But even the week after the ODU game, when we beat Duke on the road, a lot of people attributed the ODU game to a series of flukes, such as the ECU game's cancellation, JJ getting injured, and a young secondary facing an unfamiliar quarterback. We know now that wasn't the case.

I guess my point is that there were a lot of warning signs that we weren't playing good football well before then. If you look at the games which preceeded the ODU game

1.) @ Miami, as stated above. They were straight better than us.
2.) @ Georgia Tech. We should've won, but Fuente went for a 4th Down when he should've kicked a ship shot FG. He also inexplicably went for a 2-point conversion in the first half which meant we were chasing points.
3.) Pitt. Thankfully Reggie Floyd chased down the Pitt receiver or we likely would have lost.
4.) @ UVa. The offense was atrocious, but the D lived up to its former glory
5.) vs. OSU. We didn't play poorly by any means, but not good enough to win.
6.) @ FSU. Obviously we thought this was a program defining win for Fuente at the time. Little did we know that this was the worst FSU team since the 1970s.
7.) W&M. They were 4-6 in Jimmye Laycock's

I post that to say that we did not play any games well between Miami in 2017 and ODU in 2018, with the win at UVa probably the most impressive in retrospect.