Anyone who has paid even the slightest bit of attention to what gets written in this space knows me to be someone who believes that two things can be true at the same time. In terms of UVa’s 28-17 win over Old Dominion, that was once again the case.

It’s true that not that long ago, the now 18th-ranked Cavaliers (4-0, 2-0 ACC) would have been on the other end of things Saturday night. The 28-unanswered points that allowed Virginia to overcome its largest deficit since trailing UNC 21-0 at the half 17 years ago, they wouldn’t have happened. The defense wouldn’t have gotten stop after stop after stop and held the Monarchs to just 46 second-half yards.

No, we’ve seen UVa teams of the recent past lose games like this where the Hoos were big favorites only to suffer a humiliating defeat.

So, yes, it’s true that UVa showed something different in how it handled this particular letdown. Dealing with the reality of the situation, which I’m about to spell out, coming off a win is much, much easier especially when you’re undefeated through four games for the first in a decade and a half.

But unfortunately, it’s also true that Virginia’s offensive showing—and defensive first half—was dreadful, listless, and concerning.

Listen, I don’t mean this as any disrespect to Old Dominion. Credit to them for coming off that loss to Virginia Tech and then emerging from the bye week focused on pulling off this upset, boasting a gameplan that very nearly worked. The Monarchs were the better team for a good part of this game and they played with passion and executed with an edge.

Still, there’s absolutely no reason that Virginia should’ve been in a 17-0 hole. Unless perhaps there is.

The Cavaliers have now played four games and the offensive line remains a work in progress, and that’s putting it mildly. There are moments and stretches where things are working well, like in the fourth quarter last week against Florida State. But overall, it’s been a fledgling unit. With their backup quarterback in a walking boot, the Hoos also put Bryce Perkins in some really rough spots. And even when he went down and had to miss a play after being helped up off the turf, the next snap he took—leading 28-17 late—he still got drilled.

Perhaps UVa’s offensive coaches expected the line to be better than it was, thereby nullifying a gameplan that was built on the Cavaliers being able to run the ball early and often. If that’s the case then they need not make that mistake again. Sure, ODU was ready for the fight in the trenches but UVa’s offensive plan was misguided at best and woefully tone deaf at worst. It’s not as simple as this of course but the offense simply can’t be “Bryce Perkins will save us.” There has to be more there and even if they wanted to go vanilla in this game, it can’t be that vanilla.

“I’m really not sure," Bronco Mendenhall said when asked about the offense's slow start. "I looked for signs all week, so it caught me off guard. I didn’t see signs during the week that indicated that our engine might not be on. The looks that we saw tonight in game were the exact same looks that we practiced against so even though ODU had a bye it wasn’t now some radically new plan that we saw. Our preparation was in relation to what they did. Obviously, we just didn’t execute it with the urgency and precision that we needed to. That’s to their credit as well.”

"It has to be a contributor," he said of the hangover from the emotional win over FSU. "I don’t have any other excuse, nor will I make any."

Luckily, Charles Snowden and Jordan Mack were not about that upset life, and they had a magnificent game. Snowden put up a career-high 15 tackles (3.5 for loss) along with a sack on the way to being the national defensive player of the week while Mack posted nine tackles and a sack.

UVa’s D had some iffy moments in the first half but got the thing pointed in the right direction to maximum effect in the second half. It’s one thing to hold an opponent to less than 50 yards in a half. But they also put a TD of their own on the board thanks to a Zane Zandier pick-6.

The elephant in this (padded) room, of course, is that had Old Dominion not gone for it on a 4th and short at its own 29-yard line up 17-14 with like 11 minutes to go, we might be having an even harder conversation.

“We told the team coming into this, being four-touchdown underdogs, that we were going for it,” coach Bobby Wilder said Saturday night. “In the first half we go for it 4th and 1, a great call by our offense. We hit (Matt) Geiger for a 47-yard touchdown to put us up 17-0. If we punt it there it would have put us up 10-0.

“We were aggressive,” he added, “and then up 17-14 with 10 minutes to go we had fourth and less than a yard…We were going to jet sweep motion, which was causing them to widen the perimeter, and run the quarterback and their D-tackle made a heck of a play. We came here to win and that is how we tried to play today.”

With respect to Wilder, getting that first down doesn’t win ODU the game but it sure does put the Monarchs in a spot to lose it. Given the way their defense was playing—or more accurately, how poor UVa’s offense was—it makes sense to be aggressive. But the Cavaliers for the first time all night seized the momentum, scoring two plays after Joey Blount got the tackle on QB Stone Smartt to force the turnover on downs.

So, yes, UVa made plays to win the game. That’s true. But the Cavaliers also made a lot of other plays and mistakes therein that nearly cost them.

“I think we just took ODU lightly and we didn’t prepare as though we were playing some huge thing,” offensive lineman Dillon Reinkensmeyer (who started at tackle but ended up playing center for a good part of the night as well) admitted. “We were beating ourselves. We just weren’t focused, weren’t locked in enough and things like that.”

When a growing program is maturing, these are the kinds of games where you’re forced to do things differently. It’s easy to get up and lock in on an opponent like the next one on UVa’s schedule. To this point, Virginia has shown itself to be a team that largely knows its identity and plays that way across four quarters.

Time will tell if Saturday night was a bell tolling rougher times ahead or merely an echo of what was once there but no longer remains.

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