UVA football: Not throwing in the towel yet

Not that anybody in Wahoo Nation wants to hear this, necessarily, but the UVA football team still has a lot to play for in its final four games.

For example, a Coastal Division title?

The last two ACC Coastal champs had two losses, which could very well mean tht Virginia, at 2-2 in the ACC, is still in the thick of things.

It’s otherwise been widely assumed that the Cavs are soon going to be parting ways with head coach Mike London, who is right now in the midst of his fifth losing season in six years, but even with everybody else having thrown in the towel on the season, the team still has not-entirely-unreachable goals in its sights.

Starting this weekend with Miami (5-3, 2-2 ACC), UVA will be underdogs the rest of the way, but it’s not as if the ‘Canes, Louisville (4-4, 3-2 ACC), Duke (6-2, 3-1 ACC) or Virginia Tech (4-5, 2-3 ACC) are head and shoulders better.

“When you look at it, all you can do is just do all you can do, and obviously you have three teams that are sitting up there with two with one loss, and one with no losses with still games left to play. All we can do is look at our opportunities right now, and our opportunity to extend postseason play has to start with winning games here down the stretch,” London said in his ACC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday.

The focus this weekend at Miami, to London, is “about having some success as we start building towards the end of the season.”

Strange as it is to say, Virginia, just 13-31 in the ACC under London in his six seasons, is 4-1 against Miami. The Hurricanes are coming off a controversial 30-27 win over Duke last week in the game that the ACC basically said Duke did everything but win, considering the myriad issues with the game-winning, eight-lateral return touchdown that should not have counted in any number of ways.

That win came a week after Miami fired head coach Al Golden following a 58-0 beatdown at home at the hands of Clemson, which this week debuted as the #1 team in the inaugural College Football Playoff poll.

“The way I look at it, it’s a road opportunity for us, so that’s important for us to be successful in that capacity. It just happens to be Miami that’s the opponent we’re playing,” London said, trying to downplay talk about Virginia’s recent successes against Miami.

“They’re a very good team, quality team,” London said. “They’re looking to get back and get the Miami swagger back and all those things, but we’ve got to make sure we play smart, we play aggressive, and we limit penalties and do the things that we can to be successful on the field.

“I don’t know the secret, but the secret to winning games is something we’ve talked about off and on here throughout this season, and we’ve got to do a good job of that,” London said.

– Story by Chris Graham