Rivals form a bond at U.Va.
Freshmen adjust to new roles, routines and positions on field
Friday, Oct 10, 2008 - 12:07 AM

EAST CAROLINA AT VIRGINIA

Tomorrow:noon
On the air:TV -- WRLH; radio -- WRVA (1140), 11 a.m.
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- They knew each other in high school but weren't close, which is not surprising. After all, they played for rival schools in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference: Rodney McLeod for DeMatha and Cameron Johnson for Gonzaga.

At the University of Virginia, however, McLeod and Johnson have formed a bond. They're classmates, teammates and, on the road, roommates. They're also among the most promising young players in football coach Al Groh's program.

"It doesn't surprise me that both of those guys are playing right now," senior linebacker Clint Sintim said.

Virginia has used four true freshmen this season: McLeod, Johnson, punter Jimmy Howell and offensive guard Austin Pasztor. Howell and Pasztor played in the opener. Johnson's debut came in the third game, against Connecticut, and McLeod's came a week later at Duke.

Johnson, who wears jersey No. 56, is a 6-4, 250-pound outside linebacker who's uncommonly athletic for his size. The Greenbelt, Md., resident rushes the quarterback in passing situations, and he also plays on the kickoff-return team.

McLeod, who's from Oxon Hill, Md., is a 5-10, 180-pound cornerback who this week switched from jersey No. 26 to No. 28. He plays in U.Va.'s dime package, as one of six defensive backs, and on the kickoff and punt-coverage teams.

Some recruiting analysts rated the class that signed with Virginia in February as the ACC's worst. Groh didn't think much of those rankings.

"Regardless of how many stars or checkmarks or whatever anybody else put on them, we thought that some of these kids would be very good players," Groh said. "Rodney McLeod was one of them. Cameron Johnson was another one."

Of the two, Johnson has faced the more difficult adjustment to college football. At Gonzaga, Johnson played more safety than linebacker on defense, and he lined up at tight end and wide receiver on offense. Moreover, Gonzaga did not play the 3-4 defense that is U.Va.'s base scheme.

He's been getting by on instincts and athleticism more than on knowledge of the system, but Johnson already has two tackles for losses.

"He has the prototypical size, speed and athleticism for this 3-4 outside linebacker," said Sintim, a four-year starter at that spot.

As a Gonzaga senior, Johnson weighed about 225 pounds, and because of basketball commitments (he was All-Metro), he'd never lifted weights seriously before he got to U.Va.

Groh remembers watching some of Johnson's first workouts with Matt Balis, U.Va.'s strength coach for football.

"Matt was having him lift some bars that really didn't even have any weights on [them], not because of weakness, but to teach him the technique of how to do the exercise properly," Groh said.

"But he does have a very, very good level of natural strength, and he's got a heavy punch. Some guys just have a heavier punch than other guys do, and he's given every indication that he's got a chance to be a very strong player."

When he committed to U.Va., Johnson said he hoped to walk on to Dave Leitao's basketball team when football season ended. That's not likely to happen this year, Johnson said Tuesday. He's looking forward to his offseason training sessions with Balis.

"Whatever they want me to do, I'm ready to do it," Johnson said.

McLeod arrived in Charlottesville with a similar attitude. He'd starred at wideout for DeMatha but was happy to let U.Va.'s coaches slot him.

"I was open to anything, receiver or cornerback," McLeod said. "I love both positions."

In his two games, McLeod has made six tackles, and the ferocity of his hits has been a revelation. Still, it should come as no surprise when alumni of the rugged WCAC contribute early in Division I. The Cavaliers' starting nose tackle, redshirt freshman Nick Jenkins, graduated from another WCAC school, Good Counsel.

"Our league is tough, and the competition is great," Johnson said. "I guess it just carries over."

 

Pinkney maintains family's rep at ECU
The Pirates QB followed his father's footsteps and has several impressive wins.
By Mark Berman
981-3125

East Carolina quarterback Patrick Pinkney will be playing in Charlottesville on Saturday. That could be bad news for the Virginia Cavaliers, because Pinkney has done pretty well this year against schools with "Virginia" in their name.

