Cavs put collapse in past
With victory over Miami, U.Va. might have made it into Top 25
Monday, Nov 03, 2008 - 12:06 AM

VIRGINIA AT WAKE

Saturday:3:30
TV: ESPNU
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- The Associated Press' latest Top 25 for college football includes three teams that have lost to the University of Virginia in the past month: No. 19 North Carolina, No. 22 Georgia Tech and No. 23 Maryland.

It does not include U.Va. With a win over ACC rival Miami two days ago, the Cavaliers might have cracked the Top 25, but they surrendered a touchdown in the final minute of the fourth quarter Saturday and then lost in overtime at Scott Stadium. The final was 24-17.

"It's not a game you forget," U.Va. senior linebacker Clint Sintim said. "At the same time, it's not something you can dwell on."

The loss dropped the Cavaliers (3-2, 5-4) into a tie for second in the Coastal Division, but they hold the tie-breaker over first-place Georgia Tech (4-2, 7-2). The challenge facing the Wahoos is to move past the pain of losing a game that, for most of the second half, they appeared destined to win.

"If you want to think of yourself as resilient, then obviously that has to be under all circumstances. It can't just be when it's easy," U.Va. coach Al Groh said last night. "Resilience is established over a period of time, and there's a lot of guys on this team that have proved their resilience over the course of their career, and so we're confident it'll continue to be that way."

U.Va.'s next game -- Saturday at Wake Forest will start at 3:30 p.m. and be shown on ESPNU, the ACC announced yesterday.

The Demon Deacons (3-2, 5-3) also are coming off an overtime game, but theirs ended more happily for them. Wake edged Duke 33-30 to move into a tie for second in the Atlantic Division.

On a day when Texas Tech knocked off previously unbeaten and No. 1 Texas, the Cavaliers suffered a stunning defeat that was reminiscent of their Gator Bowl loss to the Red Raiders on Jan. 1. In that game, Texas Tech rallied for 17 points in the last 3:31 to beat U.Va. 31-28.

The Hurricanes' comeback Saturday wasn't so dramatic -- they never trailed by more than seven points in the second half -- but as it had against Texas Tech, U.Va. blew multiple opportunities to put away its foe.

"We didn't do so in all three phases, and as a result eventually the game got away from us," Groh said.

From the 2007 team that won nine games, U.Va. lost such standouts as Chris Long, Branden Albert, Tom Santi, Jameel Sewell and Jeffrey Fitzgerald. Groh said repeatedly during the offseason, however, that the team might miss kicker Chris Gould as much as anybody, and that's turned out to be the case.

Gould's replacement, former all-ACC soccer player Yannick Reyering, is 6 for 11 on field goal attempts this season. Against Miami, Reyering made a 23-yarder on the game's first drive, but he missed from 38 in the third quarter and from 47 in the fourth.

On Reyering's final miss, the snap was off the mark, and that affected Scott Deke's hold, Groh said. But Groh didn't rule out changing kickers. Virginia's other options are redshirt freshman Chris Hinkebein, who's being handling kickoffs, and true freshman Robert Randolph, who went 1 for 2 on field goals and booted an extra point Oct. 18 against UNC.

"It's certainly something that deserves a good deal of review and thought," Groh said. "It's been a factor here in these recent games, so I think we've got to take a hard look at it."

 

Cavs resolve will be tested
David Teel
November 2, 2008
CHARLOTTESVILLE

Virginia's football team shed the embarrassment at Duke with remarkable resolve.

Overcoming Saturday's giveaway to Miami will be more demanding.

"You have to take this and use it to build a fire in your stomach," quarterback Marc Verica said after the 24-17 overtime defeat. "You don't want to experience this again. It's just a terrible feeling to lose like that."

We can only imagine.

Playing at home against an undisciplined opponent (12 penalties) quarterbacked by freshmen and coached by neophyte Randy Shannon, Virginia had countless chances to seize command. Countless chances to extend its winning streak to five games and tighten its grip on first place in the ACC's Coastal Division.

Instead, the Cavaliers failed to score after halftime, lost fumbles on their final two possessions — not counting a kneeldown to end regulation — and yielded touchdown passes on two of the Hurricanes' final three series.

"It's heartbreaking to our team," coach Al Groh said. "There are real raw emotions in the locker room."

