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Johnathan Kirkland of All Sports Discussion wrote an article during the Virginia Cavaliers’ idle week, which was sandwiched between the Notre Dame game on Sept. 28 and Friday night’s game at Miami.
I agreed with Johnathan’s thesis. I thought the idle week did come at just the right time.
Notre Dame beat up Virginia, specifically the Hoos’ offensive line. Bryce Perkins was hounded. The offense made way too many mistakes.
This seemed like a week to regroup, learn, adjust, and return to being a team ready to claim its place at the top of the ACC Coastal.
The Miami team Virginia was going to face on Friday did not have Notre Dame’s physicality or offensive prowess. It didn’t have a capable quarterback such as Ian Book. It didn’t have an upper-tier head coach such as Brian Kelly. It didn’t have the quality of the Fighting Irish or the intimidating qualities of Notre Dame Stadium.
This was a game Virginia – the new Virginia, the improved Virginia, the team prepared to make history – was supposed to handle in South Florida.
Two weeks to prepare. Two weeks to rest, reset the dial, and get it right.
Instead, what happened? The tandem of Bronco Mendenhall and offensive coordinator Robert Anae had no ideas, no inspiration, no effective maneuvers on the offensive side of the ball. It added up to a 17-9 loss which instantly changed the tone and feel of the 2019 season.
The Notre Dame loss was out of conference, but this loss – to a lower-tier team in the ACC Coastal – immediately throws UVA’s season into question. The idea that a wide gap existed between the Cavaliers and the rest of the division has been blown to bits. The offense has lost the benefit of the doubt. Plus, the injury to Bryce Hall reduced the defense’s margin for error.
The defense played really well in Hall’s absence, to be sure, but it remains that in a future week, the defense might not be at its best. If that happens, will the offense have the defense’s back?
That is the true question facing this team.
If you followed Bronco Mendenhall and Robert Anae at BYU, they usually fell victim to at least one clunker per season in which the offense withered on the vine and allowed a winnable game to slip away.
Virginia fans would not be wrong to think that Anae is holding the program — and Perkins — back.
This is not a dynamic unique to UVA.
The Michigan Wolverines have all the defense they could want, but the offense is holding them back.
The Washington Huskies have been very successful the past few years, but their offense has held them back.
Before this year, the LSU Tigers had the defensive side of the ball figured out, but the offense HAD held them back before Ed Orgeron reinvented the offense and brought in passing-game guru Joe Brady.
This is the “half-a-loaf” dynamic. One side of the ball is great, the other below average. If only the weak side of the ball could be above average — not spectacular, just a B-plus — the team could thrive at the highest level.
Virginia — now with two losses on the season — needs to run the table to get to 10 regular season wins in a weak ACC.
If UVA can’t do that this year, who knows when the next golden opportunity will come along?
Virginia didn’t just lose to Miami. It lost to a dynamic which has bedeviled Bronco and his offensive coordinator in the past.
The Hoos will try to make sure this pattern doesn’t recur in the next two months, but they face an uphill battle in that pursuit.
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