Virginia's never-ending football slump has reached meme status
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — By now everyone knows the photo. It's the one of a faceless Virginia fan in a bright orange shirt draping his body over the brick wall at Scott Stadium in complete despair.
The first time, it was comical as far as viral content goes. It was the second week of the season, and Virginia was on the verge of upsetting No. 11 Notre Dame at home. But the Fighting Irish made a comeback with backup quarterback DeShone Kizer throwing the game-winning pass to Will Fuller with 12 seconds left, cueing the limp, sad fan nearly falling out of the stands in misery. A Twitter handle was born.
Then Friday night, as Boise State flat-out rolled Virginia 56-14, a similar image emerged on Twitter. This time it was a different Cavaliers fan but with the same emotion. This time it was on Virginia's first offensive play of the game instead of its last defensive play. And this time it wasn't as much funny as it was a symbol for what's happening here this season.
Boise State's victory, which saw the Broncos score 27 points off five turnovers in addition to a touchdown that came after a missed field goal, a safety and a touchdown drive after the safety, was its largest ever against a Power Five team. And it capped a dreadful month in which Virginia played one of the toughest schedules in the FBS.
No other team was pitted against three preseason Top 25 opponents. But here was Virginia, playing No. 13 UCLA at the Rose Bowl in Week 1, eleventh-ranked Notre Dame the following Saturday, and Boise State, the No. 24 team in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll that who would have been ranked had it not been for a last-minute loss to BYU on Sept 12.
"We owned what we did," Virginia wide receiver T.J. Thorpe said. "We realize we put that on tape and national television, and everyone is disgusted by it."
This 42-point drubbing was coach Mike London's eighth loss by 30 or more points in his six seasons at Virginia. In that time period, Virginia has played seven ranked non-conference opponents, more than any other ACC team. Including the Irish, Clemson comes in second with six. Florida State, who has won the league three consecutive years, has only faced three and won't play any this season unless Florida makes a late surge.
London, who could be clawing for his job should the Cavaliers not improve in conference play — London has an 11-29 record vs. ACC opponents — says he's learned from his team's 1-3 September.
"A lot of times, you learn about your players' ability to block out all the talk about what this team is or what teams are ranked and stuff like that," he said. "You could look at it from a disappointing standpoint, obviously we want to win football games, that's the goal to win and there's a desire to do that. But I don't look at these guys and say you're failures and you can't rise to the level of beating these teams.
"We will get to a point where — the one inch and third and shorts and those things like that, that changes seasons and that changes moments. We play good opponents. Really good opponents. And I believe this will make us a really good football team. I believe in them, and I know they believe in themselves."
That may be, but this is the same song, sixth verse. In 2010, London's first season as Virginia's head coach, the Cavaliers lost by three to No. 16 USC on the road in Week 2 and finished 1-7 in the ACC. In 2012, No. 17 TCU beat Virginia by 20, and the Cavaliers finished 2-6 in the conference. Two weeks ago, they almost beat Notre Dame, but got blown out by Boise State on Friday.
Playing and losing difficult non-conference matchups to start the season, then blowing the ACC slate is a trend that hasn't hanged under London. And next season Virginia plays at Oregon.
How does the team regain confidence heading into its conference games? Next week Virginia is idle, but then it's straight into the ACC, where London's teams have never finished better than 5-3.
"The thing is, you come to college football to play the best and be on TV, be under the lights," Thorpe said. "We're 12 seconds from beating Notre Dame, we played a really good UCLA team out in California and played a good Boise State team. At the end of the day, William & Mary played us just as tough as any team we've played all season.
"It really doesn't matter honestly who we play, more so we're on a roller coaster right now and quite frankly I'm sure the fans are the same way. You don't know which UVa team is gonna show up. We just gotta do a little soul searching and find out who we want to be as a team and make sure we stick to that."
It will either be a season in which Virginia fans in bright orange shirts continue to slump over brick walls, or one in which they don't have to.
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