Contrast that to late September at Duke, where Virginia was humbled 31-10 by a team that had lost 25 consecutive conference games. It was only Verica's second start and easily dismissed as an aberration.

Not so Saturday.

"We definitely had some things that we didn't take," Groh said. "We all had our chances."

Especially the offense.

Courtesy of turnovers, Virginia (5-4, 3-2 ACC) started its first two drives of the third quarter in Miami territory. But the Cavaliers went three-and-out on one and missed a field goal on another.

On third-and-2 from Miami's 27 midway through the fourth quarter, Virginia, leading 17-10, elected to throw, and Verica took a 12-yard sack. Questionable play call from the coaches and terrible awareness from Verica — throw the ball away!

After the Hurricanes (6-3, 3-2) drove 95 yards for the tying touchdown — much more on that in a moment — Verica moved Virginia into field-goal range, only to fumble the ball away after a 10-yard scramble.

Verica completed 27 passes for 240 yards without an interception. But he should have completed about 33 for well over 300 yards — he overthrew many an open receiver.

"We were close every time," receiver Maurice Covington said.

After Verica's sack, freshman punter Jimmy Howell pinned the Hurricanes at their 5 with 8:01 remaining. Playing in relief of redshirt freshman Robert Marve, true freshman quarterback Jacory Harris had looked incapable of leading a last-ditch drive.

But that he did. Escaping the pocket to his left each time, Harris converted a third-and-13 from the 2 with a sideline connection to Sam Shields, and a third-and-15 from Virginia's 26 with a touchdown pass to freshman Laron Byrd.

"That's his game," Cavaliers nose guard Nate Collins said of Harris, "and we talked about it all week. 'We've got to keep the quarterback in the pocket.' "

The touchdown was the darndest thing you'll see for a while. First a stumbling Byron Glaspy and then Vic Hall interfered with Byrd, who still managed to snare the floater in the end zone with 55 seconds left.

"I thought it was one of those anything-can-happen plays," Groh said.

The game's conclusion was even more deflating. After Harris' 9-yard scoring pass to Aldarius Johnson to open overtime, Virginia's Cedric Peerman took a handoff and burst off the right side for nearly a 10-yard gain.

But backup safety Lovon Ponder stripped Peerman, and linebacker Romeo Davis recovered to end the game. Never before had Peerman, a senior, lost a fumble as a Cavalier.

"Cedric's the leader, the heart of the team," cornerback Chase Minnifield said. "Nobody's mad at Cedric. As he goes, we go."

No doubt, and the hunch here is that Peerman responds in a big way next week at Wake Forest. Question is, will his teammates join him?

The Cavaliers have lived on the ledge for the better part of two seasons now, and to their credit they've rarely gone "splat" on the pavement. How will they react now? How will they deal with the gnawing realization that any one of six or so plays could have changed their fate?

Perhaps most important, in an ACC in which every game figures to be a taffy pull, how will Virginia react in its next taut game?

"You gotta live with it," Groh said of the defeat. "That's what competitive sports is about."


 

Missed opportunities galore in tough loss
Late fumble by Peerman, Reyering FG misses help ‘Canes upset Cavaliers
Paul Montana, Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor
Published: Monday, November 3 2008

Senior running back Cedric Peerman had 15 carries for 78 yards and a 5.2 average for the Cavaliers against the Hurricanes Saturday. His fumble on the first play of Virginia’s overtime possession sealed the Cavaliers’ loss. “You probably can count on two fingers the amount of fumbles that Cedric [Peerman] has had.”

Virginia coach Al Groh’s words for Peerman described the first occasion Peerman had fumbled the ball away to the opposition, or at all, in his Virginia career. The game-ending play reflected the contest’s heartbreaking nature for the Cavaliers; with Virginia needing a touchdown to keep the game alive in overtime, Peerman fumbled at the Miami 18-yard line, which granted the Hurricanes the 24-17 win.
“We’ve been on the other end of that type of deal before,” Groh said. “It’s heartbreaking to our team.”

Following the fumble, a group of Virginia players gathered around Peerman, who had been the spark that lifted the Cavaliers to four straight wins preceding this game.

“We’re going to rally around him,” senior outside linebacker Clint Sintim said. “He’s the heart and soul of this offense as well as this team, and I don’t suspect anything like that will frequently be happening to a guy of his caliber.”

