Virginia Cavaliers Find Way to Win Despite Challenges

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00:00They stepped up yet again, coach, and won outright on the road, 30-27. Chandler Morris in that

00:07offense seemed to be hitting on all cylinders. Give me your thoughts about what transpired in

00:12Louisville last Saturday afternoon. Well, you know, for Virginia to have their first winning

00:17season in Tony Elliott, his fourth year there, they were going to have to win close ball games.

00:22Well, now they've gone to two games and won in overtime twice as the underdog. And now you take

00:29this game when the running game wasn't there. They didn't get 100-yard rushing. Chandler Morris,

00:33for the first time since I've been watching, was not on. He did not have a good day. But what do

00:37you need to do when you have that kind of day and you're a team that finds a way to win? You pick

00:43two defensive scores. They scored 14 points with the defense scoring, and that's what they did to

00:49win the game. So I like this team because they're finding a way to win, even if it means your defense

00:55having to have a turnover and score with it for 14 points. So another close overtime win for

01:02Virginia. And you know what? This peels on itself. They start winning just because they believe they

01:07can win. And I really like what they're doing at Virginia right now. They really are. And again,

01:13Tony Elliott, you can make the argument, was on the hot seat a couple of years ago. You know,

01:18he was close. He lost both of his quarterbacks this past year, lost Calandria, one of his

01:24quarterbacks that transferred out. He gets in Chandler Morris, the transfer from Newark, Texas and

01:29TCU. He stepped in. He's a blue-collar kid. It puts his team in a position to win. You mentioned he

01:35didn't step up with a dynamic performance, but still was very good when the game was on the line

01:41in the final eight minutes of that ballgame. So again, it's a team that's opportunistic. They're

01:46positive in turnover margin now in back-to-back weeks against Louisville and more importantly,

01:51the victory over Florida State. Can they maintain this type of level of play to potentially challenge

01:58the likes of Miami? Because when you think of Virginia, you don't think so much physicality,

02:02but they are doing it now on the defensive side of the ball. And you saw the way they got on after

02:07Thomas Castellanos a couple of weeks ago. Can they maintain this on the defensive side of the ball

02:12over the next five or six weeks? Well, I think they can. I think the way they're playing,

02:18and I think in my introduction, I said they are finding a way to win, even if it means

02:23getting a defensive score, which they had two of. They are finding ways on both sides of the ball,

02:29winning close ballgames, and they don't play Miami during the regular season. I think they've got a

02:34schedule where they've got to play Cal. They've got to play Duke. Two of the better teams left on their

02:38schedule. But they are not going to be out of the picture in every one of these football games. So

02:43again, the fact they don't play Miami, if they do, it would be in the conference championship.

02:48And they're winning close ballgames, and they're getting more confidence as they go.

02:52I really like their quarterback. I love their head coach and the way he leads that team.

02:57And they're kind of the dark horse now, because you got Georgia Tech sitting out there. But

03:02man, they're making their run for it, aren't they?