble. A quick glance at our yards and average yards per play (about 300 and more than 6) should be a dead giveaway that 13 points means we killed ourselves with stupid mistakes.

UVA First Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
Va 25	3	9	3.0	None	None	Va 34	Punt
Va 34	10	33	3.3	1 (7 yds)	None	GT 33	FG miss
Va 40	4	60	15	None	None	GT 0	TD
Va 11	3	-1	-.33	None	None	Va 10	Punt
Va 16	3	1	.33	None	None	Va 17	Punt
Va 32	4	15	3.75	None	None	Va 47	Half

Conversely, they gained about 120 yards on 27 plays, which is barely more than 4 yards per play. And 40 of those came on the TD run, so the rest of they half, they messed around getting less than 3 yards per play and not very many first downs. Really a good job by the defense, except that one drive. The offense let us down to this point, as we should have had a big lead at the half.

GT Second Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
Va. 41	11	41	3.8	None	2 (1, 1 yd)	Va 0	TD
GT 20	6	80	13.33	1 (3 yds)	None	Va 0	TD
GT 20	5	9	1.8	None	None	GT 29	Punt
GT 3	11	97	8.8	1 (11 yds)	1 (1 yd)	Va 0	TD
Va 39	3	-3	-1.0	None	None	Va 42	Punt
Va 45	2	5	2.5	None	None	Va 40	Game

Better half here. We made it look a little harder on the first drive than I would have liked, but we scored, then went on to play well and put the game away. The last two drives were largely irrelevant, and another quick glance at the yards per play indicates that we were pretty successful on offense.

UVA Second Half Drives

Start	Plays	Yards	Yards/ Play	3rd downs converted	4th downs converted	End	Result
Va 29	3	13	4.33	1 (16 yds)	None	Va 42	Fumble
Va 40	4	60	15	None	None	GT 0	TD
Va 35	7	24	3.4	None	None	GT 41	Punt
Va 39	5	59	11.8	None	None	GT 2	Downs
Va 34	5	5	1	None	None	Va 39	Downs
Va 2	9	98	10.9	2 (6, 10)	None	GT 0	TD

We seem to have trouble finishing games. The defense still looked good in the second half, but we gave up a couple of big plays. However, after one (a very poor tackle on a short pass leading to a 60 yard gain inside our 10) we regrouped for a goal line stand that basically sealed the game. Great work there, but I would rather see us not let them get that close. Anyway, on the whole a good game for the defense.

Both units are showing improvement. Virginia is not very good, so don’t get too excited about this performance, but it is better. We outgained UVA in the first half roughly 300 yards to about 120. FSU outgained them last week 290 to 40, and they look like a pretty good team right now. Offensively, we are not far away at all. The blocking was much better, and it looks like as a team we are starting to “get it”. A handful of silly execution problems slowed us for a half, but we should continue improving. Defensively, we seem more sure of ourselves. I don’t expect us to get as good as we will get in the 3-4 for another year or two, so we should continue improving there as well.

Its not quite clear exactly how bad or good UVA is. They played USC close, and they clearly have lots of talent. And that was in Los Angeles. But FSU beat them soundly. Then again, FSU just beat Miami soundly. The ACC seems once again impossible to figure out, but I think its safe to say that we played much better than last week. However bad or good UVA is, they are probably at least as good as Wake, so I’ll take a relatively easy win at home, especially considering that it seemed like our biggest obstacle was ourselves.

	GT	UVA
Rush Yards	477	137
Yards Per Carry	6.4	4.9
Pass Yards	59	239
Yards Per Attempt	9.8	7.7
Total Yards	536	376
Yards Per Play	6.7	6.4
Points	33	21
Turnovers	2	1

Nice to get an easy win even though we lost the turnover battle. I am not too worried about the total yards, since they added 90+ on the last drive when the game was over, or the yards per play, since they were greatly aided by a 50 yard run, 50 yard pass and 40 yard TD run. Although we do need to cut down on the big plays. But for the most part, the bulk of the game, we did a very good job containing them.

Here are my goals for the game and the results:

Offense

Score 28 points. This is a low goal, but right now I’ll take it.

Got this and it should have been more.

Gain 400 yards. Same as above.

Got this easily.

No more than one turnover.

Oops. Oh well, only 2. Three if you count turnover on downs.

Defense

Hold them to no more than 17 points. FSU shut them out until the game was decided.

We held them to 14 while game was in doubt. But we need to finish, so I say fail.

Hold them to 350 yards or less. This is only a little less than their average.

Barely lost this battle, but once again, the last 90 yards put them over this.

Force at least two turnovers.

Only one. Good game for the defense to have missed all three goals. We did get 4 sacks though.

The main takeaway for me from this game is that we are improving. I thought we would, with this coaching staff, but it is still good to see that its happening. We need to continue improving, because we cant afford to make the mistakes we made against UVA when we hit the Clemson VT Miami stretch. Only one more game, and two more weeks of practice, before we start playing for keeps. (although don’t think for a second that we cant lose to Middle Tennessee… that won’t be a problem if we show up focused, but showing up focused has been a problem for us at times.)

For now, its good to be able to sit back and feel pretty good about the team’s performance. Even though we aren’t quite all the way there yet, I now feel like we will have a real shot to challenge VT and Miami in the Coastal race when the time comes.

Go Jackets!