Virginia Football: Cavaliers control ACC destiny against Pitt Panthers

Virginia football looks to stake their claim for the ACC Coastal Division in a home matchup against the Pitt Panthers. Can they stay the course?

It’s an interesting year for the ACC Coastal Division.

Miami opened up the year with +500 odds to win the ACC behind only Clemson who remains the favorite to win the conference. Looking down the ACC Coastal Division; Virginia Tech had the next best odds with +750, Georgia Tech followed with +3500 odds, Duke had +5500, Pitt had +8000, and North Carolina had +12500, and bringing up the tail end was Virginia with +30000 odds.

Bronco Mendenhall has made some major improvements this season offensively and that is largely accredited to the addition of JUCO quarterback Bryce Perkins. Perkins’ skill set fit like a glove for Mendenhall who boasted the quarterback play of mobile quarterback Taysom Hill in his tenure at BYU. The JUCO quarterback has boosted the Virginia run game from 128th nationally in 2017 to 49th nationally this season.

Their defense has also improved from the 40th best defense nationally last season to 21st this season. Mendenhall is in a situation where he controls his own destiny in the ACC. Miami has two conference losses and has no answers on offense, Virginia Tech is trending downward in the final weeks, and Georgia Tech lost too much early on. Virginia’s first task to take control of the Coastal Division is defeating one of the other one conference loss teams this weekend in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh started off with a large but competitive loss against Penn State but really turned on when conference play picked up. They picked up wins against Georgia Tech, Syracuse, and Duke and put themselves in a good spot against Virginia this week. Most of their success this season has come on the ground due mostly in part to the resurgence of former-freshman sensation Qadree Ollison.

Ollison began his career off with a 1,000-yard season in the absence of James Connor who was battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma and many believed that he was the next man up. Conner returned the next season and that greatly limited Ollison’s production. In 2017, Ollison saw a mere 90 carries in the absence of the departing Conner and Darrin Hall looked to be the guy taking over. Ollison stepped back up this season and looks to be in for his second 1,000 yard season as he looks to go to the NFL next season.

Does Virginia have what it takes to take a firm grasp of the ACC Coastal Division?

Date: Friday, November 2
Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Venue: Scott Stadium
TV: ESPN 2
Live Stream: WatchESPN

Keys to Victory

Virginia clearly has the upper hand in this game simply due to the fact that Pitt can’t win on the road. Pittsburgh is 4-4 on the season and all four of those losses came on the road. This game takes place in Charlottesville, VA and the Cavaliers need to get their home crowd in the game early on.

The best thing that Virginia has going for them on offense is their ground game. Pitt’s run defense is allowing 180+ yards on average and the 49th ranked rushing attack in college football should only rise in the rankings after this game. Defensively, the Wahoos have played lockdown ball all year long and that is the only reason they were able to beat Miami a few weeks ago. Make Kenny Pickett throw the ball and that’s how you win.

So there are basically two schools of thought for the Pittsburgh Panthers. One way they could win is just by running the ball a lot and just try to kill as much clock as possible. Virginia is very good at killing the clock and if the Panthers can turn the tables on them, they could stand a great chance of throwing their game plan off.

On the other hand, Virginia has the 82nd ranked total offense in college football. Pitt could stack the box on defense and just hope that Bryce Perkins makes mistakes while they try to force a shootout on offense which has proven to work against Syracuse and Duke.

Betting Odds

Points Spread: Virginia -7.5

Over/Under: 48

Prediction

Pittsburgh will keep things interesting in the first half with some different defensive schemes and a heavy rushing attack but it won’t hold for the whole game. Virginia’s rushing attack will wear down Pitt defensive front and Bryce Perkins will break off some big plays later on.

Final Score: Virginia 30, Pittsburgh 20