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Virginia the school isn’t female, but Virginia O’Hanlon was a young girl whose story gave rise to the familiar and enduring expression, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”
If we were to inject a feminine dimension into a discussion of Cavalier football, we would simply say, “Yes, Virginia, you have to fire your offensive coordinator.”
It is time for a divorce and a new partner in this relationship between a football program and its offense.
Robert Anae has to go.
This is not a knee-jerk decision.
This is the product of Virginia’s third loss of 2019, a highly damaging loss to Louisville which doesn’t destroy the Hoos’ ACC Coastal title hopes, but delivers a big blow to their Orange Bowl hopes.
We wrote about this game versus Louisville last week at All Sports Discussion. We noted that UL was (at least on paper) Virginia’s toughest remaining game this season among its 12 regularly scheduled contests, not including a possible date with Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. In a season of great hope and promise for Virginia football, this clash with Louisville was a telltale moment.
Virginia lost to a good (but not great) Notre Dame team. There is no shame in that, even with the Irish getting blasted by Michigan. However, UVA stubbed its toe in a terrible offensive performance at Miami, the kind of game an Orange Bowl team — an upper-tier team able to maximize its talent — simply shouldn’t lose.
This meeting with Louisville was a fork-in-the-road occasion: Right the ship, or allow bad tendencies to linger? Restore dominance against a confident, well-coached opponent on the road, or lose the kind of game Virginia has lost so many times over the years? Regain equilibrium, or persist in a very familiar inconsistency which applies not only to Virginia football, but to the Mendenhall-Anae partnership, in which Brigham Young would lose the bigger games of its season (TCU, Utah, and others) with uninspired offensive performances?
This was the year in which the evident talents of Bryce Perkins needed to be maximized. This was the year in which Virginia had a chance to not merely win the Coastal (which it can still do), but dominate it, and dramatically change the way it is perceived. This was the year in which Virginia could be seen as the destination ACC Coastal program for recruits.
Keep this in mind: UVA still has a very good shot at the Coastal in 2019. If UVA does win, the ACC Coastal will have seven different representatives in the ACC Championship Game in seven years: Duke in 2013, Georgia Tech in 2014, North Carolina in 2015, Virginia Tech in 2016, Miami in 2017, Pittsburgh in 2018, and UVA this year.
The Coastal is waiting, begging, for one school to become powerful and enjoy a Virginia Tech-like run from 2005-2011. I won’t declare that Virginia has PERMANENTLY squandered its chance to become that program, but this year, UVA was the Coastal program in the best position to set itself up for that level of supremacy… and it has fallen short.
If Virginia wants to maximize its resources; if UVA doesn’t want to waste a strong defense, which Bronco Mendenhall is likely to deliver on a regular basis; if the Hoos want to become an annual factor in the ACC, as opposed to a once-every-few-years threat in the Coastal and the league at large, an elite offensive coordinator is needed.
Miami was a bad game; it happens. Louisville was the trend, the replication, the failure to escape from a pattern of history.
Robert Anae should be divorced.
Yes, Virginia, you can — and should — find a better man.
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1 ping
Dan says:
October 28, 2019 at 9:06 am (UTC -4)
This has been very noticeable for quite a few games now. I’m afraid BM will be too loyal to an old friend, which would be a shame. These seniors deserve better. And so do the their fans!