Hosting ND is big for any program and was certainly huge for Uva. ND puts fannies in the seats and eyeballs on the TV, It is huge for the players, the fans, the school, the alums and the recruits.
So what did we do with our moment in the spotlight: laid an egg with a pathetic performance. Brian Kelly said it all when he said ND was never in danger of losing as did CBM who said before the game all of our goals are in front of us even if we lose as did the announcers who could not understand our offensive game plan and play calling.
Building a program requires the entire program to work together. We had a perfect opportunity to show off our awesome University in prime time and utterly failed.
So what can we do in the future. First, fix the scheduling. Our OOC should consist of one power 5 marquee games and 3 easy games. One easy game should be in late October early November just like everyone else does. Never against should we fly West for a 10:30 game against a non-marquee game after 7 weeks of tough games. You are simply putting to much pressure on our player's bodies and risking key injuries which is what happened to BA and for what benefit, absolutely nothing. Our future schedules look just as bad. We still have a home and away with BYU. We need to cancel or make sure the game is played early in the season. We also scheduled Coastal Carolina for a home and away. Coastal Carolina is neither a marquee game nor an early win. On the plus side we do have a home and away with Maryland which is perfect opponent to play. The game generates interest for fans, players and recruits and is very winnable. Sadly ND does not come back to Cville for another 10 years.
Second, we must protect our franchise players. You cannot coddle but you also should not be reckless with their bodies. Bryce Hall should never have been on the punt coverage team unless he was returning punts. We should have never made BA the focal point of our running game when he was already taking so many hits as the QB. T Cov repeatedly complained when were not running our backs enough and he was right.
Third, you get one chance at home against a team like ND and even with BA hurt you need to go for it. JW is not BA and we should not have stuck JW in BA's offense. ND had a beat up D and we should have attacked from the beginning. We knew ND would blitz a lot and we should have been prepared. Teams win all the time with back up QBs and it is totally unacceptable in year 6 of CBM's tenure to score only 3 points on the big stage even with a back up QB.
So what did we do with our moment in the spotlight: laid an egg with a pathetic performance. Brian Kelly said it all when he said ND was never in danger of losing as did CBM who said before the game all of our goals are in front of us even if we lose as did the announcers who could not understand our offensive game plan and play calling.
Building a program requires the entire program to work together. We had a perfect opportunity to show off our awesome University in prime time and utterly failed.
So what can we do in the future. First, fix the scheduling. Our OOC should consist of one power 5 marquee games and 3 easy games. One easy game should be in late October early November just like everyone else does. Never against should we fly West for a 10:30 game against a non-marquee game after 7 weeks of tough games. You are simply putting to much pressure on our player's bodies and risking key injuries which is what happened to BA and for what benefit, absolutely nothing. Our future schedules look just as bad. We still have a home and away with BYU. We need to cancel or make sure the game is played early in the season. We also scheduled Coastal Carolina for a home and away. Coastal Carolina is neither a marquee game nor an early win. On the plus side we do have a home and away with Maryland which is perfect opponent to play. The game generates interest for fans, players and recruits and is very winnable. Sadly ND does not come back to Cville for another 10 years.
Second, we must protect our franchise players. You cannot coddle but you also should not be reckless with their bodies. Bryce Hall should never have been on the punt coverage team unless he was returning punts. We should have never made BA the focal point of our running game when he was already taking so many hits as the QB. T Cov repeatedly complained when were not running our backs enough and he was right.
Third, you get one chance at home against a team like ND and even with BA hurt you need to go for it. JW is not BA and we should not have stuck JW in BA's offense. ND had a beat up D and we should have attacked from the beginning. We knew ND would blitz a lot and we should have been prepared. Teams win all the time with back up QBs and it is totally unacceptable in year 6 of CBM's tenure to score only 3 points on the big stage even with a back up QB.