Virginia Tech fans can recall all too well the Hokies' season-opening 27-22 loss to ECU in Charlotte. Pinkney threw for one touchdown and ran for another in that game, in which he completed 19 of 23 passes for 211 yards.

The following week, ECU stunned visiting West Virginia 24-3. Pinkney was 22-of-28 for 236 yards and one TD in that game.

So the Conference USA standout is hardly nervous about taking on another team from a BCS conference Saturday.

"In college football, everybody's pretty good, ... no matter [if the team is in the] ACC, Conference USA, Big East," he said. "You've just got to believe you can win and stay focused and play hard each and every down."

Pinkney attended a UVa camp one summer when he was in high school, but the Cavaliers did not offer the Fayetteville, N.C., native a scholarship.

"If they would have offered him, I think he would have accepted," said his father, Reggie Pinkney.

Then again, maybe not. Patrick Pinkney felt a strong connection to ECU, where his father was an All-Southern Conference defensive back.

The elder Pinkney helped the Pirates win two SoCon titles -- back before Division I was split into subdivisions. He was chosen by the Detroit Lions in the sixth round of the 1977 NFL Draft, and spent five years in the NFL with the Lions and Baltimore Colts. He will be inducted into ECU's athletic hall of fame later this month.

Father and son joke at times about who is the best Pinkney to play for the Pirates, but the elder Pinkney owns a pretty good tie-breaker.

"He's got a conference championship. We don't have one of those yet," Patrick Pinkney said.

ECU was ranked as high as 14th in the Associated Press Top 25 after its wins over Tech and WVU, and a spot in a BCS bowl game seemed possible. But the 3-2 Pirates are coming off back-to-back losses to North Carolina State and Houston. ECU is 1-1 in league play, so a conference title remains possible, but the Pirates are unranked and a BCS bowl chance is gone.

"We've got a target on our back," said Pinkney, a fifth-year senior. "Teams are going to give us their best shot."

Pinkney has completed 92 of 135 passes (68.1 percent) for 1,017 yards and six touchdowns with three interceptions this year.

"He has a lot more football sense than I had when I was growing up because I didn't have the background or [someone] to push me like he had growing up," his father said.

Pinkney does a good job managing the game, said ECU coach Skip Holtz. But Holtz said he has not played as well in the past two games as he did during the team's 3-0 start.

Holtz said that because ECU has struggled with its ground game and has suffered injury woes on the offensive line, the coaching staff might have asked Pinkney to do too much in those losses.

"We've put a lot of pressure on him and tried to get in a couple more empty sets and ... have him throw it out of the pocket, and that isn't necessarily his strength," Holtz said. "We just have to go back ... and put him back in those positions where he can help us manage the game."

Pinkney threw for 1,680 yards and ran for 1,172 yards as a high school senior. Duke, N.C. State and North Carolina were interested in him as a defensive back, and Appalachian State wanted him as a QB.

Reggie Pinkney said he and his wife did not lobby his son to pick the Pirates.

"The night that he made his decision, he didn't even confer with us," Reggie Pinkney said.

Pinkney did not see game action for ECU his first three seasons, though. He had an operation on his throwing shoulder in each of his first two years and spent the 2006 season trying to regain his arm strength.

In last year's opener against the Hokies, Pinkney made his ECU debut. With the Pirates' starting QB suspended for the game, Pinkney was elevated to second string on the depth chart. He played well in a reserve role in a 17-7 loss at Tech, throwing for 115 yards and running for 48.

Holtz marveled at his poise in that game.

"He is ... not 6-5. Shoot, he's not 6-2. But he went into that game and ... he had a smile on his face and he thrived in that environment," Holtz said.

The following week, Pinkney, who is 6-foot, threw for 406 yards to lead his team to its first win over North Carolina since his father was a Pirate.

Pinkney wound up sharing the QB job last season and threw for 1,358 yards.

He is glad has the job all to himself this season.

"You can find your rhythm quicker, and you just keep your mind in the game, like it should be, knowing that your teammates are counting on you on every drive," he said.
 

