Bailey learns to line dance
Kevin Bailey has played left tackle, center and most recently left guard for Virginia.
By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Until Kevin Bailey came along, as far as anyone knows, no college football player had been injured while studying for exams at the library.
Bailey can be excused if he doesn't find the subject particularly amusing.

Bailey, once considered the showpiece of Virginia's offensive line, only recently was cleared medically after several setbacks in his rehabilitation of a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Although he didn't appear on any preseason All-America or All-ACC checklists, Bailey has proven his value as a utility player, a role that could enhance his attractiveness to pro scouts.

"It certainly is a very positive thing as far as being on a roster," said UVa coach Al Groh, a former NFL head coach with the New York Jets. "That's a big issue with whether a kid makes it or not. It's not just whether he's a good player.

"You can only take 45 to the game. That means a coach has to deactivate eight players per week. In Kevin's case, he can count at least two of your 45 spots. If you take Kevin, you might have only seven [offensive linemen], but taking him is like having eight or nine.

"When the time comes, I'll point that out to him."

Bailey, a 6-foot-6, 293-pound senior from Lexington, Ky., began his college career as a left tackle. He was moved to center for the final four games of the 2001 season and started the first two games at center last year.

When Bailey made his first start of the season Saturday, he was at left guard.

"When we found out that 'Biggie' wasn't going to play," said Bailey, referring to junior guard Elton Brown, "everybody was joking that I was the guy who was going to go in. That was before the Wake Forest game.

"Then the coaches came to me last week and said, 'How about trying left guard this week?' I said, 'OK, let's do it.'"

Bailey didn't make his first appearance of the season until Sept.13, more than a year after he tore up his knee while running interference on a screen play at Florida State.

Bailey was one of three UVa players who underwent reconstructive knee surgery - Chris Williams and Alvin Pearman were the others - and, when Groh stopped by the training room one day, he preached caution when the players were getting around campus.

"It's not like a pro player who leaves his apartment, rides the elevator to the garage and drives to the training room," Groh said. "These kids have to go to class."

Bailey was at UVa's Clemons Library on an icy December day when his crutches slipped on a slick spot and his reconstructed knee buckled as he tried to keep his balance.

"I didn't know what was wrong," he said, "but I knew that something was wrong."

Bailey required a second surgical procedure - not a total reconstruction, though he's not sure - and missed spring practice. In the summer, he was going through rehabilitation when he "tweaked" the knee again.

He was unable to participate when preseason drills opened in early August and he was unable to play in UVa's first two games, against Duke and South Carolina. He played approximately 20 plays at center against Western Michigan and a little bit less than that against Wake Forest.

"If I were watching film and didn't know his history, I would never tell you, 'Oh, yeah, that player's been injured,'" Groh said. "That's the way he's moving and performing.

"Whether his production - getting guys blocked - turns out the same, I just have to see more evidence," Groh said. "When he gets 40 or 50 plays at center, I'll have a better read. Center is definitely his best position."

Brown should return this week after missing two games with a concussion. When ready, he will start at right guard and Brian Barthelmes will move from right guard to his customary left-guard spot. It's unclear what that will do for Bailey.

"Good question," he said before Tuesday's practice. "We'll find out this afternoon."

Bailey said there is "no use" wondering what might have been if not for his original injury at Florida State. He does have a degree in environmental science, obtained "on time" last May, that has given him an academic schedule this fall that doesn't call for much time in the library.

"I've been trying to stay away," he said.

 

Will BC be 11th-hour choice as ACC's 12th team? Oct. 7, 2003
By Gregg Doyel
SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Gregg your opinion!

The ACC has entered into serious discussions with Boston College about becoming the league's 12th member, sources close to the process told SportsLine.com on Tuesday night. A decision is expected within the next few days.

ACC presidents and chancellors have discussed the situation in the past 48 hours, and while no decision had been made as of Tuesday night, a resolution was expected sooner than later. At this point, sources say the question is not whether Boston College would leave the Big East if the ACC asked; that would happen in an instant, sources say. Rather, the question now is the same one that faced ACC leaders this summer, one they answered at the time with a no: Should Boston College get an invitation?

The reasons for urgency are multi-fold:

The NCAA has responded negatively to the ACC's bid to hold a lucrative football championship game with less than 12 members. Such a game would generate between $6 million and $10 million, and the ACC is in dire need of the additional revenue stream after adding Miami and Virginia Tech, whose financial upside in football is almost offset by their downside to basketball -- unless there is a football title game.

Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has said his league will pursue stiffer penalties for any school hoping to leave. Miami and Virginia Tech will pay a $1 million buyout, while the next team to leave -- unless that team leaves soon, before the cost of the buyout rises -- could face a penalty of $5 million or more.

Talks with Notre Dame bogged down after the Irish couldn't agree with ACC presidents and chancellors on a partial membership scenario. ACC commissioner John Swofford had presented his presidents and chancellors with one scenario that would have seen Notre Dame join the league in stages, but the school leaders said no.
 

