As the losses mounted, the smile never faded from the face of gregarious sophomore quarterback Phillip Sims.
It’s time for me to fact check myself about this season’s Virginia’s football team. After Georgia Tech manhandled the Cavaliers in a 56-20 third-week loss, I wrote a gloom-and-doom column about the team’s dark direction and detailed how Virginia could lose each remaining game.
The Virginia football team arrived in Raleigh for Saturday’s clash against N.C. State beset by uncertainty at the quarterback position and a chronic inability to force turnovers. A lot sure can change in 60 minutes of football.
Coach Mike London walked onto the podium at the John Paul Jones Arena media room Monday following a mercifully placed bye week and announced that three players would be suspended for violating team rules.
This is not the way the story was supposed to end. After three years of dutiful and occasionally spectacular service, senior linebacker and defensive captain Steve Greer was supposed to cap his college career with a 2012 season replete with excitement, accolades and, most crucially, wins.
The bane of diehard fans and fantasy football owners everywhere, bye weeks actually serve an important purpose for football teams needing a respite from the rigors of the months-long football season. To Coach Mike London and the Virginia offense, however, the bye week represents both a blessing and annoyance.
Like many college students, I often lack time to keep up with TV shows as they air. As a result I have an ever-growing list of shows — “Breaking Bad”, “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones,” to name a few — building up in my Netflix queue. When I find myself with some TV time, I almost invariably do what my friends jokingly call “The Sean Special”: revisit a show I’ve already seen and blitz through the entire series in about a week. My latest television binge has been to rewatch “Friday Night Lights,” perhaps my second-favorite show of all time.
On one characteristically cringe-inducing play in the third quarter of Saturday’s deflating 16-10 loss to Wake Forest, sophomore cornerback Drequan Hoskey whiffed on an open field tackle.
On one characteristically cringe-inducing play in the third quarter of Saturday’s deflating 16-10 loss to Wake Forest, sophomore cornerback Drequan Hoskey whiffed on an open field tackle.
The Demon Deacons (4-3, 2-3 ACC) snapped a two-game losing streak by winning for just the second time in their last 13 games in Charlottesville, handing the Cavaliers (2-6, 0-3 ACC) their sixth straight defeat Saturday, 16-10.
The Virginia football team welcomes Wake Forest to Scott Stadium Saturday for a third straight ACC matchup.
Coach Mike London has mere moments to compose himself before he addresses his melancholy team in the locker room following losses.
The Virginia players exited the field in misery after Saturday’s 27-20 Homecomings loss to archrival Maryland that all but sent their bowl chances, like their new indoor practice facility, up in smoke. For all the moralizing rhetoric out there about the indomitable power of teamwork and persistence and a “can do” attitude, they aren’t enough to outweigh the torturous disappointment of coming up short.
The Virginia football team fell to Maryland, 27-20, for the team’s fifth straight loss, giving the Cavaliers’ their longest losing streak since 2009.
This Saturday marks a day of rich traditions as Virginia continues its storied rivalry against Maryland on the weekend of the 88th Homecomings.
Keeping with the theme of quarterback controversy that has filled recent Cavalier Daily sports pages, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the QB plight of this year’s NFL drama queen, the New York Jets. Hard Knocks or not, Rex Ryan and his team of colorful personalities always seem to find their way into the news somehow.
Duke redshirt sophomore quarterback Anthony Boone completed 18-of-31 passes for 212 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions as the Blue Devils (5-1, 2-0 ACC) scored 28 unanswered second half points to give Virginia its fourth straight loss, 42-17. Despite outgaining Duke 461 to 395 yards, Virginia (2-4, 0-2 ACC) was defeated by 20 or more points for the third time in four weeks to match the worst start in three seasons under coach Mike London.
Virginia travels to Durham Saturday to face Duke in junior quarterback Phillip Sims’ first start of the season. Despite their recent three-game skid, the Cavaliers (2-3, 0-1 ACC) remain optimistic they can start October off on the right foot with a victory against the Blue Devils (4-1, 1-0 ACC). “We keep each other up,” sophomore running back Kevin Parks said.
For a team pegged at the outset of the 2012 season to steamroll opponents with a dynamic, versatile running game, Virginia has relied immensely on the aerial attack in the season’s first five contests. Through five games, the Cavaliers have attempted 193 passes while rushing only 165 times, a difference of 28 plays.
The Virginia football team is making a quarterback change. Coach Mike London hinted on his weekly radio show Monday night, the Cavaliers will give sophomore Philip Sims snaps with the first team this week in preparation for his first start Saturday against Duke — provided he recovers from a lower leg injury suffered in last week’s 44-38 loss to Louisiana Tech. The move follows another dicey performance from incumbent starter junior Michael Rocco against the Bulldogs.