On top of the comeback loss, the Virginia program now faces the news that junior running back Mikell Simpson — who suffered a left shoulder injury on Virginia’s final play of the third quarter — is out for the season.

“I would say that that’ll be it for him for the year,” Groh said.

Perhaps in testament to the game’s emotional intensity, several players who factored into the loss did not appear for postgame interviews. Groh made it clear in his postgame conference that these players did not appear at the coaches’ discretion.

Peerman was not the only Cavalier who wished he could have a play back that might have changed the game’s outcome. Capping a drive from Miami’s own 5-yard line that lasted for 7:06 late in the fourth quarter, Miami freshman quarterback Jacory Harris was chased out of the pocket by Sintim and threw up a prayer of a pass to the back of the end zone in the vicinity of freshman wide receiver Laron Byrd, who was defended by both senior safety Byron Glaspy and junior corner Vic Hall. Glaspy fell, however, and the 5-foot-9 Hall, even after interfering with Byrd, was simply overpowered by the 6-foot-4 freshman, as Byrd ripped the ball out of the air to claim the game-tying touchdown.

“It was one of those anything-can-happen plays,” Groh said.

Though Sintim’s pressure on Harris forced a difficult throw, the linebacker said he should have done better to keep Harris in the pocket.
“I was out-leveraged on that play,” Sintim said. “It wasn’t a sense of, I don’t know, ‘Pride,’ or ‘Good job,’ or whatever you want to call it. It was more ... ‘I could have been in better position, I could have helped stop that throw.’”

Groh emphasized that Harris’ mobility was a problem for Virginia throughout the afternoon.

“One of our principal things going into the game was, keep the quarterback in the pocket,” Groh said. “Let him go any place, but don’t let him get outside.”

Even following the drive that tied the game, however, Virginia had a chance to put the Hurricanes away. With 55 seconds on the clock and the ball on Virginia’s 36-yard line following a good kick return from junior Kevin Ogletree, sophomore quarterback Marc Verica hit senior wide receiver Cary Koch for a 22-yard reception. On the ensuing play, Verica scrambled for 10 yards to the Miami 32-yard line but had the ball stripped by freshman linebacker Sean Spence, and Miami defensive back Bruce Johnson recovered the fumble.

Though Virginia kicker Yannick Reyering had already missed two kicks from 38 and 47 yards earlier in the game, Groh said he had converted from as deep as 50 in practice, and therefore the Cavaliers were in Reyering’s range when the fumble occurred.

“You can say I should have gone down,” Verica said. “But really what it came down to was not securing the ball in a crucial game situation.”

Verica completed 27 of 41 passes for 240 yards and a touchdown, but the sophomore was inaccurate at key moments. Misses of both wide receivers junior Kevin Ogletree and senior Maurice Covington who had a step on their defenders into the end zone were among the errant throws Verica had to open receivers.

“We definitely had some things there that we didn’t take,” Groh said.

Verica also had another key mistake with Virginia in field-goal range. With the ball at the Miami 27-yard line early in the fourth quarter, Verica was chased down and sacked by sophomore Allen Bailey for a 12-yard loss, and Virginia was forced to punt.

“You’d like to say, ‘Look, if there’s any circumstance in the game, you can’t take the sack in that circumstance,’” Groh said. “But we’re sure that under the circumstances in which it happened, it will leave an indelible mark on Marc [Verica].”

With their chance to lock down the Coastal Division title blown, the Cavaliers must now regroup for the final stretch of the season that includes road matchups with Wake Forest and Virginia Tech.

Players and coaches noted, however, that Virginia already has faced and overcome adversity this season.

“It may or may not quite accurately reflect my innermost feelings, but the team usually takes its leaders from those people up front,” Groh said. “It’s our job to be the ones to come back the strongest.”

 

Blowing a golden chance
Ernie Washington, Cavalier Daily Gameday Editor
Published: Monday, November 3 2008

You can call what happened Saturday a choke job, self-destruction, missed opportunities galore or just unfortunate luck. The bottom line, however, is that Virginia gave the game away to a young Miami team. The Hurricanes were able to capitalize on several Cavalier mistakes and stunned the 53,308 fans in attendance – which, by the way, is an extremely disappointing turnout for a game, let alone a Homecomings game involving two teams with better than .500 records in contention for an ACC title.