Young QB Martinez on Cavs' waiting list
Freshman's next shot could be in'04

BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Oct 8, 2003


U.VA. AT CLEMSON
SATURDAY: Noon ON THE AIR: TV - WTVR-6; Radio - WRVA (1140), 11:30 a.m.

CHARLOTTESVILLE He was Virginia's quarterback for most of the Aug.30 opener against Duke, and on Sept.6 he started against South Carolina.

Four weeks later, his coaches didn't include him in the traveling squad for U.Va.'s game at North Carolina.

Anthony Martinez has slipped back into the shadows at U.Va.

Senior Matt Schaub is healthy and again putting up big numbers, and sophomore Marques Hagans has shifted back to quarterback. Virginia's No.3 QB against the Tar Heels was David De Laureal, a former walk-on who backs up Schaub as the holder on kicks.

This has been a humbling stretch for Martinez, a redshirt freshman who began the season as U.Va.'s No.2 quarterback. Pressed into service when Schaub separated his throwing shoulder Aug.30, the former Patrick Henry High star connected on 6 of 15 passes for 76 yards and one touchdown in a 27-0 rout of Duke. In his first start, however, Martinez passed for only 54 yards and threw two interceptions in a 31-7 loss to South Carolina.

Schaub empathized with him.

"He told me, 'I had a game like this against Wisconsin,'" Martinez recalled.

In the 2001 opener at Wisconsin, Schaub made his first start for Virginia. It went poorly. He completed only 3 of 10 passes - for 24 yards - and threw two interceptions before being replaced by Bryson Spinner.

"Watching him against Wisconsin, I didn't know how he was feeling," Martinez said. "Then after the South Carolina game, I was like, 'Now I know what it feels like.' But it's part of the game and something I've got to get used to."

U.Va. coach Al Groh said he believes Martinez's "time will come. Right now there are just two players who have been in the pipeline longer and have a better sense of what to do."

Hagans, Schaub's backup in 2002, moved to wideout in the offseason, but he moved back after the loss to South Carolina. Hagans started and starred in U.Va.'s Sept.13 rout of Western Michigan, and he's No.2 on the depth chart at QB. Schaub returned for Virginia's Sept.27 game with Wake Forest and, as long as he's healthy, will take most of the snaps.

Come spring practice, four quarterbacks are expected to battle for the 2004 starting job: Hagans, Martinez, Chris Olsen and Kevin McCabe. Olsen, a transfer from Notre Dame, will be a sophomore next season, and McCabe will be a redshirt freshman.

For inspiration, Martinez looks to Schaub, who played little as a redshirt freshman in 2000, split time with Spinner in 2001 and briefly lost his starting job in 2002.

"He's been through a lot of situations, the ups and downs," Martinez said.

On Groh's radio show Monday night, a caller asked about Martinez. It takes time, Groh responded, for quarterbacks to develop.

"Remember, now, that Matt Schaub, who's a wonderful, wonderful quarterback, didn't really hit his stride till his fourth year, when he was a redshirt junior," Groh said.

NOTE: Clemson's No.1 quarterback, sophomore Charlie Whitehurst, is listed as questionable for this weekend's game. Whitehurst injured his left foot in the fourth quarter Saturday at Maryland and didn't practice Monday. If Whitehurst is not available against Virginia, redshirt freshman Chansi Stuckey will start.

Whitehurst has completed 110 of 175 attempts for 1,368 yards and 10 touchdowns this season. He's been picked off five times.

 

Cavs' Linebackers Are Big Hits
Brooks, Parham Are Starting and Starting to Show Promise
By Jim Reedy
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 8, 2003; Page D06

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Oct. 7 -- Since signing as Virginia recruits on the same day, Ahmad Brooks and Kai Parham have been viewed as a two-headed monster designed to fill the Cavaliers' two inside linebacker spots for the next three or four years. Now five games into their rookie season, both players are in the starting lineup and on track to fulfilling the hyperbolic expectations created by their all-American prep careers.

Brooks, who was the All-Met defensive player of the year as a Hylton senior two years ago, has started each game and is second on the team with 36 tackles. Parham, who became a starter after junior Rich Bedesem was injured 10 days ago, is second among the defensive regulars in tackles per play.

In last weekend's 38-13 win at North Carolina, Brooks and Parham played nearly all the snaps at inside linebacker, combining for 14 tackles as No. 25 Virginia (4-1) held the Tar Heels to 265 offensive yards.

"They had to run the whole defense, make the calls and then concentrate on their own game," Virginia Coach Al Groh said. "That's a big chunk to take, particularly since they . . . could rely on somebody else to do that for them up until this point. I thought that was a big step up for them and obviously it augurs well for the future."

Parham shoulders a bit more responsibility than Brooks because he plays on the strong side -- the "mike" position, in Virginia's parlance. Though all the defensive players look to the sideline before each play to receive the call from assistant coach Mike London, the mike has to ensure the linemen and the linebackers are in the right spots and make any necessary changes before the snap.

After easing into the role during the first four games, Parham said he was prepared for the added responsibility.

