Rain forces changes at UVa's camp
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
August 7, 2005

It is not a well-kept secret. Al Groh wants an indoor facility and has for a long time.
The case for Virginia’s football coach got a little stronger on Saturday.
Virginia’s second practice of the preseason started late thanks to a pending lightning storm. When the threat turned real, practice had to be halted for about an hour. And when Mother Nature elected not to comply, the session ultimately had to be finished inside the confines of The Cage inside Onesty Hall.
Not a perfect scenario, but such is life in the world of college football.
Before the open session moved indoors, a number of things stood out.
Vic Hall got a shot catching machine-aided punts in a drill. Linebacker Ahmad Brooks was once again without a helmet. And Theirrien Davis was called by his nickname - Bud - by his position coach and for all the wrong reasons.
Moments after the outdoor portion of the practice started, Hall was one of seven Cavaliers to work on catching punts.
Hall, a highly-touted quarterback in high school (Gretna), is considered one of the most athletic players on the team and his work with this unit may be a sign that the coaching staff wants to get him on the field as soon as possible.
The other players working out initially with the punt return team included the following: junior Michael Johnson, sophomore Emmanuel Byers and three freshmen - Kevin Ogletree, Mikell Simpson and Brandon Woods.
The group grew in size after Coach Groh summoned two rookies from their respective units. Groh yelled across the field for Mike Brown, a defensive back, and moments later he did the same for wideout Alvin Pearman.
For the second straight day, Brooks watched from a distance as his fellow linebackers worked with defensive coordinator Al Golden.
Groh said earlier in the day, in a teleconference with reporters, that Brooks indicated that his knee is feeling better. Brooks had “minor” surgery in the offseason to regenerate bone growth in his right knee.
“I didn’t ask him for a comparison [as far as previous pain in the knee],” Groh said, “but I did ask him how he felt [on Friday] and he said ‘good.’”
With 15 players currently listed as potential linebackers, it is one of the deepest positions. At least in numbers, the same can be said at wide receiver.
Ten players are currently listed at wideout, including three true freshmen - Maurice Covington, Ogletree and Woods.
Assistant coach John Garrett, the wide receivers’ coach, worked with the unit on several drills, including one drill that had the players run diagonal to their left for five yards toward a cone before they turned and sprinted to their right for an oncoming pass.
It was during this drill that Davis was singled out.
“Bud, stop and look where you are. You’re past the line. That’s an interception,” Garrett barked at the rising sophomore.
Weather permitting, the team will return outdoors today at 2:45 p.m. Like the first two practices, it is open to the public. Monday’s practice, which starts at 6:15 p.m., is also open to the public.

CROWDED HOUSE. Virginia currently has nine quarterbacks on the roster.
While senior Marques Hagans is a shoe-in for the starting spot, the rest of the depth chart remains a mystery.
Christian Olsen worked on Saturday with the second-team offense on a number of drills. The junior from Wayne, N.J., started the 2004 season as the third signal-caller on the depth chart but passed Kevin McCabe early in the season. Olsen finished the ‘04 campaign with 88 yards passing, while completing 10 of his 12 passes.
McCabe worked with the second team for a majority of Friday’s practice.
Redshirt freshman Scott Deke worked with the third team for the second straight day.
The other quarterbacks in camp include sophomore John Phillips, the starting holder for placekicker Connor Hughes, and four true freshmen.
The other scholarship QBs are Jameel Sewell, a lefty from Richmond, and Hall. The program also has two walk-ons in camp: McLean native J.B. Oldenburg and local standout Joe Sanford (Monticello High).
Groh, obviously aware of the depth at QB, joked on Saturday about how hard it is to get the unit to practice.
“You need a van to get them all out there,” Groh said.
When asked about getting the younger players, mainly Hall and Sewell, the necessary repetitions in practice, Groh said it is an important issue.
“We have a tricky situation there because clearly we want to build a foundation with those two players, so they can feel comfortable with and in the offense and be very competitive if not before hand, certainly by the spring,” Groh said. “We do have a number of veteran quarterbacks that we get turns for and make some decisions there, so we really have two processes going on simultaneously … that one kind of excludes the other at least in the short term.”

WEIGHING IN. Each of the 104 players in camp had the chance to be weighed on Thursday or Friday and Groh said there were no surprises.
“The team is very trim,” Groh said. “We really don’t have, other than a pound or two here or there, we don’t have issue with anybody’s weight.”
That includes the weight of Vince Redd, a linebacker who will soon be a defensive end.
Redd is listed at 6-foot-6, 265 pounds on the team’s Web site, but a figure closer to 290 seems more accurate.
“He has had his days here this summer where he has been above 290,” Groh said of Redd. “He has grown into a different position.”
Groh said Redd’s physical development is a “very positive scenario.”
“Now you have a guy that has the size of the position that he is moving to and probably above average athletic ability for that position,” Groh said.

