Virginia Commences 124th Season of Football Saturday against BYU

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Aug 26, 2013

Virginia Opens 124th Season of Football
• The University of Virginia commences its 124th season of football Saturday against BYU.
• UVa will be playing its 83rd season in Scott Stadium, which opened Oct. 15, 1931, against VMI.
• UVa is 79-35-9 (.679) all-time in season openers.
• The Cavaliers are 73-19-7 (.773) in home season openers and have won 16 of their last 19 openers in Scott Stadium.
• In his career as a head coach, Mike London has won all five of his season-openers: 2008 at Elon and 2009 at Duke while at Richmond and 2010 vs. Richmond , 2011 vs. William & Mary and 2012 vs. Richmond while at Virginia.
• With a win over BYU, Mike London will become the first UVa head coach to win a season-opening game in each of his first four years at the helm of the Cavaliers.
• In addition to London, Rice Warren (1913, 1920-21) is the only other UVa head coach to win the season openers in his first three years at Virginia.

Virginia vs. BYU
• Virginia owns a 2-1 edge in the all-time series with BYU, which dates back to the 1987 All American Bowl in Birmingham, Ala. The last two games between these two programs were part of a home-and-home series in 1999 (Provo) and 2000 (Charlottesville).
• The last meeting (Sept. 2, 2000) opened up the 2000 season and was the dedication game at the newly expanded Carl Smith Center, home of David A. Harrison III Field at Scott Stadium. BYU won in overtime, 38-35.
• The 2000 meeting featured two coaching greats – Virginia’s George Welsh and BYU’s LaVell Edwards, who amassed 446 career head coaching wins between the two of them. Ironically each man retired from coaching following the 2000 season. Entering 2013 season, Welsh’s 189 career victories place him No. 30 all-time at the FBS level and Edwards’ 257 wins place him No. 7 all-time.
• BYU is the first Independent team UVa has faced since hosting Navy on Sept. 10, 1994.
• BYU was in the WAC when these programs first met in the 1987 All American Bowl and the Mountain West Conference during the 1999 and 2000 meetings.
• Virginia returns the trip to Provo next season (Sept. 20, 2014). UVa and BYU also have two more meetings scheduled: Sept. 7, 2019 (Charlottesville) and Sept. 19, 2020 (Provo).

Notables from the BYU Series
• The 1987 All American Bowl was billed as a high scoring, offensive shootout between Virginia QB Scott Secules, the ACC’s top-rated passer, and BYU’s Sean Covey. Instead the Cavaliers relied on a conservative run-oriented attack and several big defensive stands to defeat pass-happy BYU, 22-16, at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala.
• BYU’s Covey threw for 394 yards on 37-of-61 passing with one INT and one TD, while Secules was 10-of-19 for 162 yards and one TD pass. Secules rushed for another score.
• In the 1999 trip, UVa’s first to Provo, Utah, the Cavaliers outran No. 17 BYU 45-40 behind 210 rushing yards and two TDs by future NFL standout Thomas Jones.
• Dan Ellis threw for 190 yards and three TDs as UVa jumped out to a 21-0 first quarter lead.
• BYU made the game interesting with the game’s only score of the fourth quarter when an errant 19-yard pass by BYU QB Kevin Feterik caromed off a UVa defender in the end zone and into the hands of Carlos Nuno for a TD with 10:54 to play. Feterik was later intercepted on a fourth-and-goal pass by UVa safety Jerton Evans with 1:37 left to preserve the victory.
• Owen Pochman’s 26-yard field goal in overtime lifted BYU to a 38-35 win over UVa in the most recent meeting, in Charlottesville to kickoff the 2000 season.
• BYU rallied from 21-0 deficit at halftime to force overtime. BYU’s Bret Engemann was 34-of-41 for 447 passing yards. He completed two TD passes in the final 8:11 of the second half, including a six-yard scoring strike to WR Margin Hooks with 50 seconds remaining to erase a 14-point fourth-quarter Cavalier lead.
• Antwoine Womack led UVa on the ground with 15 rushes for 160 yards and two touchdowns.

Virginia In the Month of August
• UVa’s 2013 season-opening game with BYU on Aug. 31 marks the seventh game in Virginia football history to be played in the month of August and the first since 2008’s season-opening loss to USC.
• Virginia is 1-5 all-time in the month of August and 1-2 at Scott Stadium.
• UVa faced Notre Dame in 1989, Wisconsin in 2001, Colorado State & Florida State in 2002, Duke in 2003 and USC in 2008.

BYU Connections
• UVa offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild knows BYU well, facing the Cougars as the quarterback at Colorado State from 1978-80. Fairchild was a second-team All-WAC quarterback in 1980 behind BYU’s Jim McMahon.
• Fairchild also faced BYU 15 times during his coaching stops at Colorado State, New Mexico and San Diego State.
• UVa associate head coach for offense and tight ends coach Tom O’Brien first faced BYU as a collegiate coach in the Inaugural Holiday Bowl in 1978 when he was at Navy as the offensive tackles and tight end coach. It was O’Brien’s first bowl game as a collegiate coach. Navy won 23-16.
• O’Brien was also part of the UVa staff during the 1987 All American Bowl as the offensive line coach. O’Brien defeated BYU in 2005 and 2006 as the head coach at Boston College.
• UVa offensive line coach Scott Wachenheim faced BYU while playing on the offensive line at the Air Force Academy.
• Wachenheim also faced BYU six times during his coaching stops at Air Force, Rice and Utah State.
• UVa special teams coordinator and running backs coach Larry Lewis has faced BYU five times as a collegiate coach during stops at Colorado State and Washington State.

Schools Bound for the East: UVa Hosts BYU and Oregon
• BYU and Oregon visit Scott Stadium in consecutive weeks to open the 2013 season for the Virginia Cavaliers.
• It is the first time in UVa program history that two different schools west of the Mississippi River have come to Charlottesville to face Virginia in the same season.
• In fact, BYU and Oregon’s trips to Scott Stadium only mark the 11th and 12th time in UVa program history that the Cavaliers have hosted a team from west of the Mississippi River.
• Teams that have visited Charlottesville from the West are: BYU (2000, 2013), Colorado State (2002), Idaho (2011), Kansas (1991), Louisiana Tech (2012), Oregon (2013), San Jose State (1998), Texas (1996), TCU (2009) USC (2008) and Wyoming (2006).
• UVa is 5-5 against teams from west of the Mississippi River when the game is played in Charlottesville.
• Including 2013, UVa has hosted a team from west of the Mississippi River in six of the past eight seasons after hosting only five in the first 116 years of the program.
• The combined round trip miles for BYU and Oregon to travel to Charlottesville and back is 9,148 miles.
• More teams from west of the Mississippi River are secheduled to come to Charlottesville in the future: UCLA (2014), Boise State (2015), Stanford (2017) and BYU (2019). UVa will return each trip the subsequent season.