West Virginia’s offense put Virginia in a bind all night, and Tony Elliott didn’t hide from that afterward.
The Mountaineers rolled to a 38-27 win over No. 25 Virginia behind a huge performance from Mike Hawkins Jr., who was the difference maker in every phase. The redshirt sophomore completed 10 of 17 passes for 190 yards and two touchdowns, then piled up 123 rushing yards and three more scores on the ground.
After the game, Elliott broke down exactly why Hawkins was such a problem. The Cavaliers couldn’t get the play fit right early, and when they tried to force the issue later, Hawkins kept finding answers.
“Well, you saw that if you misfit it kind of like we did early in the game, it goes for a touchdown. And then if you get him behind the chains, they can empty you out and create a lot of one-on-one matchups, and he made the throws. We knew coming in that we wanted to make him one-dimensional if we could, but tonight we struggled in some situations, and then I thought when we did get into some third-and-long situations, he just made the more competitive play than we did.”
Elliott also had plenty to say about West Virginia’s defense, and specifically the plan from coordinator Zac Alley. The Virginia head coach knows Alley well from their time together on staff at Clemson under Dabo Swinney, and he expected a varied, disruptive approach. That’s exactly what showed up.
“With a lot of the exotic pressures, we probably led more with a controlled passing game as opposed to down-the-field shots," he said. "And once we got behind, it’s hard, especially when they’re getting shots on your quarterback; it’s hard to get everything to line up.
They did a really good job. They were competitive.
They mixed it up. They played some man coverage, and they bailed out of there.
They played some Cover 2. I thought Zac (Alley) did a really good job of putting together a good plan.”
Beau Pribula, usually a threat to make things happen with his legs, was bottled up almost completely. He finished with minus-1 yard on six carries, and Elliott pointed to the pressure package as a big reason why.
“We knew they were going to be aggressive. They’re bringing pressures off the edge, which force the ball to be given to the back, which don’t give you a two-way option with your quarterback, and you can’t live in the QB draw the whole night.
Your quarterback’s going to get beat up, especially when they’re forcing you to run in the interior. They did a really good job from a pressure standpoint.”
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