Clemson Spoils UVA and Coach Elliott’s Return to Death Valley to Move to 6-1 on the Season (10-19-24)
By: Xavier Jones
Headline Photo Credit: Arturo Jones-LMS Network
On Saturday afternoon, Coach Elliott led his Virginia Cavaliers into his old stomping grounds at Death Valley in Clemson, South Carolina to take on the Clemson Tigers. The Cavaliers were looking to pull off the upset against the top-10-ranked Tigers. The Clemson Tigers will be looking to move up in the rankings and also get a step closer to securing a spot in the ACC Championship game.
The Virginia Cavaliers received the opening kickoff only for their drive to end in a 3-and-out. After forcing the Cavs to punt, Clemson works the ball downfield and comes away with a 29-yard field goal by Nolan Hauser to take a 3-0 lead. However, UVA managed to put together a good drive to tie the ball game at 3 after a 20-yard field goal by Will Bettridge. On the ensuing drive by the Tigers, Cade Klubnik’s pass is picked off by Kim Robinson to end the first quarter. While facing 3rd and 17, Anthony Colandrea escapes the pocket and runs for 20 yards to keep the drive alive for UVA. This would result in an 8-yard TD pass from Colandrea to Dakota Twitty to take the 10-3 lead. The Cavaliers’ lead wouldn’t last long because of Clemson’s Phil Mafah’s back-to-back TD runs on consecutive offensive possessions. Clemson would take a 17-10 lead into halftime.
Coming out of halftime, the Clemson Tigers would go on to score 21 unanswered points to increase their lead to 38-10 entering the fourth quarter. The Cavs finally put some points on the board in the second half after a 45-yard TD connection between Anthony Colandrea and Malachi Fields to cut the deficit to 38-17. UVA’s touchdown is quickly answered by Clemson after a 22-yard field goal by Nolan Hauser. With the game being out of reach and not much time left in the fourth quarter, UVA swapped out QBs and brought in Tony Muskett to finish out the game. Muskett would throw for two touchdowns to make the score somewhat respectable, but it wasn’t enough to worry Clemson. The final score of the game was 48-31, as Clemson moved to 6-1 on the year and UVA went to 4-3.
The Cavaliers will play host to the North Carolina Tar Heels in their next game and the Tigers will go into their bye week with the focus on finishing the season strong.