Pasztor’s long, strange trip
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: October 9, 2008

Only a handful of fans noticed when Virginia’s No. 63 trotted out onto the field at Scott Stadium last Saturday night to start the game against Maryland.
The vast majority had no idea who Austin Pasztor was or anything about the odyssey that brought him to the Cavaliers’ football program.
To say that Pasztor’s journey from Langton, Ontario in Canada to Charlottesville was a bit bizarre would be an understatement. The fact that he was starting at offensive left guard for Virginia as a 17-year-old was mindboggling.
Yet, the Canadian played well enough to be graded out at 78 percent against an aggressive Maryland defense, earning Pasztor a nomination from UVa coach Al Groh for ACC rookie of the week.
Lining up beside All-ACC candidate Eugene Monroe, Pasztor played all but the final snap to help the Cavaliers roll up 201 yards on the ground and stun the Terrapins 31-0.
None of this would have happened if Fork Union Military Academy postgraduate coach John Shuman hadn’t been receptive to what he first thought was a summer prank last year.
“Actually I thought it was a joke,” Shuman said. “I was sitting here in my office on a lazy summer day and no one else was around. Someone called me and asked if they could bring a Canadian all-star team down to scrimmage us.”
Once Shuman was convinced the coach on the phone was serious, he agreed to a scrimmage, wrote it down and actually forgot about it. In mid-August last year, the Canadians called back and said they would be there at the end of the month.
It was a trip that would change Pasztor’s life.
“When they got here and rolled off the bus, they were the biggest 15- and 16-year-olds I had ever seen,” said Shuman.
FUMA played the perfect hosts. They gave the Canadians a clinic on American football, practiced with them to prepare them for a scrimmage the following day. The major issue was that in Canadian football, the defensive line plays a yard off from the ball rather than close to the line of scrimmage.
Throughout the weekend, Pasztor and another player stood out. When the Canadians boarded their bus to leave, Shuman already knew that if No. 74 or No. 60 wanted to come back, he was willing and ready to accept them.
A week later when the Canadian coach called Shuman and told him that Pasztor wanted to enroll at Fork Union, Shuman looked on the roster and saw that Pasztor was No. 74.
“We’ve got to have him,” Shuman said and quickly called the Pasztor household in Ontario.
Rick and Connie Pasztor were surprised to get the phone call.
“We didn’t expect Austin to leave for another year because he was only 16 at the time,” Rick Pasztor said. “When Coach Shuman called, that was a shocker.”
From the Canadian scrimmage the last weekend of August, Pasztor was back at FUMA to enroll by Sept. 21.
“He came in on a Monday and he started for us that Saturday against a junior college team,” Shuman said. “I’m thinking, we have a
6-foot-6, 310-pound guy who can move. Man, I was fired up.”
Shuman had no idea that the big Canadian was only 16 and should have really been playing on the Fork Union high school team as a regular senior. When he did find out, he did what any smart coach would do.
“I said, ‘Hey man, it’s too late now ... you’ve got to play for me,’” Shuman said. “We just rolled with it.”
By Thanksgiving, Shuman had alerted Virginia to Pasztor. The FUMA coach knew that Groh liked towering, athletic linemen and brought film to UVa’s resident Canadian expert, recruiting coordinator Bob Price, the former head coach of the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes.
Before the end of the day, Virginia was ready to pounce on the big man. By the first weekend in December, Pasztor was in Groh’s office for a long sitdown. By the end of the meeting, the Canadian had an offer in hand.
“I had a couple of offers going into the trip [Buffalo, Temple, Youngstown State], but none as big as UVa,” Pasztor recalled. “I was real excited about the visit. Almost immediately I wanted to commit but I thought it would be better if I thought about it for a while.”
A few days later, he committed and stuck with Virginia although Miami (Fla.) and Michigan State came in late with offers.
Until that trip with the all-star team to Fork Union for the scrimmage, Pasztor said he had only dreamed of playing major college football in the U.S., but realistically believed he would probably end up playing college ball in Canada, where there are no football scholarships and the stadiums are much like high school facilities in the U.S.
“In Canada, the hockey players get all the girls and the football players get left in the dust,” said Pasztor, who has grown into a 6-7, 310 frame.
Although he won’t turn 18 until Nov. 26, he believes he has stopped growing.
From that trip put together by Peter Zanka and Norbert Wolf to last Saturday’s start, the past 15 months have been a whirlwind experience for Pasztor.
“I remember when playing D-I football was only a dream,” he said. “Just being a player on a team would be nice, then all of a sudden you find out you’re not going to get redshirted, then find out you’re going to start. That’s never what I would have expected before all this.”
His parents were all for the move even though their older son, Matt, was leaving home at the same time to pursue Canadian junior league hockey, a big deal.
“When you have an opportunity to go down to the States, that’s pretty good and he took it,” Rick Pasztor said.
While he had played football since he was six years old, Austin was also a hockey player. In fact, he played goalie until he literally outgrew the position.
“You don’t see too many
6-7, 312-pound goalies, eh?” said his father.
Pasztor, who had always been the biggest kid in his class, would have required special-made skates and pads, costing thousands of dollars, to keep playing the sport and to equip his size 17 shoe.
“I think he would have gone to football eventually anyway because of his size,” Rick Pasztor said.
While he hadn’t worked a lot in the weight room growing up, Pasztor brought natural strength from working on the family farm, once a tobacco farm that now grows fruits and vegetables.
“That was a lot of hard work and my parents always wanted me to work hard,” said Pasztor of his labor on the farm, located seven miles from the north shore of Lake Erie.
He had been exposed to American football all his life with his home located about two hours from Buffalo and two hours from Detroit. The NFL was big there and so was college football. His father has been watching American football since he was a tike and so has Austin.
Coming from a large family, many of the Pazstors have made the trek to Charlottesville, an 11 and 1/2 hour drive one way. His mom and dad plan to be at Saturday’s game against East Carolina.
They are trying to spread Virginia football around their small Canadian community.
“We’re working on it,” said Rick Pasztor. “Starting with our family, we’re wearing Virginia shirts and we’ve got the sticker on the vehicle.”
Meanwhile, Austin will continue to work hard just as he did at Fork Union, and continue to catch grief from his teammates, who goof on him regularly about being a Canuck.
“They are on me all the time,” Austin chuckled about his Virginia teammates. “Every day they have to say something. If I say anything weird or with an accent, they’re getting on me for it.”
Anything particularly funny?
“I don’t think anything they say is that funny,” Pasztor snickered.
“We call him ‘Big Canada,’” said Cavaliers tight end John Phillips. “He’s a big ol’ boy. But he picks up on things really well in practice.”
Because he had played some at Duke, making the start against Maryland
wasn’t quite as bewildering as it could have been. Pasztor believed he played well for his first start.
“He has a very positive attitude,” Groh said. “When things don’t go perfect, he’s able to learn from it, shake it off and move on. He gets up off the canvas and is ready to fight again.”
Not bad for a rookie, a true freshman that is already delivering eye-popping performances.
Heck, just wait until he turns 18.

