Cavaliers destroy Fighting Illini in another step forward

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Virginia 42, Illinois 14

Though the 11 a.m. kickoff crowd was thin at Scott Stadium on Saturday, Virginia’s players did not look like they needed any coffee, scoring two early touchdowns on their way to a pretty easy victory over Big Ten foe Illinois.

Brennan Armstrong completed 27 of his 36 passes for a career-high 405 yards and five touchdowns, with one interception, which was not the result of an Armstrong mistake but rather came on a nice play by Illinois defensive back Kirby Joseph, who ripped away a catch from Keytaon Thompson in the fourth quarter. Armstrong also wasn’t sacked and added 31 yards rushing.

Armstrong is the first UVa QB to throw five TD passes since Kurt Benkert did it against Central Michigan in 2016. Benkert holds the program record for passing yards, recording 455 against Connecticut in 2017. Dan Ellis holds the record for passing TDs in a game with six, coming versus Buffalo in 1999.
Right out of the gate, Virginia’s offense looked like it was in video game mode.

Armstrong and the Wahoos (2-0) started quickly with a four-play, 75-yard drive that took just over a minute. After a quiet Week 1 win in which he got banged up and recorded just one catch, Saturday was a coming out party for Oklahoma State transfer tight end Jelani Woods. Armstrong started the drive by hitting Woods over the middle of the field for 31 yards and capped it by finding the 6-foot-7 giant for a 32-yard TD also over the middle.

Woods led the receiving corps with six receptions for 122 yards and that first TD of the day. He looked like a man playing among boys rumbling down the field — truly a sight to behold.

Virginia tight end Jelani Woods nearly eclipsed his season high for receiving yards in a single game. (Geoff Burke/ USA Today Sports)

When he wasn’t featured in the offense against William and Mary and got injured, I wondered if he would be the game-changer we were expecting. That question was emphatically answered. Woods’ season high in receiving yards was 129 in 2020, so he nearly smashed that record in just a single game.

“There really isn’t a good matchup if you’re thinking about [guarding Woods] man to man,” Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “If you choose to put a linebacker on him, most likely he’s not as fast. And there aren’t many linebackers that are over 6-7. And then if you choose the secondary route, there’s not many secondary players that are 6-7. And they might be fast, but they probably don’t weigh 250.”
After a three-and-out by the Fighting Illini (1-2), the Cavaliers got to work again, this time on an 80-yard drive that took a minute and a half. The stars of this drive were Billy Kemp IV, Ra’Shaun Henry, and Dontayvion Wicks. Armstrong hit Wicks down the right seam with a 28-yard TD with no defender around, and just like that, it was 14-0.

After another three-and-out by the Illini, Virginia was putting together another nice drive but got bogged down this time, and Justin Duenkel missed a 46-yard field goal. Illinois gave the ball back to UVa, but the Cavaliers went away from what was working a bit on offense and went three-and-out.

Illinois then put together its first quality drive, ending with a pretty 33-yard TD pass over the middle from Artur Sitkowski to Deuce Spann to cut Virginia’s lead to 14-7. Cornerback Fentrell Cypress II provided pretty tight coverage on the play but was beaten, and safety Nick Grant was a little bit late coming over to help.

UVa responded with what looked like a promising drive, but it ended with a bad play call on third-and-6 — an east-west running play with Thompson — and then Duenkel missed a 31-yard field goal after making a 26-yarder that was wiped out by an offsides penalty.

The defense did a good job of making sure Illinois didn’t put together another drive, and the offense got the ball back with plenty of time on the clock before halftime. It seemed like it was about time for Armstrong to find Woods again over the middle, and he did, for 18 yards. Kemp also collected two more catches on the drive, and Armstrong found a wide-open Wicks for his second TD of the day on a 6-yarder. Virginia stuffed Illinois on the ensuing drive — with a sack each by Hunter Stewart and Noah Taylor — and went into the locker room up 21-7.

The Wahoos’ defense was unable to carry its momentum into the second half, though, and Illinois opened the second 30 minutes with an impressive 75-yard drive that took two minutes and resulted in a 21-yard rushing TD for Chase Brown.

