Column: UVa's 5-1 start gives fans hope for the season's back half

Typically, we spend a good amount of UVa football’s mid-season bye weeks getting ready for basketball season. During most years, the remaining drama in the back half of Virginia football seasons is limited to whether the Cavaliers will eek out enough wins to get bowl eligible and if they’d find a way to beat Virginia Tech at the end of November.

But not this year.

UVa sits at No. 19 in the Associated Press Top 25, ranked for the first time since 2019, with a 5-1 record. The Wahoos came out on the other side of what appears to be the toughest two-game stretch of their schedule, with wins over previous unbeatens Florida State and Louisville. UVa’s high-flying offense was the story of the first half of the season, with the Hoos scoring 30+ points in all six games behind a dominant running game, good quarterback play, more efficiency on big downs, and improved special teams. Even the defense has started to come along, with the Cavaliers having their best outing of the season in the win at Louisville, holding a good Cardinals offense to 24 points and scoring two touchdowns off of turnovers. 

The season is only halfway done, but what we’ve seen from the team in the first half of the campaign gives a lot of room for optimism and excitement for the second half of the schedule.

Opening eyes….

Even the most optimistic fans probably didn’t have the Hoos at 5-1 and 3-0 in ACC play going into the bye. Most saw the schedule as one that would give the program an opportunity to have a winning season if things broke well, and, counter to how their schedules are normally set up, it felt like the bigger challenges were on the front end of the schedule.

UVa has played three toss-up games, against 4-2 NC State, top-10 Florida State and 4-1 Louisville, with two on the road and one at home.

UVa came out on top in two of those games, all of which came down to the last few plays. While the Hoos certainly regret that they weren’t able to come up with one more play in Raleigh, winning two out of three isn’t bad. 

…and much lies ahead.

Now, after a week of rest, the Wahoos have a major opportunity in front of them. They will be a big favorite against Washington State at home and can clinch bowl eligibility through just seven games for the first time since 2007. After that, it’s a stretch run of five ACC games, with two at home and three on the road. A trip to Chapel Hill looks more like an opportunity than a challenge at the moment given how bad things have gone for the Tar Heels. UVa has to get on a plane just twice this season, making the final flight trip to Cal to kick off November. The Golden Bears have been decent, but struggled mightily in their loss to San Diego State and flatlined after halftime against Duke last week. UVa is probably a favorite in that one. 

The Wahoos then come back home for Wake Forest, an improving team under first-year coach Jake Dickert, but one that they should be favored to beat, barring something unforeseen between now and then. And then they play arguably the best team remaining on the schedule, Duke. If things go well between now and then, that matchup at Wallace Wade Stadium could be one of the biggest regular-season games Virginia has played in recent history. And then, of course, things wraps up with Virginia Tech at home. For the second time in three trips, Tech will come to Scott Stadium with an interim coach, a program on the precipice of pending change. 

Despite the fact that Virginia has struggled mightily in the Commonwealth Cup game, the Hoos clearly look like the better team at the halfway point.

Adversity will be found along the way.

While the second half of the season looks manageable or downright favorable, UVa will certainly face adversity along the line. This team, while good, is not perfect. The defense has struggled to get stops at times, and the offense looked human in the win over Louisville, scoring just 10 points in regulation. 

Injuries can change things dramatically as well, and UVa’s due for a game where things just don’t go its way and the Hoos have to find a way to win. Things can get wonky in road games, and they have three left to survive. 

There’s still a lot of football to play and the program will have to have the one-game-at-a-time mindset. But for fans, it’s okay to think big. They haven’t had many opportunities to do that, and while this season could still go in a host of different directions, Wahoos should try to enjoy the ride. 

With the current college football rules, roster building will be a year-by-year exercise, but it allows for opportunities like this for a program that seemed stuck in the mud to reverse their fortunes quickly. Nobody knows how long this will last, and if a successful 2025 will change the program long-term, but opportunities like this don’t come around too often. 

A crowd of 50,000+ was on hand for UVa’s win over Florida State at the end of September. It was the best atmosphere Scott Stadium has seen since the 2019 win over Virginia Tech, and plenty of UVa fans on hand will remember being part of that win for decades to come. 

Well, UVa has three more home games, three more opportunities to see this much-improved and fun-to-watch team play in Charlottesville. Given what we’ve seen from the first six games, UVa fans, if able, should have more faith that they’ll see a quality product if they come to those games, and help the team win through a better home-field advantage. 

There’s been some unironic talk of an ACC Championship game appearance and UVa is even being seen as a potential dark horse for the College Football Playoff. That could all unravel with one bad performance, but for now, why not play the ‘what if’ game? 

This group is talented enough, given their remaining schedule, to win out and have a dream season. 

It’s the type of season that, frankly, we wondered if we’d ever get the chance to write about.