 

Speedy Pirates take on Cavs
By Jay Jenkins
Published: October 9, 2008

A month ago there was hype and hope surrounding East Carolina and its football program.
Having won what appeared to be the two toughest games on the schedule, beating Virginia Tech and West Virginia, the Pirates were even discussed as a sleeper team for a BCS bowl bid.
After its third win, a road victory at Tulane, East Carolina’s season took a massive Wall Street-esque dive in back-to-back losses to N.C. State and Houston, a pair of programs that have combined for just four wins.
“We’ve been feast and we’ve been famine,” said ECU coach Skip Holtz. “I don’t think we’re playing as well after the fifth game as we did after the first game.
“It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why.”
ECU (3-2) has suffered a tremendous loss offensively this season. After winning eight games last year and possessing the nation’s 34th-best rushing attack, the Pirates have struggled to produce a ground game.
That has crushed the Pirates of late on third down. For the year, ECU has converted just 36 percent of its third-down opportunities.
“Offensively there are some things, obviously, that we need to improve on right now,” Holtz said. “The biggest key is third down, which is probably our Achilles’ heel. We have not been very efficient on third down and if you go back and look at the calls and what we’re trying to do. Has it been personnel breakdowns? Has it been what we’re doing from a scheme standpoint and what different people are trying to do?
“Those are things we looked at. But, third down is one area where we have to improve if we’re going to go forward.”
The Pirates do boast play-making threats. Quarterback Patrick Pinkney ranks 37th in the nation in passing efficiency and 51st in total offense. Wide receiver Dwayne Harris averages 6.6 receptions per game.
“They’re built on speed,” said Virginia coach Al Groh. “It’s a speed-style offense — spread out all over across the field.
“[ECU has] wide receivers who can run, a quarterback who can run, two or three running backs who have real good speed and the tight end is a very good vertical player. It’s definitely an offense built on speed and built for speed.”
The Pirates have also enjoyed the luxury of a bye week to tweak their operation.
“It was very needed,” Holtz said. “It was a very emotional September with all the highs and lows we’ve been through. The players and coaches, we all needed to get away and get their feet back under them.
“It has given us a time to evaluate where we are as a team after five games.”
Injury update
Five Virginia players were ruled out for Saturday’s game.
That collection did not include left guard Zak Stair, who started the season’s first four games. Stair is listed as doubtful with a knee injury.
Landon Bradley (ankle), Aaron Clark (knee), Max Milien (foot), Keith Payne (hand) and Joe Torchia (shoulder) were ruled out.
UVa running back Cedric Peerman was not listed on the injury report for the first time in a month, but placekicker Yannick Reyering (leg) made his debut and is listed as questionable.