Virginia got the ball back and went on a roller-coaster 75-yard drive that felt like it was going to fly off the rails at any moment. The Cavaliers ran a trick play in which Wicks got the ball in the backfield on a reverse. He was nearly brought down behind the line, but just before that happened, we found out that on a team that likes to use all its quarterbacks in some capacity, even Wicks has an arm, as he found Armstrong for an 18-yard gain. The play worked — barely — but I do not think it was worth the 18-yard gain and potential injury to Armstrong.

Later, Thompson took a handoff, ran right, and lofted a pass toward Woods near the goal line, but a defender was the only player who could get his hands on the ball — a little too close to being an interception. On the next play, Armstrong looked for Henry and was popped by a pair of Illinois defenders. Pass interference was called, and Virginia was given the first down, but Armstrong got up limping slightly. Taulapapa followed with a nice 11-yard run up the gut, and then Kemp caught a short TD pass for the ‘Hoos to go back up 14, and the rout was on.

Armstrong went into the medical tent after the drive and wore a brace on his right knee for the rest of the game. He said he would be fine.

“[Armstrong’s] unmatched in terms of how competitive [and] how tough [he is] in his determination,” Mendenhall said. “He had an injury of some sort and didn’t look like it affected him much.”

Virginia’s next drive covered 74 yards in almost four minutes, ending with a Thompson 8-yard TD run on which he bounced off many Illinois players. It is hard to argue with Thompson’s effort, but I am still not a big fan of the plays in which Thompson lines up at quarterback because so often, these are obvious running plays for Thompson, with not enough guesswork involved for the defense. I think the better ACC defenses will usually be able to shut these plays down.

UVa had a chance to make the score ugly early in the fourth quarter, but its next two drives ended with turnovers — first a fumble by Taulapapa and then the aforementioned interception. The Wahoos did light up the scoreboard up one more time, though, midway through the fourth quarter on a drive aided by two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on Illinois. Armstrong found Taulapapa on a 3-yard TD pass.

It was a dominating performance, and it could’ve been even worse for Illinois, had UVa offensive coordinator Robert Anae not gotten a little too cute a couple of times, had the offense not turned the ball over twice, and had Duenkel not missed two field goals. Virginia could have easily gone over the 50-point and 600-yard marks. Virginia piled up 556 yards of offense.

“What we saw today is it certainly could have been more [points] with some [made] field goal attempts and [two] turnovers,” Mendenhall said.

“We were moving the ball all day. We just need more touchdowns,” Armstrong said. “That’s more fun. We have stuff to improve on.”

As it was, Virginia outperformed my expectations and the expectations of the members of Hoos Place who made official predictions.
Kemp had six catches for 55 yards and a TD in another steady performance by the senior. Thompson recorded seven catches for 68 yards and 24 yards rushing and the TD on four attempts. Wicks had his pair of TDs to go along with five receptions for 69 yards. Henry tallied three catches for 74 yards. Mike Hollins had two catches, and Taulapapa, Demick Starling, and Iraken Armstead each had one catch.

“The diversity is really where it is the most impressive,” Mendenhall said. ” … The size of the chunks that are happening are increasing in the number of targets, so when you see Jelani downfield, you see Ra’Shaun Henry downfield, and you see Dontayvion Wicks downfield, it just starts to build. It’s hard to narrow down on four different or five different threats and with a quarterback that’s making good decisions and fast decisions, throwing accurately, that’s leading to points.”
True freshman QB Jay Woolfork saw his first action late in the game and almost connected on a long sideline pass to Luke Wentz, who is listed as a sophomore. The pass was ruled a completion initially before being overturned. It would have been Wentz’s first collegiate catch. Either way, it was nice to see some players and coaches congratulating Wentz after the play.

For the traditional running backs, Taulapapa led the way with 35 yards on 10 carries. Devin Darrington had 24 yards on four totes, Hollins posted 22 yards on four attempts, and Ronnie Walker Jr. carried one time for 4 yards.

In all, Virginia rushed for 133 yards. A topic of much debate has been the traditional running game. Collectively, the players listed at running back received 19 carries, which I find to be neither a really high number nor a really low number. But everyone watching the game can clearly see that Anae favors the pass. This shouldn’t be surprising at this point. Anae comes from an Air Raid offensive background.

