Week 3 - UVA Review

Well.  Not much to review from that game.  Pretty good effort.  Obviously.  All the way around.  Hard to argue with 600 yards and 56 points.  

I could not be happier with the defense.  We held them to 7 points until garbage time.  Excluding the one TD drive, we held them to 90 total yards and about 4 first downs on their first 9 possessions.  They scored zero points on these 9 possessions.  Two of those drives started at the GT 40 and the GT 20.  We stuffed their rushing attack.  As I stated in the preview, allegedly they have two excellent offensive tackles.  Did not look like it here.  Down 28-7, they tried to run right at us on 3rd and 1, and then again on 4th and 1, from the 11 yard line.  Nothing.  We stopped the run, pressured the QB, and the pass coverage was excellent.  I really have no complaints whatsoever.  If we play defense like that for the rest of the season, we will be in a position to win a lot of games.

Of course, it is to this point unclear how good UVA’s offense is.  They only scored 17 on Penn St.  Penn St. is pretty tough to figure out right now.  They typically play pretty good defense, but then again this year is a little out of the ordinary for them with all the sanctions.  They have lost quite a few players to transfers.  And of course, Virginia’s only other game was against Richmond.  So that does not tell us much.  I guess we will find out as the season progresses.  But the early returns are exactly what I wanted.

Offensively, 210 yards on your first 4 plays from scrimmage is pretty strong.  35 points on 6 drives in the first half.  I guess I could nitpick a little bit.  We did not execute as consistently as I would have liked.  After a 60 yard run got us into the red zone, we had to convert a 3rd and 9, and then needed 4 plays to push in from the 4 yard line.  We had some poor blocking at times.  But, really, that is picky.  You are going to have a bad play here or there most every game.  We hit plenty of big plays, and for the most part executed very well.  

I would like to single out Robbie Godhigh.  First of all, I criticized Godhigh and the other A-backs for poor blocking at VT.  Upon further review, the A-backs mostly did OK at VT.  The blocking issues in Blacksburg had more to do with the WR’s and B-backs.  The A-backs and O-line did not block great, but it was not a major problem either.  

But Godhigh has impressed me thoroughly since then.  He is consistently taking his man out of the play with great blocks.  And often he gets up quickly enough that he nearly has time to block a second man.  I bet, at some point this season, he is going to put 2 guys on the ground on 1 play.  And, probably my favorite play of the game is shown below.  Godhigh literally blocks 3 guys at the same time, with 1 block (he blocks his guy, and knocks him back into a 2nd guy, and then the 2nd guy stumbles and hits a 3rd guy).  Watching live, I was very puzzled.  It initially looked like we missed several blocks on the line.  I thought this play was going nowhere.  Then, Tevin just kinda walks into the end zone.  Had to watch the replay to figure it out.  Oh.  Godhigh took out 3 guys.  Ok.  Cool.  Kid can block.  See below.  

If there was a down side to this game, it would be special teams.  We jumped offsides on a couple extra points.  We gave up a long kickoff return.  We fumbled a punt.  A lot to work on here.  Its frustrating because I had been very pleased with what appeared to be great improvement in the special teams play.  This was a step backwards.  Although I guess an optimist would say that its better to get a few big mistakes out of the way in a game where you have a 40 point lead.  Maybe that was good.  I guess we will see.  But mistakes like that could easily cost us a game or two later in the season if they repeat themselves.

Anyway, overall a great performance.  

Go Jackets.