Singletary in for the long haul
Cavs junior not planning on leaving early for the NBA
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
September 28, 2006

Fast-forward to April 2007. The University of Virginia men’s basketball season has just concluded. UVa, which was ranked within the Top 25 for much of the year, made it all the way to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament.

Sean Singletary was a huge reason why.

Dick Vitale can’t stop raving about the Virginia point guard. In his updated “Dickie V Glossary,” he simply has a picture of Singletary in lieu of a definition for P.T.P. (Prime Time Player).

Fellow ESPN commentator Andy Katz is just as smitten. He’s included Singletary in a story entitled “Underclassmen who are definite NBA first-round draft picks.”

Surely, Singletary will bypass his senior year and declare for the draft.

Right?

On Wednesday, this exact hypothetical scenario was posed to Singletary. After the First-Team All-ACC performer stopped chuckling, he gave an answer that is undoubtedly pleasing to Wahoo Nation.

“I’ll definitely be here for four years,” Singletary told The Daily Progress. “I just want to become the best player that I can in college and be mature enough to play professional basketball - to be physically ready and mentally prepared.

“Four years is a nice period of time to grow as a person and to grow as a player, and to be ready for professional basketball.”

The fact that Singletary was able to average almost 18 points per game and lead Virginia to the NIT last season was a minor miracle. The Philadelphia native, who played through an assortment of injuries for much of the season, had the look of a punch-drunk boxer by the end of February.

On March 30, Singletary underwent surgery to his right hip. He spent much of the summer rehabbing, and only resumed playing in pick-up games recently.

Singletary said not being able to work on certain parts of his game for the second year in a row - he had a shoulder injury following his freshman season - was frustrating. However, he was able to improve in other facets.

“It was just about becoming a more cerebral player instead of just relying on instincts and stuff like that,” he said. “I was able to do a lot of form shooting. I wasn’t able to do much with my body, but I think I became a smarter player.”

To that end, Singletary says he watched video of NBA players such as Steve Nash and Jason Kidd.

One thing Singletary is looking forward to is coach Dave Leitao’s inaugural recruiting class. A year ago, Virginia barely had enough players to scrimmage. That won’t be the case when the team convenes for its first official practice on Oct. 15.

“I’m very excited,” Singletary said. “They’re a lot more advanced than my class was coming in and a lot more advanced than the class last year. They’re real smart players with a lot of talent. They’re physically prepared to play college basketball, too.

“I can see Solomon [Tat], Will [Harris], Ryan [Pettinella] and Jamil [Tucker] just coming right in and playing because they’re mentally advanced, as well as physically.”

The one major subtraction from last year’s team is point guard T.J. Bannister, who transferred to Liberty in August. Singletary said Bannister’s departure took him by surprise.

“I wasn’t aware that he was going to leave,” Singletary said, “but everyone does stuff for a reason and I figure he felt as though he had a better situation at Liberty. I’m not really sure what went on.

“We’ll definitely miss T.J. because we’ll need strong guard play to win in our conference. We’ll just have to work that much harder.”

Without any other true point guard on its roster, Singletary’s playing time figures to be about the same - if not more - as last season when he averaged 33.9 minutes per contest. The 6-foot, 185-pounder believes his body can handle it. He’s put in a lot of hours with Shaun Brown, the team’s strength and conditioning coach, during the last month.

“My first two years, we didn’t have anybody like [Brown], so I didn’t really know how to treat my body or eat well,” Singletary said. “Now I feel great. I do yoga. As long as you take care of your body, your body will take care of you.”

Virginia still hasn’t completely moved into the new $130 million John Paul Jones Arena. The team is still having some of its workouts in University Hall.

Singletary’s eyes lit up when he started talking about the Cavaliers’ new home.

“It’s definitely an awesome feeling because we’re moving from [U-Hall] to somewhere new, and, in actuality, our program is moving somewhere new. The team has a new attitude, so it’s just perfect timing.”

In the last few months, there has been much speculation about this being Singletary’s last season in Charlottesville. Much of the brouhaha has stemmed from the fact that Virginia seems to be recruiting more players than it has scholarships for. In addition, Singletary’s former high school teammate, point guard Sam Zeglinski, is set to join UVa in the 2007-08 season.

