The real Virginia football this season has not been played in Scott Stadium, but down the road at Klöckner Stadium.
While the giants of the gridiron have continued to lull Cavalier faithful with their stretch runs and dropped passes, the Virginia men's soccer team has wowed fans with dramatic victories time and time again this season.
These two teams started out the year with very similar goals: reaching that infamous "next level."
For football, that meant going to a bowl not sponsored by a computer or a tire. For soccer, it meant getting past the NCAA quarterfinals.
Virginia coach George Gelnovatch, despite a 172-58-19 career record, was a whopping 1-4 in the NCAA quarterfinals before last Friday's duel with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
That may cut it for some teams, but this is Virginia.
Well before being ripped apart by ESPN analyst Eric Wynalda, Bruce Arena was leading Virginia men's soccer to four consecutive national championships in the early '90s. So when his former player Gelnovatch inherited the program, he also inherited extremely high expectations.
Well to the credit of Gelnovatch and his team, this year's club has responded.
Virginia has played 11 ranked teams this year and beaten eight of them.
How many other Virginia sports programs can say that?
With such success this season, the fans should be given some credit for their constant support of the squad.
Maybe everyone just wanted to see senior forward Adam Cristman pay homage to Zinadine Zidane and head-butt an ACC defender, but the student body, led by the ever-boisterous student group the Wahooligans, came out in record numbers this year to support the Cavaliers. The 43,183 people who attended games this season shattered the previous NCAA record by over 2,000 fans. But then who's counting?
In all honesty, who can blame the Orange Fever for taking the trek down Alderman Road? This team has a little bit of everything.
There is sophomore forward Yannick Reyering, who has always reminded me of Ivan Drago from Rocky IV:
"I must break you."
His fellow bash brother, senior forward Adam Cristman, is no slouch either. With a huge gash above his right eye, he still came back to put the hammer down on then-No. 2 Maryland with a late goal earlier in the season.
Then there are the midfielders Nico Colaluca and Jonathan Villanueva, who have reached speeds only the Roadrunner can truly fathom.
Against Wake Forest, with a biting cold and torrential rain, Colaluca literally walked on water as his speed across Klöckner left a deluge behind him. What other sport offers miracles like that?
Plus, there is almost a guarantee for a hectic finish. Not only have 15 of the Cavaliers' 21 matches been decided by one goal, but Virginia once had four consecutive overtime victories at home.
I doubt people keep track of that sort of thing, but that has got to be some kind of record.
Then there was the almost-goal against Wake Forest on Senior Night where the ball crossed the out-of-bounds stripe in mid-air, denying Virginia a terrific goal in the final 10 seconds that would have given the Cavaliers an overtime opportunity to post a perfect record at home.
Still, losing to No. 2 Wake Forest at home just does not have the same sting as losing to the Western Michigan Broncos.
Yet for all that Virginia soccer has accomplished, it, too, has struggled with the flaw all Cavalier sports teams cannot seem to overcome: winning on the road.
The Cavaliers went a mediocre 2-2 on the road and failed to score the opening goal in all the matches. That may be okay when you are facing 6-10-1 N.C. State, but if Virginia falls behind against the No. 8 UCLA Bruins tonight, it could be very tough sledding, indeed.
On the bright side, they do have one very important factor in their favor: Mike Groh will not be calling any of the offensive plays.
Olé!
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