It was a beautiful fall Saturday in the Shennandoah Mountains. What a shame to ruin it with Virginia football.
That was from 1978, when Navy beat U.Va. 32-0. My whole family went to Virginia, and I grew up with a tradition of winning basketball and losing football. See for yourself.
So when they started out this year losing to USC, Connecticut(!), and Duke(!!) by 128-20, it looked as though the good old days of the 70s were back in style.
But tonight, behind Cedric Peerman's running, the Cavaliers beat No. 18 Georgia Tech in Atlanta, 24-17. This comes after a 16-13 win over then-No. 18 North Carolina last week, and a 31-0 win over Maryland that got things rolling 4 weeks ago. Virginia's now 3-1 in conference, and in 1st place in the ACC's Coastal Division. They're not going to be playing for the national title any time soon, but it's a welcome change.
What happened? They found a quarterback and hurt running back Peerman returned to the team. The starting QB is off the team for academic reasons, and his replacement got caught violating probation by drinking (drinking? At Virginia? Say it isn't so!), so the red-shirt freshman Verica needed some time to adjust to playing actual defenses.
The team still has four games to go, including the season-closer in Blacksburg against Va. Tech. But ya never know...