Stop me if you’re heard this one before from UVA football coach Mike London.
“That’s a good football team, but at the same time we didn’t finish the game like we showed we could last week. It was disappointing to finish the way we did. We’ve got to improve in a lot of areas. We’ve got to continue to do that.”
This was London after the 26-13 loss to UNC on Saturday.
The gist: Virginia played a good team, and has room for improvement.
He says this a lot. Like, all the time.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s go to the videotape. In a manner of speaking.
“We battled today but not good enough to win a football game. Pitt is a good football team and you have to be able to capitalize and minimize your mistakes.”
This was London after the 26-19 loss at Pitt two weeks ago.
The gist: Pitt is good, Virginia didn’t capitalize, and made too many mistakes. Implying that there is room for improvement.
“That’s another good football team, but we can play better than that and we have. The break for us now is to take care of ourselves, get some guys healed up, and get ready for our first conference game against Pittsburgh. This game isn’t indicative of the effort we’ve given in the past. There are a lot of things we need to correct moving forward.”
This was London following the 56-14 loss to Boise State on Sept. 25.
What he’s saying: Boise State is good, Virginia can play better, has room to get better, the rest.
“It was a good victory for us. We hadn’t had that in a while. We could walk around all sullen and downtrodden, but that’s a good football team we played. There’s lots of things we have to improve upon, but we have an opportunity next week against a very good Boise State team.”
That was London in the aftermath of the 35-29 win over William and Mary on Sept. 19. It only felt like a loss because, well, it sure did feel that way.
The skinny: William and Mary, also good, Virginia can improve.
“We’ve played two really good football teams. The goal was to get better going from the first game to the second game and I believe we did that. We’ve got a long way to go to continue to get better overall. We’ll take care of ourselves and move on to the next opponent.”
London, post-Notre Dame, a 34-27 loss.
Cliff’s Notes: Virginia plays lots of good football teams, has to improve.
“Okay, obviously UCLA is a really good football team … So you got to move onto the next challenge, and the next challenge is Scott Stadium – Notre Dame. We have to look at some things we did here and take care of some things until another opportunity presents itself. We’ve just begun.”
UCLA, 34-16.
Boiled down: UCLA, good, Virginia, not good.
I’m channeling the loop of Digital Underground’s “Same Song” from the early 1990s about how every song on the radio is about the same thing for some reason right now. Can’t quite put my finger on it. But for some reason, I’m compelled to concede that there are lots of good football teams, and they all need to improve.
– Column by Chris Graham
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