TCU 27, UVA 7

In my opinion, there are five things that can make it nearly unbearable to watch your football team.  Those five things are:

1) Turnovers.  Not just a few, but a lot.  Hemorrhaging turnovers to the point where nothing else matters and everything falls apart.

2) Shaky o-line play.  Shaky to the point of being just plain bad.  Can't run the ball, pass pro is not good, the offense just sputters.

3) Drops.  Big plays, game-changing plays hit the receivers in the hands, and then hit the ground.  Or worse, bounce up into the waiting arms of defenders.

4) A defense that can't get off the field.  Generating stops on individual plays, but never able to really get the job done overall.  Like slowly bleeding out through a belly wound.

5) A general talent deficit; a general lack of explosive / exciting / dynamic players who can make game-changing plays and generate hope.


Virginia Football is suffering from all five of those things right now.  So we lost in Fort Worth to a TCU team that frankly didn't play all that well and was sitting there like a low-hanging cherry, ready to be picked.  We lost 27-7.  Felt like it could have been 270-7.

My thoughts:

-- Dear ESPN, nobody gives a fuck about soccer.  Please remove the soccer scores from your Saturday afternoon "bottom line" crawl.  Seriously, nobody cares if Southampton tied Aston Villa 1-1.  NOBODY GIVES A SHIT.  NOBODY.  GIVES.  A.  SHIT.

Fucking lame.

-- Phillip Sims did not look good today.  Another terrible fumble coughed up on a sack.  Bad throws, inaccuracy issues.  Two late throws deep over the middle.  Dominique Terrell made him look good on the 40-yarder.

-- I thought Sims was bad, but I still want to see him start against Louisiana Tech.  Mike Rocco's low ceiling is starting to make things feel like a hobbit house.  I recently compared him to Alex Smith, and now he looks like Alex Smith circa 2009.  That is not a compliment.  I love Rock, but... he can't make plays unless they are handed to him on a silver platter, and those plays are not there this season so far.  We need a gunslinger who can make things happen downfield.

-- Mike and I just talked about this, and both agree: Pierce might have just nailed it when he guessed that Greyson Lambert might be our starting quarterback in 2013.

-- Today, I thought the o-line looked better.  164 rushing yards would agree.  Part of that was KP's big 49-yarder, and part of it was Lazor designing perimeter runs to strike at TCU's undersized edge defenders.  But the line looked better.  There's a pulse.  It no longer stinks like somebody taught their butthole how to smoke cigarettes.

-- What the fuck is going on with all the drops?  Darius Jennings, I know you got tripped up (no PI call, but there should have been), but you need to make that catch down the sideline in the 1st quarter.  That's a touchdown, and a much different game, knotted at 7-7.  You also dropped another touchdown pass from Rocco later in the game.  Big hit, but hang on to the damn ball.  Christ.  Christ!

You're good, baby.  That wasn't you out there today.

-- I decided that I do not like Casey Pachall.  I wish him only bad things.

Nice behind-the-ear tat, bitch.

-- Our defense, for the most part, played pretty well.  Run stopping was great.  Too much YAC from the secondary.  But holding TCU to 20 points prior to garbage time was pretty good.  Good enough to win, with a competent offense.

-- Maurice Canady > Drequan Hoskey.  It's official.

-- Perry Jones showed some toughness today, and had a decent game after banging his knee. I liked what I saw, but we need about double that moving forward.

-- I honestly didn't really notice #9 missing today.  That's a testament to how few impact plays he's been making.  I said this on the message board and caught some hell, but I don't care.  I'm saying it again: Put the club on the hand and get in the game.  Missing this game because of a broken finger?  I admittedly don't have the full story, but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

-- I like the blitzing, Jim Reid.  We gave up some big plays on corner blitzes, but I still like it.  Aggression.  Trying to make something happen.  More of that against LT and Duke, please.

-- I mentioned it earlier, but will say it again: Nice game from Dominique Terrell.  Good to see him making some plays.

-- Alec Vozenilek is legit.  Great punting today.

-- The kick and punt coverage units seem to be improved from last year, as well.  Jake McGee is a player in that phase of the game.

-- I continue to like what I see from Anthony Harris.  Good tackler, nose for the action.  I like having him on the field.

-- I want more E.J. Scott.  Get that man on the field.

I want MORE!

-- LT, @ Duke, Maryland, Wake.  That's our upcoming schedule.  Gotta win all four and come out of that stretch at 6-2.  Otherwise, I fear no bowl game.  Another o-fer-November seems very possible, just like the bad ol' days.

-- Our upperclassmen - the 2008 and 2009 recruiting classes, ranked #61 and #33 respectively - are not getting the job done.  2008-2010 recruiting - #61, #33, #67 - represents the talent dip in the program at the end of the Al Groh era.  We'll have to play through the fits and starts of inconsistency until those classes are cycled through the program and the upgrade in talent London hand-picked is battle tested and developed.  The 2011 class are now sophomores and redshirt freshmen.  They are on the field now, playing, improving.

-- Bowl game or bust.  Anything less is regression.  And remember, today's game correlates to last season's loss to Southern Miss.


And now, I leave with this season's solutions to all five of the problems I listed at the beginning of this post.

1) Practice ball security.  Bench the QB who is throwing picks.  Bench the players who are coughing up fumbles.  Make it a point to stop turning the ball over!

2) Let it gel.  Resist the urge to shuffle.  Just let it be, and let it gel.  And create gameplans that work around the holes in the line.

3) Plop 250 jugs machines on the practice field and make these motherfuckers catch balls all night and all day.

4) Find a way to generate turnovers.  Blitz more.  Run blitz.  Get hyper-aggressive with the playcalls.

5) Start playing teams that are closer to our talent level.  Hello, our next four games!


2-2, season might hang in the balance next Saturday against Louisiana Tech.  Time to bear down and run to the roar.

GO HOOS!