Virginia Erases a 10-point Deficit to Edge Syracuse
Flip the second half and Syracuse is 3-2. Instead the Orange led 17-7 at the break and went home 2-3, because Virginia scored 21 straight points and then held on for a 28-25 win.
Syracuse had the better of the first half. Xay Davis scored first for Virginia on a 14-yard run, but Ahmad Miller tied it from a yard out, Malachi Nelson found Umari Hatcher from 13 yards, and Shay Barker's 29-yard field goal with 32 seconds left in the second made it 17-7. Virginia's first answer came late in the third, when Beau Pribula hit Da'Shawn Martin from 43 yards out with 2:01 left, so Syracuse still led 17-14 going into the fourth.
Then it was all Jekail Middlebrook. He ran in from three yards at 11:42 to put Virginia ahead 21-17, then again from five yards at 5:20 to make it 28-17. Seventeen carries, 95 yards, two touchdowns, for a back who had one rushing score before that (three on the season now).
Syracuse did not go quietly. With 2:50 left Danny Lauter threw a 46-yard touchdown to Daunte Bacheyie and a two-point conversion to Justus Ross-Simmons made it 28-25. That is where it stayed.
The oddity is the yardage. Syracuse out-gained Virginia 430 to 290 and threw for 267 yards to 119, and neither team turned the ball over. Virginia is 4-2 and Syracuse is 2-3. Losing the stat sheet and winning the game is allowed. Syracuse ran 47 times for 163 yards and still could not get a fourth-quarter stop when it needed one.