No worries. Iāve shared plenty of his stuff in the past, just feels like he really fell off and became more unhinged over time
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When you cover a school and actually hate the schoolā¦ this is what you get.
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Devilās advocate: Using someoneās name is not doxxing them or infringing upon free speech. Itās singling them out for sure, but I think social media would be a a bit more civilized with real names attached. If youāre going to live in that comment section youāve gotta be ok with others, even journalists, disagreeing with you in a public forum.
And for the record, I think Graham is awful.
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Mic drop brother!
Donāt pay attention to any records before the sports world got right.
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Yeah I get what youāre saying, and I do agree it shouldnāt be our ceilingā¦ itās just hard for me to think itāll ever line up like this again and we didnāt get it done.
Just battered hoo syndrome I guess.
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Graham is seriously terrible. Absolutely NO ONE should take the guy seriously. Guy is a clown.
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Seems to me that to argue that this was our ābestā team of all time is a non-starter. BUT, it was the most successful/. So it is what it is and we ought to be very happy about that. I canāt help it but to feel that a lot of our āfansā donāt want us to be successful in footbal. Iād take a season like this or even somewhat close to it year to year and be pretty pleased, tbh.
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If we define success as:
- Wins (w/o regard to schedule strength)
- Bowl victory (w/o regard to the modern context that mucho players sit out and nobody really cares about non-CFP bowls, including 99% of UVa fans prior to winning said meaningless game)
- Proximity to championship-determining game or tournament (w/o regard to how we handled said opportunity)
Then I agree (Iām not sure WHY we would ignore the things in my parentheticals, but so be itā¦)
Happy New Year, everyone. May it be your most successful, however it is you all define that word.
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Do you have an actual pick for most successful season? Under close scrutiny, Iām not sure any UVA football seasons meet the criteria youāre judging this season on. Wins were padded against cupcakes, we choked in the biggest spots, or we lost the bowl game (which UVA fans were notorious for not caring about).
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95 or 98 bit seem more successful (better quality wins and losses). Probably 95 if I had to pick one.
I wasnāt around for 90 or 94ā¦
I think the most sensible way to compare is to eliminate the bowls and just compare everything else. If we do that, it might be 98.
All of these seasons featured chokes in the biggest spots. Iām not holding that against 25, Iām just saying that it doesnāt get credit for being closest to the mountaintop since it did choke away the opportunity.
And wins do matter : 95/98 are both in the same ballpark as 25 if you eliminate the bowl (which to repeat myself, seems to be the fairest comparison)
Side note: this was a great year! Best in a quarter century! We should be thrilled about that. But thatās not the relevant question Iām addressingā¦
Iām sorry, a season like 95 where we lost games vs VT and UNC absolutely cannot be our best season ever, even if it included the best win in school history.
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So give me the criteria: most successful season = most wins and we beat our two traditional rivals, w/o regard to how good they were?
I kinda feel like Iām arguing in a vacuum here. I keep giving reasons why it wasnāt most successful and trying to guess at and knock down arguments as to why 25 was best.
So whatās the argument for 25 being most successful?
I dunno, maybe something like:
- 11 wins (most ever for the program)
- Raised the profile of the football program (kind of nebulous, but it does matter)
- ACC Coach of the Year (maybe a dubious award, but an award nonetheless)
- Nearly made the CFP (one could crap on this, but why???)
- Won the Gator Bowl (sure, bowls are pointless, but I guess so is everything)
- Gave a proof of concept for how Virginia can be a player in the current environment of NCCA football (this is the most important thing and, sadly, requires that I finally take these parentheticals seriously. 2025 is the most successful season to date because it shows a path forward, unlike ā95 or ā98 which with the benefit of hindsight we can safely say were flashes in the pan. Maybe I am about to undercut the argument for 2025 being the most successful season ever, but, to me, the point here is that it shows the pathway for potential future success. Think of it like 2014 or 2016 for the basketball team in that those seasons with all the ābed-crappingā that occurred in the NCAA tournament showed that a season like 2018-19 was possible. Iām not saying that Virginia will one day raise the CFP trophy, but, hey, maybeā¦.)
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Best win in school history, and a thrilling bowl win against an SEC school in their backyard.
1995 had some tough/close losses but thatās the team I feel like could legitimately compete against anyone in the country. Maybe the only team weāve ever had that I felt like could.
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Yeah, I agree that 95 was the most talented team in school history and maybe the best team in school history, but it wasnāt the best season in school history.
Most talented is self explanatory
Best team is who would you favor in a game head to head
Best season (at least to me) is results based
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I made my case for 2025 upthread and others have as well. Iām not going to repeat it here.
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95 will always be my favorite time as a UVA fan. Middle of high school plus the elite eight in the 95 NCAA tourney. Maybe thatās a funner discussion since this one has been beaten into the ground. Most successful UVA years? I have memories of the 89 football season, but only a vague recollection of our elite 8 run in 89.
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Thanks. My responses, most of which Iāve gone through already, but once more with gusto:
- Wins: 11 is great, but 9 is close, and against much better schedules.
- Raised profile / proof of concept: These are the closest to swaying me, but if itās going to be correct, we would need to wait and see. (my biggest point of contention is calling 95/98 flashes in the pan. We were a top 20 caliber program from late 80s through early-mid aughts, and those years were the high-water mark ā again, IMO, Iām waiting for someone to talk up 90 or 94 ā¦ not my fight)
- CFP: Didnāt exist in the 90s; but even still, if we had made it, Iād credit this. But given what happened, why is āclose loss to meh Duke (neutral site) away from CFPā better than āclose losses at (17) Michigan and (14) Texas, on the road, away from being in the top ten all seasonā (95) or āclose loss at (9) GT away from being top ten all seasonā?
- Bowl: I think the fairest thing to do with the bowl is eliminate it from analysis, given the current non-CFP bowl context, but if we donāt, then we also beat UGa in a similarly high profile bowl in 95.
- ACC hardware: I suspect if we look into individual accolades more, then 25 is going to suffer by comparison.
It feels like this probably applies here in some way:
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School year or calendar year?
School year would definitely be 2018-19. Nothing else is close.
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