The holiday season is always a wonderful time for reflection, especially for the 2000 football season.
It's a time to look back and analyze what went right with the year and what went wrong.
The good:
For the third straight year, Virginia produced the Atlantic Coast Conference's leading rusher. Antwoine Womack won the ACC rushing title with 1,028 yards after finishing with 134 yards against Virginia Tech.
Freshman quarterback Bryson Spinner showed that he has the poise to lead the team next season. His statistics in the past two games didn't reflect accurately his ability to control the tempo of the offense while managing to elude opposing defenses.
The team won both of its games shown on Jefferson Pilot, the ACC television network and snubbed another JP Sports broadcast opportunity in favor of a more amicable 2:30 p.m. kickoff for late-to-rise fans.
The team will go to a bowl game for the third year in a row and the 12th bowl in Welsh's career at Virginia.
The bowl game will give the Cavaliers the chance to make it a seven-win season for the 14th consecutive season.
And of course, the bad:
If achieved in the bowl game, the seven-win season mark will be tainted by not having won in the regular season for the first time during the streak.
Virginia Tech showed it doesn't need Vick to capture the Commonwealth Cup from Virginia. Lee Suggs proved that with his 139 all-purpose yards and four touchdown performance.
The kicking game improved from last year, but forgot to tell the rest of the special teams to keep up.
Every time Virginia lost a game this year, it was played before national television audiences - two on ESPN and three on ABC's regional coverage - to make a good impression on recruits.
Virginia coach George Welsh gained nothing from "reinventing the corporation." Instead he merely ran into vociferous fans questioning his coaching ability, despite his 27 years of experience.
"I'm disappointed," Welsh said. "I thought this team was capable of more wins. Ever since Ellis has been hurt, it seemed like we've struggled on offense. Then defensively, we can't seem to put two good games back to back. We've been up and down like yo-yos."
Offensive tackle and captain Brad Barnes added to Welsh's observations of the frustrating season.
"We've had a lot of close games," Barnes said. "We've had a lot of close calls and a lot of games I thought we could win. We just couldn't put it together."
But before the nitpicking begins by questioning running plays on third and long and big cushions while defending the pass, now would be good time to give a belated thanks to those who have played their last regular season game for the Cavaliers and start thinking about who will spark the Cavaliers success next year.
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