Virginia’s trip to Dallas ended the same way too many of its tight games have gone this season: with frustration, missed chances and a result that leaves the Cavaliers’ ACC title path hanging by a thread.
The loss to SMU doesn’t just sting in the moment. It puts Virginia in a spot where it now has to win out and get multiple other results to fall its way just to stay alive for the ACC Championship game. Saturday was a real fight, but it ended in another familiar headache - and another reminder that no ACC team has ever won at SMU in conference play.
For a while, Virginia had the game in a workable place. The Cavaliers leaned on the run in the first half, carrying it 22 times for 82 yards.
That number won’t jump off the page, but several of those runs battered the SMU front and moved the chains. Then came the second half, when Kitchings dialed up the run just 10 times.
That choice was hard to justify with Virginia only down three after halftime.
The ground game was doing more than just producing yards. It was helping open things up for quarterback Beau Pribula.
Once the Cavaliers moved away from it, the offense fell apart. Three of their first four second-half possessions ended in three-and-outs, and the unit never recovered.
Kitchings has become one of the biggest reasons Virginia has lost three games.
The play-calling looked even worse considering Virginia was missing two starting receivers, Rico Flores Jr. and Kam Courtney. That should have pushed the Cavaliers even more toward Jekail Middlebrook and the rest of their backfield depth, not away from it.
Defensively, there was at least one player who kept swinging. Matthew Fobbs-White was everywhere, piling up five quarterback hits and delivering a sack and tackle for loss on consecutive snaps in the fourth quarter.
Those two plays cost SMU 24 yards and forced a punt at a critical moment. Even in defeat, Fobbs-White continued to look like Virginia’s sack leader and one of its best run defenders, the kind of performance that should draw some All-ACC votes.
The final score also hides how close Virginia came to taking control before halftime. The Cavaliers were on track to go into the break with a 17-10 lead, but that flipped fast.
Pribula fumbled in the red zone and killed a drive that looked like it could become a touchdown. Then the defense committed a roughing the passer penalty on the last play of the half, handing SMU a free field goal and a 13-10 edge instead.
Those kinds of mistakes kept stacking up. Virginia missed tackles, took bad angles and made costly little errors in spots that mattered. Late substitutions, blown blocking assignments and other mental lapses continue to hurt this team at the worst possible times.
The defense did not play perfectly. Donavon Platt was beaten for seven catches at SPUR, and other defensive backs gave up major gains in zone coverage.
Six explosive plays of 15 yards or more hurt badly. Still, for much of the afternoon, Virginia held up reasonably well against one of the ACC’s most dangerous offenses.
SMU had only 16 points entering the final quarter and leaned on chunk plays to keep moving.
Even with the absence of Brandyn Hillman, Omillio Agard, Corey Costner, Jason Hammond and others, Virginia was competitive on that side of the ball. With Hillman and Costner back, maybe the unit can build on some of the positive stretches it showed here and give the next opponent more trouble.
The bigger issue was the offense disappearing for long stretches. Virginia opened the second half with back-to-back three-and-outs and then went 15 minutes of game time without scoring. The defense held up during that drought, but that kind of dry spell is hard to survive over and over again.
Pribula’s afternoon faded as the game went on. He overthrew several receivers, missed on other important throws and failed to make the right read on some option plays.
On one of those plays, he was tackled for a loss when he could have pitched the ball and picked up a few yards. After the early drives, it turned into an ugly day at quarterback.
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