The Virginia Cavaliers escaped from Berkeley, California with a 31-21 victory against the Cal Golden Bears despite a handful of costly plays on special teams.
The first came before the half when quarterback Chandler Morris and the Wahoo offense drove 40 yards down the field to set up a 48-yard field goal for place kicker Will Bettridge. He proceeded to shank the ball far left of the uprights.
To be fair to Bettridge, that would’ve been a career long. Yet he’s hit from 47 and 46 yards multiple times
in his career. Up 17-7 at the half, three more points could have started to put the game out of reach for a Cal comeback.
The next special teams miscue came on another field goal attempt, this time in the third quarter. Facing 4th-and-6 on the Cal 19-yard line, Tony Elliott sent the kicking team out to seemingly attempt to, once again, grow the lead to 20-17.
Instead, the ‘Hoos attempted a fake field goal with holder/punter Daniel Sparks catching the ball and running through a gap in the defense. He made it five yards, but was dragged down short of the sticks, resulting in a turnover on downs and giving the ball back to Cal.
Flash forward to the fourth quarter and UVA was backed up, punting from its own 11-yard line. Sparks miss-kicked it, sending it off the right side of his foot and only 14 yards down the field before it fell out of bounds. That gave Call the ball at the Wahoo 25-yard line. The Golden Bears quickly capitalized on the mistake, punching the ball into the end zone in just two plays to cut Virginia’s lead down from 10 points to just three.
All’s well that ends well, to be sure. Maybe a bad day for the special teams department is a matter of luck. Sparks and Bettridge have both proven to be reliable in the past, and the punter was awfully close to picking up that first down on the fake field goal.
Still, there should be some reasonable concern about whether Virginia can continue to eke out victories in this fashion. They had the opportunity to put the proverbial coffin multiple times on Saturday and didn’t until the final 45 seconds.
But, maybe they’re a team of destiny who simply cannot be denied.
