At the end of the 2007 season, one marked by unexpected success and close victories, Virginia got on its James Brown ish with the big payback, collapsing completely in the fourth quarter against Texas Tech and losing their first New Year's day bowl in god knows how long.

As a result, the Grohs spent much of the offseason studying Mike Leach, hoping to implement their spread offense with the current roster of inexperienced QB's, slow WR's and a nearly completely new offensive line. Which worked grandly against teams like UConn, USC and Duke. But after getting Cedric Peerman back, Virginia reeled off four straight victories and found themselves atop the ACC Coastal in a year when Miami and Virginia Tech were conceivably "down." All this covering up the fact that despite producing some of the best kickers in recent college history and hosting one of the nation's proudest soccer teams, Virginia's kicker had not attempted a field goal of any kind at any level until this year.

Clearly, with a team that plays as many close games as this one, this wouldn't come back to haunt them, right?

UVA Could've Learned A Little More From Texas Tech originally appeared on Fanhouse NCAA Football Blog on Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:48:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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