White: Hoos Try to Beat the Heat
By Jeff White

CHARLOTTESVILLE - The players walked out of their air-conditioned locker room at the McCue Center this afternoon and stepped into a furnace.
"It's a hot one, ain't it?" said cornerback Dom Joseph.
"Wow!" said tailback Max Milien.
"I'm not ready for this type of heat," quarterback Jameel Sewell said.
Ready or not, UVa's football team had to contend with stifling humidity and temperatures in the 90s during its third practice of training camp. Most players were on the field by 2:15 p.m., and they didn't get back in the locker room, where ice baths awaited them, till about 5 o'clock.
"It was the first hot day we've had, but we pushed through it," defensive end Matt Conrath said.
Today's practice also was the team's first in shoulder pads, so the players had heavier loads to carry under a blazing sun.
"That's perfect timing," said Kelli Pugh, UVa's associate athletic trainer for football.
If the heat bothered head coach Al Groh, he didn't let on. Groh wore his usual summer practice attire - a gray sweatshirt that's showing its age - and noted that such days are not uncommon during training camps at UVa.
"What else do you expect in August in the South?" a smiling Groh said to some visitors from Staunton. "This isn't Green Bay, you know. You gotta be real football guys to be out here today."
Part of Brandon Hourigan's job is to prepare the players to handle these conditions. Hourigan, UVa's director of football training and player development, works almost daily with the players in the weeks leading up to training camp.
"The best way to get adapted to this [heat] is just going through it," Hourigan said today. "You want to have at least a couple of these kind of days."
For much of this summer, however, temperatures have rarely climbed out of the 80s. So Hourigan had to be creative. He made the players train in a sand pit, run up Observatory Hill, flip tires and push sleds and take turns doing the fireman's carry, among other drills.
"But nothing gets you in condition for this like being out there and going through it," Hourigan said.
UVa's trainers are well aware of the dangers that heat can pose. If the players aren't aware of the importance of staying hydrated, it's because they're not listening.
On the eve of training camp, the training staff addressed that topic with the team, and the message is preached every day.
"We've got Gatorade available during taping, at every meal, at breaks during practice, after practice and then during meetings at night," Pugh said. "Between myself and Rob Skinner" - UVa's director of sports nutrition - "we hit the hydration part of things pretty hard."
Players are weighed before and after every practice, and those whose weight drops are considered excessive receive treatment.
Nose tackle Nate Collins sweats profusely, so he's a player whom the trainers watch closely.
"They make me drink too much water during the day, to the point I'm almost sick," Collins said, shaking his head.
The heat thinned the crowd at practice as the afternoon wore on, and it clearly sapped the strength of the players and some of the team's support personnel. They survived, though. And now they can look forward to another scorcher tomorrow, and more of the same Tuesday.
"It was definitely hot today," offensive tackle Will Barker said. "But it's only going to get hotter, so we've got to get used to it."
 

Cavaliers go on the defensive
By Jay Jenkins
Published: August 10, 2009

The cheers spilled out from the sidelines housing Virginia’s defensive reserves on countless occasions.
On Sunday as the 105 players in training camp sweltered in the Central Virginia sun, the new-look spread offense took a backseat as yards were near impossible to come by.
The frustrations were apparent on the faces of the team’s offensive stars.
“The coaches want to see us compete and we did a good job of competing, but in the last two periods a couple of plays didn’t go our way on offense and a lot of guys had their heads down,” fullback Rashawn Jackson said. “Practices are scripted, but it is only to a certain point. We can do a lot better.”
Perhaps it is a sign of two things: the Cavaliers’ offense has vast room for improvement in their new system and coach Al Groh’s defense has taken full advantage.
It could be a recurring theme early on for a defense that is spearheaded by two of the best cornerbacks in the ACC in Chris Cook and Ras-I Dowling.
“They are stars, but I think we have a good defense period,” said senior Darren Childs, who is taking first-team reps with redshirt freshman Steve Greer at inside linebacker. “I think we are all good.”
The mysteries for Virginia, at least on paper, lie on the defensive line and at linebacker, as new faces will be asked to assume starting roles.
In addition to Childs and Greer, the Cavaliers will look to seniors Aaron Clark and Denzel Burrell on the outside for production. Both played last year, but Clark was lost for the season in the third quarter against Southern Cal after suffering a season-ending knee injury. That opened the door for Burrell to finish the season as a starter.
While defensive end Matt Conrath and nose tackle Nick Jenkins logged tons of plays last year as freshmen on the defensive line, former nose tackle Nate Collins is slated to start at defensive end for the first time in his career.
It would appear to be of minimal concern thus far.
“Nate looks so much stronger,” Burrell said. “He is making plays and I think that will continue.”
Collins said he does not feel added pressure with concerns about the depth on the defensive line looming.
“I think we are all ready to go on our front seven,” said Collins, who registered 36 tackles last year. “We are all gelling really well and that is a good sign because usually it takes a couple of days when you have new faces and new voices.
“I think right now we are doing real well in the meetings and we have been talking, letting things be known before we get out on the field. That way when we get on the field we can just play. I think, as a whole, we have a great front seven.”
Oddly enough, it is in the pre-practice meetings, Collins said, that the biggest strides can be made.
“It is way more important. Everyone on the field is very athletic. If they weren’t athletic they wouldn’t be on this team,” he explained. “The biggest thing is studying film and studying what you need to do every day.
“It is about just making it easier in practice. Once you know what formation is going on and what personnel are in, you can already know what plays you are not going to get. That is going to put you in the right place every single time.”
 

