I’m not going out on any limbs calling this weekend’s UVA Football game with North Carolina a must-win for the guys in orange and blue.
Tony Elliott came into Year 3 at Virginia off back-to-back three-win seasons. The ACC media picked the Cavaliers to finish 16th in the 17-team conference, but the feeling internally was that six wins and bowl eligibility was doable.
UVA is coming off a 48-31 loss at Clemson last week that leaves the ‘Hoos at 4-3, with a tough, tough schedule after the second bye – at #19 Pitt, at #12 Notre Dame, #22 SMU at home, at Virginia Tech.
That 24-20 loss to Louisville two weeks ago, in which the Cardinals went ahead to stay with a touchdown in the final two minutes, really hurts right now.
North Carolina (3-4, 0-3 ACC), meanwhile, seems ripe for the picking. The Tar Heels have lost four straight, beginning with that inexplicable 70-50 loss to JMU last month, and it’s looking like the second Mack Brown era is in final countdown mode.
Virginia is a four-point home favorite going into the noon ET matchup on Saturday, so Vegas thinks the Cavaliers get win #5.
“We got an opportunity to come to back to Scott Stadium. We’re playing The South’s Oldest Rivalry. They’re a football team fighting for their season as well. They’re coming off a bye week. So, we got a lot of things still to help create some motivation if we needed that, but my challenge is for these guys to be internally motivated, to go focus on the next game that’s in front of them. Regardless of what happened the Saturday before, you still got to reset and go back to work,” Elliott told reporters at his weekly presser on Tuesday.
One of Virginia’s three wins in the 3-9 campaign in 2023 was at North Carolina, then undefeated and ranked 10th nationally. UVA, which had one win going into that one, upset UNC, 31-27, with Tony Muskett, now the backup QB, outdueling the #3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Drake Maye.
That one was a nice upset in a rivalry game. This year, it’s about trying to get one win closer to six, to get the Tony Elliott rebuild to an important milestone.
Elliott’s message to his guys: “just keep playing.”
“You know, recommit to the process. Don’t be primarily outcome-driven. Focus on the process and get back to the basics and go play football,” Elliott said. “There is a lot of the football left, five games, we got some great opportunities versus some really good teams in the league. There will be shakeup with a lot of matchups getting ready to happen down the stretch. You never know.
“We’re sitting here 2-2 in the ACC and we got a chance to finish with six if we take care of business,” Elliott said. “Still playing for everything that we started the season playing for, so the focus is to really learn from this past weekend and focus on things we can control, get better.”
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Chris Graham
