I have a daughter at UVA. Each year with London's recruiting classes, I told her the football team was going to get better. Those classes (five stars, four stars) are on the team now and have seasoning but UVA doesn't win. (Note: recruiting is now declining because of lack of winning and uncertainty about London----one four star in 2015 and none for 2016). And we lose in a consistent manner. Winning teams take the steps that allow for wins; losing teams do the things that allow them to lose. We consistently lose, but how?
Three things come to mind: lack of consistency on defense, poor red zone offense and lack of mental focus.
Lack of Consistency on Defense: UVA's vaunted secondary coming into 2015 consistently plays "matador" (wave at them as they go by) defense, with the number of big plays by opposition limited only by the number of tries. We have speed, but we get beat. When we need the big stop, someone is out of position or we arm tackle. UVA is 81st out of 127 in total defense, giving up 413 yards per game. Our aggressive style is fun to watch and can provide big plays----but too often those big plays are for our opponents. Look at the talent, and look at the results.....we have better talent than the end results indicate.....why?
Poor Red Zone Offense: UVA actually ranks 10th in red zone efficiency, as we do get points. But one could argue that the Miami, Pittsburgh and UNC losses were caused by scoring field goals instead of touchdowns. Number one Navy has 27 touchdowns and 9 field goals, or a 3/1 ratio. UVA has 12 touchdowns and 9 field goals, or a 1.33 ratio. The defense isn't good enough to make three points stand up. Even in the Georgia Tech win, we had the ball on the one yard line five times and couldn't score, with two field goals the result. Until we can finish drives (a multi year theme), we put more pressure on other facets of the game.
Lack of Mental Focus: In the Miami game, we had a false start before we had our first snap (how do you do that???). At Georgia Tech, our first drive stalled with two false start penalties, one delay of game and one time out because we didn't know the formation. All of us can remember our worst "UVAism" horror story (UNC last year 12 men on the field after a time out (!) is mine, but there are many more). George Welsh teams did not beat themselves (okay in 1990 against Georgia Tech there is the famous UVA offensive touchdown called back because we only had 10 men on the field) and he was let go after going 6-6. We now have a coach where we are tied for 96th in number of penalties per game and where we have to win out to get to 6-6 (any bets?). We are better than we play, but we are not good enough to play without consistent focus and win.
I am a UVA fan. I used to travel to see the team, but it's hard to travel to a guaranteed loss (look at the last three years!). I was at the 32,000 (it looked worse) Georgia Tech game and talked to several friends with tickets who did not go. The lack of expectations and enthusiasm for the program is sad and can't continue.
The only good news is that with a coach who brings discipline to the team, the talent level is such that I think we can surprise some teams next year. We really do have that much talent. Hopefully Mr. Littlepage will realize that people won't take time out to support a team whose only consistency over the last five years has been it's lack of consistency.