If this game proved anything, it showed that your quarterback must make accurate throws and make great decisions, that you must be sound in the kicking game, and that although your defense could have played three quarters of excellent football, it’s the fourth quarter — and eventually overtime — that matters. Virginia found this out the hard way.

Quarterback Marc Verica’s stat line on the surface isn’t bad – 27 of 41 passes completed for 240 yards and a touchdown. However, there were some throws he absolutely had to connect on and just wasn’t able to do so. More frustrating though, were two boneheaded plays Verica made in the fourth quarter that doomed the Cavaliers.

The first one was on a third-and-2 from the Miami 27-yard line. In that situation, as a quarterback, you cannot — let me repeat, cannot — take a sack, and even though Verica had an opportunity to throw the ball away, he took a 12-yard sack that forced Virginia to punt instead of either going for it on fourth down or attempting a field goal. His second big mistake was on Virginia’s final drive in regulation, at the Miami 32-yard line, in field goal range: He fumbled rushing the ball and Miami recovered.

“I should have done a better job securing the ball there,” Verica said. “It’s obviously unacceptable and it definitely contributed to the loss.”

Even though Verica did have some missed opportunities, so did the special teams. Field goal kicking was a huge concern heading into the season, and those concerns reared their ugly heads in this game. Virginia kicker Yannick Reyering missed two field goals in the game from 38 and 47 yards, and there is a good chance that the Cavaliers would have won the football game if Reyering had been able to hit one of them.

“When you miss one or two field goals, I wish I could go out there a second later and hit another one,” Reyering said. “But unfortunately that’s not the case in football.”

On the second miss, there was a bad snap, which often can affect a kicker’s timing, but those misses hurt regardless, especially considering that on the two drives in which Reyering missed the field goal, Virginia started on the Miami 38-yard line and its own 47-yard line, both of which are great starting field positions. Reyering is now 3 for 8 on field goals of 30 yards or longer on the season, and that has to be concerning for Cavalier fans wondering whether he can be counted on to make a clutch field goal like Chris Gould was able to do.

Then there is the defense, which played three great quarters of football, but for whatever reason in the fourth quarter decided to allow Miami to march down the field and tie the score. The Hurricanes had the ball with 8:01 left in the game at its own 5-yard line and went on a 15-play, 95-yard drive that in the future could be seen as the turning point of Miami’s resurgence back to prominence.

Much like Virginia’s drive against North Carolina in which it was pretty much all Verica, the Hurricanes relied largely on true freshman quarterback Jacory Harris — who should be the starter from now on — to make plays. Virginia had Miami right where it wanted — third and 13 at the 2-yard line — but Harris was able to make a beautiful 13-yard throw to Sam Shields, starting a gut-wrenching drive for the Cavaliers. Harris then completed passes of 6, 10, 17, 18 and, most importantly, a 26-yard touchdown pass on third and 15 to Laron Byrd, which stunned Virginia fans and allowed Miami to tie up the score. When you allow a young team to drive 95 yards down the field in convincing fashion, that’s inexcusable, no matter how you played leading up to that. What made it worse for the Cavalier defense was that after Verica fumbled the ball with 31 seconds left, it allowed a 30-yard pass to Travis Benjamin, which helped set up a 51-yard field goal opportunity that Matt Bosher missed. In overtime, however, the defense allowed Miami to score a touchdown on — you guessed it — a third-down pass to Aldarius Johnson. Fitting of Virginia’s performance in the game, the normally dependable Cedric Peerman fumbled the ball on Virginia’s first play in overtime, Miami recovered, and Virginia was left stunned wondering what just happened.

Instead of having a happy Homecomings, Virginia now must regroup after relinquishing control of the Coastal Division. After all of the Houdini acts the Cavaliers pulled during the last two seasons, they had one pulled on them, and the players have only themselves to blame for that.

 

Amen to that
Paul Montana, Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor
Published: Monday, November 3 2008

It’s OK, Reverend.

By Reverend, of course, I mean Cedric Peerman, tailback and ordained minister. The one who has been dubbed by some, “The Running Reverend,” and by others, “Rev. Run.” And the one whose fumble at the end of overtime spelled the end of the Cavs’ four-game winning streak in their 24-17 heartbreaking defeat to Miami Saturday.

