In a game defined by staunch defenses, the first-half benching of sophomore quarterback Grayson Lambert and the emergence of sophomore backup Matt Johns, Virginia showed it can play with the country’s best teams—but certainly not beat them if its offense is sloppy.
On a day that was supposed to be a starting point in the Heisman campaign for UCLA junior quarterback Brett Hundley, the real story was created by a name no one expected to hear: Matt Johns.
While the 2013 season was one of the strongest in the history of Virginia cross country, it was only a piece of a larger puzzle. This season, both the men’s and women’s cross country teams return deeper and more experienced — and appear poised for another successful year.
Coming off a disappointing 2-10 season, the Virginia football team has much room for an improvement heading into the 2014 campaign. The Cavaliers hope that a slew of returning skill position players will give the offense a much-needed spark to earn the program its first winning season since coach Mike London’s inaugural year.
By most statistical measures, the Virginia defense was no better than mediocre in 2013, when the team surrendered 399 points in 12 games to post the 98th best scoring defense in college football.
The 125th season of Virginia football kicks off Saturday against No. 7 UCLA, a Pac-12 powerhouse and the winner of the 2013 Hyundai Sun Bowl against Virginia Tech.
Fans can learn a great deal by listening to preseason prognostications. Why, just last year I learned never to trust preseason prognosticators!
Virginia senior tight end Jake McGee announced Friday that he will transfer to another program after graduating in May. The Richmond native lettered three times for Virginia and paced Cavalier pass-catchers with 43 receptions and 345 receiving yards in 2013.
Saturday afternoon in Charlottesville, Virginia football fans of all ages streamed into the sun-painted Scott Stadium for the Cavaliers’ annual Orange-Blue Spring Game to catch an early glimpse of the newest version of Virginia football. “We will be a different team [this fall], but the good thing about it, you know, every aspect of the team we have is improving,” coach Mike London said.
After a dismal 2013 campaign, the Virginia football team found itself ranked in the top 25 Wednesday. The Cavaliers boast the No. 25 incoming recruiting class — fourth in the ACC — according to ESPN, inking 15 players to National Letters of Intent on Signing Day in addition to two recruits who enrolled at the University in January.
Virginia football coach Mike London added Mike Archer to his staff Thursday as a defensive assistant coach, the team announced in a press release. Archer — an assistant at the school from 1991 to 1992 under George Welsh — was most recently the defensive coordinator at North Carolina State University from 2007 to 2012, under current Virginia associate coach Tom O’Brien.
In approximately ten months, eager consumers around the nation will swarm retail stores on “Black Friday” to gobble up favorable discounts. The Virginia football team, on the other hand, will be shopping for something unavailable on the shelves of Wal-Mart: a Commonwealth Cup. For the first time since 1996, the Cavaliers will play Virginia Tech the day after Thanksgiving next season.
Confirming reports that first emerged Sunday, football coach Mike London announced Monday that the team will add Jerome “Jappy” Oliver as their defensive line coach. Oliver served in the same stead and as assistant coach at Buffalo for the last four seasons.
The Virginia football team announced Jan. 6 that safeties coach Anthony Poindexter and defensive line coach Vincent Brown would be leaving the team. Both will be taking positions at Connecticut under newly hired coach Bob Diaco — himself a former Virginia assistant coach between 2006 and 2008.
Today we mourn the loss of the Virginia football program, a program that brought joy to so many, but whose life tragically dwindled away this fall. The football program was 125 years old, born in 1888.
Finals season is upon us, and there are just four weeks of the NFL regular season to go. That means it’s about time for that age-old tradition that football-fanatic college students like me participate in every year — trying so hard to concentrate on my studies, banging my head on my desk a couple of times, cursing my non-existent willpower, then heading back to ESPN.com to try to predict how the playoffs will turn out.
In the final opportunity of an otherwise wasted season, coach Mike London showed he was already thinking about next year when he decided to switch quarterbacks late.
With a 16-6 loss to Virginia Tech in Charlottesville, Virginia has now dropped nine straight games to finish the season 2-10 and winless in ACC play for the first time since 1981.
It took just six seconds for Miami to take an early lead on the Virginia football team, when sophomore cornerback Tracy Howard snagged the first of sophomore quarterback David Watford’s three interceptions and returned it 19 yards for a touchdown. Virginia would eventually fall 45-26 and suffer its eighth consecutive defeat.
“The Skinny” on weekend matchups for football, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s basketball, volleyball, wrestling and swim and dive.
