Three years ago I walked into Scott Stadium and received a giant orange shirt. The front read “A New Era of Virginia Football,” an optimistic salute to newly anointed coach Mike London. Well, that first year was hardly a banner year for our dear Cavaliers. My second year was better: a trip to Atlanta for the — admittedly disastrous — Chick-fil-A Bowl highlighted an 8-4 record. And then there was my third year. We may not have reached full-scale Mayan Apocalypse standards, but we came pretty close. The last memory I have of the 2012 season is watching those four, sad seconds of the Virginia Tech debacle ticking away in stunned silence. I was actually probably cursing like a sailor, but my mom reads this column.
So far, we have yet to see the promised “new era.”
How about this year? Well, the 2013 season began with a very exciting — albeit sloppy – upset of Brigham Young. The next week, to no one’s surprise, brought a clobbering from Oregon and their stupid shiny helmets, and two weeks later the Cavaliers blanked VMI. Sitting at 2-1, our dear team was optimistic entering conference play … and then the free fall began.
I won’t dredge up the specifics of Virginia’s consecutive losses to Pittsburgh, Ball State and Maryland because, frankly, they’re just too frustrating. But I will say this: not one of those teams was of the same caliber as Oregon or even Brigham Young, and not one of those games was out of reach for the Cavaliers.
It’s been a frustrating season so far, and with some daunting opponents ahead, it doesn’t promise to get too much better. So now what? How can the Cavaliers salvage the season?
Well, everyone — excluding the women’s soccer team — likes an underdog, and everyone loves beating a rival. So color me delusional, but the best way for the Virginia football team to achieve redemption and to validate London’s “New Era” would be defeating Virginia Tech this season.
Obviously, more attainable goals lurk in the near future. The next two weeks pit the Cavaliers against Duke and Georgia Tech, two respectable but eminently beatable teams. And then of course we can look forward to the latest installment of the Oldest — and most infuriating — Rivalry in the South, against a North Carolina team which boasts an even worse record than our own at 1-4. If we don’t win that game, I’ll probably explode. But not one of these three games carries the weight of the season finale against the Hokies, and the Virginia football team needs to go out with a bang.
The most important step in beating Tech is pretty obvious. The Virginia offensive unit is like that one friend you have who promises to go to Survivor Hour with you, then bails — four weeks in a row. When six red zone opportunities yield just one measly touchdown, we have a problem, and it’s time to fix it. The good news is that each week has been a little better than its predecessor — 188 yards against Pitt became 459 against Ball State and then 505 against Maryland — but there’s room for improvement. Before it faces Bud Foster’s nationally acclaimed defense, the Cavalier offense desperately needs to hone its end zone efficiency, ground game and turnover margin — along with basically everything else.
As far as Virginia’s defense goes, the best advice I have is one word: cardio. If last year is any example, they’re going to spend a whole lot of time on the field. Luckily, despite its hiccups, the Cavalier defense is undeniably the team’s strongest unit. If they can stop big plays in third-and-long situations and avoid costly penalties, they may be able to grind it out.
It helps that Virginia Tech has had its share of offensive problems this season — all two of my sources in Blacksburg tell me that quarterback Logan Thomas is among the most frustrating and unreliable people on “campus,” whatever that is. I’m not saying we should make Logan Thomas voodoo dolls or anything, but I just Googled “How to make someone have bad luck,” and the results are promising.
The last time Virginia won the Commonwealth Cup was in 2003, when a 35-21 upset sent fully-grown, maroon-clad men literally running to the exits in Scott Stadium. Ten years later, I think it’s about time for an encore.
Beating the Hokies will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it is far from impossible. The Cavaliers will need to put in an incredible amount of work to prepare for the game, and even then, odds are they’ll come up short. But the victory should be a major goal for the team.
To end the season on such a high note would instill confidence for our very young and inexperienced team’s future, and of course it would grant me and my fellow fourth-years the bragging rights we’ve been dying to have for years now. Most importantly, it would ensure that this season wasn’t just another exercise in mediocrity, and that perhaps this really is a new era of Virginia football.
And if not, at least basketball season is only three weeks away.
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