Who knows what will evolve as the season progresses, but this offense has many weapons, and Anae likes to spread the touches around. But the players that Anae likes to use the most are receivers, and the running backs just seem to be along for the ride at times. There’s a lot of pressure on the backs to perform when given carries since they probably know they won’t get many.

I hope the running backs are having fun, but this isn’t really something we need to worry about because 42 points and 556 yards of offense is hard to criticize. Whenever Virginia wins, everyone will pretty much be willing to overlook the fact that the backs are not featured. If the offense falters, though, and part of the blame could fall on Anae because he does not lean on the running game when maybe the passing attack isn’t clicking, then he will be criticized.

On the offense in general and how varied the schemes are — and maybe why we sometimes may get up in arms when Anae seems to try some things that don’t work too well — I thought Mendenhall had something interesting to say after the game:

“We all have the same amount of time [to prepare in a week], and it’s a race,” he said. “And if you can’t name [an offensive scheme], it’s harder to have the resources to prepare for it. Every minute counts, and so the longer it takes to decipher it, and if it’s ever-changing, then [there] might still not be enough time. That emphasis, or the influence from my defensive background is — I’m not going to say is the determining vote, but it’s influencing it — and anything that I think is difficult, we do and add to it. With limited time and a team traveling and an early start, you just run out of time. That’s part of the reason.”

I like Mendenhall’s perspective on the offense. He comes from a defensive background, and sometimes those head coaches seem to leave the offense up to the offensive minds. But it sounds like Mendenhall is fairly involved, and if he thinks he would have a hard time coming up with a way to stop UVa’s offense, he sees that as a good idea.

I was anxious to see how the defense looked against a Power Five opponent after shutting out W&M. For the most part, the defense had a solid game. Despite a poor record a season ago, Illinois came in with the reputation of having a strong rushing attack, and with the exception of a couple of hiccups, Virginia did a pretty good job of containing it. Illinois finished with 116 yards on the ground.

Sitkowski clearly has his limitations, but the defensive backs did a good job against Illinois’ passing game. He completed 24 of 45 passes for 221 yards and one score. His receivers did drop quite a few passes, some their fault, and some caused by the Virginia defense. It is still early, and much bigger tests are ahead, but so far it looks like the changes Mendenhall made in the secondary are paying off. Grant looks better at safety than at corner, nearly coming away with two picks, and Anthony Johnson has looked better than Grant at corner. Johnson recorded the defense’s first pick of the season on tight coverage.

Like last week, I thought the pressure on the QB was lacking until later in the game. Taylor had another sack to finish with two, and he also had seven tackles to tie for the team lead with Joey Blount (who seemed to have a number of nice hits), Nick Jackson, and Antonio Clary. Not too much has been asked of the defense yet, but I’m sure that time is coming. It would be nice to see the pass rush pick up, and that will probably be needed against the better teams on the schedule.

Another thing I noticed from Blount that I wanted to mention: Aaron Faumui got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a play in the fourth quarter. Faumui, who has played on that aggressive borderline before, came flying in sort of late on another tackle a play or two later. I think I caught Blount saying something to him after the play, maybe to make sure he wasn’t getting out of control. That’s great leadership from Blount.

“We played consistent for the majority of the game,” Mendenhall said. “There were very few breakdowns and very few things that didn’t fit exactly right. When we didn’t, Illinois exploited those on both drives, but it’s a really nice start to the season defensively. So far, it’s a football team with a lot of contributors, and I really like that in terms of just our identity.”
After brushing aside William and Mary and Illinois, the competition level steps up next week for Mendenhall and the ‘Hoos. Virginia visits No. 24 North Carolina for its first road game of the season. The Tar Heels bounced back from their Week 1 loss at Virginia Tech and blew out Georgia State at home Saturday. The early returns have been good on these Cavaliers, but soon, we will begin to get a clearer picture of what may lie ahead for UVa in 2021.

“It is the next game, which means it’s the most important game, and all the progress and improvements from Week 1 to Week 2 now happen from Week 2 to Week 3, and it just cycles, and it’s awesome that we’re at ACC play,” Mendenhall said. “Looking forward to it.”

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