The first overtime game in the history of the Commonwealth Cup has to go down as one of the toughest losses either side has had in the history of the rivalry.
UVA suffered maybe the 2018 season’s biggest gutpunch, months after ... THAT
The worst loss in March Madness history was just the start of a rough year for the Hoos.
Photo by Michael Shroyer/Getty Images
But Virginia also carries a more dubious distinction because they just lost what is, to date, the most gutting loss of this college football season. There aren’t really any close seconds either because of the mix of buildup, fair expectations, history, and depressing payoff at the end.
Ohio State losing to Purdue was bad, but even the best teams lose a game. Some teams got knocked out of the Playoff in tight losses, but that happens to lots of teams every year. Other teams lost to their rivals, but how many of them did so after coughing up likely victory multiple times in regulation and then in overtime, all to extend two streaks that go back before current recruits were aware of sports?
It had been 14 years since Virginia’s beaten Virginia Tech.
They’ve gotten close, but this one had to feel different. Not only wa Virginia looking like it’s on the ascent under Bronco Mendenhall, but it certainly looked like Virginia Tech was on the descent under Justin Fuente. This was one of those “if you can’t beat this Hokie team ...” type of games. Virginia was a 3.5-point favorite on the road in Blacksburg.
These games usually aren’t even close. UVA’s stayed within one score four times in this 14-game slide. It’s lost by three scores or more six times and didn’t score a point in 2017, even as it held Tech to its lowest output during the streak: 10.
It would’ve been more than fair to expect Virginia to win this game. Not only was the rivalry streak about to end, Virginia was also about to snap Virginia Tech’s 25-year bowl streak.
But VT battled back to force overtime. UVa held VT to a field goal in the top of the first overtime, looking set to finally pull it off, and then this happened.
A fumble on UVa’s first offensive play in the extra session ended things. Our Virginia blog, Streaking The Lawn, summed things up perfectly.
15 straight. The Sports Gods owed us and gave us nothing but hope before ripping our hearts out again.
Because boy, did those Sports Gods owe our friends in Charlottesville something.
Eight months earlier, Virginia’s men’s basketball team became the first 1 seed to ever lose to a 16.
It was a gutting performance as UMBC never blinked in the face of a team many had penciled in as their national championship pick. It is another in the history of Virginia sports teams coming up woefully short in big-time spots when it was reasonable to assume they’d pull it out.
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