In the first week of August, the ACC finally released a full football schedule for its 15 teams. So many of the assertions upon first viewing, of course, changed dramatically by the time those dates finally arrived.

UVa didn’t open its season against VMI as planned. The Cavaliers wouldn’t get Tech on September 19th, either. And even when the league moved the Duke game up a little less than two months, it still left Virginia opening its season weeks late.

The switching wasn’t done there, of course. The Wahoos added Abilene Christian for November 21st, which would have given them 10 straight games had the Duke not been moved from this weekend to the end of September.

But now with Louisville dealing COVID-19 issues that caused the Cards to shut things down for a few days, the Hoos have lost their “true” bye week.

Instead of playing two days ago and then getting some time off, a mid-week change gave them the oddest bye week in school history.

And it was just another change for a team that went into this new dose of weirdness playing its best ball of the season.

To be clear, there are a number of potential positives that could come with the off week coming earlier even if Bronco Mendenhall and his staff weren’t able to full capitalize on the time off and utilize it as desired. There are a number of players who have experienced recent injuries, namely QB Brennan Armstrong, who got dinged up at the end the UNC win, and safeties Joey Blount and Brenton Nelson, who haven’t played since the game at Wake Forest. Not playing this past weekend could very well help them all, in addition to several others, as UVa goes forward.

Another potential positive for the Hoos is that the lack of “planned” utilization means they actually got more practice time, which could lead to them “returning” to the field on Saturday afternoon without too much rust.

But there are also potential negatives, like UVa losing the chance to more thoroughly self scout and making any meaningful changes. Bye weeks are also typically a time when a team rests some players, allowing others to get on-field reps they wouldn’t typically get.

If Louisville is able to play this weekend as scheduled—reports on Sunday were that all available players/staff tested negative as the program restarted activities—then UVa heads into an intriguing home stretch.

After hosting the Cards, the Cavaliers get Abilene Christian before a trip to Florida State, which lost 41-17 to Pitt this weekend to push its record to 2-5 (1-5 ACC). Get a win in Tallahassee and UVa would be in a pretty interesting spot as it returns home for a matchup with Boston College (currently 5-3 with a 4-3 ACC record) before heading to Blacksburg to close things out in December.

At 3-4, the Wahoos have a real chance to go on a run and make more out of this season than most would have assumed a couple of weeks ago.

That push starts this Saturday, even if it that—much like so much of 2020—wasn’t in the original plan.

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