Singletary hasn’t paid attention to the banter.

“I see myself growing and working on my mental part of the game, and off the court becoming more responsible and things like that,” Singletary said. “I’m just in it for the long run.”

DUNKS: Virginia guard J.R. Reynolds was seen wearing a protective boot around his left foot on Wednesday but said the injury was nothing serious. … Solomon Alabi, a 7-foot-1 high school senior who took an official visit to Virginia on Sept. 9, is reportedly close to making his college choice. He is said to be choosing among Virginia, Florida State and Arizona. Alabi is rated as a 5-out-of-5-star recruit by Rivals.com. ... Speaking of Rivals, the Web site is reporting that Eric Wallace, a member of Virginia's 2007 recruiting class, has reopened his recruitment. According to the site, the 6-foot-7 swingman, who will attend Hargrave Military Academy this fall, has not completely crossed UVa off his list. He still plans on taking an official visit to the school in the fall. Wallace did not return phone messages to The Daily Progress.

 

Duke mired in 11-game skid
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
September 28, 2006

Ted Roof has heard the whispers.

Duke’s football coach has even heard his share of boobirds.

That is par for the course when coaching a team mired in an 11-game losing streak and well on the way to a 12th straight losing season.

Nobody ever said turning around a program with 31 straight losses to ranked opponents would be easy.

Roof knew that losses seemed to grow on trees at Duke when he became the school’s 20th coach in 2003. You would never know that, however, by listening to Roof or bodies inside Duke’s football offices.

“[The losing streak is] motivation, but for us to walk around here and talk about the losing streak internally … we don’t do that,” Roof said on Wednesday. “Enough other people bring that up where certainly we are aware of it, but at the same time we don’t want to harp on it.”

Roof said he uses it as motivation and likes to point out to his players that his program could easily have a different record when the Blue Devils (0-3, 0-2 ACC) entertain Virginia (1-3, 0-1 ACC) on Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium (noon).

“For us, it’s not making a play here or there,” Roof said. “We had a chance to be 2-1. Instead, we’re 0-3.”

The season opened for the Blue Devils with a disappointing 13-0 loss to Richmond, the No. 7 Division I-AA team. Duke had chances, but miscues maligned three drives - a field goal was blocked and two fourth-quarter drives that reached inside Richmond’s 5 led to nothing on the scoreboard.

A week later, Duke looked snakebitten again. Wake Forest took a 14-13 lead with a touchdown with 88 seconds left and made the score hold up with a blocked field goal with nine ticks remaining.

“It was gut-wrenching. We felt like we played well enough to win, and it could have been a game where it didn’t come down to the last play, but it did,” Roof said. “When you let it become a one-play game … give credit to them, but at the same time we felt like we had some missed opportunities. We shouldn’t have let it come down to a one-play game.”

Roof said his team tried to leave the loss at Wake Forest in the rearview mirror. It was unclear if that happened the following week. Virginia Tech scored on its opening drive and never looked back en route to a 36-0 rout in Blacksburg.

“The first two games, for me and the rest of team, were far more disappointing than the last one,” said Duke defensive lineman Eli Nichols. “The ones that you’re close in or the ones that you could have won are the more disappointing - the one’s you let slip away.”

Then came a bye week, something many coaches would prefer later in the season as injuries take their toll. Not for Roof. Not with a team that entered the season with the least experienced offensive line in the nation.

“I think it was important that they caught up on their academics and recharged their batteries,” Roof told reporters on Monday. “It was almost like getting a fresh start to this season.”

The break also came at a good time for Roof and his staff.

“As coaches, we did a lot of self-assessment, self-scout, looking at exactly what we were doing well, the areas that we were performing well in, and the areas we weren’t performing well in,” Roof added. “If we weren’t performing well, is it what we’re doing, do we need to change it, get better at it or throw it away?

“We spent a lot of time looking at ourselves in the early part of the week and then in the middle of the week changed our focus to specifically Virginia.”

Changing the mentality around the program has not been easy. It starts, Roof said, by getting his players to focus on the game, not the numbers on the scoreboard.

