My favorite Washington Post sports columnist Tony Kornheiser says he's not revving up "The Bandwagon" in response to Joe Gibbs' return as head coach of the Washington Redskins. Similarly, Cavalier fans shouldn't clear out their holiday schedules to prepare for a Virginia BCS bid, at least not yet anyway.
While there is much to celebrate after the Cavaliers outscored their first two opponents 100-38 and averaged 526.5 yards of total offense per game, you have to remember the teams Virginia has beaten: Temple and North Carolina. The Owls are coming off a one-win season, and the Tar Heels were 2-10 a year ago.
But Virginia has ascended all the way up to a No. 12 ranking in the Associated Press poll. Surely, the top sports writers know what they're doing when ranking the Cavs so high, right? Not necessarily.
Of the top 15 college football teams in the AP poll at this time in 2002, six of them were completely gone from the final poll that season, and five of those six didn't even receive any votes. Tennessee was as high as four in the nation by Sept. 7, but completely fell off the map by the season's end.
Cavalier fans love to recount last season when Virginia Tech ascended to third in the nation with a 6-0 record before the seventh game of their season, but completely self-destructed and finished the year 8-5 and out of the rankings.
The players maintain that each game, regardless of the opponent, is a 'W' in the win column. But while beating teams such as Temple, North Carolina, Akron (this week's opponent whose mascot is a Zip) and even Syracuse (2-5 last year in the Big East) may move the Cavaliers up in the standings, those victories are not going to tell much about their season.
Unfortunately for Cavalier fans, Virginia's first real test probably won't come until Oct. 16 at Florida State. The Thursday night Oct. 7 matchup with Clemson was supposed to be a worthy challenge, but the Tigers lost to Georgia Tech at home Saturday and barely beat Wake Forest two weeks ago in Death Valley.
We've seen how great the Virginia power game can be with four backs now contributing -- Wali Lundy, Alvin Pearman, Michael Johnson and even fullback Jason Snelling (last Saturday's leading rusher with 80 yards). Quarterback Marques Hagans can be very efficient and accurate as evidenced by his amazing 79.4 completion percentage after two games. The defensive line can get into the backfield and create pressure on the quarterback, and the highly touted linebackers are all over the field. Even the return units have been superb: delivering two -- virtually three -- touchdowns on punt and kick-off returns in only two games.
But Hagans has only needed to throw 34 passes, and the secondary has not yet been tested. And when it did get some work against North Carolina, it gave up a few big plays. On special teams, the punting situation still hasn't improved from last year's dreadful performance.
"I would withhold any assessment on [our team] until we find ourselves in a whole lot more adverse situations," Virginia coach Al Groh said. "We haven't been in the two-minute situation yet. We haven't had to play from behind yet. Our punter hasn't been under duress yet."
It can be a hard fall, especially from the top. Hopefully that's not in the cards for the Cavaliers. It looks like we'll find out on Oct. 16 in Tallahassee and on Nov. 13 at home against Miami if, as Sports Illustrated said, Virginia has national championship potential. But until then, I'm sticking to cautious optimism.
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