The Cavaliers have not attempted a field goal in two games, but that's not all bad.

"I'm never eager to kick field goals," Groh said. "I'm always eager to score touchdowns."

In eight trips inside the red zone (the opponent's 20-yard line), UVa has scored seven touchdowns. The other possession ended with a fumble at the 1 on Virginia's final offensive play against Colorado State.

Still, Groh said he would like to see one kicker assert himself. The three candidates - sophomore Bryan Smith, redshirt freshman Kurt Smith and true freshman Connor Hughes - have been roughly equal during practice. The team held a kicking competition last week that ended in a tie.

So far, Kurt Smith has handled kickoffs and done a good job. All nine of them have gone inside the opponent's 5, including a pair of touchbacks

Bryan Smith has been shaky on extra points. He line-drived his first one through the goalposts against Colorado State, then missed two of three against Florida State.

Groh hinted that one of the other two kickers will get a shot at extra points and/or field goals Saturday night against South Carolina.

"You need to establish kick-makers instead of kick-takers," Groh said.

Walking wounded. Virginia's locker room looked a bit like a hospital ward Monday, with a number of injured players hobbling around.

Junior center Kevin Bailey and junior linebacker Raymond Mann each had braces on their left knees. Bailey was using two crutches to get around; Mann had one.

Left guard Mark Farrington, who left last Saturday's game on crutches, was walking without help but had a heavy brace.

Defensive back Marcus Hamilton, receiver Billy McMullen, linebacker Angelo Crowell, nose tackle Andrew Hoffman, tailback Alvin Pearman and safety Chris Williams also suffered injuries that knocked them out of the FSU game, at least temporarily.

Groh said many players were undergoing X-rays and MRI exams Monday. The only news Groh offered concerned Hamilton, who appeared to suffer a serious knee injury late in the game. Hamilton probably will not need surgery, the coach said.

No coach, no problem. The lack of a strength coach isn't a team weakness for the Cavaliers, Groh said.

Tony Decker, UVa's head strength coach for three years, resigned effective last week to take a teaching position at his alma mater, East Stroudsburg (Pa.) State. He is moving closer to home, at least in part to care for his ailing father.

Decker helped set up the team's strength and conditioning program for the next 15 weeks. Virginia likely will wait to replace him until then, Groh said, because it is nearly impossible to hire a quality strength coach from another program during the season.

"I think to do so would be to dramatically limit the pool of candidates available to us," Groh said. "This gives us the opportunity to pursue what we would consider to be the very best strength coach. We already have a pretty strong short list."

Free ride. Groh recently granted scholarships to seven upperclass players who joined the team as walk-ons: seniors Brad Durbin and Heath Boucek; juniors Ryan Childress, Bryce Coffee and Trey Moeller; and sophomores David de Laureal and Jon Thompson.

That puts UVa's scholarship count at 80, five below the maximum allowed for a Division I-A team.

Extra points. Under the team's special-teams points system, junior Ryan Sawyer has been the most productive coverage man through two games. He has made four tackles on 11 kicks. … Sophomore receiver Ottowa Anderson graded out the highest of any player on the team against FSU, Groh said. Anderson made three catches for 21 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown, and delivered what Groh called a "lights-out block" on one play. … The Cavaliers have fumbled 11 times, losing seven. They fumbled 21 times, losing 10, in 12 games last season.

Virginia fans are familiar with Groh's woes. Lou's are new. Holtz has turned South Carolina football into a winner. The Gamecocks, ranked 22nd today, are coming off the best two successive years in South Carolina football history and a pair of back-to-back wins over Ohio State in the Outback Bowl.

He has driven Gamecock fans into a frenzy with something like 69,000 season tickets sold before last week's 34-24 victory over New Mexico State. While USC has fielded what could be Holtz's best offense since stepping foot in Columbia, the other side of the ball is almost as much of a question mark as it is here in Charlottesville.

"To be a good defense, you have to be able to stop the run," said Holtz on Monday.

