You really shouldn’t play these games, for myriad reasons, but it’s not like the UVA Football program is the only one that plays a Cupcake Bowl.
The cupcake, William & Mary, got its check – $450,000 – and did what it was supposed to do – put up token resistance.
The fanbase did what it was supposed to do – not show up.
The announced attendance was in the 38K range, but we overheard a staffer tell the sports information folks moments before that 38K figure went out over the airwaves in the third quarter that there were 25K on hand.
I assume the official figure inadvertently counted everybody within the Charlottesville city limits Saturday afternoon between noon and 3:30 p.m. ET.
Easy to make that mistake.
ICYMI
The goals for the big boys going in – get the win, and get out healthy.
Mission: Accomplished (almost) there.
Backup tailback Noah Vaughn, who finished with 101 yards on the ground on the day, left with a high ankle sprain, according to coach Tony Elliott.
“The update on Noah is, components of a high ankle, but we’ll get more detail. Looks like that,” Elliott told reporters after the game. “As far as I know, the X-rays look good. We’ll just see how it swells within the morning. We got some reassurance walking out from Doc that he was going to be OK.”
The punter and kickoff specialist, Daniel Sparks, went down on the first kickoff with a freak injury – it looked like he hit his foot on the ground as he kicked off, and from that point on, backup Elijah Slibeck handled kickoffs.
“Just kind of a strange hip flexor, a little bit, and we just wanted to be cautious, took them in the tank, did an evaluation,” Elliott said. “We didn’t punt much,” Elliott went on – and actually, Virginia didn’t punt at all – “and then Slibeck did a great job coming in and putting the ball in the end zone there.”
On the getting the win part: that was taken care of early.
Virginia led 21-0 early in the second, 42-7 at halftime, and scored on a 97-yard TD run by Harrison Waylee on the first snap of the third quarter.
The only doubt was if the electricity was going to come back on – the 6,700-square-foot, $13 million scoreboard was inoperable for the bulk of the first quarter, and we were told in-stadium that the issue was “power issues.”
Good news: they unplugged the scoreboard, then plugged it back in, and got it back working again.
(Editor’s Note: I actually don’t know that they did the unplug/plug it back in thing. That always seems to work at home, though.)
I got a text from a friend after the game making light of the easy win in the Cupcake Bowl; my reply back: hey, we’ve lost a couple of these in recent years.
(Al Groh in 2009 lost to W&M, 26-14; Bronco Mendenhall in 2016 was blown out, 37-20, by Richmond.)
And even not losing, Elliott’s 2023 team was in a one-score game with William & Mary in 2023 before going on to a 27-13 win.
“I told the senior leadership, point blank, I said, Look, we’re gonna find out a lot about our football team this week. How mature are we? Are we gonna be able to show up and play to a standard, or are we gonna show up and play to an opponent?” Elliott said.
“I felt like they came out ready to go in all three phases, trying to establish a standard, and that’s what we’re chasing every single week,” Elliott said.
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Chris Graham
