RALEIGH - In a game many fans dubbed the 'most important' of the Tony Elliott era, the Virginia football team came up short Saturday and Elliott was not prepared to take any moral victories home to Charlottesville.
"We came down here to win," Elliott said with postgame media. "Non-conference or not, we came down here to win."
There are 10 games left in the season and plenty more 'most important' games remaining on the schedule, but UVA will have felt it left a big opportunity on the field this weekend. NC State rallied from a halftime deficit to win 35-31 and extend its win streak over Virginia to four straight, remaining a team the Cavaliers have not won against since 2012 although there have only been four matchups between the two programs in that span.
The 31 points scored are the most by Virginia against a Power 4 opponent since last season's loss at Clemson, while the 514 yards of total offense are the most against a Power 4 team under Elliott. Running back J'Mari Taylor was the standout offensively for the Cavaliers, rushing 17 times for 150 yards and 3 touchdowns, the first UVA player with 3 rushing touchdowns in a game since Mike Hollins against UNC in 2023. The performance highlighted a bright start for the North Carolina Central, who became the first Virginia player since Kevin Parks in 2011 to rush for 5 touchdowns in the first two games of the season.
The Wolfpack enjoyed their own bright day offensively led by quarterback CJ Bailey, who had 244 yards of total offense and 3 touchdowns, and running back Hollywood Smothers, who finished the game with 140 yards and 2 touchdowns. The UVA defense did not register a sack or force a turnover in the game.
Virginia falls to 1-1 on the season with upcoming home games against William & Mary and its ACC opener against Stanford as potential rebounds. Before that, however, here are three takeaways from another missed opportunity for Tony Elliott and the Cavaliers in Raleigh.
The Big Moments Slip Past UVA
Defensive end Mitchell Melton probably best summed up the day for Virginia in the postgame.
"We just got to be critically, critically, critically involved in the moments," Melton said. "I think a lot of the game came down to the moments."
It seems simple, but there were several critical plays throughout that can be pegged as reasons UVA ultimately came up short.
Of course, the first on most people's minds will be Chandler Morris' game-sealing interception, thrown at the end of an impressive 2-minute drill until that point. Morris was flushed from the pocket on 1st-and-10 from the NC State 12-yard line, with the play call designed to take advantage of a mismatch the running backs called out during the game. J'Mari Taylor said with a defensive end covering the backs on a wheel route, he felt there was an opportunity there.
"I was definitely opened," Taylor said postgame, who was defended by NC State defensive end Cian Slone. "We were in Chandler's ear telling him about it and he did what a great quarterback would do and he took a shot."
Morris said he recognized Slone's back was turned to him, which is why the ball was placed where it was, but Slone made a play on the ball to end the drive. On the play, many pointed to an open Dakota Twitty open underneath, but Morris said he "wasn't going to throw the ball across his body" in that situation and instead should have thrown the ball away.
"It's just a base play of ours and I had him earlier in the game," Morris said. "But I mean, it was just kind of one of those deals and I just gotta move on, just get off that progression."
Two late coaching decisions will also be highlighted after the loss. Early in the fourth quarter, Virginia opted to kick a 47-yard field goal, which would have tied kicker Will Bettridge's career long, instead of trying to convert on 4th-and-5 from the NC State 30-yard line. Bettridge ultimately clanged the attempt off the uprights after Elliott said he went against the analytics.
"I know the analytics said it was close," Elliott said. "But I wanted to get the points, get us within an opportunity to win it on a field goal. And I felt like with kind of where we were, we needed points. We needed something on the board. So I know the analytics would probably say we could have went for it. But I felt like we were in range. We were right there in range. And we gotta find a way to make that. I think if we make that, then it's a different ball game."
The missed field goal likely forced Virginia's hand later on the next drive when the Cavaliers opted to try to convert a 4th-and-1 from the NC State 8-yard line. Virginia ran a toss play to Taylor, the same one they successfully ran last week for a touchdown against Coastal Carolina, but Taylor was stopped for no gain and UVA ended up with zero points out of two crucial drives.
"At the end of the day, I didn't care who the back was," Elliott said. "We were gonna run the play."