“When you look at the games, like the Wake Forest game, we scored early. That was a big emotional boost for us, but you don’t want to tie yourself down into saying we need to score early or its all going to blow up,” Roof said. “There is a fine line between wanting to do that, but at the same time we’ve got to do it consistently and sustain it. That’s why I think the focus is with our guys, because sometimes our guys want it so bad that they get in that environment where they start looking for the scoreboard and that tightens you up a bit instead of staying loose and aggressive and letting the focus be on the execution and the strain.

“That’s how the scoreboard changes, not when you’re looking at the scoreboard. It really wastes energy. I’ve talked to them a lot this week about that being our focus, the execution and the strain, not focusing on the scoreboard, because if those other things happen, the scoreboard will take care of itself.”

Will the youthful Blue Devils be able to right the ship against a struggling Virginia team that sports a six-game road losing streak? Roof will get that answer on Saturday, and, even if it doesn’t, the coach said it would not be from a lack of effort.

“Regardless of what people think, our people have busted their butts, and they really, really want this thing and they’ve invested in it,” Roof said. “And when you’ve invested in something with your heart and soul ... it’s important to them, and they need to see a return on the investment.”

Extra points …

… Roof confirmed that quarterback Thaddeus Lewis would not have been able to play had the Blue Devils had a game last weekend. The rookie quarterback was knocked out of the Virginia Tech game with a mild concussion suffered on a late hit delivered by the Hokies’ rover Aaron Rouse.

… Virginia coach Al Groh said junior defensive end Keenan Carter “is slipping back into the rotation” at nose tackle. Carter, who was listed behind Allen Billyk and Nate Collins on this week’s depth chart, missed the Western Michigan game after suffering a foot injury early in the Wyoming game.

 

Duke-UVa has lost that old spark
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
September 28, 2006

Scattershooting around the ACC, while wondering what has happened to the trick plays that Virginia used to run ...

Remember how much fun the Duke vs. Virginia game used to be? George Welsh and Steve Spurrier locked horns a few times and even after Spurrier headed to Florida, Welsh seemed to take out his disdain on the Dookies for years to follow.

When UVa and Duke tied for the ACC championship in 1989, the Cavs didn’t like sharing the title with the Blue Devils, which Welsh’s team soundly defeated.

Spurrier came back with: “to be the champ, you have to beat the champ.” He was referring to UVa losing to reigning champion Clemson, 34-20. Duke beat Clemson, 21-17. Adding salt to the wound, Spurrier said that Virginia had never beaten Clemson and probably never would.

The following season, UVa ended a 29-game losing streak to the Tigers. Virginia also walloped Duke, 59-0, in Durham (Spurrier had since left for The Swamp), leaving one reporter to ask Welsh why the Cavs ran up the score on the Devils.

Welsh snapped back in classic Welsh style, “I can’t help it if they don’t tackle us.”

While the series hasn’t offered much life in recent years, Duke is hoping to rekindle the fire this season. The Devils believe they can beat Virginia this Saturday in Durham.

Duke coach Ted Roof opened his weekly press conference on Tuesday by saying: “Confidence is a powerful thing.”

Sounds like the Devils are confident that they can send Virginia home with a loss, which would be devastating to the Cavalier program, considering that two other teams from the state have already beaten Duke, both Virginia Tech and Division I-AA Richmond.

Break up the Deacs

Wake Forest is about to go to 5-0. Repeat, 5-0 (no this is not a typo).

The Deacons play host to Liberty on Saturday and, barring a catastrophe, should improve to a perfect 5-0, the first time Wake has reached that mark since Bill Dooley’s team did it in 1987.

Coach Jim Grobe, a graduate of Virginia, has long been admired by his fellow ACC coaches. In fact, Bobby Bowden once told this columnist, “That boy up at Wake just might be the best coach in the league.”

Grobe is 30-32 in his sixth season at Wake, which is good enough for second place on the Deacs’ all-time win list behind Peahead Walker (77-51-6 from 1937-50).

The Deacs are doing it with defense. They held Ole Miss to 26 rushing yards last Saturday and 237 total yards (on the road to boot).

