After getting most of the week off, Virginia’s football players return
to practice today. With no game this weekend, a final opportunity for rest and
rejuvenation should come in handy for a slumping team that has a difficult
three-game stretch to conclude the regular season.
The Cavaliers (5-4, 3-3 ACC) have lost three of their past four games,
including three straight in conference play, to fall into a three-way tie for
fifth place in the league standings. They still need one more victory to
become bowl-eligible, and that won’t be easy. They play at Maryland (6-3, 3-2)
next Thursday before finishing up at home against Georgia Tech (5-3, 3-2) on
Nov. 22 and No. 5 Virginia Tech (7-1) on Nov. 29.
“I love this time of year,” Groh said. “This is what real ball is. Games are
on the line, with a lot of teams in the mix, and you can win your way in or
play your way out. We got three more of them coming up, and it’s going to be a
hell of a drive.”
UVa still could finish anywhere from second to seventh in the ACC. Groh
believes that fact - and the off week - should help his players bounce back
from a disappointing 51-37 loss at N.C. State last Saturday. The game was tied
before the Wolfpack scored two touchdowns in the final 23 seconds.
“This is an exciting month in the Atlantic Coast Conference,” Groh said. “And
that’s what it is: It’s a month. You can win a game and lose the month. You
can lose the game and win the month.”
The Cavaliers split this month last year, losing to Penn State and Virginia
Tech but beating N.C. State and Maryland. They need to win two of the final
three for another November draw.
“It’s tough, tough competition. Every game going down to the wire, battling
for control in the league,” said quarterback Matt Schaub. “That’s what this
month is all about.”
Getting in line. Groh said he would spend part of the off
week trying to figure out how to solve his team’s problems on the offensive
line.
The line performed well early in the season - the Cavaliers led the ACC in
rushing through five games - but Groh said he has been “unhappy with” their
play recently. In losses to Clemson, Florida State and N.C. State, Virginia
rushed for a total of 98 yards on 54 carries.
The line has been particularly ineffective opening holes on third-and-short
running plays. Asked for an explanation, Groh said, “I’m looking for it. I
wish I knew it.”
With four starters back, the line figured to be solid, especially once veteran
center Kevin Bailey returned from a knee injury. But guards Elton Brown
(concussion) and Brian Barthelmes (food poisoning) have missed time and Bailey
has botched shotgun snaps that proved costly against FSU and N.C. State.
Zac Yarbrough played most of last Saturday’s game at center after Bailey’s
high snap was recovered by the Wolfpack for an early touchdown.
“That’s two times in the last three games,” Groh said of Bailey’s miscues.
“Whether it’s a ball carrier or a center, people who put the ball in danger
make it difficult to win. As a coach, if you want to make your team hard to
beat, you have to know who’s susceptible to those things.”
Cry me a Rivers. All things considered, Philip Rivers may
have had the best passing day by an opposing quarterback in Virginia history
last Saturday. The N.C. State senior completed 29 of 34 passes (85.3 percent)
for 410 yards and four touchdowns without an interception.
At the same time, Schaub turned in one of the best performances by a Cavalier
QB, going 41 of 55 for 393 yards (a school record), four TDs and one
interception.
Both quarterbacks were sharp and neither defense was up to the challenge. The
Wolfpack did a poor job covering UVa tailbacks Alvin Pearman and Wali Lundy,
who combined for 20 catches and three touchdowns. The Cavalier secondary often
left receivers wide open, including a 75-yard scoring catch by tight end T.J.
Williams.
“Both of them are usually on when they play,” Groh said of the quarterbacks.
“They create plenty on their own, but it was pretty obvious there were some
attempts at coverage I’d like to see us play much better in the future.”
Wishing Ward well. Groh has been to the intensive care
unit of UVa’s Medical Center several times to visit Carson Ward, a walk-on
fullback who suffered head trauma in a fight outside a fraternity house last
Saturday night. Many players also have come to talk to Ward’s parents and
provide support.
“We’re concerned for his health. His teammates are concerned for him,” Groh
said. “As a parent, I can certainly relate to how his parents feel.”
