During the week leading up to the Maryland game, Virginia associate head coach for offense Tom O’Brien discussed the state of the football program in some sense with reporters. O’Brien, who owned a 115-80 record with an 8-2 bowl mark in 16 years as a head coach, shared one proverbial nugget about the Hoos …

“They got to learn how to win. Losing becomes a habit. We have to change that. We have to learn how to win a football game.”

It’s a cliche no doubt, but O’Brien is right in calling losing a habit. This team and this program are mired in a losing slump. It’s a habit. There appears to be this ‘waiting for something to go wrong’ cloud hovering around the Cavaliers. It’s easy to spot with the fans, who jokingly call it “Rule 2B” on The Sabre message boards. That reference is a Murphy’s law sort of deal meaning that something will go wrong to ruin it for the Hoos.

It’s there with the players too. Eli Harold essentially confirmed that with his comments to the media last week. A reporter asked Harold why the defense’s confidence was shaken so quickly against Ball State. He answered, in part, that “a couple of guys got beat and during the whole course of the game those guys that were getting beat were just hanging their heads. The energy was horrible. Coach Dex was yelling at us. I don’t know what it was.” In other words, something went wrong and the Hoos didn’t get out from under the rain cloud … they just stood there and got wet.

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