It wasn't halftime Saturday before 16th-ranked Virginia had crossed out all the boxes on coach Al Groh's offseason checklist. The Cavaliers may not have played a perfect game in their season opener at Temple, but there were few complaints from the coaching staff or an orange sea of UVa fans.

Virginia amassed 504 yards in total offense, including 286 on the ground, and did not have a turnover in a 44-14 victory over Temple.

The Cavaliers will encounter more hostile settings than Lincoln Financial Field, where at least half the crowd of 20,154 was rooting for the visitors, "but, it's hard to win a game," Groh said. "So, whenever you win one, you're pretty pleased."

Virginia made it look easy, taking a 24-0 lead on a 70-yard punt return by senior Alvin Pearman with less than one minute elapsed in the second quarter.

The third of three Wali Lundy touchdown runs made it 30-0 with 5:29 left in the second quarter.

Lundy carried 25 times for 104 yards, much of the time with preseason All-American Elton Brown leading the way. At one point, a pulling Brown eyed Temple defensive back Andrew Turner, knocked him backwards and then landed on top him.

"He'd been doing a lot of talking," Brown, a senior offensive guard, said. "I wanted to let him experience what 330 pounds felt like."

Temple, a 16-point underdog coming off a 1-11 season, immediately got itself in a hole Saturday by fumbling on its first two possessions, turnovers on which UVa capitalized for a 10-0 lead.

"I thought, looking [at the replay], that they were both close to hitting the ground," Temple coach Bobby Wallace said, "but even still, when you hit the ground, you don't have to fumble the ball. Don't take that chance. That hurt us."

Temple had pinned its hopes for an upset on 6-foot-2, 240-pound quarterback Walter Washington, who averaged close to 30 rushing attempts in the Owls' final three games of the 2003 season, but the early deficit put him at a disadvantage.

Temple was forced to throw in order to get back in the game, and the Cavaliers knew it. Virginia was credited with five sacks and would have had a sixth if Umar Ferguson hadn't picked up a Washington fumble and turned it into a 6-yard gain.

"We didn't want to let Washington out of the pocket because, if he got out of the pocket, he'd be running on us all day," said UVa linebacker Ahmad Brooks, who had 1 1/2 sacks. "Everybody wanted to get to the quarterback. It was like a race to the quarterback."

Often, two and three Virginia rushers would get to Washington at the same time. He had runs of 19, 17 and 13 yards, but the Cavaliers saddled him with 57 yards in losses.

"I didn't anticipate that kind of pressure," Washington said. "They saw that we were having a hard time with it, so they stayed with it."

Washington scored both of Temple's touchdowns, the first on a 3-yard run on fourth and goal with 5:51 remaining in the third quarter. UVa quickly responded with a 1-yard run by quarterback Marques Hagans, who ended UVa's scoring with a 4-yard touchdown pass to Heath Miller with 9:40 left.

It was the third career start for Hagans, a junior who backed up record-setting quarterback Matt Schaub for most of the past two seasons. Hagans completed 17 of 22 passes for 211 yards, added 25 yards on five runs and was not sacked.

Virginia's next four games will come at home, which might have been cause for some teams to look past a Temple team.

It was the staff's challenge to present Temple as the second coming of the Philadelphia Eagles, with whom the Owls share Lincoln Financial Field, "but, we're a team of veterans," said defensive end Chris Canty, a fifth-year senior. "I don't think Coach [Groh] needed to sell us on anything. We understand what we need to do."