The comeback win over ODU felt to me like a UVA team from another sport rallying to win a game it probably should have lost.
Think Gardner-Webb, first round, 2019 NCAA Tournament.
Top seed UVA, which, yes, of course, had lost as a one to a sixteen, some school from near Baltimore, a year earlier, trailed sixteen seed Gardner-Webb by 14 in the first half.
A Kihei Clark three got things back on track, the margin ended up being six at the half, and a dominant second half led to a 71-56 win, a snowball in a three-week-long Cavalanche toward a national title.
Virginia Football trailed ODU, a 29-point underdog, 17-0 a couple of minutes into the second quarter.
A couple of big plays – a Bryce Perkins fourth-down TD run, a Zane Zandier picksix – set up a fourth-quarter rally and a 28-17 ‘Hoos win.
The win over Gardner-Webb, at the time, didn’t seem like it was leading what it led to. You’re lying if you say otherwise now.
Last week’s win over ODU … what’s it leading to?
“Playing from 17 down, that is a unique experience, and I think our team did benefit in a lot of different ways. The pressure that’s on every play when you’re down in that manner is really good for building a football team. It doesn’t mean I would like to do it again, but there are some positives in that context that we learned,” Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall said Monday.
Starting to see the connection to the Gardner-Webb game yet?
And actually, as those of who lived some of the heartache with the basketball team can attest, it started for those ‘Hoos back with UMBC.
You can learn lessons from losses. As Tony Bennett has said often, adversity can buy you tickets to places you otherwise never could go otherwise.
The lesson for the football ‘Hoos, at least, didn’t have to come in a loss.
“The last two games … the stand that we made to hold off Florida State, and then coming back from down 17, when you start winning and winning consistently, which we’re starting to do, wins come in all shapes and sizes and forms. Each one of those game scripts end up adding to a collective that kind of binds your team together,” Mendenhall said.
This was evident on the sidelines after the Zandier picksix.
“I made a point in the meeting today — the defense, how they reacted, I’m talking about the other ten players that were on the field, the way they reacted, they acted as if it was just those 11. The stadium was irrelevant, fans were irrelevant. It was just those 11. I saw a connection being formed there that had more depth and substance than could have been formed without the circumstance of being down, needing a play, making the play, and then the collective celebration and investment in each other,” Mendenhall said.
“I think all those things will help us have our best chance to be poised and ready in the setting we’re going into, and not as reliant or concerned about how many people are there or who is there. Just that we’re there.”
Story by Chris Graham
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