 

Friedgen disappointed in effort against Cavaliers
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: October 8, 2008

Scattershooting around the ACC, while noting that Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen said he was still frustrated by the loss at Virginia ...

Friedgen said during Wednesday’s ACC coaches teleconference that “This was a tough game for me personally, but it’s done with and I’m ready to move on. I hope the players are, too.”

The Terps were a two-touchdown favorite and poised to make some noise in the ACC race, but were stunned, 31-0, by the Cavaliers.

“I was disappointed that we didn’t play better,” Friedgen said. “I thought Virginia played very, very well. They played a lot better than us and I kind of knew that would happen. Virginia had their backs to the wall.

“I had too much respect for Coach Groh and his coaching staff and I knew we would get their best shot, but I couldn’t get that across to my players. I wish I had an answer for it...I definitely don’t like feeling the way I do right now.”

Tigers’ redemption

Maryland’s players weren’t the only ones shocked by their pummeling at the hands of the Wahoos.

The Terrapin meltdown galled the Clemson team that had blown a first-half lead at home to Maryland and lost the week before.

“They [UVa]) just destroyed them,” said Clemson tight end Michael Palmer of the Cavaliers’ upset over the Terps, watched on TV by most of the Tigers’ players. “We were just completely stunned.”

Palmer and his Clemson teammates are hoping they can redeem themselves to Tiger fans tonight when they travel to Wake Forest for the ESPN Thursday night game. Ever since losing that game to Maryland, the Tigers’ players have been getting an earful from their fans.

They were booed off the field after the home loss, but it didn’t end there. Palmer said classmates have been pretty harsh in their criticism of the Clemson team and that even a professor mocked the team’s penchant for losing games to underdogs.

“I’ve been hearing something from everybody,” said senior tailback James Davis.

However, if Clemson beats Wake tonight then the Tigers are back in the driver’s seat for the ACC Atlantic Division title.

With the possibility that Deacons’ kicker Sam Swank might not play or be at 100 percent, the Tigers are licking their chops.

Unforgettable

East Carolina coach Skip Holtz, whose Pirates visit UVa on Saturday, will never forget a particular moment his senior year as a member of Notre Dame’s football team.

The Irish beat USC, but Skip was flagged for roughing the Trojans’ punter. He told us the rest of the story during an interview this week:

“I started jogging to the sideline and I see this little guy over there wearing glasses, pointing his finger with a come-here motion. I slowed down to a walk and made the mistake of taking my helmet off.”

His dad, Irish coach Lou Holtz, was waiting.

“He had a few choice words for me and wasn’t very happy,” Skip said. “I think his famous quote over that incident was that he understands why lions eat their young.”

Quote of the Week

Virginia linebacker Clint Sintim on the low turnout of Cavalier fans for last Saturday’s Maryland game, witnessed by 50,700:

“I think the fans who were there were the true supporters of Virginia football.”

