For a full year, Anthony Martinez’s head was spinning.
The transition from high school to college is tricky for any football player,
especially a quarterback, but in Martinez’s case it was even more difficult
than usual. After all, at Patrick Henry High near Richmond, he ran a simple,
straightforward offense. Few formations. Almost no audibles.
He did it well, throwing for more than 5,000 career yards and leading his team
to the state championship game as a senior. But when he arrived at Virginia
last year, he found he was woefully unprepared for the complexity of the
offense and the mental gymnastics required of a Cavalier quarterback.
“It was tough,” Martinez said this week. “When you first get here, you have so
much to learn, it can be kind of overwhelming.”
Physically, he was ready. At 6-foot-3 and about 250 pounds, Martinez has a
sturdy body and a powerful right arm. (He threw 94-mph fastballs as a high
school pitcher.) Mentally, he needed a year to absorb UVa’s offense, so he
redshirted last season.
Is he ready now? That remains to be seen, but Martinez and the Cavalier
coaches are trying to make sure he is. With last year’s backup quarterback,
Marques Hagans, now a full-time receiver, Martinez is the No. 2 QB behind
senior Matt Schaub, the 2002 ACC player of the year.
“We always tell them, you’ve gotta have two quarterbacks to win a
championship,” said quarterbacks coach Mike Groh. “I’m very pleased with
Anthony’s progress. He’s matured a lot. He has a better grasp of the system.
He’s more accurate. He’s making better decisions. He’s making plays in every
practice.
“We’re excited about Anthony. He’s a big, strong-armed kid who can really
throw the ball. He didn’t come from a sophisticated offense in high school, so
it’s remarkable how far he’s come in a year.”
Less than two weeks into training camp, UVa head coach Al Groh says Martinez
may be the team’s most improved player.
“The game has slowed down for him,” Groh said. “For a quarterback, everything
seems to be moving so fast when you come to college. Then, slowly but surely,
things begin to slow down. Now things have slowed down to a more manageable
pace for him.”
Martinez spent much of his free time in the offseason studying Virginia’s
playbook and watching game film. He credits Mike Groh and former offensive
coordinator Bill Musgrave with teaching him how to become a successful college
quarterback.
For now, Martinez is clearly ahead of third-string quarterback Kevin McCabe, a
true freshman making his own adjustment to college ball. The two likely will
compete for the starting job next year, and Martinez may be called upon this
season should anything happen to Schaub.
“This summer I worked hard in the weight room, looking at tape, just getting
myself prepared to play,” Martinez said. “I had no choice but to get myself
ready. I’m just one play from getting in the game now. That’s a lot of
motivation.”
Note. Sophomore safety Willie Davis has been moved up to the first-team
defense, replacing junior Jay Dorsey.
“This is a kid who looks like the light’s coming on,” Groh said of Davis.
“He’s starting to get it. He’s got big-time ability.”
Last year the Virginia football team went through its training camp
with four talented tailbacks, all of whom were young (two freshmen and two
sophomores) and none of whom had a clear advantage over the others.
The same cast of characters is around now, but there is one significant
difference: Wali Lundy is the man.
UVa coach Al Groh said that Lundy earned his status as the team’s No. 1
tailback last December, when he scored four touchdowns in the Continental Tire
Bowl, and has remained the frontrunner with a strong spring and preseason.
“He’s bigger, he’s stronger. He has a better sense of how to run the plays
rather than just take [the ball] and run,” Groh said.
Lundy has been held out of practice this week after straining his left
hamstring on Monday, but he said he expects to return to the field soon.
As a true freshman, Lundy emerged from a pack that also included his slightly
more-heralded classmate, Michael Johnson, and current juniors Alvin Pearman
and Marquis Weeks.
Weeks started the 2002 season opener, but Lundy carried 20 times in that game
and ended up seeing considerably more action than the other three. He set an
ACC freshman record with 1,670 all-purpose yards — 826 rushing, 435 receiving
and 409 on kick returns — and led the team with 10 touchdowns.
Still, it took a while for Lundy to establish himself. He rushed for 31 yards
or fewer in seven of his first 11 games, scoring just three touchdowns. But in
the final three games, including the bowl, he rushed for 338 yards, totaled
140 receiving yards and scored seven times.
“I think I started playing better at the end of the season. That gave me a lot
of confidence,” Lundy said. “I learned what it took to be successful in
college football.”
