Wahoo Wire

Sitting in Dulles Airport waiting to get on a plane to Atlanta is as peculiar as the fact that UVA is actually going to the Chick Fil A Bowl.  There are a fair number of Wahoos peppered in the seats of the waiting area, orange protrudes from beneath many a jacket. But, the eternal question remains…how did we get HERE.

Well, if you take the opinion of one Wahoo nearby, it was completely unexpected. I’d add that it was so unexpected that team hotel information for the Music City Bowl was zipping around the Internet up until the insane first rumors of the Chick Fil A Bowl on selection Sunday. Even within season it was too crazy a thought to take seriously considering this team beat the Vandals of Idaho by a single point in overtime (an overtime I left the stadium for because I couldn’t stomach that bad a loss). Coming off the previous week’s loss to Southern Miss, it was hard to imagine much more than a roadtrip to RFK and the Military Bowl, if any bowl at all.

Then there was October 15th.  For those that don’t hold that date as immortal (yet), that was the Georgia Tech game. Honestly, the ‘Hoos should have won by about 20, but the gravity of the win at that time was magical. All of a sudden, there was optimism for the football team, two terms, optimism and football, that had been so far apart you’d think it was the Congressional conference on the debt ceiling. Yes, students rushed the field last year upon crushing Jacory Harris and Miami, but this was a different animal.  Georgia Tech was ranked #12 in the nation, they seemed a sure juggernaut and UVA was quickly up 14 points en route to victory. The feeling on the field after the game was one of stunned exhilaration, fans aimlessly immersed in a bliss unknown. 

If the emotion of that game was not enough the visit to Florida State in Tallahassee surely ran the gauntlet. As I watched with friends, we experienced it all from anger to shock to sorrow to victory…multiple times.  The final drive leading to a miss by the golden foot of Florida State’s Dustin Hopkins had many a Hollywood script jealous. Yet, when victory finally came it was still too unreal, so unreal that my roommate and I found ourselves waiting at the airport for the team and then meeting their bus at McCue. It was all too good not to experience as much as possible, like scraping the jar for the last of the peanut butter.  

The suspension of reality continues to this bowl game that seems to have floated miraculously into our grasp. Even with eight wins, the final week’s slaughtering at the hands of Virginia Polytechnic could not have been expected to entice the people of Chick Fil A. Yet, by some twisted fate, we are arguably in a better bowl game than the ACC Champion, Clemson, who will take on West Virginia in a BCS game watched by dozens of people. If not for the (understandable) greed of the Sugar Bowl, the football team is touring the Grand Ole Opry and not  absorbing the words of the esteemed Civil Rights leader John Lewis. Granted, the ‘Hoos quickly sold about 14,000 of their 18,000 bowl game tickets (a far better percentage than VPI) but still isn’t it a stretch to put THIS team in a primetime bowl?  Auburn may have finished 7-5 this season but who can imagine UVA looking any better than a would be Ole Miss tackler on Trent Richardson if they played in the SEC? This is the defending national champion from the unchallenged best conference in the nation in a veritable home game…and the betting line started at EVEN!

Well, maybe there is intrigue in a team that exceeds expectations. Maybe there is intrigue in a team that had a winning record against teams in the Top 25 this season. Maybe there is intrigue in a team that has a second year coach fearlessly leading it to relevancy that is buried deep in a past era.  This opportunity, though, has to be taken advantage of as the only way to exceed it in the coming years is to leap frog VPI, Clemson, and an FSU team that will become formidable once again. Is it possible? Surely, but it will be just as surprising as this season and at some point onlookers will expect UVA to succeed. Expectations will change.  A school known for its academics and spring time jubilation at steeplechase races will become a coveted football matchup. Where’s the enjoyment in doing what you’re supposed to do? No, this season is special because of the deliciously frightening eyebrow raises it has caused. 

For me, at least, it is encapsulated in that cold night when I stood watching the plane come in, specifically Billy Schautz’s exit from the plane. Here was a player who rather unexpectedly became an integral part of the defense and capped it with a spectacular game against Florida State only to be crumpled by a tear-jerking fluke injury. Yet, there he was on crutches, unaided coming down the stairs of the plane in Charlotteville and on to an ambulance headed for a scheduled surgery, an image that was unspeakably moving. While not always pretty and not at all easy, there we were at the end where no one expected us to be, courageously awaiting the next seemingly insurmountable challenge wide-eyed and hungry.