It was a monumental day yesterday in Charlottesville. Virginia's football team beat North Carolina and it was free burrito day at the new Chipotle on Barracks Road. And while nothing is as satisfying as a barbecoa beef burrito from Chipotle, Virginia's 23-0 win over the Tar Heels came pretty darn close.
For optimistic Virginia fans, last night's win shows that this squad, in the midst of a rebuilding year, has found its identity and turned a corner towards bigger and better things. For the more pessimistic amongst Wahoo nation, this was just another dominant, but meaningless, win over an ACC cellar-dweller from the state of North Carolina (the Cavaliers beat Duke 37-0 in Durham earlier this season).
In my humble opinion, the truth lies somewhere in between those two extremes.
The Cavaliers are clearly a better team than they were at the start of this season. In various facets of the game, it is undeniable that Virginia has improved dramatically since the season-opening loss at Pittsburgh.
Since getting his first start a month ago at Georgia Tech (and what a shaky start it was), redshirt freshman quarterback Jameel Sewell has earned the respect of his team as well as Virginia fans by showing improvement each and every week.
In both the loss to Maryland last week and the win over North Carolina last night, Sewell has shown flashes of brilliant potential that bode well for the future of Virginia football. More significantly, in last night's game, Sewell avoided any catastrophic gaffes, like the interception returned for a touchdown he threw last week against the Terrapins.
One thing that I'd like to see are more quarterback-option plays designed with Sewell's running abilities in mind. Sewell's 18-yard touchdown run last night came on just such a play call. Over the past two games, Sewell has run for 132 yards and two touchdowns.
Tailback Jason Snelling has also exploded in recent games. Over the past four games, he has averaged just less than 102 yards per game. His 131 rushing yards last night marked his best performance of the season thus far.
The common denominator between the improved play of both Sewell and Snelling has been the vastly enhanced performance of the offensive line. For the first few games of the season, the offensive line was one of Virginia's main Achilles heels. But recently, the line appears to have finally meshed and has finally begun to more effectively pass and run block.
Also worthy of note is the continued development of sophomore wide receiver Kevin Ogletree. Ogletree has clearly become Virginia's best and most reliable receiver as he leads the team with 36 catches, 425 yards and four receiving scores.
Another player deserving of kudos is junior placekicker Chris Gould who accounted for Virginia's initial nine points with three first half field goals, two of which came from 43 yards out.
Lost in all this is how well the defense performed last night, forcing three crucial North Carolina turnovers. With that being said, however, Virginia's defense has yet to put forth a consistently stout effort against a talented offensive unit. North Carolina's offense can be called many things, but talented is not one of them.
There is still plenty of work left to be done if Virginia hopes to effectively continue this rebuilding project in a positive direction. Penalties and dropped passes are two areas that come to mind as they were still present in last night's win.
Next on the agenda is handling another ACC foe from the state of North Carolina, Chuck Amato's N.C. State squad. The Wolfpack are by no means elite, but they did pull off wins over Boston College and Florida State. N.C. State should provide the Cavaliers with an excellent opportunity to show whether this win over North Carolina was the start of better things to come, or just another outlier victory over a mediocre team from the state south of the border.
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