One game after another, Virginia finds itself in painstakingly close contests. And one game after another, it seems as if Virginia pulls a win out of nowhere.
Saturday's affair was no different as No. 23 Virginia (8-2, 5-1 ACC) came back in the fourth quarter and then held on for a 17-16 win against Wake Forest.
With the one-point victory against the Demon Deacons, the Cavaliers have now set an NCAA record for the most wins by two points or fewer in a season.
"We're very respectful of what Wake Forest has done over the last two years and very respectful of them as the [conference] champion," Virginia coach Al Groh said. "They played like a champion today, and hopefully we showed a few traits of a similar nature."
One of the championship traits the Cavaliers showed was the ability to step it up in the fourth quarter with the game on the line. Starting from his own 44-yard line with 6:15 left, sophomore quarterback Jameel Sewell used a combination of his arm and his feet to get the team down the field.
"When [Jameel] has a devil-may-care attitude, and he's loose and relaxed and not concerned about errors, that's when he plays his very best," Groh said. "Coming down the homestretch, he kicked into that mode and operated in a fashion that we have seen him in previous games when he was at his best."
Sewell was at his absolute best in that same drive on a fourth-and-2, when he read the defense and threw a pass to junior wide receiver Maurice Covington for a first down that placed Virginia at the Wake Forest 14-yard line.
"[Covington] made a play and was wide open," Sewell said. "All I had to do was get the ball out to him and he did the rest. He had the big fourth-down conversion there at the end, and he is someone who we will be trying to get more involved because he is a playmaker."
Three plays later sophomore running back Mikell Simpson ran it in from 1 yard out to put Virginia up 17-16. Then it was time for the Virginia defense to show its character, and senior defensive end Chris Long did exactly that by sacking Wake Forest sophomore quarterback Riley Skinner on the first play of the drive for a 3-yard loss.
"Really, that was one of the least energetic sacks I've had all year," Long said. "First of all, I was tired from running him down and secondly, we knew it was a hurry-up situation, and you just have to get back to the ball."
After the sack, however, Wake Forest drove the ball all the way down to the Virginia 30, where All-ACC kicker Sam Swank missed a 47-yard field goal to give Virginia the victory.
"When the kick missed, I was probably the happiest person in the world," Sewell said. "After all we had been through during that game, there is no feeling like coming out with a big win."
Virginia overcame a lot in its victory against Wake Forest. Sewell did not manage to get much going through the passing game in the first half, but his wide receivers and tight ends did not help much, dropping numerous passes throughout the game.
"If Jameel was a baseball pitcher, you'd say he has a rising fastball," Groh said. "Some of those balls today weren't attributable to the ball rising. They were just overthrown. Particularly on those intermediate-level balls, sometimes he really cranks it and does have a tendency to rise. Sometimes it surprises the receivers a little bit."
Even when Virginia seemed to be going nowhere, however, Sewell showed off another one of Virginia's championship traits: making a big play when all of Virginia's momentum seems lost. Sewell found Covington for a 39-yard touchdown pass with 10 seconds left in the first half to put Virginia up 10-6.
"It's execution," Covington said. "I man my route to the right, and Jameel threw a perfect ball. I had great blocking from John Phillips and I just did what I had to do to get into the end zone."
Virginia simply did what it had to do throughout the game to win. The team's play summarized the strength of the Cavaliers this season.
"When we get down, no one ever puts his head down," senior kicker Chris Gould said. "We all look at each other and know if we stick with it, we will pull it out in the end. We just have to keep fighting"
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