Handing out letter grades to break down Virginia's 24-20 loss to Louisville.
suffered a 24-20 loss to Louisville on Saturday, putting an end to UVA's undefeated start to ACC play and putting the Cavaliers' hopes of reaching bowl eligibility in question as they face a brutal remaining schedule, starting with a top 10 road game at Clemson next week.
As we break down what we saw from the Hoos in their disappointing loss to the Cardinals and what it means moving forward, let's hand out some report card grades for various players, position groups, and other categories to help evaluate Virginia's performance in week 7.Louisville knew that Malachi Fields was going to be the target of many of Anthony Colandrea's passing attempts, yet the Cardinals still couldn't contain him.
"We've applauded the Virginia special teams unit for its relatively clean play through the first five games this season. There hadn't been any catastrophic miscues that resulted in the drastic momentum swings that were the bane of the Cavaliers' existence in their many one-score losses last season. Then came a major relapse on Saturday.
"It wasn't the only special teams error, as Jonas Sanker also returned a punt from deep in his own end zone and was tackled well short of the 20-yard line. It's still a safe bet that Virginia's special teams are much better than they were last year, but entirely eliminating the kind of game-changing plays like the Sparks punt, which was effectively a blocked punt, needs to remain the top priority.
The only reasons we're not giving Virginia's special teams an F is because Will Bettridge made his two field goals, Sparks had a couple of good punts to go along with the disastrous one, and the kick/punt coverage wasn't bad.Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia.
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