If someone was going to make a game-costing mistake, it should have been anybody else. Not Ced. Not the guy who fires up 50-some thousand people on Saturdays when he jumps around, pounds his chest and points to the sky after grinding out three tough yards. Not the classiest, humblest of athletes, whose commitment to Virginia football is only exceeded by a commitment to his religion.
Not the guy, who, as Virginia coach Al Groh likes to say, carries the ball and carries the flag for the program. Not the guy who watched the last seven games from the sideline last year after receiving season-ending foot surgery as then-upstart running back Mikell Simpson got all the love. Not the guy who battled through yet another leg injury at the start of this season to resurrect this team into ACC Championship contention.

“He’s won more games for us than any other player I’ve been around, with the exception of maybe Chris [Long],” senior linebacker Clint Sintim said.

I did not get a chance to talk to Peerman after the game, nor did any other reporter – Groh said certain players, at the discretion of the coaches, would not speak to the media because they were “too emotional to bring them out at this particular time.”

In other words, everyone was distraught, and nobody more than Peerman.

“He’s going to dwell on that [fumble],” senior tight end John Phillips said. “That’s just the type of guy he is.”

And the team recognized that immediately — after the fumble, a group of players went over and rallied around what was assuredly a beaten man, physically and emotionally.

Of course, one of the things they likely told him — and one of the things Groh and his players said after the game — was that it’s not Cedric’s fault; Virginia lost this game as a team. And they were right. Two missed field goals and a fumble by sophomore quarterback Marc Verica at the tail-end of a run that would have put Virginia in field goal range with 30 seconds remaining are among the numerous chances the Cavs had to seal the deal in regulation.

But, for anyone who has fumbled to lose a football game — or struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, or rimmed a potentially game-winning jumper at the buzzer, or launched a penalty kick over the cross bar — these words don’t help much. When you make a mistake like that, all that matters to you is what could have happened if that mistake had been erased.

Not to say that Peerman’s teammates shouldn’t offer words of encouragement, because in another way, these words are valuable. They show your teammate that you care. “You’ll get ‘em next time” might not help much at that moment, but when “next time” arrives, it is certainly a lift to know that your teammates have faith in you to get the job done.

And in Peerman’s case, it demonstrates the character of this team that Ced himself has instilled: Cavaliers stick together. That’s how they won so many tight games last season and that’s how they overcame the adversity of off-field issues and embarrassing losses at the beginning of this season.

“We’ve been down before,” Phillips said. “You can’t get off and break up into groups and what not. You’ve got to stay united as a team.”
It sounds corny. Listening to the players in the post-game interviews, I felt like I was back in Little League. Encourage your teammates; stay together; don’t let the downs get you too down.

But, these are the messages that Rev. Peerman preached to his teammates as they sank to an all new low after their 31-3 loss to Duke. That is the foundation of Cedric Peerman, and Cedric Peerman was the foundation of Virginia’s four-game winning streak.

Now, it is Ced who has hit rock bottom. And thanks chiefly to his influence, there will be 200 hands eagerly extended to help him up.

 

Their confidence rattled, Cavs struggling to regroup
November 3, 2008 12:36 am
BY TAFT COGHILL JR.
CHARLOTTESVILLE--

Even when the Virginia football team was struggling through a 1-3 start, it wasn't often said the Cavaliers lacked passion.

The team is full of emotional players, particularly senior running back Cedric Peerman.

So after Peerman's overtime fumble sealed the Cavaliers' 24-17 Atlantic Coast Conference loss to Miami that took them out of first place in the Coastal Division and snapped a four-game winning streak, the team rallied around the co-captain and vowed to bounce back next week at Wake Forest.

"It's pretty emotional," senior tight end John Phillips said of the Cavaliers' locker room after the game. "A lot of guys on this team have put in a lot of work here, have a lot of pride and wear their emotions on their sleeve. They took this one pretty hard."

The loss was difficult for the Cavaliers (5-4, 3-2 ACC) to take because it occurred much the same way Virginia's victories have over the past two seasons.

On Oct. 18, it put together a 16-13 overtime win over North Carolina when it managed a late drive similar to the one engineered by Miami yesterday.

The Hurricanes appeared headed toward their first defeat in four games when they put together a 95-yard game-tying march that ended on a 26-yard touchdown pass from Jacory Harris to Laron Byrd.

Miami added another touchdown in overtime on Harris' 9-yard pass to wide receiver Aldarius Johnson.

That was followed by Peerman's fumble, which left the Cavaliers visibly stunned.