Quote of the week

Wake, which got some recognition in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll in the “others receiving votes” category, was picked to finish dead last in the ACC’s Atlantic Division in most of the national football magazines, leaving Deacons’ free safety Josh Gattis to say:

“Everybody that went out and bought those preseason magazines, they can take them back ... Wake Forest is for real.”

Stat of the Week

Of the 119 teams in Division I-A football, Virginia ranks 116th in total offense and 117th in rushing defense.

Boo birds

Scott Stadium isn’t the only place in the ACC where booing has popped up this season.

Shockingly, there were boos at Virginia Tech last Saturday during the Hokies’ win over Cincinnati. And, there were boos in Byrd Stadium where Maryland rolled over another non-conference cupcake.

Tech coach Frank Beamer had this reaction: “Oh, I didn’t think much about it. We weren’t playing the way we wanted to play and I guess they were just reminding us of it. You know, I think that just comes with the job, the position - you’re in there and people want to see you be successful. I think it’s just part of it.”

Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, whose Terps squeaked by Florida International, 14-10 (Maryland had also previously beaten William and Mary and Middle Tennessee), said of the boos: “I’d probably be more frustrated if we lost. When you can win, that’s the bottom line to me. I’d rather win ugly than lose looking good.”

Hot seat

N.C. State coach Chuck Amato spent most of his news conference last Monday talking about the Wolfpack’s program, which has gone 14-13 since Philip Rivers moved on to the NFL.

Beating No. 20 Boston College probably took some of the heat off, but Amato was defensive about where his program stands.

“I don’t even want to answer [the hot seat] questions anymore,” Amato said. “The hottest seat I’ve been in was when I drove my 1969 Corvette from my house to this building when it was 98 degrees and I don’t have any air conditioning in it. Let’s really be men about it. Let’s look at the whole picture over the last six years.”

During that span, the Wolfpack have played in five bowl games and won four. They didn’t qualify for a bowl last season.

It seems that a great deal of the criticism stems from Amato’s talk of contending for a national championship when he took the job at his alma mater in January 2000. Sound familiar?

“Should I have come in and say our goal is to go 1-10 and beat one team?” Amato asked. “What is wrong with having dreams? What is wrong with getting people excited about winning? Is that wrong? You think about it.”

Chucky Chest does have a point.

Hot Seat, Part Deux

Meanwhile, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina AD Dick Baddour reaffirmed his confidence that Coach John Bunting would get his alma mater’s football program headed in the right direction again.

The Tar Heels are 1-3 but were soundly beaten at Clemson last weekend, 52-7, in a game where the Tigers became the sixth team to score at least 50 points on the Heels during Bunting’s six seasons. UNC is 25-39 overall and 16-26 in the ACC under Bunting.

“We’ve got a lot of football to play this season,” Baddour said. “John Bunting is our head coach. We’re committed to John and we’re going to get this program straightened out.”

When asked if Bunting, whose contract runs through the 2009 season, might be replaced if the losing continues, Baddour said: “He brought us back before and I believe that’s what we’ll do.”

In a rarity last season, not a single ACC or SEC head football coach was fired. That’s not likely to happen two years in a row.

Short yardage ...

... UVa freshman defensive end Jeffrey Fitzgerald leads ACC defensive linemen in tackles per game (5.5) and in only four games has eight tackles for loss, which is only six shy of the Cavaliers’ single-season record of 14 held by Darryl Blackstock in ’02. ... Meanwhile, Cavaliers receiver Kevin Ogletree is tied for the ACC lead in receptions with Clemson’s Chansi Stuckey (both have 21 in four games).

… Florida State ranks third in NCAA Division I-A in most true freshmen played this season with 15. ... On the same token, UVa is one of only seven teams in I-A to have seven or fewer recruited scholarship seniors, joining Duke, Utah State and South Florida (with seven each) and FSU, Kentucky, South Carolina, (six each). ... Florida State, which had to replace seven starters on defense heading into the season, has already lost three starters on that side of the ball, including true freshman linebacker Marcus Ball, who tore the ACL in his left knee last Saturday (Ball is the younger brother of Georgia Tech QB Reggie Ball).

