Louisville Survives a scare from Virginia, 31-24

Never. A. Doubt.

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Let’s start by sending all our thoughts, prayers, and good vibes to UVA’s Perris Jones. That was an extremely scary injury and the whole crowd, and I’m sure everyone at home, could feel the seriousness of the situation. Here’s to a speedy recovery.

There’s no great way to transition out of something so scary and sobering, but let’s try.

What the hell was that?

Thats not a rhetorical question. I genuinely do not know where to begin. That was as weird of a game as I can ever remember watching.
You could sense from the opening kickoff that we were in for a weird one, and boy, were we. And that’s not even to mention one the funniest, most bizarre game promos ever: THE GLOW GAME.

I guess we should start by giving UVA a ton of credit. They came prepared and executed a great game plan. They’ve got a very special talent in Anthony Colandrea (20/31 for 314yds passing, 89yds rushing), and Malik Washington (9 rec, 155yds) should be an All-American. They were outstanding and gave this defense one of its toughest battles of the season.

The UVA defense came to play, too. They sold out on the run, actually got some stops, and dared Jack Plummer to beat them with his arm. And it damn near worked.

UVA’s record isn’t sparkling, but they’ve played everyone hard this year and now have losses of 1, 3, 3, 3, and 7 points, and have only lost by double-digits once. This was not a team to overlook, as many of us did, and they made us pay for that.

Great game, Hoos. I hope we throw all the NIL money in our coffers at Colandrea.

As for Louisville…

Thank god we won.

It felt like the Pitt game all over again. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and UVA was quite literally getting all the right bounces. The refs were just as bad as the Pitt ones, even throwing flags at the end of the game just so they could hang out and chat.

It felt like we lost this game at multiple points, and to eek out a win in thrilling fashion to keep our ACC title hopes alive is exactly what you expect and hope for in a potential conference champion.

But wow that was nuts.

There’s just so so much to digest from this one. Let’s try to hit most of it in bullets.

• Jack Plummer made me say terrible things about him during the game that I then had to apologize for later in the game. I didn’t think he was the kind of QB to lead us out of a 4th quarter hole with that much pressure. He proved me wrong. But I swear to Pete if he ever throws a pick like that in that spot again…
• Isaac Freaking Guerendo. Legend. The way he’s stepped up these last few weeks with Jawhar banged up has been huge and possibly season-saving. That go-ahead touchdown run AND spike are instant classics:

• The defense. They really got pressed for the first time in a few weeks tonight. But it wasn’t entirely their fault as the offense was putting them in tough spots time after time, and there’s nothing they could do about the unlucky bounce on the Perris Jones injury/go-ahead TD play. But 434 yards is 434 yards. UVA’s offense was no joke, but neither are the likes of FSU. But all in all, they got the stops when we needed them most. Just as they have all season.
• Special teams. What a mixed bag. On one hand the punt/kick coverage was outstanding. The block punt and catch TD was amazing.

But the field goal kicking was terrifying. We needed Brock desperately in this game and he was having a terrible night. The bad snap/busted field goal wasn’t great either. Have to have those if we want to keep winning.

• Coaching. Feels like Brohm and Co. came into this game with the same plan as the last two: Keep It Simple Stupid. But things felt like they got too conservative late in the first quarter, especially when it looked like UVA’s offense was starting to figure things out. But the way they recovered and won the game in the 4th quarter was outstanding. As Keith Wynne pointed out, as soon as UVA lost their second starting corner Brohm went deep and Plummer connected with AHB for the game-tying TD.

I could go on all night about this game, and we have 9 more days to do, so let’s wrap this up by saying a win is a win. We’re still alive for the ACCCG and the CFP.
Let’s rest up and get ready to finish the season strong.