All the old, stuffed shirt Virginia alumni with grey streaks in their perfectly coiffed hair and aristocratic smirks upon their tanned faces who returned to their alma mater for Homecoming sat in an impressive blue and orange horseshoe in Scott Stadium.
However, without question, the most attractive part of the facility is the open end of the horseshoe on the north side. There, present students, donning fleeces and ties or cute summer dresses, cram together on a perfectly green hill to chat, flirt, and almost incidentally, catch a little football.
While the alumni remain the loudest Wahoo supporters, the student section bristles with more life.
So, it would make sense that last Saturday, the defining moment of the Cavaliers' matchup against Duke did not occur on the 50-yard line or in the south endzone, but right in front of them. Actually, the mass of well-groomed pupils framed the play perfectly, melting into the background, giving Billy McMullen's catch the sense of drama and motion that it deserved.
However, to call it a catch would be unfair to McMullen. It was more of an extraction.
After two failed attempts at the endzone from within Duke's five-yard line, Bryson Spinner saw his designed third-and-goal play go haywire just moments after receiving the snap. Rolling left, against his body, he saw his primary target
Stanford, jumping while backpedalling to eliminate the distance between him and his assignment, felt the pigskin smoothly glide across his fingertips, and just when he thought he could bat it down or bring it in for an interception, McMullen soared above him and ripped it from his helpless grasp.
"I won the battle there," McMullen later remarked, as if there were any doubt. "I had seen him jump, and I jumped over him just a little higher."
And that was that--Duke, for having lost 31-10, did not play a terrible game. Sure, it ran up the penalties again and blew a first-half two-minute drill, but proportionally to its talent level, it did not tank this one like it did against Northwestern.
Also, Virginia's football was far from perfect. An interception, 110 yards worth of penalties and a continuing quarterback controversy will stew in Al Groh's mind for the rest of the week despite the victory.
The two teams even had the same number of first downs, almost identical times of possession and the same number of turnovers.
But, it just did not matter because the story of the game was this: Billy McMullen is a 6-foot-4, 205-pound junior
The entire Virginia team, because of its equivalent of a seven-inch, 30-pound advantage over its counterparts, could simply bully the Blue Devils around when its needed to.
With this monstrous physical edge, Virginia dominated in the trenches.
The Cavalier defensive line bowled over the Duke blockers all too often in recording four sacks and dropping Chris Douglas for a couple losses. Virginia played so strong up front that at the end of the first quarter, Douglas netted only six yards on four carries, even though he ran for 13 on one of them.
On the other side, Duke could hardly penetrate against Virginia's bruisers.
"They have some big, strong guys up there," Duke linebacker Jamyon Small frustratingly conceded. "This is definitely one of the biggest offensive lines that we have played."
And of course, McMullen used his size to toy with the shorter Stanford.
"Kenny's not the tallest guy in the world and McMullen is [sic]," coach Carl Franks said about the game's most memorable moment, although he could have replaced the player's names with the different programs. "Kenny went up and just couldn't get [enough of] his hand on the ball or McMullen's arms to try to stop him."
No, he could not, and the ties and summer dresses, young and old alike, loved it.
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