| Historical Stats & Info |
| "It is the most important victory of my career." -- Head Coach Dick Voris, after the Hoos’ 15-12 victory over Duke on September 27, 1958. Voris finished his UVA career with a record of 1-29. |
| "We've stopped recruiting young men who want to come here to be students first and athletes second." -- Former Virginia head coach Sonny Randle, describing his strategy for turning around UVA's football program |
| "As the score mounted, to 20-0 and finally 26-0, his movements slowed. With two minutes to go and South Carolina threatening once more, Voris stood behind several rows of substitutes, staring at his shoes." -- Sports Illustrated, describing Coach Voris’ stellar coaching performance during the Hoos’ 26-0 loss to South Carolina in 1960 |
| "Really, Texas wasn't as good as I thought they'd be." -- Ted Manly, Virginia's freshman quarterback, after Texas had spanked the Hoos 68-0 |
| Uni Mania / Spring Game Recap |
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| I drove down to Charlottesville a couple weekends ago to watch the Spring game and check out Coach London and the 2010 Hoos. Here's what went down. Uni-Mania! The announcement a couple months back that Coach London was planning to make changes to UVa's uniform was met with a mix of excitement and trepidation among the Wahoo faithful. Those emotions were further heightened when, in the days leading up to the unveiling of the new unis, the Daily Progess reported that UVa was going to be the "Oregon of the East." While some Wahoo fans looked at this as a great marketing / recruiting opportunity, the announcement resulted in a significant amount of anxiety and hand-wringing among the more "traditional" Virginia fans (read: guys who think orange corduroys are the height of fashion). Despite my obsession with all things uniform-related and my intense dislike of Oregon's uniforms, I wasn't too worried about the changes, for one simple reason: I'm completely in the tank for Coach London. I friggin' love that guy. Seriously, if London decided the team was going to wear orange terrycloth unitards with a snap crotch, I'd be fully on board. Having said that, I decided to briefly set my pro-London sentiments aside and take an unbiased look at the new unis. (Note: I took a bunch of photos of the new uniforms when I was at the Spring game. You can find them here.) Helmet First and foremost, I'm glad we kept the blue shell and the V-Sabres logo. Aside from two relatively minor adjustments – the use of metallic flake paint beginning in 2000, and the addition of the helmet stripes in 2001 – we've had the same helmet for 15 years. For branding purposes, I'm glad to have some continuity. And speaking of the helmet stripes – or the "goat horns," as they've been derisively described – I didn't dislike them nearly as much as some people, but I think the helmet looks much cleaner without them, so I was glad to see them go. And finally, I'm a huge fan of the Bill Dudley tribute sticker they've added to the back of the helmet. Grade: A Jerseys I'll be honest - I wasn't a huge fan of the jerseys when I first saw pictures of them. However, after seeing them up close at the Spring game, I've changed my tune. They're sleek and modern without being too over the top. I like the "TV numbers" on the shoulders, and adding an orange jersey to the rotation was a faaantastic idea. I only have two minor beefs. First, I'd like the trim / piping on the collar a lot more if it went all the way around the collar rather than half-way around. And second, the player names look a little washed out on the orange jerseys. I would have outlined them in blue to set them off against the orange. Grade: A- Pants Again, I love that we've incorporated orange back into the uniform, and the the three different color pants give us a lot of potential uniform combinations. But I'm not really feeling the stripes. And the "VIRGINIA" on the back of the pants makes it look like we're wearing fanny packs. It's pretty much impossible to look like a badass when you're rocking a fanny pack. Even for this guy. Grade: C+ Socks & Cleats Unlike some people, I actually liked the socks we wore under Coach Groh. However, there's something about low, white socks that screams "college football." And as a Baltimorean, I'm fully on board with the black cleats. If they were good enough for Johnny Unitas, they work for me. Grade: A Spring Game Recap I'm completely unqualified to offer any real football analysis. So if that's what you're looking for, you should probably just skip this section.
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| Post-Game Highlights One of my favorite things about the Spring game is wandering around the field afterwards and chatting with former players. One of the first guys I ran into was Marques Hagans. I hung out and chatted with him for a few minutes about his plans (he's giving the NFL one more shot), and then got my picture taken with him. Now, I've had my picture taken with lots of UVa players, but I never post them on my website because I don't |
| want everyone to see what a huge tool I am.However, this one is too money not to post, as Marques looks like he's either (1) looking downfield for an open receiver, or (2) sick and tired of talking to me and desperately searching for an escape route. I'm pretty certain it was #2, but to Marques' credit, he was so friendly and engaging that I had no idea he wanted to punch me in the head and run away until I saw this picture hours later. In addition to Biscuit, I also met former UVa defensive back Paul London (Coach London's younger brother), who I've been emailing back and forth with for the last couple of months. Things got off to an unfortunate start when I absolutely butchered our bro hug (I don't get too much bro hug practice at my law firm), but Paul was nice enough to pretend not to notice my "bro pas." He even took me over to meet a few of his buddies – Skeet Jones, Randy Neal and Pete Allen, all of whom were really good guys. As I was chatting with them, a couple things came to mind: First, there was a whole lot of UVa football history standing there:
Second, even though they graduated 15 years ago, these guys looked like they were still in game shape. Skeet Jones, for example, is friggin' HUGE. I'm pretty sure he's taken taken dumps that are bigger than me. ...And Some Lowlights When I first got down on the field, I almost immediately ran into Chris Long. I actually knew Chris was going to be at the game, so I prepared some questions beforehand in hopes that he would submit to a short interview. As you would expect from HoosFootball.com, the questions were pretty hard-hitting: 1. Who braided your hair for the 2006 Maryland game? 2. Is St. Louis the most boring city you've ever been to, or is it just in the top three? 3. If Mini Chris Long and Mini Mike Ditka got into a fight, who would win? Alas, in the 15 seconds it took me to get my shit together, Chris was surrounded by a throng of people, most of whom were little kids. I couldn't bring myself to elbow a bunch of 10 year olds out of the way just so I could ask Chris some goofy questions that would probably only be entertaining to me and my college buddies. Dammit. After missing out on Chris, I went in search of Nate Collins. Nate's engaging personality and stream of consciousness ramblings on Twitter have made him one of my all-time favorite Hoos. I even brought along Nate's game-used helmet from the 2008 Richmond game in hopes of getting it signed. As it turns out, lugging that friggin' helmet around in the heat pretty much sucked. I don't want to say Nate has a big head, but that damn helmet weighs about 50 pounds and is so big it shows up on satellite photos. After circling the field a few times, I was sweating like Kirstie Alley at an all-you-can-eat buffet and still hadn't run into Nate. I can only assume that he talked to Biscuit and decided to hide from me. After giving up on my game of hide-and-go-Nate, I decided to pack it in and call it a day. All in all, a pretty great day in Charlottesville. |