... When Boston College lost in Raleigh last week, it was the first by a Division I-A team in the ACC’s Bermuda Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill), where State, Duke and North Carolina were a collective 0 for 8 vs. I-A foes until the Wolfies knocked off Tom O’Brien’s 20th-ranked Eagles.

... Georgia Tech’s players got to keep their throwback 1970 game jerseys from last Thursday night’s win over Virginia, but the helmets were auctioned off.

... Virginia’s incoming football recruiting class for 2007 has been ranked the fifth-best in the nation thus far by Rivals, behind only Texas, Georgia, Florida and Ole Miss.

The picks

Last week: 5-2. To date: 27-10. This week: BC 33, Maine 10; Clemson 42, Louisiana Tech 17; Miami 30, Houston 14; Wake Forest 52, Liberty 13; Virginia Tech 21, Georgia Tech 17; Virginia 20, Duke 17.

 

Making the grade
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 28, 2006

CHARLOTTESVILLE University of Virginia football coach Al Groh announced nothing publicly at the time, but about a year ago, Jameel Sewell emerged as the leading candidate to take over at quarterback once Marques Hagans' career ended.

To accelerate Sewell's development, U.Va.'s coaching staff gave the former Hermitage High star regular practice reps with the first team for much of last season.

"We knew well back in time that this was what it was going to come to," Groh said last Thursday after Sewell's first start for Virginia.

Why, then, didn't the 6-2, 219-pound left-hander work more with the first team in spring practice and training camp?

Why did Groh put the first-team offense in graduate student Christian Olsen's hands coming into the season?

One reason: Sewell's command of the playbook and the offense had been shaky at times, and Olsen (and junior Kevin McCabe) surpassed him in those areas.

Another reason: After seeing Sewell's first-semester grades, U.Va.'s coaches were reluctant to commit to a quarterback who was in danger of getting suspended from school.

Sewell, who redshirted as a first-year player last season, has acknowledged that he probably would have been academically ineligible for 2006-07 had he not done well in summer school.

"That certainly was a factor," Groh said Tuesday.

Sewell's first start didn't come until the Cavaliers' fourth game -- a 24-7 loss at Georgia Tech in which they totaled a season-low 166 yards -- but the job is now his to lose. Virginia (0-1, 1-3) plays at ACC foe Duke (0-2, 0-3) on Saturday afternoon. Barring a last-minute change, Sewell will become the first freshman QB since Bryson Spinner in 2000 to start more than one game in a season for U.Va.

The Wahoos hope Sewell's second start begins more auspiciously than his first. He was 3 for 9 for 22 yards before intermission in Atlanta and threw as many bounce passes as completions.

"I was extremely frustrated," Sewell said of his halftime mood at Bobby Dodd Stadium. "I just couldn't show it. You're not supposed to show things like that.

"I just got in the locker room and took a knee and took everything in that everybody was saying . . . I was thinking in my head, 'You've just got to play, Sewell, and stop worrying and stop trying to be so perfect.'"

The final two quarters went better for Sewell, who threw his first touchdown pass and completed 12 of 22 attempts.

"It seemed like he really gained some confidence and provided them a spark in the second half," Duke coach Ted Roof said.

For the season, Sewell is 22 of 42 passing for 166 yards and one TD, with two interceptions.

At Hermitage, Sewell played on powerful teams not known for the sophistication of their passing attacks. What he encountered at U.Va. was, he recalled, a "complete shock."

"I knew teams passed the ball, but to come into such a complex offense, it's like taking a calculus class," Sewell said. "It's extremely difficult to learn."

A high school quarterback may have one target on a pass play, Sewell noted. "If he's not open, then do something, make something happen. But here, if your primary wide receiver is not open, you have a secondary wide receiver and a check down, and maybe a third wide receiver coming through."

Sewell, of course, isn't the first quarterback to have struggled with the transition from high school to college football. He's an excellent athlete with a strong arm, but it's "about so much more than throwing the ball," Groh said.