Ah, there's the rub.

Currently, South Carolina ranks 85th in the country in rush defense, Virginia 95th out of 117 Division I-A football teams. New Mexico State rushed the ball 40 times vs. the Gamecocks and averaged 5.3 yards per carry. Yes, that's the same New Mexico State rated as No. 92 (Lindy's) and No. 98 (Athlon) in the nation prior to the season.

"On the perimeter, our run defense was a problem as was the quarterback scrambling," said Holtz. "I don't think there's any doubt we'll see a lot of plays on the perimeter and a lot of plays isolating our corners one on one."

New Mexico State had two 12-play drives in the first half and converted nearly 60 percent of its third-down conversions, leaving Holtz frustrated with his team's defensive performance.

"There is nobody's job on defense safe with the exception of Langston Moore [nose tackle], Lance Laury [linebacker] and Jonathan Martin [safety]," said Holtz. "We have problems in the defensive backfield as illustrated by the perimeter run coverage, third-down passing and lack of pressure on the passer."

The Aggies ran the option with great success against the Cocks, including a 75-yard run that set up one TD. USC's young corners struggled to fight off blocks on the option, covering the pitch man, and also gave huge cushions on pass coverage, a sign of a lack of confidence.

"You get deep, but that doesn't mean you've got to cover the first four rows of the end zone," complained Holtz of his defensive backs. "We would not be good mailmen because we were in the wrong zip code with [New Mexico State's] receivers. Their receivers must have felt like Maytag repairmen."

Groh can totally relate to Holtz's problem, although UVa's secondary is more experienced. It was evident that Virginia was going to make Florida State win the game with its running attack last Saturday and that's exactly what the Seminoles did, accumulating nearly 400 yards rushing in a convincing defeat of the Cavaliers.

But Groh was going to make sure there were no big plays given up by his secondary if he did indeed have to back them up to the end zone. He wasn't going to give FSU anything cheap.

"Virginia backed its safeties way back," said FSU coach Bobby Bowden on Sunday. "Every time we went deep, they intercepted. I think we're going to start seeing more of the 3-4 defense. If you're in that, it's easier to drop eight [four linebackers, four defensive backs]. It's very solid. If you play three down people, you've got four linebackers and you can get a lot more flexibility of double coverage and dropping back in a certain zone."

The problem with that is defenses can't get as good a rush.

"Thank goodness we have been able to take advantage of the people who don't bring that defensive back up there to stop the run," said Bowden.

Meanwhile, Holtz will bring potentially his best offense to Charlottesville, featuring a 26-year-old quarterback in Corey Jenkins, who Groh typified as almost a throwback to the old single wing QBs. Jenkins can run (113 yards, 20 carries vs. New Mexico State) and pass (9-18, 166 yards, 1 TD).

Blessed with speed at wide receiver and a bruising fullback in Andrew Pinnock, protected by perhaps the best offensive line in the SEC and the Gamecocks have plenty of big play potential.

Don't be surprised if Saturday night's game isn't another thriller-diller in the fashion of the UVa vs. Colorado State game. The Gamecocks, already established as a 3 1/2-point favorite, and the Cavaliers might not be able to stop each other.

Daily Progress staff writer

Those in the profession call coaching a labor of love.

For Virginia assistant men's basketball coach Walt Fuller, a testament to that is not just the stacks of rental car receipts that sit on his new desk in his new office. Nor is it the time he spends away from home on those recruiting trips that yielded all those receipts.

Instead, it's the time spent in U-Hall with his players. Sometimes it might be coaching and teaching, sometimes it's prodding, and sometimes it might be simply talking and counseling. All are integral, if not highly publicized, parts of coaching.

For Fuller, who in his fifth year at UVa is now Pete Gillen's top assistant and top recruiter after former assistant Tommy Herrion's departure to the College of Charleston, the fruits of his labor may lie in these areas more than any other.