Ward has not played in a game and was not part of the traveling squad that
went to Raleigh, N.C., last weekend. Two Sigma Chi brothers were charged with
malicious wounding after the incident.
A statistical look at UVa's short-yardage woes
For any Roanoke Times readers who
questioned the emphasis given a story on the beating of Virginia walk-on
football player Carson Ward, it is important to point out a few things.
Ward's alma mater, Giles County High School, has had one of the premier
football programs in Southwest Virginia over the past 25 years. Ward rushed
for nearly 4,000 yards in his Giles career and in 2000 was named to the All-Timesland
team picked by The Roanoke Times.
Ward broke the single-season Giles scoring record in 2000, when he rushed for
1,633 yards and 21 touchdowns.
If Ward had been attending any college and not UVa, his fight for life would
have been a story to The Roanoke Times.
That's what makes it so hard to believe that Roanoke talk-show host Greg
Roberts, a former TV sports director in the Southwest Virginia market, would
have questioned the news value of the Ward story. Unless I'm mistaken, Giles
County is fin the WSLS coverage area.
Ward, a Governor’s School graduate and the son of a Giles County teacher, is
big news in his hometown of Pearisburg.
Maybe the headline ("UVa's Ward Hurt in Frat Fight") was misleading, but the
Giles County connection was made early in the story. Ward hasn't played for
Virginia and maybe he was never going to play, but the coaches and players
know who he is.
"I talked to his mom and dad,” head coach Al Groh said Wednesday. "I've been
over to the ICU to see [his parents] and see his family. Many of our players
have been over there. They haven’t been able to get into ICU and see him, but
they've been able to be over there and see his family.
"[It's] very unfortunate. We're concerned for his health, as teammates we're
concerned for him and, from my standpoint, as a parent, I can certainly relate
to how his parents feel. So, we have their issues in mind, too."
Ward has not travelled to a road game in his two seasons on the team, which
explains why he was in Charlottesville while the rest of the team was in
Raleigh, N.C.
"In town, out of town," Groh said, "those issues are something we always
address at the conclusion of every week or in the locker room after a game, to
bring an awareness to the front of their mind.
"Unfortunately, given the time of day that those things happen, they perhaps
lost concentration on that important factor."
As of 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Ward was still listed as critical by the UVa
Medical Center.
"He's still in critical but stable condition," said Charlottesville Police
Captain Chip Harding after speaking to the hospital at approximately 2 p.m.,
"but it sounds like they've seen some improvement today.
"I can't go into the details of that, but it sounds like there's been some
slight improvement today, so I guess that's a good thing."
CONGRATULATIONS TO Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter Jeff White, who quietly
had a successful resolution to his dispute with Mo Rocca, now being described
as a "TV personality" on the VHI program, "I love the '80s."
Rocca, who had been billed as a "media gadfly," has now yielded that title to
White, who remains as disagreeable as ever.
This week's bone of contention is my assertion that Virginia's major failing
this football season has been its inability to "win the fourth quarter." The
Gadfly argues that I'm merely stating the obvious, that most losing teams lose
in the fourth quarter.
Maybe so, but I know that Virginia "won" the fourth quarter in most of its
games last year and got its biggest victory this season, a 27-24 triumph over
Wake Forest, when it outscored the Deacs 14-3 in the fourth quarter.
Something is different in the fourth quarter this year. I can't say it's
conditioning or conservative playcalling or the dreaded "prevent" defense —
common problems that can crop up in the fourth quarter — but something
definitely is different.
ONE SUBJECT ON which The Gadfly and I agree is the quarterback sneak. When his
beloved Miami of Ohio Redhawks beat Bowling Green this week, White was quick
to e-mail me with word that Miami quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had scored a
touchdown on a quarterback sneak.
Of course, this all gets back to UVa's reluctance to sneak with 6-5, 240-pound
quarterback Matt Schaub. Twenty-one times this season, the Cavaliers have had
either third-and-1 or fourth-and-1 and Schaub has not run the ball on any of
them.
Here are the numbers: On third-and-1, the Cavaliers are 7-for-15. On
fourth-and-1, they are 6-for-6. Three of the successful third-and-1
conversions were against Troy State. In the rest of the games, UVa is
4-for-10.
