Editor’s Note: The Cavaliers wrapped up their season this past weekend and, as is our custom, it’s time to start looking back. There are plenty of ways we’ll do that but we start our offseason series with a breakdown of how expectations compared to reality. We’ll do that via our final update to our prop bets from the preseason prediction episode of the CavsCorner Podcast.

Virginia wrapped up the season on Saturday night with a disappointing 33-15 loss in Blacksburg, before officially opting out of the postseason the next day. The Cavaliers finished a year filled with turmoil and frustration with a 5-5 record, with one game removed from the slate, a contest that UVa was a double-digit favorite to win on game day. The season went about as oddsmakers expected it would and certainly had plenty of highs and lows.

Before each season, our podcast crew picks each game and then does a series of prop bets as we try to guess what sort of season the team and individual players will have. The questions, over/under lines, and our guesses give a lot of insight into what we were expecting from Virginia this season and the results of those bets tell us even more about how the season differed from our expectations.

In this article, we take a look back at a few interesting prop bets we tried to guess back in early September and try to figure out what the results say about the year that UVa football had in 2020.

Brad, Dave, and Justin: Wayne Taulapapa

The Result: Keytaon Thompson and Tony Poljan tied for the team lead with six touchdowns each.

We were all aboard the Wayne Train heading into the season after he led the Wahoos in touchdowns last season with 12. Taulapapa was a goal-line favorite in 2019 year, but didn’t get as many short-yardage scores this year. He finished with five touchdowns, which tied him with Brennan Armstrong (TD passes don’t count towards this total) and the surprising Lavel Davis Jr. But the Cavaliers were paced in scores by Poljan and Thompson, who each scored in Blacksburg to finish with a team-high six touchdowns. Poljan doesn’t come as a huge surprise and was a favorite red zone target for Armstrong. Thompson is a bit of a surprise but ended up having a solid season in a unique role. His shoulder injury before the season kept him from playing much QB but Thompson scored four rushing touchdowns and caught a pair of scores in his first season in Charlottesville. He has a year of eligibility left and could be a huge asset to the Wahoos in 2021.

Dave and Justin: Under

Brad: Over

The Result: Jana recorded 36 receptions on the season

Safe to say we were way off with this line. Jana had a breakout season in 2019, finishing with 74 catches and three touchdowns playing alongside Hasise Dubois and Joe Reed. And despite coming into the season as UVa’s No. 1 receiver, he never really had a breakout moment. He was solid as always but his lack of production also speaks to the breakout season that Billy Kemp (67 receptions) had as well as Davis, who became a big-play threat and a top red zone target. The senior wideout had a nine-catch, 111-yard game against NC State working with former high-school teammate Lindell Stone but he and Armstrong never really had a big performance together. Over Virginia’s final three games, Jana had just five catches for 38 yards. He had a solid if not unspectacular Cavalier career and was a steady presence on offense for the last two seasons.

Dave and Justin: Olu Oluwatimi

Brad: Zane Zandier

The Result: Chris Glaser led the team in snaps played with 733.

Oluwatimi was a solid guess, as the mainstay on Virginia’s offensive line in 2019. But Glaser having the highest snap total spoke to the consistency and effectiveness of the offensive line that UVa ultimately settled on. He played the most snaps, and Virginia’s other offensive linemen, including Oluwatimi, were right behind him. Zandier was a solid guess as well, as he led the defense in snaps played this season.

Justin: 7

Brad: 7.5

Dave: 9

The Result: Taylor finished the season with just three sacks

Virginia’s havoc was up-and-down throughout the season, including a pair of games where the defense recorded no sacks at all. Taylor never really got going and, despite another good season, statistically didn’t measure up to our expectations. He averaged one sack in every three contests played and had just a half sack in Virginia’s final six games. Hopefully next year Taylor can get that number back up to where it was in 2019, when he finished with seven sacks in 14 games.

Justin: 412

Brad: 550

Dave: 612

The Result: Armstrong rushed for 552 yards

Brad hit this one right on the money, despite Armstrong missing a pair of games. UVa’s offense was heavy on QB runs in the back half of the season and Armstrong had plenty of opportunities to showcase his abilities. He ended up leading the team in rushing and averaged 4.4 yards per carry. That’s better than a yard more than Bryce Perkins averaged last season. And Armstrong put up his yardage on 101 fewer carries than Perkins had last year when he finished with 769 yards.

Brad and Justin: Under

Dave: Over

The Result: This one went over, with UVa scoring 30.7 points per game

Some of our O/U lines weren’t great but this one was spot on. In the first half of the season averaging under 30.5 points per game looked like a lock. But a late rally put UVa over 32 points per contest before a lackluster effort in Blacksburg brought the Cavaliers down towards the line. This was the exact same line that we used the year before, when the Wahoos scored 32.1 points per contest, again with a significant improvement coming in the back half of the season. So in this area, the offense was right where we expected it to be, and considering UVa had just one non-ACC opponent 30.7 points per game is probably just as impressive as 32.1 in 2019 with games against Liberty, ODU, and William & Mary on the slate.

Brad, Dave, Justin: Snowden TFLs

The Result: Armstrong had the higher number, with 11 INTs to 10 TFLs for Snowden

This result tells us two things. First, it speaks to the season Snowden had, including his unfortunate injury. The senior edge rusher had a really slow start, with just one tackle for loss and no sacks in Virginia’s first four games. That all changed at Miami, when Snowden had a breakout game with 3.5 TFLs and a sack. He followed that up the following week with a four-sack effort against UNC. But unfortunately, Snowden went down a few weeks later and wasn’t available for the stretch run. This result also shows that Armstrong wasn’t quite as sound with his decision making as we hoped he might be. His 11 picks came in just over eight games played, which is something that he can certainly improve on next year.

Justin: +2

Dave: +3

Brad: +5

The Result: Virginia finished with a -1 turnover margin

Speaking of turnovers, UVa didn’t do enough damage in this area to have a great season. In 2018, the Cavaliers had a +2 turnover margin, and last year they finished -1 in that department. They had a turnover roller coaster this year, with a +4 margin after the opener against Duke but by the time they hosted UNC with a 1-4 record, the Wahoos had a -4 margin, with a negative margin in each of their four straight losses. UVa finished with a positive margin in each of their four consecutive wins that followed, before a -1 margin on Saturday in Blacksburg. And that says it all, doesn’t it? In Virginia’s five wins, it won the turnover margin in each contest and finished +9 in those games. And in the five losses, including Saturday’s disappointment at VT, the Cavaliers had fewer takeaways than they had giveaways, finishing at -10.

Brad, Dave, and Justin: Under

The Result: The under hit, with just one win over a ranked opponent in three tries

At the time this line was set, the Virginia schedule featured a bunch of ranked teams. The B1G and PAC-12 had put football on hold, so voters filled in the poll with teams from the other three leagues, including the ACC. Before the season, the schedule featured games against ranked Clemson, Miami, Louisville, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech. But by the time those games rolled around, only Clemson, Miami, and UNC were in the Associated Press Top 25. The upset win over UNC was UVa’s only win over a ranked team, and it proved to be a pivotal moment in the season. That win was the first of four straight, helping the Cavaliers erase a rough 1-4 start to the season.

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