Virginia comfortably put down South Carolina in the Belk Bowl on Saturday in Charlotte, 28-0. In notching their first bowl win since the 2005 Music City Bowl, the Hoos finished 8-5.
UVA shutting out South Carolina in the Belk is one of bowl season’s most eye-catching results
As narrow underdogs, the Hoos played a tremendous game.
Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports
The excellent finish for Bronco Mendenhall’s team doubled as an ugly finish for the Gamecocks, who were uncharacteristically horrible. The Gamecocks got shut out for the first time since 2006 (against Georgia) and became the second shutout victim in Belk Bowl history, after NC State beat USF 14-0 in 2005.
The game played out somewhat closely, at least given the final score. The Cocks had three second-half drives end in UVA territory, two on interceptions and one on downs from the Hoos’ 11-yard line. Every time South Carolina threatened to score, the drive fizzled out. And Virginia controlled the ball for an incredible 42:35 of clock time.
Virginia not being quite as dominant as the score suggests doesn’t do anything to lessen the surprise of a margin like this one.
UVA was a slight but firm underdog: 3.5 points or so at most sportsbooks, 3 points according to the game’s S&P+ projection.
The Hoos had not beaten a Power 5 opponent since October 27, when they beat a North Carolina that finished with two wins and fired Larry Fedora. That win moved them to 6-2 overall and had them looking like the favorite to win the ACC Coastal.
But they lost at home the next week to Pitt and, after beating Liberty, closed the regular season with losses to Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech. The VT loss was arguably the most gutting of the season for any team, as UVA blew a late lead and missed its best shot in years to beat the rival that has now beaten it 15 times in a row.
Nobody mistakes Will Muschamp’s Gamecocks for a juggernaut, but they’ve been downright solid for two years now. They closed last season by coming back to beat Michigan in the Outback Bowl, and all five of their regular-season losses in 2018 came to ranked teams: Georgia, Kentucky, Texas A&M, Florida, and Clemson.
There was no precedent for 2018 South Carolina to lose like this to a team like Virginia, and the Hoos’ recent play hadn’t inspired confidence this would be the time.
Despite the late disappointment in the regular season, the Belk Bowl win wraps Virginia’s best football season in ... a while.
Whether this season is better than the other eight- and nine-win years the Hoos have had this century comes down to what you care about. The best team the program’s had recently was probably 2007’s, which featured a 9-4 record and a Gator Bowl loss. 2011’s team went 8-4 in the regular season but lost the Chick-fil-A Bowl after that.
It’s definitely Virginia’s best season in seven years, and you could argue it’s the program’s best in longer than that. UVA’s won either eight or nine games six times since 2002, and the 2018 season feels firmly in the upper half of those years, given this bowl result.
Maybe more excitingly, the Hoos only had seven seniors among their offensive and defensive starters on their Belk two-deep. The program should return a bunch of good players next year, perhaps including junior quarterback Bryce Perkins. Mendenhall’s good year in 2018 could give way to another in 2019.
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