CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – Considering that J.J. Jones had already caught two touchdown passes on the afternoon, one in which he displayed impressive acceleration darting into the end zone, Mack Brown can be forgiven for mistaking Jones as a rambling defensive lineman.
Seriously, he did.
The most entertaining play from North Carolina’s 41-14 victory over Virginia on Saturday at Scott Stadium came very late in the third quarter, and it was all about number five trucking 84 yards into the end zone for a touchdown.
Only it wasn’t Jones, who set a career-high with 129 receiving yards on the day, it was defensive lineman Jahvaree Ritzie. All 6-foot-5 and 290 pounds of him.
“I thought it was J.J. when I was looking out there,” Brown said, smiling and trying to be funny, which was successful. “I couldn’t figure out how that No. 5.”
He could. Brown obviously knew his team was on defense, and his starting tackle was out there. Brown also knew Ritzie was fully capable of turning a tipped interception into a highlight reel with national appeal.
“He’s such a good athlete but I never dreamed he could score,” Brown said. “And then he made a couple miss and I thought, ‘You know, it’s close to the sideline and it’s a hundred percent he will step out of bounds, he can’t possibly stay inbounds and score.’”
With UVA (4-4, 2-3 ACC) finally on a quality offensive possession having picked up five first downs and facing a 1st-and-10 at the Carolina 16-yard-line, Cavaliers quarterback Anthony Colandrea dropped back, surveyed the landscape and let go a pass over the middle.
Ritzie, however, reached up high and tipped the pass. Without taking an eye off the ball, he grabbed it, turned his nose up field and started running slanting toward the UNC (4-4, 1-3) sideline.
He switched the ball to his left hand and offered a righthanded stiff arm at Colandrea at around the 30-yard-line, and Ritzie kept racing toward the enclosed part of the stadium. Then, 27 yards later, 230-pound linebacker Amare Campbell laid out a block on 6-foot-5, 313-pound Virginia offensive guard McKale Boley. From there, the final 43 yards were up to Ritzie.
“Nothing but God for real,” a smiling Ritzie said when asked about the play. “I saw the ball in the air, I just said, ‘I’ve got gloves on, let me make something happen.’
“Today was the first time I’ve played with gloves in like a while, so I was just like, ‘Let’s try it out.’ It just so happened, I got the ball in my hand and I just said, ‘Let’s take off.’”
So he did for 84 yards. That’s 16 yards shy of the length of the entire field.
But Ritzie, who said he played quarterback as a freshman in high school and had a similarly long run for a touchdown that season, has run track since he was five. Running wasn’t entirely new to him.
“So, I just took off and all I saw was the end zone,” he said, continuing to describe the memorable play. “I didn’t see anything else but the end zone. I see the quarterback coming out of nowhere and I stiff-armed him, cool. And I just kept going after that.”
Ritzie credited Campbell with his textbook block on the UVA lineman.
“That hit by AC, though,” he said. “AC made that big hit. That’s how I got the touchdown.”
He crossed the goal line with 17 seconds remaining in the third quarter, and the score gave Carolina a commanding 38-6 lead.
And for good measure, Ritzie also recorded one of UNC’s 10 sacks on the day, giving the senior six on the season. But it’s the pick six he will remember most from this game.
