The Sampler: Pittsburgh

The Sampler provides analysis on the Virginia football team.
Bronco Mendenhall’s team couldn’t keep pace with Pitt in the second half. ~ Kris Wright

The Virginia football team stumbled out of the bye week in a 45-31 loss to Pittsburgh. The Sampler looks back with some quick thoughts on the game and UVA’s rapidly fading bowl hopes.

And I do mean rapidly fading. If you recall the first Back to the Future movie where Marty McFly is watching the family photo fade in front of his eyes … it’s like that. Maybe worse. At 2-4 at this point in the season, the Cavaliers must claim victory in four of their final six games to make it to 6-6 and guaranteed bowl eligibility. The final six games include nationally ranked North Carolina and Louisville the next two weeks plus road trips to the Techs to end the season. Atlanta and Blacksburg rarely have represented good road chances for the program.

Through the first six games of the season, the Hoos dropped ‘swing games’ to Connecticut and Pittsburgh plus a must-win tilt with Richmond. Those defeats put the team behind the proverbial 8-ball when it comes to bowl hopes. UVA needs at least one road victory down the stretch to reach .500 and we all know that the 17-game road losing streak just ended at Duke.

Still, many wrote off bowl hopes before the season started and placed the evaluation of this year’s team squarely on progress. In that regard, there is success to be found. It’s just coming in a one step forward, two steps back sort of style so far.

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