Which was…?
“For me, a little of everything. It was adjusting to the speed of the game. It
was seeing the blocks better, knowing where the holes would be and hitting
them harder. It was learning how not to take unnecessary punishment.”
Groh said Johnson, Pearman and Weeks still will be able to compete for playing
time, but Lundy deserves to have an edge based on his production last season.
“That’s just to be fair to what this guy accomplished,” Groh said.
No switcheroo. Groh said he is not thinking about moving Johnson to another
position such as receiver or cornerback. “He’s a tailback,” the coach said.
Unlike Lundy, Johnson was a Parade All-American in high school, and he may be
Virginia’s fastest player. He got off to a good start last season, rushing for
37 yards on five carries in the opener. He also returned three punts for 61
yards before suffering a sprained ankle in the third game. The injury
sidelined him for four games and he saw little action the rest of the way.
Back at full strength, Johnson has added about 10 pounds of muscle since last
season and is running with more power.
“He’s 195 pounds — he’s not Eddie George but he’s Charlie Garner,” Groh said,
referring to two standout NFL tailbacks. “We don’t want to make him a power
player. He’s a speed player. But when he gets hemmed in, he needs enough power
to be able to break tackles and use his speed.”
Attention to detail. An article in the current issue of Sports Illustrated
describes Dallas Cowboys training camp under Bill Parcells. During every
practice, Parcells takes 12 minutes to discuss a specific game situation and
instructs each player and coach who might be involved how to handle it.
A long-time protégé of Parcells, Groh does something similar with the
Cavaliers. Friday’s lesson concerned the proper use of timeouts.
Groh got a kick out of the SI cover, which shows Parcells with a whistle
around his neck and an intense glare of apparent disapproval. “Did you see
that face?” Groh said. “I saw that face looking my way a few times.”
Extra points. Billy Schweitzer, a quarterback from Alexandria who was on Virginia’s team for three years without appearing in a game, has transferred to Division III Trinity University in Connecticut. … Exactly two weeks remain before UVa’s season opener at home against Duke. … Groh said it has still not been determined whether he or offensive coordinator Ron Prince will call the plays.
Making most of moment
"If Matt exceeds what he did last year, he's not just going to win the Heisman,"
Al Groh said. "They might just change the name of the place we're sitting."
By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES
The argument could be made that the defining moment of Matt Schaub's college
football career came when he lost his starting job prior to Virginia's second
game of the 2002 season.
"No," UVa coach Al Groh said at the ACC Football Kickoff. "The defining moment
was what he did after that."
You could go even further than that and point toward the December 2001 departure
of rival Bryson Spinner as a turning point, but Schaub doesn't get into turning
points or defining moments. Maybe that's why he keeps having them.
Things haven't been the same since Schaub replaced first-time starter Marques
Hagans in the third quarter against Florida State and completed 19 of 25 passes
for 247 yards and three touchdowns.
That didn't prevent the Cavaliers, who once trailed 33-0, from losing 40-19.
However, they won their next six games and tied for second in the ACC as Schaub
was named ACC player of the year.
Groh couldn't keep from laughing when a reporter asked if he could see Schaub
"exceeding" his 2002 performance.
"If Matt exceeds what he did last year, he's not just going to win the Heisman,"
Groh said at a meet-the-team function Thursday at Scott Stadium. "They might
just change the name of the place we're sitting."
Schaub was a model of efficiency in 2002, when he completed 68.9 percent of his
passes for 2,976 yards and 28 touchdowns, with just seven interceptions.
Heisman Trophy campaigns have been undertaken with lesser credentials, but most
preseason publications haven't even chosen Schaub as their All-ACC quarterback,
opting for North Carolina State's Philip Rivers.
"It's motivation," said Schaub, a fifth-year senior, "but, at the same time,
you've got to go out and play. It's like [Iowa's] Brad Banks last year. Who
thought he was going to go out and lead the country in passing?"
That's Schaub for you. Never too high, never too low. Some of that may come from
a childhood when he had to cope with five moves before the family settled in
Atlanta after his senior year in high school.
He was born in Pittsburgh and lived in Albany, N.Y.; Chicago; Detroit; and
Philadelphia, where he was a three-sport standout at West Chester (Pa.) East
High School.