On the other side, Virginia's defense came up with important back-to-back stops to force an NC State punt that ultimately gave the Cavaliers a chance to win the game. But too many times before that the defense allowed NC State to escape from advantageous situations like two fourth down conversions given up. The "critical moments" as Melton referenced will be what haunts Virginia about its trip to Raleigh.
"They made about three or four more plays than us in critical moments," Elliott said. "And that's where we gotta get better as coaches."
A Well-Crafted Offensive Gameplan
Offensive coordinator Des Kitchings has been the poster boy for UVA fan discontent over the last three seasons. But most would have to admit that Kitchings called one of the better games of his tenure in his return to NC State, a place he coached for eight years. In an offensive shootout against the Wolfpack, Virginia put up 514 total yards, the most against a Power 4 opponent in the Tony Elliott era.
"Coach Kitch and the staff, they did a great job," Morris said. "I mean, they put us in good positions all game and just made adjustments throughout the game."
The offensive output was as even as it gets with 257 yards passing and rushing. The 257 yards rushing by Virginia are the most for the program since 2020 against Boston College (262 yards).
Kitchings played a large role setting up plays, like Noah Vaughn's 20-yard rush in the first half to eventually set up one of J'Mari Taylor's three rushing touchdowns. Earlier on the first series, Kitchings called a touch pass to Cam Ross in motion, which resulted only in 4 yards. But by using the same formation and sending Ross in motion again, the NC State defense followed Ross and left Vaughn an open lane for a big run.
Virginia's offensive attack also took advantage of acres of space underneath the Wolfpack defense. Time and time again, Chandler Morris found open receivers on mesh routes crossing the field and leading to first downs.
"We put everything around Chandler, just let him control the whole entire offense," Cavalier center Brady Wilson said. "He just put the ball in our hands and that's what he showed today."
There will be maybe a handful of plays fans will gripe about like the decision to run the football on 3rd-and-5 in the red zone in the first half or the aforementioned toss run play with Taylor on 4th-and-1in the fourth quarter. But overall, it might have been Kitchings' best play-calling game of his four years at Virginia and the numbers back it up.
Less Is More On Defense
There will few positives to take away from John Rudzinski and his defense after giving up 35 points and 416 total yards to NC State. The numbers might actually hide some of the faults shown by UVA's defense, which allowed acres of space for CJ Bailey and Hollywood Smothers to eat up.
"You can find a lot of different reasons why," Melton said. "But more so we just have to get on the film to get better and learn from it."
One of Elliott's bright spots for the defense heading into the season was the ability to rotate on defense, especially the defensive line now backed with a deeper arsenal of players. But this almost seemed to work against the Cavaliers in the first half, as 2 to 6 players at a time were being rotated in and out of the game. Midway through the second quarter, the heavy rotations slowed down and UVA forced back-to-back 3-and-outs, which also allowed the Cavaliers to go on a 10-0 run to close the half.
"You gotta settle into a game," Elliott said. "Found some guys that were kind of playing the way we needed them to. And then also, certain situations, based off of the down and distance, we didn't go for some of our speed packages at times. We're a little bit more base. They were converting more and getting bigger gains that kept us in more of our base personnel and not allowing us to sub to our sub packages."
Poor angles and missed tackles were more of the culprit in the second half as Bailey and Smothers found little resistance. Overall, 6 of NC State’s 11 explosive plays came in the second half, including a 57-yard touchdown run by Smothers where he was never touched.
The most egregious error though came on a blitz from linebacker Landon Danley, who is holding down the position until Kam Robinson returns from a fractured collarbone. Danley came free on a blitz with a one-on-one situation against Bailey, but a poor angle allowed Bailey to sidestep Danley and then run 12 yards for an easy touchdown.
"We didn't get a sack, we didn't win a critical play," Elliott said. "That's two good football teams going at it, to be honest with you. That's a quarterback, that's a really good quarterback. He was gonna get the ball out of his hand. Also, too, especially in the second half, when you're allowing him to stay ahead of the chains, it's very, very hard to get sacks when you're ahead of the chains."
Virginia started eight first-time starters in the program together on defense, with a multitude of transfers rotating in throughout. The lack of chemistry showed against NC State, but with 10 games to go there will be time to build and learn.
"A lot of those guys have been really experienced," Melton said. "But I think we've got an experienced group. And I think a lot of guys, as we come together as a team, it's only going to get better."
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