"Right now, Coach Fuller is like a guy you can go to and talk to. He's always there and he's willing to help people out. If he's got to go out of his way to do it, he'll do it. At a program like Virginia you have to have that," sophomore forward Elton Brown said.

That's not to say that sometimes Fuller also has to show another side to those players.

"He's a coach and he's got do his job. If he's yelling at me and saying, 'Elton, run down there and run back or do this or do that,' I know he's doing his job," Brown said. "He was nicer while he was recruiting me, but at the same time, I understand that's a coach's job. He's doing what he promised my mom and family what he would do and that's watch over me like I'm his son and that's what he's been doing."

Gillen calls Fuller "a father figure" and that one of his greatest assets as a coach is the administer of what Gillen refers to as tough love.

"Walt has a great relationship with the players. He uses a lot of tough love with them. He knows when to yell at them and he knows when to hug them," Gillen said. "Walt is 38 but he's still young enough to relate to the players. He was a very good player at Drexel, and I think he has an understanding for their concerns and issues."

Given today's nature of college basketball, an assistant such as Fuller is a necessity. As Gillen readily admits, a Division I head coach has responsibilities pulling him in several directions and sometimes coaching and all that comes with it is just another item on a list of priorities.

"A lot of times I'm the bad guy in terms of playing time and things like that. Walt is someone they feel that can go and talk to," Gillen said.

When asked about such a relationship, Fuller laughs slightly and says the answer probably lies in his own upbringing.

"Some of that might come from the way I was brought up. I came from a very loving household and a very disciplined household. My father and my mother, they were the boss and what they said goes," Fuller said. "I just try to take on a similar mentality and attitude and just be myself. I want the kids to know that I'm there for them and that I love them. Obviously, we have some work to do and some business to take care of but at the same time they're people just like I'm a person and I try to respect them and get the same respect back from them."

As Gillen noted, Fuller was a solid basketball player in his own right. During his four-year career at Drexel, Fuller, a Philadelphia native, helped lead the Dragons to an East Coast Conference Championship and an NCAA tournament berth during the 1985-86 season. He finished his collegiate career ranked first on Drexel's list for games played (116) and was second on the school's career free-throw percentage list (80.5 percent). He was voted the team's Most Valuable Player after the 1985-86.

The transition from player to coach, however, had a slight detour.

From 1987-88, Fuller was still involved in basketball but as a marketing representative for the Philadelphia 76ers.

But there was something he missed.

"I was a marketing representative and working ticket sales. I always wanted to be around the game and have a hand in it and that's why I went to the business side with the Sixers," Fuller said. "Basketball was always in my blood and I enjoyed more of the hands-on part of it with the kids and the teaching of the game and the practice. … I think the camaraderie and being in the locker room and being around the kids is something I missed."

Fuller left the Sixers and returned to his alma mater as an assistant in the fall of 1988 and stayed there for six seasons before moving to William & Mary prior to the 1994-95 season. After four years in Williamsburg, Fuller was hired by Gillen at Virginia in 1998 shortly after Gillen himself arrived in Charlottesville.

In his time in Charlottesville, Fuller has worked with Virginia's frontcourt players primarily and has been part of molding that area from one of Virginia's weakest on-court positions to what likely will be one of its strongest in the upcoming season.

He also has proved to be a more-than-capable recruiter having been heavily involved in the recruitment of such current Virginia players as Brown, freshman Derrick Byars and junior college all-American Devin Smith.

Fuller notes that recruiting at an ACC school like Virginia takes on a bigger dimension than it did at his previous coaching stops - and that mounting pile of rental car receipts isn't the only indication of that.

"It's very competitive. At the highest level, there is a small pool of players, and all the top programs want them. We're fortunate that we have such a great product here that the school sells itself," Fuller said. "We have a great program and great tradition. We feel that if we can get a prospect to visit, we'll have a very good chance. William and Mary, just like Virginia, is a very good academic school, but it's a different level. We're competing against the NBA, counterparts in our league and high-profile programs around the country."

Now, Fuller's recruiting talents will expand as part of his new role.

