99 Virginia Football Thoughts Before Kickoff

By: Kris Wright |
Virginia kicks off the season in fewer than 50 days.
Bronco Mendenhall said it’s no secret that one of Virginia’s big goals is to end the streak against Virginia Tech. ~ Kris Wright

One sign that football season is getting closer is the annual ACC Football Kickoff event in mid-July. The Coastal Division took its turn at the podium in Charlotte on Wednesday where Bronco Mendenhall, Olamide Zaccheaus, and Chris Peace represented Virginia.

Sprinkled in among the typical questions and answers, one thought jumped out more than any other during UVA’s time with the media. The “99 Virginia Football Thoughts Before Kickoff” series takes a look.

No. 50 – Beat Tech!

Summer-time preseason chatter always includes predictions, polls, and the like. And, of course, one of the questions players always get is about goals for the season. That usually rings up an answer about playing for championships and, in the case of college football, aiming for bowl games.

That’s not all that a goals question solicited on Wednesday, though. Zaccheaus answered a question about “big goals for this year” with something that’s bound to resonate with fans. Beat Virginia Tech.

“Personally, I want to be First-Team All-ACC and an All-American, and I feel like I’ve been putting in the work to do that,” Zaccheaus said. “And as a team our goal is to beat Virginia Tech and not only go to a bowl game this year but win one, as well.”

Notice which thing came first in the team list? Beat Tech.

Chris Peace brought it up again moments later in a question unrelated to goals. A reporter asked Peace about the phrase “New Standard” that he helped push to the forefront last season and that has been adopted in the program’s marketing materials in 2018. Specifically, the question asked how the team can improve on the “New Standard” that UVA has tried to embrace.

“I know one thing that’s really been emphasized this year is the bowl game and beating Tech and part of the new standard is to know we have to beat Virginia Tech to make that next jump forward in our program, along with returning to postseason play and winning, as well,” Peace said.

Notice what hasn’t just been mentioned within the program, but emphasized? Beat Tech.

Virginia fans have clamored for that exact thing for quite some time now and apparently some of those cries have been directed at Mendenhall since his arrival. He mentioned during the spring VAF social tours that he had heard that part of the message loud and clear.

Needing and wanting to beat your key rival is obvious, of course. But for the program to openly make statements about it in public forums and, in this case, the offseason showcase forum for the ACC? That’s a much bolder stance than we’re used to seeing from the Virginia football program in recent seasons. There’s no ‘all games are important’ or ‘business as usual’ air to it at all. It’s plastered around the facility and the Hoos break some huddles at the end of practices with ‘Beat Tech!’ too.

Good!

I think this is a necessary mindset shift for the program at this point. Fighting fire with fire, if you will. The Hokies embraced the rivalry with passion long before their entrance into the ACC in 2004, but pushed it to fervent levels since when it comes to football. Virginia Tech has not lost to Virginia since 2003 in football. Whether that furor directly contributed to or merely grew alongside that streak, it’s there and it’s in UVA fans’ faces in an omnipresent way.

Calling it a 14-year streak isn’t even enough for Hokies fans, though. They count it by the day. They devoted an entire Twitter account to the thing for goodness sake. It’s at 4,981 days if you have any sort of self-deprecating desire to know by the way. I had to look it up. Many Tech fans don’t. It came up in a conversation not long ago right off the top of the Hokies’ head. They know it by heart.

So yes, beat Tech.

For a guy that didn’t fully embrace the BYU-Utah according to some Cougar critics, even Mendenhall is on board. Here’s what he had to say Wednesday in that vein:

“Certainly when you have a rivalry game that you haven’t won in a significant amount of time, that’s one of the things that has to happen, regardless of where you are, and so we’re open about it more so now that I’ve ever been, just because it’s clear that has to happen for University of Virginia’s football program. And I want that to happen for our players. It’s not a secret. We are open about it.”

Beyond all the rivalry rhetoric, though, is something far more practical. In order for the Virginia football program to recover to its consistent golden years under George Welsh, it’s going to need to make progress. It needs to make progress in consistency on the field. It needs to make progress with player recruitment and development. It needs to make progress in fan support, donor growth, and all of that goes with major college football too.

But it’s going to be hard to prove progress to many fans, particularly the casual check-in-on-Saturdays ones, without beating the arch nemesis in state. Plus, that game falls at the end of the season as it currently stands so without winning that game or hopefully a bowl game to follow each year, the program is viewed the same at the conclusion of each season: as spinning its wheels.

That’s because UVA fans haven’t gone into an offseason on the sustaining enthusiasm of winning since the 2005 Music City Bowl when Marques Hagans led the way at quarterback in a 34-31 victory against Minnesota. That’s nearly 13 years ago. Hagans is now a married assistant coach with kids. That’s ancient history in the fast-paced sports industry.

Simply put, for the program to show true progress it has to go into an offseason with the good feeling of winning the season’s final game. It can’t gain season to season momentum without that piece.

Mendenhall stated as much at the ACC Football Kickoff event.

“Clarity has come over time in my tenure at UVA, right,” Mendenhall said. “So I came not knowing much about UVA, some about the history, some about the expectations and some about the rivalry. But now that I’ve been at UVA for two years, it’s becoming clearer what has to happen for the program to advance, and there will be benchmarks along the way that if certain benchmarks are met, momentum will be added, which means the acceleration of the program will happen at a faster rate and maybe at a more meaningful level. … We are focusing on that [rivalry game], as we need to, as well as the expectation of we expect to play post-season every year, not just occasionally, and we expect to win.

And so that’s part of the new standard that Chris [Peace] talks about is those are expectations. Those aren’t things that we expect randomly or occasionally; we want a program that does those things consistently, and that’s part of the direction we’re moving toward. Still work to do, no question, but that’s the direction we’re moving.”

So yes, beat Tech.

The “99 Virginia Football Thoughts Before Kickoff” series has discussed much more. The previous articles are below. Click away.