Virginia head coach Tony Elliott recapped the Cavaliers’ performance following the season-opening contest.
“We knew the game was going to come down to the trenches on both sides,” Elliott said. “It was going to come down to the strength and then also the depth in the trenches. I thought that we probably could’ve done a better job of trying to establish the run a little bit earlier. We were trying to be aggressive and take advantage of some of the short fields, but they did a great job. They had depth, too. They were rolling a lot of guys in there and you didn’t see much of a drop off. Some of it was what they were doing, also some of it was us as well. Just not necessarily working in unison how we had been doing in the run or the pass game. Then, one-on-one matchups, at the end of the day they run their one-on-one matchups which resulted in our quarterback getting hit. We’ll evaluate it and see where the fundamental breakdown was. Sometimes, you’re just going to lose a one-on-one matchup. Sometimes a guy just flat out beats you. I can’t say that was the totality of it until I watch the film, but it was the difference in the game.
“The flipside, on their offense versus our defensive line, where they just covered us up too much and we gave up too much in the run game. I thought our guys fought hard, but we weren’t able to stop the run like we used to. From that standpoint, they can drive the pace of the game and set the mindset for the game if you’re able to establish the run. There’s nothing more frustrating for a team than when the opposing team is just able to run the football.”
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