ALUMNI REPORT. Former UVa quarterback Matt Schaub made the most of a trip to Japan on Saturday in the American Bowl.
When told that Schaub was the MVP of the game, Groh joked saying: “That will be one to cherish. That is probably right up there with NFL Player of the Year, right?”
Groh did say that Schaub’s feelings about the exhibition were different from that of many of his teammates who feared the lengthy flight across the world.
“Of all the players that are there, he is probably the only player that wanted to be there,” Groh said. “Matt’s thought is obviously that: as many games as he can get, as many throws as he can get, [it] is to his advantage. So he was jacked up about it. [Schaub has] five preseason games instead of four. It is a chance for him to play.”

Q&A With Al Groh

Al Groh begins his fifth year as Virginia's football coach with plenty of players returning from last season's 8-4 team. But a school-record seven players were also taken in this year's NFL draft and three of them -- tight end Heath Miller, offensive tackle Elton Brown and linebacker Ahmad Brooks -- earned first-team All-America honors. That's in the past. Groh faces the future now with players like freshman offensive lineman Eugene Monroe, possibly last season's top high school player at that position.

Q. How will you adjust to the loss of last season's stars? Would I like to have some of those players in the lineup? Sure. You know those guys are going. It's terminal. But there's no sense lamenting it. That's like a dog baying at the moon. We have the opportunity for the baton to be passed on.

Q. How has Eugene Monroe looked? Eugene has made a positive impression. It's certainly our expectation that he'll be real candidate for playing time this year.

Q. How did tailback Wali Lundy react to losing some playing time last season to Alvin Pearman, and how has Lundy prepared for his senior season? Wali is very purposeful, has a high work ethic and has been a no-maintenance player since he's been here. He was never displaced (last year). The two of them played every game and he knew playing time would be rotated. What Alvin had done all of a sudden last summer was become a six-day-a-week player and he ran away with the conditioning test. Wali is one of those players doing the same thing this summer.

Q. With safety Philip Brown missing this season because of academics, did you consider moving junior Tony Franklin from cornerback to safety? Somebody down at the tavern might have (talked) about it, but I didn't enter into any conversations about it. Corners are hard to find, corners with experience are even harder to find. That's like giving away a 6-6, 290-pounder to the offensive line. If he's athletic enough to play defensive end, we're going to leave him there. If we have guys in the second part of their careers at corners, we're going to leave them there.

Q. The offensive line is experienced - led by tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson - but how will you fill holes at center and guard? From a physical standpoint, (Ian Yates-Cunningham and Marshal Ausberry) are perfect. Cunningham is recovered from back surgery, so that's not an issue. Ausberry sprained an ankle in the spring, but he's OK. So we'll have to see what kind of a consistent performance we can get there.

Q. Virginia has won 25 games the past three seasons but has no ACC championships to show for them. Are you getting impatient? We don't think in terms of patience or impatience. Where I see us right now is we're one of 12 teams trying to get to Jacksonville (Fla.) on Dec. 3 (for the ACC championship game). It'll probably be that way every year, trying to build the kind of base where we'll be a viable contender every year. Then we'll get in there and slug it out every year.

Virginia

LAST SEASON: 8-4, 5-3 ACC (Lost to Fresno State 37-34 (OT) in MPC Computers Bowl)

RETURNING STARTERS: 7 offense, 6 defense

PLAYERS TO WATCH: Wali Lundy, Sr. (5-10, 214); OT D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Sr. (6-5, 295); QB Marques Hagans, Sr. (5-10, 211); DE Brennan Schmidt, Sr. (6-3, 269).

TOP NEWCOMERS: OT Eugene Monroe, Fr. (6-6, 318).

OBSERVATION: The Cavaliers are that ACC rarity: A team with a quality, experienced starting quarterback. Marques Hagans, who led the league in completion percentage (62.8) last season should make Virginia a contender in the Coastal Division. Lundy is a quality back, although he gave up some playing time last season to Alvin Pearman, who's gone.

SCHEDULE: Sept. 3, Western Michigan; 17, at Syracuse; 24, Duke. Oct. 1, at Maryland; 8, at Boston College; 15, Florida State; 22, at North Carolina. Nov. 5, Temple; 12, Georgia Tech; 19, Virginia Tech; 26, at Miami.

His '110 percent'
Pearman's love of game evident in his approach
By VITO STELLINO, The Times-Union

When Alvin Pearman was in the second grade, his teacher called his parents in for a conference.

