The excuse has morphed from a crutch to a wheelchair for UVA fans. This is a nice convenient excuse that allows them to simultaneously insult other schools.

UVA football is bad because they had ~14 years of having poor program managers for head coaches. That job demands many different skills outside of football - not many people are cut-out for it. Their athletic department made poor choices and then kept those individuals (Groh and London) on the payroll too long.

If you talk to any journalist that covers ACC football closely, there are only two programs in the conference that are a bit picky with football player academics - Duke and Georgia Tech. Everyone else is pretty much the same.