I am sorry to report that the Virginia Cavaliers disappeared on Saturday. The team mysteriously vanished shortly after the start of the fourth quarter of their contest against North Carolina.
I don’t regret expressing my disagreement with London’s game-management decisions, but booing doesn’t help anything.
After arguably its most important victory of the season, the Virginia football team will head down to Chapel Hill to try to upset North Carolina in the South’s Oldest Rivalry.
I do expect the team to try, and leaving clock and timeouts on the field is the definition of not trying. That is why I boo — not at the players, but at our coach’s apparent lack of effort and drive.
“Close game” and “heartbreaker” have so often been synonymous terms where Virginia football is concerned.
Losing can wear on a team, especially one that has lost as frequently as Virginia over the past few seasons. Unlike Virginia squads of old, the Cavaliers bounced back.
“Syracuse is a very fast defense,” coach Mike London said. “They run to the ball well...So [it’s] going to be important for us to protect our quarterback.”
A week after defeating Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh completed the commonwealth sweep, taking down the Cavaliers 26-19 Saturday afternoon at Heinz Field.
The bye week gave London’s team an opportunity to regroup for its first conference matchup of the season, which comes this weekend on the road against the Pittsburgh Panthers.
Many of the places the Cavaliers rank high are certainly impressive, but there are also some categories where leading the pack is not exactly desirable.
Are you better off now than you were four years ago? We’ll get to that answer in a little bit.
Entering the conference portion of the 2015 season the Cavaliers’ offense has been excellent, dismal and all points between.
The 2014 rendition of the Cavalier defense was one of the best in the ACC in almost every category. But fast forward to 2015, and the Virginia defense cannot be trusted to stop the run against FCS opponent William & Mary, much less carry the team.
How can senior wide receiver Canaan Severin average 13 yards a reception and 74.5 receiving yards a game, yet the Cavaliers have gone 1-3, with the latest game against Boise State ending in a trouncing of 56-14?
While I commend Berman for his desire to solve the major embarrassment that is the weekly migration of students before the final whistle, I submit that charging for tickets would only thin out the student section more. The real solution lies in changing the culture that surrounds Virginia football.
Sitting at 1-3, Virginia needs to go 5-3 in conference play to reach bowl eligibility — the presumed requirement for London to earn a seventh year at the helm of the program.
The Cavaliers’ out-of-conference slate proved tough as advertised, and losses to top-10 programs UCLA and Notre Dame as well as the preseason-ranked Broncos (3-1) leave a tough road to bowl eligibility for Virginia (1-3).
Friday night, the Cavaliers will go up against a team ranked inside the preseason AP Top 25 for the third time this season, taking on Boise State (2-1) for the first time in program history.
Now three games into the season, the Cavaliers (1-2) remain without solutions in the team’s defensive deficiencies. The defense needs to stiffen up for the team to put W’s in the column.
After facing two consecutive top-15 opponents in UCLA and Notre Dame, Saturday’s contest against William & Mary was supposed to be easy.
