All is not well in HooVille, but I don't get it. We won. We evened up the record. We've righted the ship. It's smooth sailing from here to bowl season.
As I take off the sarcasm hat, let's face it: Our football team is not very good. We got crushed by Pitt and then beat a very mediocre Mountain West team at home 13-12 on a missed extra point in overtime.
That's nothing against the Mountain West. The conference has some good teams and doesn't get much respect on the national level. But Wyoming, picked to finish dead last in the preseason MWC media poll, is not one of its better teams. Virginia made the Cowboy defense look like the Steel Curtain and QB Jacob Doss look like a Heisman candidate. Obviously, it was not the kind of game you hope for in a home opener.
Recently, Virginia has been a middle of the pack ACC team that shows flashes of a championship squad but never makes that jump to elite status. That trend has gone the way of Pogs, at least for now, as it looks like it will be a struggle even to finish in the middle of the ACC this year.
But why is everyone getting all worked up about it? Isn't this what we expected after losing so many key players from last year? Maybe it is too early to call them a bad team, but Virginia has given me little reason not to do so. However, there is definitely a bright side to this situation.
The first point to keep in mind about having a mediocre-to-bad team this year is that the fans will still get into the games. Are you going to honestly tell me that there will not be 60,000 people at Scott Stadium even if this team continues to struggle? Fall Saturdays are what people live for around here. Students dig into game day like free food at the Ampitheatre. Alumni come back and tailgate all day then look out of place in the student section just to live up the good old college days. The atmosphere is great and will remain that way even though the product on the field may be down for the year.
When your team is not very good, expectations are never too high. With low expectations, every win is a party. We are already well trained in over-celebrating wins: Just check out pictures of the players and crowd after the missed extra point Saturday. You shouldn't be jumping up and down or high-fiving friends and strangers when you survive a game you were supposed to win because of a missed extra point. That said, I was doing it and so was most everyone in the stadium.
Now recall what it was like after big wins (for example, Virginia Tech in 2003 or Florida State last year) in the past few years. Things got pretty crazy; people had a lot of fun, right? With everyone aware that wins will be hard to come by this season, imagine what Saturday nights following wins will be like in C-ville.
Something you lose when you are a ranked team is the opportunity to rush the field after games, because you are almost always favored to win them. When you are not very good, virtually every win is an upset! Plus they cleared out the obstructions at the bottom of the hill, so they are pretty much asking us to rush the field at some point. The stage is set for one of those magical nights where we "shock the world" and can celebrate on the big V at midfield.
I have a feeling the U.Va Athletic Department is not too happy about the football season so far (or the fact that I just advocated rushing the football field). However, I think that they can definitely take a positive away from the start: Maybe with a lackluster football team, students and fans will give other fall sports a chance. I'm not saying that we should stop caring about the football team, but many of the non-revenue sports have legitimate championship chances and do not get the recognition that they deserve. Men's and women's soccer, cross country and field hockey are all nationally ranked but receive only a tiny fraction of the support students show the football team.
The most important positive spin on this season is the fact that when a team that has been having good years suddenly has a bad one, it usually means they will not be down long. After Kevin McCabe revamped the quarterback controversy with his play Saturday, his case looks good for a possible starting job or at least increased playing time for the rest of the season. U.Va could make the most of this rebuilding year by keeping McCabe in at quarterback and getting Jameel Sewell into the mix as well to prepare them for their futures in the program.
Hey, you never know, maybe U.Va. got the "bad road loss" and "the shaky early home win" out of its system and it really is smooth sailing. Or maybe that nine-point spread over Western Michigan this weekend is a little bit generous. Either way, where's the party at if we win?
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