Quick impression after Virginia’s blowout loss at home to #2 Oregon: We ain’t there yet, and won’t be this year.
Oregon, to its credit, is a legitimate national-championship contender. The Ducks, led by second-year starting quarterback Marcus Mariota and future NFL running back DeAnthony Thomas, will be playing for a title in January, barring an unexpected collapse or run of injuries.
Virginia … will be struggling to get to 6-6. The win over BYU last week still stands as a nice W, and there are more teams on the schedule who resemble BYU (Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Miami, Duke) than Oregon (Clemson is another national-title contender coming to Charlottesville later in the season).
You have to admire Mike London for aggressive scheduling in getting Oregon in Scott Stadium when you could take the Frank Beamer approach and follow up a tough Week 1 with a string of cupcakes to get you into October with a nice record. It was almost a given that Virginia was not only going to lose on Saturday, but lose big. If nothing else, the Virginia squad sees how good you have to be to be in the national-title mix, and Oregon is that good, clearly.
As much as I admire the scheduling, I’m frustrated at the effort – not of the players, but the coaching staff. The game plan was as vanilla as it could be. The offensive game plan from new coordinator Steve Fairchild was not going to put UVa. into position for an upset. Runs into the line and a bevy of wide-receiver screens against a much-faster Oregon defensive unit were just not goign to get the job done.
Everybody in Bryant Hall – players, coaches, trainers, the guy responsible for keeping the toilets clean – will have to step up the effort to make 2013 what it needs to be for Virginia. It’s a building year for 2014, when a lot of folks expect Virginia to (finally) contend for an ACC Coastal Division title.
Lessons learned by this 2013 team are going to go a long way to determining how that 2014 team will compete.
Virginia failed to do what it needed to do on Saturday against Oregon to take a step forward. Bottom line.
Share
Chris Graham
