Cavaliers’ slide continues

During the quest for an ACC championship berth in October, Virginia coach Al Groh joked that he was unaware where Tampa Bay was.

Scrap the geography lesson. Now, it doesn’t matter.

Clemson erased any chance Virginia had to play in the league’s title game on Saturday, taking a 13-3 victory away and four turnovers away from the Cavaliers at Scott Stadium.

The loss spoiled the Senior Day festivities for Virginia (5-6, 3-4 ACC) and forces the program to win its season finale at Virginia Tech on Saturday to become bowl eligible.

“It sucked. Excuse my language but there’s no other way I can do it to express it,” Virginia senior linebacker Clint Sintim said. “It sucked. We wanted to win the game, obviously.

“Football is a frustrating game sometimes and we ended up on the back end of this one.”

Clemson, once upon a time the favorite to win the ACC title, kept its bowl hopes alive and improved to 6-5 overall, finishing league play at 4-4.

Virginia, while toting the company line of unity, can blame a woeful offensive performance that fittingly matched the frigid temperatures that abused the 51,979 fans in attendance.

The Cavaliers, mired in the first three-game losing streak during a season since 2001, managed only a lone field goal, a 34-yard boot from Robert Randolph with 5:36 left in the second quarter. They finished with just 190 yards of total offense as sophomore quarterback Marc Verica tossed three interceptions.

“It was what it was,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “Until we learn to take better care of the ball, unfortunately, that subtracts substantially from the result that we are trying to get.

“It is a pretty easy game to describe, right? It was right out there to see.”

Verica’s first miscue, a short pass he tried to force to tight end John Phillips, set up the game’s lone touchdown.

Facing third-and-five at Virginia’s 21, Verica was intercepted one yard past the line of scrimmage by safety Michael Hamlin.

After an offsides penalty on the Cavaliers, Clemson tailback C.J. Spiller took a carry and scooted left into open space, buying time for wideout Tyler Grisham to run uncovered into the end zone. Spiller fired the first pass of his career with accuracy, giving the Tigers a 15-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead with 3:23 left in the opening quarter.

“That’s a play if you show it a lot, it doesn’t work. You show it once or twice a season,” Groh said. “We were one play late on this one today It wasn’t a complex play.

“The receiver weaves in, fakes a block, weaves back out. I saw it all develop. Where he weaved into the coverage, we didn’t quite recognize what he was doing and let him run back out. Unfortunately, it was an uncontested throw — one of the few uncontested throws of the game.”

Clemson added a 32-yard field goal by Mark Buchholz on its first drive of the second quarter, a score that was set up by a fumble from UVa fullback Rashawn Jackson.

In the second half, Virginia wasted a prime opportunity to trim into the seven-point deficit.

Clemson quarterback Cullen Harper, who passed for 121 yards, had a premature snap in shotgun formation glance off his helmet and rest eventually in the hands of a diving Vic Hall at the Cavaliers’ 47-yard line.

Going for broke, Verica lofted a bomb down the left sidelines on the ensuing play for wide receiver Kevin Ogletree. After noticeable contact was made between both players, Ogletree broke free, collected the pass and raced into the end zone untouched.

The play, however, was negated by an offensive pass interference call against Ogletree.

“The corner blitzed, which left me on the safety, which is usually a favorable match-up for me and our team,” said Ogletree, who finished with six receptions for 73 yards. “Marc put a great ball up and there and I tried to everything I could to gain separation and the judgment was left in the ref’s hands, and he made a call.

“I didn’t necessarily agree with it, but that was his call. We can’t go back on one play and say it decided the game. It was big — I wish it didn’t go that way, but it is something that was unfortunate.”

Groh added: “It looked like there appeared to be contact involved with both players. It is one of those calls when you make it that you better be right … because if you were wrong you had a profound influence on the game in an incorrect way if you called it.”

Doug Rhoads, the ACC’s supervisor of officials, was in attendance, and said in the press box that the correct call was made, as Ogletree used his right hand to gain separation.

After exchanging punts, Virginia moved into Clemson territory again. Facing a fourth-and-one at the Tigers’ 27, Groh gambled for the second time in the game by going for a first down.

As was the case on the attempt in the fourth quarter, which was a pass attempt that was blocked to the ground, Clemson held strong.

Virginia running back Cedric Peerman tried to rush for the first down on the latter play, but was hit as he took the ball by reserve cornerback Byron Maxwell for a five-yard loss.

“Clearly, we didn’t block that well enough to get it executed,” Groh said. “Both [fourth-down] plays had been productive for us during the course of the year.

“That’s a series of plays there that’s been productive for us on a very high basis for us during the course of the year.”

Virginia’s defense forced yet another punt, but Verica threw his second interception of the game as left a deep ball short of wide receiver Jared Green, who used an inside move and temporarily streaked by cornerback Crezdon Butler and down the middle of the field into open space.

Butler made the necessary adjustment on the floater and returned it 31 yards to the Clemson 33 to set up a game-sealing field goal by Buchholz with 2:37 left.

“It was all just kind of a blur,” Green said. “I can’t really talk about the play because I don’t know what happened. It is just unfortunate what happened, but I felt like we had something going.”

Clemson finished off the contest in style, intercepting Verica again — linebacker DeAndre McDaniel picked off the quarterback at the Virginia 33 with 1:58 left.

Virginia’s seniors were left to ponder what might have been in a season that included a rocky start and forgettable November thus far.

“It definitely hurts. I am surprised that I am not sitting here bawling right now,” Virginia senior wideout Maurice Covington said. “You kind of wanted to win this game because not only is it your last game here, but we had a chance to go to the ACC championship and that is blown off now. It is hard.”

The underclassmen took it just as hard.

“I can only imagine how they feel,” said Hall. “I know they feel bad that they lost, but this is the last home game that they will ever play in Scott Stadium.

“They can never get this game back or another game like it. I can only imagine how they feel.”

Virginia closes out the regular season on Saturday against rival Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. A start time for the game will be announced today.