Bronco mentioned after the game that their first and second down defense was better in the 2nd half, so I thought I'd take a look to see - because I thought one key to the game was that even though we did a bad job overall at stopping Virginia's offense, they did a good enough job of making them earn their points by taking a long time to score that we were finally able to run the clock out on them.

This was a quick and dirty count just glancing over the play by play, so I probably missed some. I counted all the first down plays and 3rd down plays so I could see how many first downs resulted in a 3rd down. If there was a penalty on the offense on first down, I didn't count the subsequent play as an additional first down. If there was a penalty on the defense on first down that resulted in a first down, I did count both plays as a first down.

First quarter - Virginia had 10 first down plays, only 2 3rd down plays. 20% of first downs resulted in 3rd downs.
Second quarter - 10 first down plays, 7 3rd down plays - 70%.
First Half - 20 first down plays, 9 3rd down plays - 45%

3rd quarter - 7 first downs, 5 3rd downs - 71%
4th quarter - 15 first downs, 6 3rd downs - 40%
Second half - 22 first down plays, 11 3rd downs - 50%.

First quarter, the first and second down defense was brutal. We couldn't get them to 3rd down, let alone a 3rd down stop.
Second and Third quarter numbers were pretty good, at least compared to the rest. I have no idea how good a number 70% is for forcing a 3rd down, but I know it's a lot better than 20% or 40%.
The 4th quarter was actually pretty good, except for the TD drive that immediately preceded Hine's KO return. That drive had 6 first downs and 1 third down. Other than that drive the 4th quarter was at 56%. Their final TD drive started with 3 straight 1st downs that ended up as 3rd downs, followed by 4 straight first downs without ever getting to a 3rd down. It was pretty apparent that the defense was gassed in the 4th quarter, but they did enough at the beginning of that last drive to hold them off until there were under 2 minutes before letting them score.

Obviously, there were way too many 3rd and long conversions, but after the first quarter, and prior to being completely gassed in the last half of the 4th quarter, the defense did a pretty good job of at least forcing 3rd downs.