"It's a terrible feeling," sophomore quarterback Marc Verica said. "I'm going to work as hard as I can to not have this feeling again. It's disappointing, but that's what happens when you fail to take control of the game. So, all we can do is keep fighting and get ready for Wake."

Verica was speaking of the two third-quarter Miami turnovers in its own territory that the Cavaliers failed to convert into points.

Not to mention the two missed field goals by senior kicker Yannick Reyering and the third-and-13 the defense allowed Miami to convert from its own 2-yard line on the game-tying drive.

Cavaliers head coach Al Groh said the team missed every opportunity to put the game away. One got the feeling the Cavaliers were a mere successful play away from putting the game out of reach after they led 17-10 from the second quarter until there were 55 seconds left in regulation.

"We did all we could," junior wide receiver Kevin Ogletree said. "If you ask anybody after you lose in overtime, if you were only one play away, I'm sure they will tell you 'Yeah.' But we're confident in our offense and our team. We're going to do a great job of regrouping."

That starts with next week's contest against Wake Forest, a team the Cavaliers beat 17-16 last season when Demon Deacons' all-ACC kicker Sam Swank missed a field goal as time expired.

On Saturday, the Cavaliers were on the opposite end of that result and Groh said it left the team with "raw emotion" in the locker room.

However, with a trip to the ACC championship game still a possibility, Virginia can't afford to let the memory linger.

"We can't dwell on this one. It's over," Ogletree said. "The game has been written. The season still has some things we want to get out of it. We've got three big games coming up and we can't sit here and sulk about this one."

 

Virginia rallies around Peerman
By Jay Jenkins
Published: November 2, 2008

Instead of assembling in their normal fashion, nearly every player inside Virginia’s locker room huddled just a few feet away from Cedric Peerman on Saturday to offer support.
Just minutes prior, Peerman had lost the first fumble of his career, sealing a 24-17 win for Miami in overtime.
It was a fitting gesture, numerous players said, given how Peerman’s resurgence as one of the league’s top tailbacks coincided with a four-game winning streak that made Virginia (5-4, 3-2 ACC) a factor in the quest to play in the league’s championship game.
“Cedric is a guy that we can count on all the time,” said Virginia defensie lineman Nate Collins. “That was just unfortunate how that happened. He will get it back together. Cedric is a great player for us.
“The fumble wasn’t the reason we lost. We had a lot of opportunities to score points and do things on defense and offense and it just turn out at the end of the game in our favor.”
Peerman had fumbled on two previous occasions during his four-year career, but those were recovered by the Cavaliers. Miami ensured that was not the case at Scott Stadium on Saturday.
“Cedric is Cedric. He will be back,” said cornerback Chase Minnifield. “That is a one-time thing. I don’t think Scott Stadium had ever seen that.
“He will be back. He will be fine.”
Having lost reserve running back Mikell Simpson for the season with a broken collar bone, Peerman’s ability to bounce back from his emotional low likely determines how many games Virginia will play the rest of the season. The Cavaliers need one win to become bowl eligible and may need to win out and have a team upend Miami to advance to the ACC title game.
That could be the case because the second tiebreaker in a scenario with three or more teams tied for the division crown is the overall record against divisional opponents. Virginia is currently 2-2 against Coastal Division foes, which trails the current mark of Virginia Tech and Miami.
Virginia’s woes against Miami extended past Peerman’s ill-timed miscue. Yannick Reyering missed a pair of second-half field goals, quarterback Marc Verica fumbled in the game’s final minute with the offense driving and the defense regressed down the stretch.
Spreading the blame did little to ease Peerman’s pain. The senior was so distraught that he was not asked to meet with reporters following the contest.
His teammates, including Verica, where asked what they would say to Peerman in the days leading up to this week’s road game at Wake Forest. As was announced on Sunday, the contest will start at 3:30 p.m.
“What I would say to him is that he wasn’t responsible for the loss. It was a team effort. It was a team loss,” Verica said. “The past four games we won as a team and the same can be said for this game. We lost as a team.
“We didn’t lose because of [Peerman’s] fumble in overtime. We didn’t lose because of my fumble at the end of regulation. We just really lost because of a collective amount of mistakes that happened throughout the course of the game.”
One player, shying away from attribution, said Peerman would bounce back with a vengeance against the Demon Deacons and beyond.
Verica agreed with that assessment.
“[Peerman] played his heart out and he has a lot of fire,” the quarterback said. “He is a very emotional player so I know he is upset, but I also know that he is going to come back ready to have another big game next week.
“We just got to use it to build a fire within ourselves and come back strong.”

