Inside the MEAC · recap
Virginia 59, Norfolk State 3: now the real season starts
The Breakdown Media Team
Published
Tuesday we laid out what a good Friday night in Charlottesville would look like: competitive quarters, keeping Beau Pribula in the pocket, zero gift possessions. Virginia 59, Norfolk State 3. It was none of those things, and there's no way to write around that.
Over in a quarter
Pribula needed fifteen minutes to settle it. Three touchdown passes in the first quarter, 21-0 after one, and Virginia's staff started working through the depth chart before halftime. His final line of 12-of-14 for 162 and three scores, with one interception, was compiled in about a quarter and a half of work. The running back Xay Davis handled the ground game, 107 yards on 11 carries, and the backups Eli Holstein and Cole Geer threw touchdowns of their own in the second half. Virginia outgained Norfolk State 466 to 223, and the second half was 31-0 against reserves.
The preview worried about keeping Pribula in the pocket. The truer problem was getting anywhere near him. He was gone from the game before the question fully applied.
The number that follows this team around
Three turnovers. Again. Deljay Bailey threw two interceptions and the Spartans gave it away three times in total, the same count as the derby, where two of the three became Old Dominion touchdowns. Against FBS competition Norfolk State is now six turnovers in two games, and that stat travels in the worst way: it doesn't care who the opponent is. MEAC defenses will take those gifts just as happily as Virginia did.
The bright spots were real but small. Marco Peery hit a 40-yard field goal late in the second quarter to keep the shutout off the books. Elyjah Mitchell led the team with five catches, the third time in three games he's been where the ball needed to go.
The gauntlet is over
The nonconference stretch closes at 1-2, with the win over a Division II opponent and the two losses to FBS programs by a combined 90-13. That's a bad two weeks on a scoreboard, and we won't pretend otherwise. It's also exactly the stretch of schedule where records get bruised and nothing gets decided. Norfolk State's season was never going to be defined at Ballard Stadium or Scott Stadium.
It gets defined starting now. Next Saturday, Hampton comes to Dick Price Stadium for the Battle of the Bay, the game this city circles in August, the one where the tape from Charlottesville means nothing the moment the ball is kicked. The Spartans get to be the home team, the crowd, and the favorite of somebody's heart again.
Preview later this week. That one we've been waiting for all season.