Stat of the Week

When Virginia shut out the Terps, it was only the third time that Ralph Friedgen’s teams have been blanked in eight seasons, twice by UVa and once by Notre Dame.

It also marked Virginia’s third straight win by a shutout, having previously blanked Richmond (16-0) and Miami (48-0) last season.

No biggie

Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said there haven’t been any drawbacks to having Jimbo Fisher, his designated replacement for when Bowden chooses to retire, by his side the past two seasons.

“I don’t think we’ve had any awkwardness about it,” Bowden said. “The main thing is, does everybody accept it. Everybody has here. You get to my age and there’s so much speculation about ‘When will he get out and what will they do?’ Well, [the move] has quieted all that.”

Rankings

Now that UNC is ranked, it ended the Heels’ streak of 112 weeks (this isn’t calendar year weeks but only weeks when football polls are active) without being ranked. Last time Carolina had been ranked was Oct. 28, 2001. There’s some other ACC teams not so fortunate.

Maryland had hoped to end its streak by beating Virginia but the Terps were stunned 31-0 by the Wahoos and have now gone 27 weeks unranked. Miami has gone 35 weeks without being ranked, something once thought to be impossible, while N.C. State has gone 84 weeks.

Duke has gone 226 poll weeks without being ranked, all the way back to Dec. 6, 1994.

Short yardage

N.C. State has improved on its turnover ratio since this time last year when it was minus-17, and is now plus-2. ... Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson is hoping that Demaryius Thomas’ nine catches for 230 yards last week against Duke will hush negative recruiting that Yellow Jacket receivers never touch the ball in his option offense. ... Much of that, by the way, came off of play-action that froze Duke’s safeties and outside linebackers, leaving the corner to deal with Thomas. ... Virginia offensive tackle Eugene Monroe is ranked No. 1 on Mel Kiper’s board for next April’s best NFL Draft prospects. ... Former UVa QB Pete Lalich is working as Oregon State’s scout team quarterback in practice. ... Before the season, Boston College fans were skeptical about Matt Ryan’s replacement at QB, Chris Crane. No longer, his 470 yards of offense against N.C. State was the third-highest in BC history, surpassed only by two Doug Flutie performances. ... UVa’s shutout over Maryland was the ninth by Al Groh teams since 2001, the second-most in the ACC during that stretch (Virginia Tech has 13). ... Only three other teams in the nation have played more freshmen this season than Virginia Tech: Florida State (31); Georgia (24) and Eastern Michigan (24). The Hokies have played 23 first-year players.

The picks

Last week: 5-1. To date: 36-14. Tonight: Clemson 23, Wake Forest 17; Saturday: Georgia Tech 42, Gardner-Webb 0; Miami 27, Central Florida 17; North Carolina 24, Notre Dame 19; Virginia 21, East Carolina 17.

 

UVa Insider: votes are in on Casteen

Our new location has cut down on the number of voters in the weekly UVa Insider poll but I think the response to last week’s question is an accurate reflection of the way Cavalier fans feel about school president John Casteen.

When asked how they view Casteen from a UVa fans’ perspective, 69.8 percent voted “unfavorably” and 30.22 responded “favorably.” Only 150 readers voted, as opposed to the 750-850 who had been voting before the Thursday UVa Insider column moved to its new “blog” site.

Among the comments was a lengthy, well thought-out submission from capital campaign Tidewater chair Richard Litton that I hope to publish as a separate post. Here is a sample of some of the shorter, pithier ones:

1. Virginia will never win with Littlepage and Casteen. When they honored Bruce Smith from Virginia Tech last year, that showed how low the university has sunk. I was a season ticket-holder from 1982 until they honored Bruce Smith.

2. The guy may have strengths on the academic side, but it is so obvious athetics are not on his radar. An enema needs to happen and Casteen, Littlepage and Groh to go down the tube.

3. I’m a Hokie! I love the guy!

4. VT fans, like me, don’t have a better friend at UVa than John Casteen. Without him we”d still be in the Big East.

5. Has Casteen ever attended a sporting event? Did the athletic department repeal the ban on posters because they didn”t want the embarrassment of a protest or did they want to embarrass Al Groh with a bunch of Groh must go signs?