"Playing ball helped him to make friends a lot quicker than other kids who might
have been moved around like that," said his father, Dale, an administrator with
Norfolk Southern since it absorbed his original employer, Conrail. "Sports was
like a magnet to draw other people near him."
There were few sports that Schaub couldn't play. In basketball, he scored more
than 1,000 points at West Chester East. In baseball, he was a pitcher and
shortstop. Dale Schaub said he was told by coaches that Matt could have played
either baseball or basketball at the Division I level.
When he plays golf, Schaub regularly shoots in the 80s. In high school, the
track coach asked him throw the javelin. He says he can hold his own on a tennis
court ("I'd have to see that," his father said), but admits that he can do
little more than stay afloat in a swimming pool.
"Hopefully, he isn't much of a skier either," said Groh, who lost offensive
lineman Mark Farrington to a mishap on the slopes last winter.
Matter of fact, Schaub isn't a skier. His father, a former basketball player at
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, coached his only son in basketball and
baseball but drew the line at skis and ice skates.
"It didn't seem to make much sense to risk a broken leg or broken ankle," Dale
Schaub said. "We didn't think that's where his future was."
Quarterbacks who are Schaub's size (6-foot-5, 240 pounds) are frequently
portrayed as unathletic, which is an unfair description in this case. Schaub may
not be an Olympic sprinter, but he is athletic.
Early emphasis on technique has made him something of a medical marvel.
"He's kind of a rubber-armed guy," Groh said. "That's a good thing about holding
training camp with him. As would be the norm with quarterbacks, I ask him
constantly how his arm feels: Does he need any ice or does he need a day off or
a practice off from throwing?
"I've never heard him say anything but, 'Hey, my arm feels great.' He'll be able
to get all the throws necessary to be ready. I kind of take my reading off of
him. When he tells me he's had enough throws or needs more throws, we'll
accommodate what he thinks."
Schaub's first coach at UVa, George Welsh, had similar impressions. In 1999,
Welsh made the decision to hold Schaub out of action and use fellow recruit
Bryson Spinner as the backup to starting quarterback Dan Ellis.
In hindsight, it was a wise move because Spinner left after the 2001 season and
Schaub is available for a fifth year.
"We went to Spinner as a backup because he was more mobile," Welsh said, "but
there wasn't any difference in them. Schaub had great potential. He was very
accurate. He had a nice release. He was very poised, very humble and willing to
work.
"The question was, and it showed up Al Groh's first year, 'Who do you play?
Spinner or him?'"
Schaub started the 2001 season and had a nightmarish opener, yielding two
second-quarter interceptions at Wisconsin, one of which was returned for a
touchdown in a 26-17 UVa loss. It was not unlike the 2002 opener against
Colorado State, when Schaub was replaced twice by Hagans, the second time after
a late interception on a badly thrown pass over the middle.
Groh had shifted between Spinner and Schaub during the 2001 season, but Schaub's
fate was no longer in his hands when Hagans got the nod at Florida State. If
Hagans had played well that day and continued to play well, who knows if Schaub
ever would have gotten another chance?
"He made it into a turning point," Groh said. "If it hadn't worked out the way
it did, maybe he would have come back and done it in the fourth game. It wasn't
a one-time opportunity, but it seemed like all the dominoes were in place at
that time to 'see where this is going to go.'
"I think one of the real tests of a quarterback is when they get stuck in a
situation like that, when a quarterback's had three interceptions or a bad game
and everybody knows it and he knows it. How do they respond? Some guys never
come back from it. Some guys rally."
Welsh says he thinks Schaub compares favorably with another Pennsylvanian who
played quarterback for the Cavaliers, Matt Blundin, a second-round pick who was
the 40th player chosen in the 1992 NFL Draft. Schaub is much more experienced,
already having thrown twice as many passes in his career (666) as Blundin did
(304).
Several players in Schaub's position have passed up their final season of
eligibility or at least explored their options. Schaub already has a degree in
economics - he made the ACC Honor Roll in 2002-03 - but never gave a moment's
thought to jumping to the NFL.
"People would ask me last year if I was going to go and my answer was 'no' from
the start," said Schaub, who turned 22 in June. "For most of my career, it was
so far down the road, it never even crossed my mind."
Even when he was playing behind Spinner, Schaub never thought about going
anywhere else.
"I made Virginia my school when I was a senior in high school and I wanted to
stick it out," he said.