 

Stepping Up: WFU's Popham, after struggling in three games, came through against Duke
BLOG: My Take On Wake
By Dan Collins
JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: November 3, 2008

Come back, Shane.

That was pretty much the message that Coach Jim Grobe of Wake Forest had for Shane Popham last week as he prepared for Saturday's 33-30 victory against Duke. Sensing that Popham was lost in the mental labyrinth of confusion and doubt, Grobe sat the freshman kicker down for a little counseling.

And Grobe wasn't asking Popham to snap out of it and kick as he knows he can.

He was telling.

"I really have not been very happy with him the past three weeks," Grobe said after the victory, which improved the Deacons to 5-3 overall and 3-2 in ACC play. "I gave him the first three weeks because I thought (with) a rookie who got thrown into the fire, you've got to love him up a little bit.

"We haven't been loving him up too much the past couple of weeks."

Popham, thrown into the fray when star senior Sam Swank pulled a quadriceps in practice on Oct. 6, said his coach didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. In his three games filling in, Popham had managed three field goals on eight attempts.

His miss the week before at Miami had kept the Deacons from slicing the lead to three points with 5˝ minutes to go. His 19-yard punt at the end of the next drive made it that much easier for Miami to run out the clock on a 16-10 victory.

"Coach Grobe had a nice little sit-down with me during the week, and said ‘Get it together. Let's go.'" Popham said. "So he challenged me to do that.

"I wasn't against it, or have a different opinion. I knew it was time to step up.

"I had plenty of opportunities. I just didn't capitalize. I knew I had to."

So after the post-game media conference Saturday night had dealt with Alphonso Smith's win-sealing interception, Aaron Curry's 16 tackles, the strides made by the Deacons' offense and the huge regard that Wake Forest had for Duke, it was Grobe himself who brought up as good a reason as any his team had just snapped its two-game losing streak to remain in contention for an ACC crown.

"Here's the deal," Grobe began. "How about Shane Popham tonight? How about that? I mean that was so cool, I mean really cool.

"It's really cool to see a kid win the football game for you when he'd taken quite a bit of heat, not only from our fans but from the coaching staff. As you can see he's got a really good leg and I think he gained a little confidence tonight.

"But that's a great story."

Popham attempted three field goals against the Blue Devils, and drilled them all. The first, a 24-yarder early in the second quarter, gave Wake Forest a 12-7 lead. His second, a 44-yarder late in the third quarter, provided a 22-20 lead.

His third, a 28-yarder in overtime, proved to be the winner when Smith intercepted Thaddeus Lewis' pass on Duke's second play of overtime.

"I cut my approach down," Popham said. "I told myself to just kick it hard and have faith it was going to go in.

"So really I just went out there saying ‘Just kick it, it's going in.'"

It's easy to see why Popham was not mentally prepared to shoulder the kicking load this season. Given that Swank had already rewritten the Wake Forest record books for field goals and points, Popham thought he wouldn't be doing much this season other than laughing at Swank's jokes in practice.

"I thought this year was going to be preparing for next year," Popham said. "I thought I'd just let Sam go out there and break records and have a great season and then when he's gone, we'd cut the ties and I'd start my own career.

"That's not how the game goes. One play or one snap and it can change completely."

The fans have been rough on Popham, as have the media and even the Deacons' coaching staff. That includes Billy Mitchell, the assistant in charge of punting and kicking.

"Mitch has been on him really, really hard," Grobe said.

But through it all, Popham said he didn't have to look far for support. It's the same source he'll have as long as he has to fill in for Swank, whose injury has already sidelined him longer than most expected.

"The teammates were actually great," Popham said. "They all said ‘We believe in you. We love you. Just keep kicking out there. We have faith you're going to make it.'

"From a team standpoint I knew that they weren't going to turn their back on me."

 

Golfer Daly says night in jail a misunderstanding
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 02, 2008

With no golf on his schedule, John Daly says he went to North Carolina to have fun with some friends.

What followed was a night in jail to sober up, a photo of Daly in orange coveralls with his eyes half-open, and the kind of publicity that seems to accompany the two-time major champion no matter where he goes.

