They went 2-10 and you went 3-9 but look at who they lost to and how those teams did in their schedules. Did they play and lose to good teams who in turn played other good teams and fared well? Yes. UVA played 11 bowl teams last year and iirc 9 of the 11 won their bowl games. Their SOS was the 35th toughest according to Sagarin.

On your schedule you were playing and losing to teams like USF (2-10), Towson St (an FCS team), or struggling to beat 2-10 Temple. Those teams and others on your schedule like Buffalo, etc were playing a lot of lightweights and struggling in many cases.

Connecticut is going through a rebuilding and with a brand new coaching staff, new offensive and defensive schemes, etc, it will take some time before they're competitive again. The Huskies were ranked 121st according to Sagarin and it will take some time to work all of the old coach's players out of the system and get some better players in.

Otoh, UVA has recruited really well and their last 3 recruiting classes are ranked 39th, 28th and 24th while UConn has gone 60th, 65th and 81st those same years. UVA has some really high caliber athletes on both sides of the ball including some 5 star top 100 kids. They would be a lot better if they had an average QB.