Maybe that was the real defining moment.
Could McGrew loss increase Hagans' value?
You never know what to expect from
Virginia football coach Al Groh on the subject of injuries, so Groh’s
admission Wednesday that wide receiver Michael McGrew had suffered a
season-ending knee injury could have been viewed as a revelation -- all 30
seconds of it.
Groh never did say what leg McGrew had broken in practice Monday. However, in
thinking back to the secrecy that surrounded Kevin Bailey’s knee injury and
surgery last year, the media was lucky to get as much as it did.
Groh didn't venture an opinion on the impact of McGrew's injury, but, when I
watched the Cavaliers conduct a lengthy passing drill Saturday, McGrew and
walk-on Robert Luck were the only wideouts who seemed to be catching the ball
with regularity.
Freshman Deyon Wiliams, the talk of early workouts because of his athletic
ability, didn't have much trouble getting open but the ball bounced off his
shoulder pads on more than once.
It was interesting, when Groh talked about his receiver situation Wednesday,
he mentioned the players behind McGrew (Art Thomas, redshirt freshman Ron
Morton and true freshman Fontel Mines). He also mentioned two veteran
receivers at the other spot, Ottowa Anderson and Ryan Sawyer.
He did not mention Williams, sophomores Marques Hagans and Scott Robinson, and
freshman Emanuel Byers.
When you've got 10 scholarship wide receivers, it's hard to mention everybody.
I’m not sure if Robinson figures in the mix, although he is working with the
team and not running around the borders of the field, as he did every day two
years ago as a freshman (presumably because he arrived out of shape).
The longer I watched Hagans on Saturday, the more he looked like a wide
receiver. He caught the ball naturally and was actively involved once the
Cavaliers started running their offense in scrimmage-type situations near the
end of practice.
"He's getting more familiar with all the different phases, particularly in the
run game,” Groh said earlier this week. “As a quarterback, I don't think there
was reason for him to give much thought to what wide receivers did in the run
game: 'just be where you're supposed to be when I throw you the ball.'
“It’s [wide receiver] an every-play position. He’s getting exposed to all of
that. The last couple of days, he seems to have made a pretty good move
forward. He has shown that he has an excellent game presence and he speeds up
the team.
"We've been trying hard [as coaches] to do that since our arrival and he's one
of the players who can do that.”
Indeed, a receiver rotation that would include McGrew, Sawyer and Anderson
would lack a serious deep threat. Billy McMullen caught more than 200 passes
in a distinguished UVa career that ended last year, but he didn't run away
from a lot of people either.
McGrew looked to be the Cavaliers' best all-around receiver, but his loss
could give Virginia an opportunity to add a little speed to the lineup, with
Hagans, Williams, Morton and possibly Byers the best candidates to do that.
Hagans, with his scintillating punt returns, definitely has demonstrated he
can make people miss in the open field.
On the other hand, UVa showed last year that its passing game doesn't revolve
solely around the wide receivers. Then-freshman tailback Wali Lundy was
seventh in the ACC in receptions with 58 and tight end Heath Miller was second
in touchdown receptions with nine. Miller had 33 receptions and fullback Jason
Snelling had 31.
Anderson becomes the returning wide receiver with the most receptions in 2002,
17.
“Ottowa’s making a real strong move right now,” Groh said Tuesday. “On top of
his physical skills, he’s got the toughness to go block people. He’s got the
toughness to play special teams. He’s got the skills to be versatile, but
without his toughness, his versatility wouldn’t be at as high a level.”
The most interesting question -- and the Cavaliers hope they don't have to
answer -- is what would happen if anything happened to starting quarterback
Matt Schaub? Hagans was the No. 2 quarterback last year and even started at
Florida State after leading a failed comeback against Colorado State, but
would the Cavaliers want to go down that road?
Groh has spoken favorably of the practice work of redshirt freshman Anthony
Martinez, in particular, but Groh hasn't had much to say negatively about
anybody. He did concede that prize recruit Kevin McCabe is on the verge of
system overload as the coaches give him more material to process daily.
UVa's best-case scenario would be for Schaub to stay in shape, get some time
for Martinez in mop-up situations, save McCabe's redshirt year, then let
McCabe and Martinez compete in the spring. If Schaub had to miss any time
before that, I think Hagans would get some serious thought