Smalls switches to WR
The redshirt freshman was the Cavaliers' No. 3 quarterback last season.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- When you've been coaching for more than 40 years, every move has a precedent.

That's how Virginia football coach Al Groh was able to sell redshirt freshman quarterback Riko Smalls on a switch to wide receiver.

"When coach [Groh] presented me with the idea, he also told me that Marques Hagans was a receiver until Matt Schaub left," Smalls said. "After that, Marques Hagans took over the quarterback job.

"If it's better for the team that I play receiver this year, then that's what I'm going to do."

Smalls could do worse than have a Hagans-like career. After catching 28 passes as a sophomore in 2003, Hagans moved to quarterback and passed for more than 2,000 yards in each of his final two seasons. Like Hagans, Smalls (6 feet, 200 pounds) had played quarterback almost exclusively before coming to Charlottesville.

He was Virginia's No. 3 quarterback for much of the 2009 season but the Cavaliers were able to hold him out of action and preserve his redshirt year.

However, the return of 2008 starter Jameel Sewell after a year's academic suspension only added to a logjam that included 2009 passing leader Marc Verica along with Vic Hall, who is expected to start.

Sewell and Hall, a former cornerback who started at quarterback in the 2008 finale, are in their final season of eligibility.

Verica is a fourth-year junior.

"We have a lot of depth at quarterback this year and a lot of experience as well," said Smalls, who passed for 2,985 yards and 33 touchdowns in 2007 as a senior at Plano (Texas) East High School. "We're not as deep at receiver as we are at quarterback."

Smalls, lining up in the slot Friday, showed sure hands as UVa worked on its spread offense against a veteran secondary.

The Cavalier defensive backs had the best of that match-up. Cornerback Chris Cook returned an interception for a touchdown, safety Corey Mosley picked up a fumble and returned it for a touchdown and safety Brandon Woods returned an interception to the 2-yard line.

On virtually every big play by the defensive backs, new secondary coach Anthony Poindexter could be seen gleefully running after his players. Poindexter, a former All-America safety for the Cavaliers, coached the running backs until assignments were changed following the 2008 season.

Smalls had never played receiver in an organized setting until Groh floated the idea roughly three weeks ago. But, he was comfortable with the routes from his spring work at quarterback.

"My dad played receiver when he was in school," Smalls said.

"I've grown up always catching the ball and throwing the ball. I've got two younger brothers and we played catch all the time. In order to play catch, you've got to be able to catch the ball and throw it back."

New offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon used a variety of players at the inside positions in the spread, with sophomore Jared Green and redshirt freshman Javaris Brown getting much of the work on the outside.

The Cavaliers had six quarterbacks in orange jerseys, including walk-ons Brendan Lane and Kyle McCartin, as well as true freshman Ross Metheny. However, only the three veteran scholarship quarterbacks took part when the offense went against the defense.

UVa released a revised 105-player roster that did not include one of the Cavaliers' 2009 signees, Cody Wallace, an offensive lineman from Moorestown, N.J. Wallace was enrolled in the first session of summer school but declined to return for the start of preseason workouts for what UVa described as "personal reasons."

Another 2009 signee, Parade All-America offensive tackle Morgan Moses from Richmond's Meadowbrook High School, watched in streetclothes.

Moses did not meet NCAA guidelines for initial eligibility and said in a Thursday phone interview that he will enroll at either Fork Union Military Academy or Hargrave Military Academy, postgraduate programs that both begin practice Aug. 17.

UVa practices today and Sunday will begin at 2:30 p.m. and are open to the public, as is next Thursday's practice at the same time.