Want some context? Overall, this season, UVa has converted 37.0 percent of its
first downs, which isn't bad (fourth in the ACC). You would expect a team to
have a higher percentage on third-and-1 and the Cavaliers do, 46.7, but it
should be a lot higher than that.
Lately, most of UVa's success in short-yardage situations has come via the
pass. Primary tailbacks Wali Lundy and Alvin Pearman are both 2-for-6 in
third-and-1 situations, with Pearman averaging 1.0 yards per third-and-1 run
and Lundy averaging 0.2.
Why the Cavaliers are much more successful on fourth-and-short than
third-and-short is a good topic for later study.
MY CHOICE OF MATT SCHAUB as UVa's most valuable player after eight games was
consistent with 49 percent of the respondents to last week's UVa Insider poll.
Maybe the better question would have been, "Who is UVa's second-most valuable
player," because five players got between 23 and 16 votes.
In order, they were Pearman and Heath Miller (tied), Connor Hughes, Muffin
Curry and Lundy.
Stop the music, time to sit down
Published November 6 2003
David Teel
The ACC plundered the Big East. The Big East ransacked Conference USA.
Conference USA raided the Western Athletic and Mid-American.
Where does the madness end? Christopher Newport in the Big 12? Matt Kelchner
matching wits with Bob Stoops at Owen Field?
Conference realignment just can't go away fast enough.
Sad thing is, little of this upheaval was necessary. And little about it is
good.
The Big East took its turn Tuesday, announcing the additions of Cincinnati,
Louisville, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul. The expansion gives the Big
East eight members for football and 16 for other sports.
The men's basketball alignment is formidable, with seven national-championship
programs - holdovers Syracuse, Connecticut, Villanova and Georgetown and
newcomers Louisville, Marquette and Cincinnati. The football set-up is a
desperate attempt to retain automatic Bowl Championship Series access after
losing Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College to the ACC.
No offense to the three football additions. Louisville is 7-1, with road
victories at Kentucky and Syracuse; Cincinnati (4-4) won at West Virginia; South
Florida (5-3) beat Louisville and Cincinnati.
But the BCS games (Sugar, Orange, Fiesta and Rose) and television network (ABC)
want more than credible football. They want tradition, national appeal and large
fan bases, and the Big East's additions offer darn little - Louisville's Papa
John's (extra peppers, hold the 'shrooms) Cardinal Stadium notwithstanding.
Absent Penn State defecting from the Big Ten or Notre Dame relinquishing its
treasured football independence, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese and the
league's member presidents had no better options. Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West
Virginia, Connecticut and Rutgers required some viable football partners.
Tranghese makes for an easy villain here. He decried the ACC's pursuit of Big
East schools and then oversaw the acquisition of five of Conference USA's 11
schools.
But the black hat doesn't fit. Unlike the ACC, the Big East didn't hide its
intent, and Tranghese stayed in constant touch with Conference USA commissioner
Britton Banowsky.
Then it was Banowsky's turn, and he spread the pain. Conference USA reached into
the Mid-American for Marshall and Central Florida, the WAC for Rice, Tulsa and
Southern Methodist.
The 14-member MAC and 10-member WAC could stand some good, ol' fashioned
downsizing, but the departures rob the MAC of its premier football program
(Marshall has won five of the last six conference titles) and the WAC of its
best basketball program (eight NCAA tournament bids in the last 10 years for
Tulsa).
Sad, sad, sad.
The ACC, the father of realignment, begs to differ. By adding Virginia Tech,
Boston College and Miami, the ACC expands to 12, invades the Northeast and south
Florida markets, upgrades football and meets the NCAA membership minimum for
staging a conference football championship game.
But in the process, the ACC started a chain-reaction wreck that dents schools
across the country. A more neighborly bunch would have added only Miami, the Big
East's geographic misfit, and petitioned the NCAA to lower the 12-team minimum.
And given the appreciation other leagues would have had for such a gesture, the
petition just might have passed.
Such thinking couldn't be more naďve. College athletics' conference realignment
is no different than corporate America's merger mania. It's all about the
Benjamins.
Thank goodness it's almost over.