Virginia Football: 3 Takeaways from the Cavs loss to Pitt

Virginia football can say goodbye to their top 25 ranking after a 23-13 loss to Pittsburgh behind running back Darrin Hall‘s big game.

The Cavaliers came into this matchup as a 7.5 point favorite over the Pittsburgh Panthers. The Panthers were lights out when they were at home but had yet to win this season while they were traveling. Pittsburgh is notorious for defeating top 25 teams; No. 13 Penn State 2016, No. 2 Clemson in 2016, and No 2. Miami in 2017. Looks like Pat Narduzzi can add a win over the 25th ranked Virginia Cavaliers and they can do so knowing that they did it on the road.

Pittsburgh found most of their success… Well… All of their offensive production tonight came out of the Senior running back Darrin Hall who managed to crank out 229 yards on 19 carries with three touchdowns. The most impressive stat of the night had to come from Pittsburgh’s 100th ranked total defense that was able to hold Virginia quarterback Bryce Perkins, who averages 4.3 yards per carry this season, to minus seven yards on 15 carries.

Narduzzi had the right gameplan tonight to go out and win. He found that he could attack the edges of the Virginia defensive front and he did it as much as possible while devising a defensive gameplan that could suppress the Virginia running game and force them to pass. In the aftermath of the road loss, let’s look into the takeaways from this game.