Olsen, a team captain, started the Cavaliers' first two games this season. McCabe started the third. Neither can be thrilled about his subsequent demotion, but both encouraged Sewell throughout the game at Georgia Tech.

"Every time I came off the field they were right there," Sewell said, "asking me what did I see, did you do this right, why didn't you do that? And actually I needed it. It was very helpful."


 

Cavs like their find
Redshirt freshman Jeffrey Fitzgerald has been a big help to the inexperienced UVa defensive line so far.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- To watch Jeffrey Fitzgerald over the past month, it would be impossible to suspect that he hadn't played in a football game in two years.

Actually, after suffering a pair of serious knee injuries during a two-year span in high school, Fitzgerald's playing experience comes out to about one full season in the past four.

Regardless of experience, he has been a bright spot for a Virginia football team that is off to its worst start since 1986.

Fitzgerald, a 6-foot-3, 279-pound redshirt freshman, has started UVa's first four games and is tied for the ACC lead in tackles for loss -- six solo, two shared.

Three of those came last Thursday night in a 24-7 loss at Georgia Tech, where he also had a sack.

"He's very aware, he's very alert and he makes progress every day," UVa coach Al Groh said. "Things really register with him. Sometimes, you hear the term, 'He gets it.'

"Some players work and labor and put a lot into it, but there isn't much that happens. They don't catch on as fast. He's just one of those players who have a knack for improvement."

Junior Chris Long, who plays the other defensive-end spot in Virginia's 3-4 scheme, compares Fitzgerald to a sponge.

"He absorbs every bit of coaching, respects his teammates [and] takes everything away from them that he possibly can," Long said. "It's a reflection of a guy who said, 'OK, I'm going to sit for a year, I'm going to redshirt, but I'm going to take advantage of my time.' This is the result of that.

"He's a playmaker out there. I can't say enough about him."

When Fitzgerald committed to Virginia in September 2004, he was listed at 6 foot 4 and 245 pounds. Some might have wondered if he would get big enough to play end in the 3-4, which is similar to the tackle spot in a more conventional 4-3 scheme.

It turns out, Fitzgerald was well on his way to 280 by the time he arrived at Virginia.

"I was kind of shocked," said Fitzgerald, one of three UVa starters from Richmond's Hermitage High School, also the alma mater of Cavaliers' quarterback Jameel Sewell and wide receiver Fontel Mines. "Actually, it happened without me noticing. Once I got hurt, I didn't do much but eat and sit around the house."

As a sophomore at Hermitage, Fitzgerald had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Then, after recording 16 tackles for loss and 11 sacks as a junior, he tore the ACL in his right knee.

Some players don't recover from one torn ACL, "but I never thought I'd never play again," he said. "The second time, I didn't even know it was an ACL till I got out of surgery."

Fitzgerald enjoyed such a smooth recovery that he felt comfortable going out for track and field in the spring of his senior year. He finished second in the shot put and seventh in the discus.

Given his rehab from the second knee operation, it was always assumed that Fitzgerald would redshirt, although there was a point in the year when injuries elsewhere on the defensive line had him on the ready list.

"The redshirt year helped me a lot in getting comfortable with the defense and just getting my knee stronger," he said. "But, sitting out my senior year like I did, I just wanted to get out and play.

"Now, I'm ready to have an impact and make a name for myself."

Nobody was happier to see Fitzgerald healthy than Mike London, the Cavaliers' new defensive coordinator. London previously had served as UVa's defensive-line coach and recruiting coordinator before spending the 2005 season with the Houston Texans.

"He was one of the key guys who recruited me," Fitzgerald said "Every time I got up here for an unofficial visit, I made sure to try and talk with him. It upset me when I heard he was leaving."

Fitzgerald's development has answered some of the questions about a Virginia defensive line that entered the season with only Long as a returning starter.

"It does help a lot to have a name at the other end," Fitzgerald said. "He gets a lot of the attention from the other offenses. By scheming against him, it allows me a lot of freedom. In time, I believe that people will see that I'm capable of doing some of the same things Chris is doing."

They already have.
 

Struggling Devils don't see season as total loss

By its standards, Duke's current 11-game losing streak is relatively modest.

