UVA Football: UNC game set for noon kickoff, first look at Clemson, the drive for six

We’ll have ourselves another bright-and-early kickoff at the next UVA Football home game, for the Saturday, Oct. 14, tilt with North Carolina.

The ACC announced on Monday that they’ve stuck us in the noon ET slot on The CW for the UNC game.

That should be a big boost in terms of attendance.

(ICYMI, that was sarcasm there.)

This weekend: Death Valley

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Whether we can get back to 40,000 in the stands will depend a lot on how this weekend goes on the road at Clemson.

Clemson (5-1, 4-0 ACC, ESPN FPI: 11) seems destined for an ACC Championship Game spot opposite Miami (6-0, 2-0 ACC, ESPN FPI: 10).

Virginia (4-2, 2-1 ACC, ESPN FPI: 65) was 1:55 away from heading down to Death Valley with a 3-0 record in conference, which would have made that one a tad bit more interesting, but a late Louisville TD handed the good guys a 24-20 loss.

The ‘Hoos-Tigers game is also slated for a noon ET kickoff, on the ACC Network.

Clemson is a 21-point favorite going in, and the Vegas over/under is 57.5, so the betting folks are looking at a final score in the 38-17 range.

I see it playing a lot closer than that, personally.

The drive for six

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The focus of the UVA Football fan base isn’t so much on stunning the world this weekend, but instead on where the program can squeeze out two more wins in its final six.

I’m of the mindset that we’re setting a low bar just looking at getting two.

Our guys just went 60 minutes with Louisville (4-2, 2-1 ACC), which is 16th in the ESPN FPI this week.

That Louisville team lost a one-score game to SMU (5-1, 2-0 ACC), which is 18th in the FPI.

We get SMU in Charlottesville in November.

Circle that one on the calendar.

North Carolina (3-4, 0-3 ACC, ESPN FPI: 68) is reeling. Virginia will be a decent-margin favorite in that one next week.

I’m still not sold on Pitt (6-0, 2-0 ACC, ESPN FPI: 36), and they don’t always get a big home-field advantage there in the NFL stadium.

Notre Dame (5-1, ESPN FPI: 6) lost to Northern Illinois (4-2, ESPN FPI: 80) at home, so, our guys have at least a puncher’s chance.

Virginia Tech (3-3, 1-1 ACC, ESPN FPI: 31) is still Virginia Tech.

We’ve got to clean up special teams, and Des Kitchings needs to figure out play-calling in the red zone, but our kids have at least three wins left in them.