"She couldn't understand that all that ever came out of his mouth was football, football, football,'' Pearman's father, Alvin, recalled this week during a phone interview from his Charlotte, N.C., office. "She wanted him to broaden his perspective and write about other things. She did get him to write about other things, but he always went back to football.''

That passion for the game probably explains why the younger Pearman, the Jaguars' fourth-round draft pick this year, has been so intense in training camp.

"To be honest, I really have no expectations of how they're going to use [me]," the running back said. "I'm giving it 110 percent."

Pearman's father played football at Colgate, went to a couple of NFL camps and coached high school and in college at Colgate, Princeton and Williams. Yet even he's amazed at how his son became so focused.

"Sometimes I wonder where did he come from? Is he my child?'' he said. "He is my child, but somehow he picked something (drive) up."

His son pleads guilty to the charge of being intense and appreciates the fact he can use his father as a sounding board.

"I'm extremely hard on myself," the running back said. "I don't let things go too easily. When I make a mistake, I think about it a whole lot. It's good to have somebody in your corner to let you know everything is going to be all right.''

Pearman said when he was 3 and 4 years old, he badgered his father to work with him on passing drills.

"The same drills the receivers are doing in practice at this level,'' Pearman said. "I caught more passes by the age of 7 than most guys have in a long time."

Yet his father didn't push him. In fact, he didn't even allow Pearman to play football until the seventh grade.

"I begged him and pleaded with him [to play earlier],'' Pearman remembers.

His father, however, didn't want him playing at too young an age.

"I heard all of the horror stories about what happens in Little League with the coaches treating kids like pro players,'' his father said.

His father did let Pearman run AAU track as a youngster. The elder Pearman remembers the time his son had the fastest time in the hurdle trials but fell in the finals when he tripped over the last obstacle.

"We couldn't console him," he said. "My parents were there, and they couldn't console him. Fortunately, there was another race against one of the top teams in the country. He was able to turn all that disappointment, all that grief and turn it into something positive.''

Pearman ran the anchor in the 4x400 relay and helped his team win the championship.

"He was never the top kid in AAU,'' his father said. "He was like the third runner. But he would often be the person picked to anchor relay team. It wasn't because he was the fastest guy, but he would somehow find a way to get it done."

Not surprisingly, Pearman was driven once he started playing football.

"He ran with reckless abandon because this was something he wanted to do since the second grade,'' his father said.

In high school, Pearman organized the 6 o'clock club for morning work in the weight room. In the afternoon, they had car races in the parking lot -- not driving the cars but pushing them to build strength.

Pearman broke most of his high school's records and turned down a scholarship at Notre Dame to play at Virginia. The school was close to his North Carolina home, and the Cavaliers had a history of developing successful small backs such as Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones.

Pearman thrived in coach Al Groh's pro-style system.

"Coach Groh demanded a lot of me, as I do,'' Pearman said. "I guess we really kind of hit it off very well. We're both driven people. I respect him so much as a coach."

In four years at Virginia, Pearman gained almost 5,000 all-purpose yards -- 2,394 rushing, 1,396 receiving, 600 in punt returns and 579 in kickoff returns. But when the scouts looked at him, all they saw was his 5-foot-10, 206-pound frame, so he lasted until the fourth round of the draft.

Pearman has quickly shown the Jaguars he knows the fundamentals.

"I did meet his father, and I can see he's been well schooled," running backs coach Kennedy Pola said. "He's really smart, but he's still young and learning the NFL game.''

So, could Pearman develop in the NFL the way Barber did?

"I don't want to put that on the kid, but that'd be really nice,'' Pola said.

Cavaliers Have the Talent To Fill Some Gaping Holes
Friday, August 5, 2005; Page E04

Five questions that must be answered during the Virginia football team's preseason camp:

1. Will the Cavaliers find a playmaker at wide receiver?

Virginia struggled while throwing the football downfield last season, and tight end Heath Miller is gone after leaving for the NFL draft. Junior Deyon Williams (Suitland High) is the team's top returning wide receiver with 19 catches in 2004. The return of senior Ottowa Anderson from a one-year suspension could bolster the receiving corps, but younger players such as Thierren Davis and Kevin Ogletree will have to produce big plays.

2. Can Wali Lundy carry the load in the backfield?

The Cavaliers will have a hard time replacing the production of Alvin Pearman, who had 21 or more carries in four of the last six games of 2004. Lundy is a tough runner who has scored 41 career touchdowns, but his penchant for fumbling and missing blitzes has irked Coach Al Groh on several occasions. Lundy will get help from speedy Michael Johnson and redshirt freshman Cedric Peerman.