In the past decade alone, the Blue Devils have had a 23-game losing streak, but their current skid is the second-longest in Division I-A.

The only school with a longer ongoing streak is Temple, which has lost 16 straight games, the last four under new head coach and former Virginia assistant Al Golden.

As opposed to Temple, outscored 163-7 in its last three games, Duke could have won at Wake Forest if the Deacons hadn't blocked a field-goal attempt on the game's final play. That same Wake team carries a 4-0 record into its game Saturday with Division I-AA Liberty.

"For us to walk around here and talk about the losing streak, we don't do that," Duke coach Ted Roof said Wednesday on the ACC coaches' teleconference. "Enough other people do that.

"Certainly, we're aware of it, but, at the same time, we don't want to harp on it. Internally, it motivates us, no question. We all know it. We know the situation."

Strange as it might seem, Roof fears that his team has been guilty of scoreboard-watching.

"When you look up and you focus on that, you're really wasting energy," said Roof, whose Blue Devils (0-3) entertain Virginia (1-3) at noon Saturday. "The things that take care of that are your execution and your strain.

"Obviously, there are situations in a game with time management and things like that, and we practice that, but during the game I don't want the focus to be the scoreboard."

n The Blue Devils were open this past weekend after a Sept. 16 trip to Virginia Tech, where they lost 36-0 and saw quarterback Thaddeus Lewis sidelined by a blow to the head from Tech's Aaron Rouse. Roof said Lewis has been cleared to play against Virginia but would have been unavailable if the Blue Devils had played Saturday.

n Duke, also shut out in its opener by Division I-AA Richmond, is not alone among Tech opponents. None of the four teams the Hokies (4-0) have beaten has won a game against Division I-A opposition.

n The Liberty-Wake Forest game will pit new Flames' coach Danny Rocco against his alma mater. Rocco began his playing career at Penn State before transferring to Wake. The game was scheduled before he arrived at Liberty from Al Groh's staff at Virginia.

Quote-unquote

Roof on Virginia Tech: "That group of skilled kids from Virginia Tech, since I've been coaching, is the best I've coached against. They've got a group of four or five guys that are going to be playing on Sunday that they line up with [at] wide receiver."

 

Notebook: Jones could see time in Duke's receiving corps
By BRYAN STRICKLAND : The Herald-Sun
bstrickland@heraldsun.com
Sep 27, 2006 : 11:31 pm ET

DURHAM -- Duke sophomore Marcus Jones, who started the season throwing passes, might get a chance to catch some passes Saturday.

Duke coach Ted Roof said that despite the Blue Devils' lack of depth at quarterback, he hopes to get Jones on the field against Virginia at wide receiver. Jones, who spent most of his playing time at receiver as a true freshman, is Duke's lone scholarship quarterback behind starter Thad Lewis.

"There's a delicate balance right there because Marcus is one of our better athletes, and to have him standing on the sidelines is not good," Roof said. "But at the same time, if he were to get hurt playing receiver and Thad were to get hurt playing quarterback, then we'd be down to the contingency plan."

Jones was prepared to play some at wideout in Duke's last game at Virginia Tech on Sept. 16 but never got the chance, instead getting his second chance of the season at quarterback when Lewis suffered a concussion.

Drummer still mending

Even with the bye week, Duke speedster Ronnie Drummer still isn't completely up to speed.

Roof said that Drummer, who suffered a lower-leg injury on Duke's fifth offensive snap of the season, was "50 percent" to play against the Cavaliers.

"He's still gimped up," Roof said. "In the offseason we really focused on ways to get him the football because he makes big plays with his speed.

"If he doesn't have his speed, there's no sense of doing it."

Drummer is Duke's "devil back," a hybrid position created for him to feature his breakaway speed both in the running and passing game.

Fan-tastic opportunities

Duke football fans can take part in a busload of promotions, both literally and figuratively.

Friday and Saturday, the ACC Football Championship Tour Bus will roll through campus, offering interactive games, Dr. Pepper products and a chance to win a $10,000 scholarship and a trip to the ACC title game on Dec. 2 in Jacksonville, Fla.