"It wasn't that bad," said Parham, who is considering a business or pre-med major after excelling academically at Princess Anne High in Virginia Beach. "I just went out and I stuck to the game plan. It's just football, so it wasn't that big of a deal."

Like Parham, who redshirted because of a back injury, Brooks did not play for the Cavaliers last season. Low test scores forced him to spend the fall semester at Hargrave Military Academy. But since enrolling at Virginia in January, his transition has been surprisingly smooth.

In high school, Brooks "would be standing in the middle and everybody else would be running," Groh said. "And he'd just kind of stand there and sort out where the ball was going. Then he'd run and go get it. And he really could do that. That worked pretty well for that team.

"Now he's in a little bit more complex system, a little bit more intricate thing to do. Now you've got to fit in the overall scheme of things. So he's playing inside linebacker, just as he did previously . . . but there's still a significant change in how he's had to play in these five games than anything else that he's ever done. That compounds how impressed I am by his progress."

Both players have been able to draw on the experience of sophomore outside linebacker Darryl Blackstock, who was a key cog in Virginia's defense as a rookie last season. Of course, Blackstock laughed, sometimes they try to prove they can do it on their own, without his advice.

"But I always tell them to just focus," Blackstock said. "Calm down, don't try to do too much. Just do what you've got to do and yours will come. Because coming out of high school . . . you're not really used to seeing everybody else do their thing. I told them to relax, stay poised, just play your assignment and the stuff will just flow to you."

The transition to college isn't yet complete, Parham said, but he and Brooks are headed in the right direction.

"You definitely have to come in and learn the scheme that you're playing in, and we're still both learning it," Parham said. "But I know we're a lot further along than we were at the beginning of the year. This is a big difference. I feel like we're playing better now than we were at first."
 

Some Tigers players frustrated with start
By KEN TYSIAC
Staff Writer

CLEMSON — The news of Georgia Tech’s upset victory against N.C. State caught Clemson’s players by surprise Saturday.
The Tigers saw the final score of that game on the scoreboard during the second quarter of their game against Maryland. Clemson had defeated Georgia Tech 39-3 two weeks earlier.

“Georgia Tech wasn’t really that good, and they beat N.C. State, so I was like, you know, anything can happen these weekends,” Clemson free safety Travis Pugh said.

Clemson (3-2, 1-1 ACC) has been the exception during a season when weekly upsets have been the rule. Before the season, many prognosticators predicted that the Tigers would be 3-2 after five games, with victories against Furman, Middle Tennessee and Georgia Tech, and losses to Georgia and Maryland, which defeated the Tigers 21-7 on Saturday.

Clemson has met those expectations. That has frustrated some players who expected better.

“It’s disappointing,” said Clemson offensive tackle Gregory Walker. “Because we as a team expected to beat those teams (Georgia and Maryland), and we didn’t.”

The loss to Maryland was especially difficult to swallow because some of Clemson’s players believed the Tigers should have won.

Clemson had a game-tying, third-quarter touchdown reception nullified by an offensive pass interference call, and it gave up a touchdown on a 69-yard pass to Derrick Fenner that the Tiger coaches wanted disallowed.

Fenner had come into play from out of bounds to catch the pass. Game officials ruled that Fenner was eligible to return to the field and make the reception because Clemson cornerback Tye Hill had pushed him out of bounds.

“We really had turned our season around,” Hill said. “We felt like we could have won that game. We felt we were the better team. Some bad calls and some things didn’t go our way.”

Virginia (4-1, 3-0) provides the Tigers with another opportunity to perform better than expected. The Cavaliers, who visit Clemson at noon Saturday for homecoming, are ranked No. 25 in the nation by The Associated Press after a 38-13 trouncing of North Carolina.

Clemson has not defeated a ranked team in more than two years. The Tigers’ last victory against a ranked opponent was a 47-44 decision at Georgia Tech in overtime on Sept. 29, 2001.

Hill smiled Monday when he learned that Virginia had moved into the Top 25.

“I want what they’ve got,” Hill said. “I’m going to work hard this week. We want to be ranked.”

After Saturday’s loss, Clemson coach Tommy Bowden mentioned that one defeat in the ACC doesn’t put the Tigers out of the league championship race. Virginia and Florida State are the only ACC teams without a loss in the conference, and both remain on Clemson’s schedule.

Those championship hopes are keeping the Tigers motivated.

“We can’t afford another loss,” Walker said. “We know we can go in the ACC with one loss, but we can’t compete for the championship with two losses. So we’re just trying to make sure we don’t get that second loss.”

Clemson’s players are confident despite their modest early record. Walker talked hopefully about winning every game left on the schedule.

Pugh said Clemson expected to win at Maryland and said Georgia Tech’s defeat of N.C. State showed players that the Tigers might be better than they had led themselves to believe.

But Clemson’s players know they need to win soon to prove they are better than expected.

“I don’t want to live with the same expectations that the outside experts have for the rest of our season,” Hill said. “I feel that we are a whole lot better than what a lot of people are rating us to be. ... I feel we are going to still surprise everybody.”