6. Overall, I feel favorably about his work as president of the University. With regard to athletics, though, he hasn’t a clue.

CASTEEN HAS BEEN out of the sports spotlight since the departure of ex-quarterback Peter Lalich and I’m not sure how much influence he had on Lalich’s eventual dismissal by athletic director Craig Littlepage.

I still find it hard to believe that Littlepage was acting unilaterally on the Lalich decision and I’ve heard speculation that Virginia Athletics Foundation chief Dirk Katstra may have been involved, which makes sense, given the overall disenchantment created by the Lalich saga.

However, I’ve received no confirmation of Katstra’s involvement. I’ll probably ask about it at some point, but Lalich has become old news, particularly in light of UVa’s 31-0 victory over Maryland. I would not have thought that one victory could have such a mood-altering affect on a fan base, but how many games has Virginia ever won 31-0 when it was a 14-point underdog?

Only one comes to mind: Virginia’s 31-0 victory at Georgia in 1979.

A check of The Roanoke Times archives reveals that the Cavaliers were an eight-point underdog that day against an unranked Bulldogs team, but the victory did take place on the road, which should count for something.

But, has there ever been an occasion on which UVa beat the spread by 45 points? I’ll have to ask Randy King, described by Newport News columnist Dave Teel as “Professor Nappy,” if records are kept for such phenomena.

NOT ONLY HAS criticism of Casteen subsided, but I haven’t had one discussion this week dealing with possible candidates to succeed head coach Al Groh. I don’t think the win over Maryland means that Groh definitely will return for a ninth season, but what it has done is persuade fans to let the season play out.

Or, at least, let the month of October play out. If the Cavaliers were to lose their next two games — both at home, against East Carolina and North Carolina — the wolves would start howling again. Virginia isn’t the favorite against ECU and probably won’t be the favorite against North Carolina, but it’s not hard to see UVa winning at least one of those games and possibly both.

People are still asking “how” Virginia could lose at Duke 31-3 one week and then destroy Maryland the next. The easy answer is easy: turnovers. The Cavaliers had six turnovers at Duke, five in the second half, and none against the Terps.

UVa went from minus-4 on turnovers against Duke to plus-2 against Maryland. For the season, the Cavaliers are minus-8 on turnovers in their losses and plus-7 on turnovers in their victories.

I think I know what my keys to the game will be Saturday.

Formatting issues will be ironed out in time to resume the weekly poll next week.

–DOUG DOUGHTY

 

Cavs back on track
By Whitey Reid
Published: October 9, 2008

It seems like ages ago that the Virginia men’s soccer team lost games to St. John’s, Southern Methodist and VCU.
That’s what a five-game winning streak can do.
Virginia, which dropped three of its first seven games to begin the season — the program’s worst start since 1983 — has won five straight heading into tonight’s clash with Clemson at Klockner Stadium.
“I think we’re just coming together,” said UVa captain Ross LaBauex. “We’re a young squad that’s gotten used to playing
together. I think we have a lot of good things to come.”
Virginia’s streak of solid play is by no means a fluke. The Cavaliers (7-3, 3-0) have outscored their opponents 15-1 in the five victories, including a workmanlike 3-0 triumph over Liberty on Tuesday night.
George Gelnovatch’s fledglings have looked more focused and spirited since their early-season growing pains.
“We just want to continue doing what got us into this position,” LaBauex said. “We’re feeling well, doing well, working hard in practice. We just need to continue that.”
Virginia, currently tied atop the ACC with Wake Forest, will likely face a stiff challenge in Clemson. The Tigers (3-4-2, 2-1-1) upset fourth-ranked Maryland last week.
Michael Brooks leads Clemson in scoring with five goals and one assist for 11 points. Hassan Ibrahim has scored three goals and has one assist for seven points.
This week, Brooks was named national [layer of the week by both Soccer America and College Soccer News, as well as ACC player of the week.
“We expect a spirited ACC game,” said Gelnovatch, Virginia’s coach. “The whole league has been that way. I would expect it to be an exciting end-to-end game.
“There’s no team that we’ve played this year where we haven’t been able to create chances — good chances — so if we can capitalize on our chances, I think we’ll be in good shape.”