Virginia got back in the game when Mike Moore forced a Peterman fumble. The Cavaliers have dropped 12 straight road games dating back to 2012.
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The effort was better on Saturday against Pittsburgh.
What that means for London’s future is a hot topic on message boards and social media, but the 1-4 Wahoos now need to win five of their final seven games to reach bowl eligibility. We got two turnovers. “The corner, he was fighting me all game, and he made a play”.
What the win means for Pitt: The Panthers are 2-0 in league play, which is more than can be said for most teams in the cluttered Coastal right now. Fortunately for UVA, this was just the first league game of the season, and the Coastal should offer them a bit of a reprieve, at least compared to the nonconference gantlet now behind it. The Hoos return home next week to face Syracuse.
The Cavaliers had a chance to answer, but a 71-yard burst off the left side by running back Albert Reid to the 6 ended in a 33-yard field goal by Ian Frye.
Johns finished the game passing 17-33 for 209 yards with a TD and an interception.
“The ball was going to either Canaan or T.J.”, says junior quarterback Matt Johns.
Nate Peterman passed for 222 yards and two touchdowns for Pitt.
Virginia capitalized with a touchdown, but the Panthers blocked the extra point attempt to make the score 26-19.
Matt Johns struggled to make completions for the second straight game. Given one last shot, Virginia converted a fourth-and-25 and moved to the Pitt 42 with a minute to go. In the third quarter, trailing 17-10, Johns again missed an open Thorpe on another play that should have been an easy touchdown; on the next pass, Johns threw an interception. “That’s a goal of ours that for the past couple of weeks we’ve been focusing on”. “Maybe we will start getting a few respect around the country and people will start noticing that this is a different team than in the past”. “You’re not going to get every call, but I still think I could have made that catch”. The explosive scoring play problem is ongoing. However, defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta’s unit buckled down the rest of the way through, as the Panthers managed just 146 more yards over the next three quarters.
Two penalties pushed the Cavaliers back to fourth-and-25.
With the score 17-3 in favor of the Panthers, quarterback Nathan Peterman had a “what happened” moment with a gift-wrapped defensive touchdown to give a dead Virginia Cavaliers team life at Heinz Field yesterday. Kiser had 11, while Blanding added 7.
“I really didn’t expect it to even come to me”, Boyd said. “After that point on, they only had 149 yards, less than 50 years per quarter”. “They did a heck of a job”.
Still, that wasn’t enough to overcome the other problems and another defeat.
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Thorpe says, “I felt there was a little contact”.
