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QUESTION: Is there any doubt that Virginia is the ACC’s second-best team?
Maybe a slight pinch of doubt, but not enough to matter at this point.
Everyone in the ACC knew this was high-stakes poker on Saturday night in Charlottesville. Style points didn’t matter. Virginia and Florida State badly needed a win for very different reasons. Florida State needed to win to escape mediocrity and inject a fresh sense of hope into its season. Virginia needed a win to affirm it was ready to win its first ACC Coastal Division championship and validate all the good things pundits said about the Cavaliers throughout the offseason.
FSU lived in darkness and was trying to find an escape to a better place. Virginia stood inside a happy home and needed to keep negative people locked outside the front door, preventing them from entering.
Teams in September can often take heart from a noble loss and feel that a good performance — even in defeat — can be a building block for the rest of the season.
This was NOT one such game. FSU and UVA needed a dubya. Nothing else, nothing less, was acceptable.
Virginia, by finishing strongly and dealing Florida State yet one more dose of fourth-quarter humiliation this season — what is it about the Seminoles which leaves the tank so empty in the final 15 minutes of games this season? — climbed past the Seminoles, but just as importantly, it climbed past its doubts.
Appreciation of victory is magnified by understanding the pain and consequences of defeat. If Virginia had not come back from a 24-17 deficit, and if Bryce Perkins had not shaken off early mistakes to lead a Cavalier comeback, the Hoos could have been devastated, much as they were when they couldn’t defeat Virginia Tech last season.
Everyone in Charlottesville could see, entering Week 3, that this was Virginia’s ACC Coastal to lose. No other team in the division with the possible exception of North Carolina could make that same claim. Virginia won at Pittsburgh, the defending Coastal champion, to start the season. Miami and Virginia Tech have looked bad. Georgia Tech is a mess. Duke lacks Daniel Jones’s high-end talent.
The table was set. The path was made smooth and straight. Virginia just needed to put one foot in front of the other and handle a vulnerable but motivated Florida State team. The journey was rocky, as one might expect of a team unaccustomed to winning ACC division titles, but the Cavaliers did pass the test.
UVA should continue to improve this season, and if it can win in Miami in a few weeks, the Coastal race could be over much sooner than it normally is. The gap between UVA and Virginia Tech is large right now, and the bad vibes of “The Streak” probably won’t matter if the Hoos enter that game as ACC Coastal champions while the Hokies wonder how they lost their winning edge.
Is there any doubt Virginia is the ACC’s second-best team? You could make a case if you really wanted to for Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons have answered every challenge thus far and would deserve to have their arguments heard in a gridiron court of law. Yet, Virginia is likely to be Clemson’s ACC title game opponent, and with a record far better than Pittsburgh’s 7-5 mark a year ago.
The Hoos are No. 2. They have earned that distinction through three weeks in 2019.
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