By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE — For years, Thursday night football generally meant one thing: a college game on ESPN. Since the NFL expanded its schedule to include Thursday night games, college football has more competition for viewers, but the ESPN showcase is still special for those involved.
“I think it’s always fun to be able to play on a national stage and be one of the only games on TV that day,” Virginia safety Antonio Clary said after practice Monday. “Prime time TV: You can’t ask for anything better.”
With its 30-28 win over ACC foe Miami at Hard Rock Stadium last season, UVA improved its record in ESPN’s Thursday night games to 7-6. The Cavaliers are back on that stage this week. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Virginia (2-4, 0-3) meets Coastal Division rival Georgia Tech (3-3, 2-1) at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta.
Clary said he tunes into ESPN most Thursday nights.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I love football. Football is everything to me. So if I’m not doing schoolwork, I’m watching football, I’m doing something football. I even watch NFL [on Thursday nights]. I watch Thursday, and then I get ready for college games on Friday.”
Virginia, which is in its first season under coach Tony Elliott, has dropped three straight games since rallying to defeat visiting Old Dominion at Scott Stadium on Sept. 17. The Wahoos had this past weekend off, and the break, they believe, came at an opportune time.
“I think middle of the season is always a great time to have a bye week,” Clary said, “because you get to reflect on the first half of the season and then get everybody healthy for the second half.”
Chico Bennett Jr., who plays the Bandit, a hybrid position in the front six of UVA’s defense, echoed his teammate.
“It was a good reflection point, because we’re at the turning point in the season,” Bennett said Monday. “We’ve got six more [regular-season] games left. The goal is to get to seven, get to [a bowl game] So I think we’re at a good point right now. I think guys took a step back to understand that we’ve still got time left. We can win the rest of the games that we’ve got left, there’s no doubt in my mind. Nobody scares us who we’ve got left, and we’ve just got to go out there and show what we can do.”
At his weekly press conference, Elliott said Monday at John Paul Jones Arena that the bye week helped his team get healthier, “because we had a…