The bus will be in the East Campus dining area from

10 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday and at the Kroger grocery store on Hillsborough Road from 8 a.m.-noon Saturday.

In a separate promotion, students can do more than attend a Duke game -- they can "own" a Duke game. The "My Own Game" promotion, sponsored by Alltel Wireless, will name the Nov. 4 game against Navy in honor of a student.

The authors of the top 10 essays on the topic "Why I Deserve My Own Game" will rally friends, families and classmates to vote for them, and the winner will have the Duke-Navy game named in their honor, in addition to VIP tickets for themselves and 10 others to the game and on-field access to Wallace Wade Stadium, including the chance to enter the field through the players' tunnel.

Deadline for entries at www.alltelvote.com is Oct. 7. A dozen schools are doing or have done the promotion, including N.C. State and three other ACC schools.

 

UVa's Copper shows his mettle
By Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
September 27, 2006

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Only a few hours had elapsed since the end of the most humiliating defeat of the Al Groh era at Virginia, a humbling seven-point loss to Western Michigan at Scott Stadium before a restless homecoming crowd that left players with plenty of questions and few answers.
The curiosity got to Jon Copper.

Not the next day. That night. The sophomore linebacker trudged to the McCue Center, UVa's football headquarters, and began poring over film, searching for something - anything - that would prevent the Cavaliers from experiencing that sour feeling again in the near future.

"I'd say that's unusual even for the professional level," Groh said.

It's not unusual for Copper, a studious inside linebacker who has made the most out the opportunity to play in the wake of the departures of Ahmad Brooks and Kai Parham.

Then again, that's how Copper, who is tied for fourth in the ACC with 32 tackles, gains his edge. At 6 feet, 232 pounds, he's hardly built in the mold of Brooks or Parham, physical freaks whose natural athletic ability may not be matched at Virginia for quite some time. Copper would be the first to admit this.

A humble player, he would not brag about his time in the film room. Or in the weight room. Or on the practice field.

His teammates are more than glad to.

"The guy works so hard. He's unrelenting," sophomore defensive end Chris Long said. "Some guys who maybe don't have as much football intelligence as him, their athleticism doesn't do them as much good. He's economical. If he's getting from Point A to Point B, he knows he's going from Point A to Point B before he gets there."

That is to say Copper seems to always have a plan. He did coming out of Northside High in Roanoke as an unheralded two-star prospect. Virginia had an interest but did not offer him a scholarship (though he kept in close contact with then-UVa assistant Danny Rocco).

Instead, he went to Fork Union Military Academy, not to boost his academics as most players do, but to make himself more attractive as a linebacker.

He walked on at UVa in 2004 and redshirted before playing mostly on special teams last year. He earned the Rock Weir Award in 2005 as one of the most improved players during spring practice.

"There was a little more initiative, I guess, when I first got here to go a little harder than I saw someone else go," Copper said.

Still, doubts festered as to whether he would be an impact player. He sought the advice of an older player on the team who had gone through a similar situation.

"I remember (him saying) there were times when he doubted," Copper said. "He was ready to hang it up and he just told me outright, 'Yeah,' and he went on to have a very successful career here."

Copper's perseverance paid off. His role changed drastically in the offseason when Parham made an ill-fated decision to bolt for the NFL and Brooks was kicked off the team. Suddenly, Copper, with 10 career tackles, was now the second-most tenured inside linebacker on the team.

He rose to the occasion, impressing at the spring game, earning a scholarship in May and seizing his opportunity as a starter this fall.

"He really brings it every day," Groh said. "Every drill, every planned team period, every rep in the weight room. Commitment, work ethic and toughness are three things that quickly gain the respect of most players. ? Those things are very prominent in Jon's makeup."

There are few tasks Copper doesn't tackle head on. As a sophomore in high school, he traveled to York, Pa., for an International Powerlifting Association event and set several records for his weight and age class. A devoutly religious person, he's involved in many Christian ministries and is a regular at the team's Friday chapel service.

Football is the same. It's telling that Copper became a Notre Dame fan in his formative years after watching the movie "Rudy," an against-all-odds story of a hard-working walk-on who realized his dream of playing for the Division I football team that he loved.

Sound familiar?