“Nothing is going right in my life right now,” Daly said in a telephone interview Sunday. “I’m going through a hell of a divorce. I haven’t seen my son. It was an unfortunate incident, but it’s a joke what people are saying. I take full responsibility for what happened, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

According to Winston-Salem police, Daly appeared “extremely intoxicated and uncooperative” when he was found outside a Hooters restaurant early Oct. 27. With no other means of transportation, he was taken to the Forsyth County jail for 24 hours to get sober.

Daly said it could have been avoided if his friends had realized he tends to sleep with his eyes open when he’s tired, stressed and has been drinking. He said the driver of his private bus, parked near Hooters, panicked when he saw Daly and called the paramedics.

“If I had seen someone like that, I probably would have done the same thing,” he said. “They were only trying to protect me.”

But he said he was not arrested, nor was he thrown out of Hooters. The restaurant closed more than an hour before police arrived.

“The thing I want people to know is when I called my girlfriend at 11:30 p.m., I was going back to the bus to go sleep,” Daly said. “I’m not going to say I wasn’t drunk. I did have a few drinks. I said to them, ‘I’m tired, I’m drunk and I’m going to bed.’ “

Daly said his friends woke him up about 2 a.m.

“The bus driver called 911 because my eyes were open,” Daly said. “I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘We thought you were dead.’ Anybody who knows me … when I’m tired, I sleep with my eyes open. They know it takes awhile to wake me up.”

Daly said he wanted to go to a hotel, but was told someone sober had to be with him. That’s when he was introduced to a North Carolina law called “Assistance to Intoxicated Persons.”

“It’s like a public service,” Winston-Salem police Lt. C.A. Lowder said Sunday. “The person is taken into our custody for their own welfare due to impairment or intoxication. It’s not a criminal offense.”

Daly said he does not know why he was put into orange coveralls, or why his photo was released to the public.

“The picture looks like I’m drunk,” he said. “I wasn’t drunk when they took the picture. The picture people are seeing is me half-asleep.”

The night in jail — not to mention the picture — is the latest in a troubling trend for Daly this year. He has not had his PGA Tour card since his 2006, when his two-year exemption expired from his last victory, the Buick Invitational in 2004.

He has made only five cuts in 17 starts on the PGA Tour, his best finish a tie for 40th in the Viking Classic after rib surgery.

Daly hired swing coach Butch Harmon at the start of the year, but Harmon quit after a week in Tampa, Fla., when Daly spent a rain delay in a Hooters tent, then returned to play with Tampa Bay Bucs coach Jon Gruden as his caddie.

A week later, he was disqualified from the Arnold Palmer Invitational for missing his pro-am time.

Daly said he did not sign up for Q-school, instead wanting to earn his way back to the PGA Tour by playing well enough in Europe to reach the top 50 in the world ranking.

He currently is No. 774 in the world.

Daly played five European tour events this year, his best a tie for 23rd in the Italian Open.

He once had so many sponsor exemptions on the PGA Tour that he had to turn some of them down. But after two years of poor play that Daly said was brought on by injuries, those exemptions are hard to find.

His endorsements are drying up, and Daly fears his sponsorship with Hooters could be the next to go.

“The world perceives that I passed out at Hooters, that I was thrown out at Hooters,” he said. “I was asleep on the bus. I didn’t pass out at Hooters. I’ve never had an incident at Hooters. I hate that their name is brought into it this way. They’ll probably have to terminate me because of the negative publicity.”

Meanwhile, Daly is looking for a place to play next year, with Europe his top consideration.

“He’s looking at his options,” said Bud Martin, his agent at SFX Sports. “In Europe, he’s always enjoyed playing over there. I think he would be welcomed warmly by the European tour.”

Daly said even if he could get into PGA Tour events, he could not play enough in a row to build confidence and momentum.

“If I can’t get four or five in a row, it’s not worth it for me to try to get those exemptions,” he said. “I need to play three or four weeks to get into a rhythm. I’m not like Tiger. I can’t play one week and win.”

As for the fallout from his night of fun in North Carolina?

“Just tell my true fans that I love them,” he said. “If they give up on me, I’ll understand. But I’ve still got to play golf. I’ve still got to earn a living. I’m not sure I’ll ever be back to where I was, but I’m going to keep trying.”