"Walt is our top assistant coach. He also will be our recruiting coordinator, a role which is crucial for a college basketball program," Gillen said. "Walt has done an excellent job as a member of our staff the last four years. He has a terrific future in the game and will make a fine head coach down the road."

His newfound responsibilities also come with that new desk and new office - and so far he feels the new job is going well.

"It's been a good transition. But at the same time a tough and challenging transition," Fuller said. "Obviously we we're sorry to see Tommy go, but it was a great opportunity for him.

"I'm excited about the team and I'm excited about my challenges and responsibilities. I'd really like to thank Coach Gillen for giving me this opportunity."

"That's all I did," he said. "That's all I've ever done. That's all I knew how to do."

Stop the run? Defend the pass? Why bother? Blackstock was a specialist, and in that respect he was something special.

As a senior at Heritage High School, he made 29 sacks. In one season at Fork Union Military Academy, he made 22 more. When he arrived at Virginia for preseason practice a month ago, the freshman made it clear that one of his main goals was breaking Chris Slade's school and ACC record of 40 career sacks.

"Thirty-nine to go," Blackstock quipped after getting his first sack in the opening game.

Now it's 38. He chopped down Florida State quarterback Chris Rix with his right arm in the second quarter last Saturday, giving him two sacks in two games. He also drew a holding penalty after beating his blocker later in the quarter.

Considering no Cavalier has made more than six sacks in a season since 1998, when Patrick Kerney had 15, Blackstock gives the defense exactly what it needs: a bona fide pass rusher.

"He's so fast," senior linebacker Angelo Crowell said. "He just flies after the quarterback."

But that's no longer all Blackstock does. As an outside linebacker in Virginia's 3-4 defense, he has responsibilities that he didn't have as a defensive end in high school and at FUMA. He is supposed to stop the run and make tackles. Occasionally, he has to cover tight ends and receivers rather than rush the quarterback.

It hasn't been an easy transition, he admits. But considering that "the whole context of his game has changed," UVa coach Al Groh said, "Darryl's done a remarkable job."

Through two games, Blackstock ranks third on the team with 15 tackles. He had seven in the opener against Colorado State, then eight against the Seminoles.

"Me getting tackles is crazy," he said, shaking his head and smiling. "It's wild."

Groh rewarded Blackstock by making him a starter in the second game. In the opener, he backed up Dennis Haley but was on the field for 59 of 68 plays on defense.

"This guy's a playmaker. He finds the ball and the ball finds him," Groh said. "He got schooled on a few plays [against FSU], plays which accounted for a lot of yardage, but, until he got here, Darryl had played every down of his career with his hand on the ground."

Blackstock is still learning how to play his new position. In high school, he lined up at defensive end or tackle and spent most of his time wreaking havoc in the backfield, leading Heritage to the Group AAA Division 5 championship as a senior.

Since he doesn't have much bulk at 226 pounds, the 6-foot-4 Blackstock moved to linebacker at UVa, forcing him to take on different tasks with mixed results. He tipped one of Rix's passes late in the first half, leading to a Jermaine Hardy interception. He also was steamrolled on one play by 248-pound tailback Greg Jones.

"I took a serious shot from Jones," Blackstock said with a smile. "It won't happen again, I bet you that. He hit me before I hit him. I have to learn to hit him before he hits me."

Groh's belief in Blackstock's potential is as plain as the number on his jersey: 56.

Lawrence Taylor, a Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants, made No. 56 famous. Groh was an assistant coach for the Giants from 1989-91 and has a Leroy Neimann painting of Taylor in his office.

"I will never be the guy who says someone is the next Lawrence Taylor," Groh said. "But I will say that we are very excited about Darryl's future."

There was another reason Groh assigned Blackstock, who wore No. 11 in high school, the new digits.

"I wasn't going to have any linebacker around here wearing No. 11," Groh said. "There used to be a bumper sticker that said: Real men don't eat quiche. Well, real linebackers don't wear No. 11."