3. Who is going to replace Elton Brown and Zac Yarbrough in the middle of the offensive line?

How valuable was Brown last season? In a 37-16 victory at Duke, the Cavaliers ran behind him on nine consecutive plays. The top candidates to replace Brown and Yarbrough are coming off injuries. Sophomore Marshal Ausberry (West Springfield High), the projected starter at right guard, missed most of spring practice because of a foot injury. Sophomore Ian-Yates Cunningham, who moves from left guard to center, missed all of the 2004 season following back surgery.

4. Who is going to provide the pass rush?

Linebackers produced 22 1/2 of the team's 34 quarterback sacks last season, and Darryl Blackstock, who left for the NFL, had 10 1/2 . Sophomores Chris Long and Chris Johnson will have to produce some big plays at defensive end if Virginia's pass rush is going to improve. Long, the son of NFL Hall of Famer Howie Long, is stronger after battling mononucleosis last year. Also, all-ACC linebacker Ahmad Brooks (Hylton High), who had eight sacks last year, had offseason surgery to regenerate bone growth in one of his knees and might not be ready for the start of camp.

5. Will the punting game improve?

The Cavaliers ranked next-to-last in Division I-A in net punting last season, averaging only 29.9 yards per punt. Sophomore Chris Gould punted well when he was forced into action late last season, but he'll have to hold off Ryan Weigand, a transfer from Pasadena City (Calif.) Community College.

-- Mark Schlabach

Virginia Still Waiting For Brooks's Return
By Mark Schlabach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 6, 2005; Page E03

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Aug. 5 -- The University of Virginia football team opened preseason camp Friday without star linebacker Ahmad Brooks on the field, and Cavaliers Coach Al Groh isn't sure when his all-American and potential NFL first-round draft choice will be ready to practice.

Brooks, from Hylton High School in Woodbridge, is still recovering from December surgery to correct a degenerative condition in his right knee. Doctors corrected the junior's injury through surgery that is designed to stimulate bone growth in his knee. But because Brooks was unable to participate in spring practice or during much of the team's summer offseason conditioning program, Groh said the linebacker isn't ready to practice.

"Right now, he's out so he's not in the plans. When he's back, he's back," Groh said. "He is medically cleared. But he is still in his rehab, and the building-himself-back-up stage. He hasn't been able to train hard enough to this point to participate in what we're doing."

Brooks, wearing blue shorts and an orange T-shirt, did some light jogging on the sideline while his teammates practiced in shorts and helmets during Friday's practice.

"We want to make sure it's not a circumstance where his knee is just fine, but then he misses a significant period of time because he's got a pulled hamstring or pulled groin muscle or whatever because those muscles weren't given the opportunity to be properly conditioned," Groh said.

The Cavaliers already face the daunting task of replacing Darryl Blackstock and Dennis Haley, who started every game at outside linebacker last season, as well as backup inside linebacker Rich Bedesem, who started the 2004 opener against Temple in Brooks's place. Brooks, the youngest of three finalists last year for the Butkus Award as college football's best linebacker, led Virginia with 90 tackles and 11 quarterback pressures.

Brooks, the son of former Washington Redskins defensive tackle Perry Brooks and the 2001 All-Met Defensive Player of the Year, could have left Virginia after his sophomore season because he was three years removed from high school. Most NFL scouts consider Brooks to be among the top 10 underclassmen for next April's NFL draft. Groh said he had big plans for Brooks during the offseason, but the program was shelved when Brooks underwent surgery.

"It's one of the circumstances of life," Groh said. "These things happen, so you go on. Obviously, this is a player of substantial talent and very special talent. After two years of playing, we had a real plan in place. We said: 'Here's what we're going to work on to magnify this special talent to its highest level. So the next year, it's going to be different than the first two, not just on talent alone but through mastery of all these particular things.' "

Groh couldn't say how long it would take Brooks to get into playing shape. The Cavaliers, ranked No. 23 in the USA Today coaches' preseason top 25 poll, open the season Sept. 3 against Western Michigan at Scott Stadium.

"There really hasn't been much physical work since late December," Groh said of Brooks. "The player that we had back then was pretty good. It will be interesting to see when Ahmad does come back to play, is this the same player that was playing in December? A very good player, but the same player. Or is this going to be a player that's had the opportunity to raise his game?"

With Brooks sidelined for now, senior Bryan White probably will play next to junior Kai Parham at inside linebacker. White, a senior from Knoxville, Tenn., played in only one game last season before undergoing back surgery. Sophomores Jermaine Dias and Marvin Richardson and redshirt freshman Clint Sintim are the leading candidates to start at the two outside linebacker spots.

The Cavaliers also signed five linebackers in their incoming freshman class, including Olu Hall of Robinson High, who played last year at Hargrave Military Academy.