Like Al Groh said early in the week, the pot doesn’t get much bigger than it was for today’s game. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from watching poker on television, it’s this: Sometimes, to win a big pot, you’ve got to gamble. Once again, Virginia wasn’t willing to do that in its last chance for a signature victory this season. Because of that, the 2004 Cavaliers may be remembered as a team that folded whenever the stakes got high.

Granted, that’s not completely fair. Football isn’t poker. If you’re good enough, you can play conservatively and still win big. The Cavs did that eight times this season and could have prevailed with the same low-risk strategy against Virginia Tech had they not botched so many golden scoring opportunities. It also doesn’t make a lot of sense to be aggressive when your secondary and receiving corps are weak links. But still, it’s hard to argue with the notion that the coaches were too cautious again this afternoon, trying not to lose rather than seizing the opportunity to win the pot.

How else do you explain the decision to punt on fourth and two at the Tech 35 early in the second quarter? Groh explained it by citing the importance of field position: “We would rather take our chances of putting the ball inside the 10-yard line than take a chance of giving them the ball at the 40 in a scoreless game.” OK, that’s defensible. But it’s still timid. And it didn’t work. Chris Gould ‘s punt sailed into the end zone for a net of 15 yards.

That choice was indicative of the conservative approach taken throughout the game by Virginia’s coaches. On defense, the Cavs rarely blitzed, even though the Hokies have been susceptible to pressure. (N.C. State sacked Bryan Randall 10 times; UVa did it twice, both in the first half.) On offense, Virginia ran 46 times and threw 14 passes, a greater than 3-to-1 ratio. That’s slightly skewed because a handful of those runs were called pass plays in which Marques Hagans kept the ball. But it accurately represents how much the coaches relied on the run and abandoned the vertical passing game.

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