After starting his Virginia career with consecutive three-win seasons, coach Tony Elliott and the Cavaliers look for a 3-0 start on Saturday night when old rival Maryland visits Charlottesville, Va.
Virginia (2-0) erased a 13-point, fourth-quarter deficit in a 31-30 win at Wake Forest in its Atlantic Coast Conference opener last Saturday. The Cavaliers claimed their first lead with 2:07 left on their version of the “tush push.”
The Terrapins (1-1) were on the wrong side of a comeback in their Big Ten opener Saturday as Michigan State scored the final 10 points for a 27-24 victory in College Park, Md.
Maryland, a member of the ACC from 1953 to 2013, has won the last three meetings with Virginia, including a 42-14 home victory last September. The Cavaliers scored the first 14 points before the Terps took over in that one.
At Wake Forest, Virginia fell behind 17-3 early and trailed 30-17 entering the fourth. Anthony Colandrea threw a touchdown to Trell Harris with 10:37 remaining. The Cavaliers then did their best Philadelphia Eagles impression, with Grady Brosterhous bulling ahead for the decisive 1-yard TD on a play dubbed the “Grady Bunch.”
“It’s a huge win for us, huge team win,” said receiver Malachi Fields, who has eclipsed 100 yards in both games. “We’re just going to keep continuing to grow together and be that team that’s able to finish in the fourth quarter.”
Maryland was not that team on Saturday. The Terrapins took a 24-17 lead against Michigan State on the first play of the fourth quarter on a touchdown pass from Billy Edwards Jr. to Dylan Wade.
The Spartans answered with a 77-yard TD strike from Aidan Chiles to Nick Marsh after a missed Maryland field goal, and Jonathan Kim converted the winning 37-yard field goal with one second left.
“The season is not a loss, it’s not a wipeout,” Edwards said. “We got a really tough game coming on the road down to Charlottesville … against UVA, and we got to get this stuff corrected and be ready for the rest of the season, for next week and so on. It’ll be tough, but we got it.”
