London to UVa almost makes too much sense
Ex-Cavalier player on coaching market
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Things that make all the sense in the world don’t always happen.

Nothing makes more sense than former assistant Mike London returning to Virginia as defensive coordinator.

London left Charlottesville last year to take a more lucrative post with the Houston Texans of the National Football League, but the Texans are 1-11 going into their game Sunday with Tennessee in Nashville, Tenn.

If fourth-year Texans coach Dom Capers is not retained, London may be available.

If available, would London want to return? For one thing, UVa could dangle the coordinator’s job in front him. There is precedent now for UVa coordinators getting head-coaching jobs. For another, the Cavaliers would be able to offer a salary in the range of the $200,000 per year that Al Golden was making.

Golden left this week to become the head coach at Temple and the Cavaliers will be looking for at least four coaches with the departure of offensive coordinator Ron Prince, the new head coach at Kansas State; assistant head coach Danny Rocco, the new head coach at Division I-AA Liberty, and inside linebackers coach Mark D’Onofrio, who will be joining best buddy Golden at Temple.

Speculation on possible successors has been rampant, but one thing that a lot of the speculation has overlooked is the need for position coaches.

Former NFL quarterback Jeff Rutledge was offered the position of offensive coordinator on Groh’s first staff and has been mentioned as a possible target this time, but one issue needs to be considered.

Presumably, Rutledge, as a coordinator, would coach the quarterbacks. UVa has a quarterbacks coach, Mike Groh. Groh coached the wide receivers in his first two years as an assistant, but UVa has a receivers coach, John Garrett.

Prince probably has been in a minority among offensive coordinators in that he coaches the offensive line. To me, before naming a coordinator, Virginia needs to find a top-flight offensive-line coach and is in the unique position of having the coordinator’s job as a bargaining chip.

If UVa can get a good line coach without offering the coordinator’s job, Mike Groh and Garrett both have credentials that would qualify them for the job. After a 6-5 season and given the grief that Bobby Bowden has caught at Florida State over the elevation of his son, Jeff, Al Groh might think twice about subjecting himself – and his son – to the same sort of abuse.

Besides, Mike Groh serves as the Cavaliers’ recruiting coordinator and, along with Bob Price, probably has not gotten enough credit for UVa’s recruiting successes this year. Garrett is heavily involved whenever the Cavaliers recruit a wide receiver, but does not spend as much time on the road as many of the other coaches. From a logistical standpoint, his elevation to offensive coordinator probably would involve the least amount of staff reshuffling.

I don’t profess to be a connoisseur of offensive-line coaches, but I certainly would inquire about 1981 UVa graduate Mike Sewak, who compiled a 35-14 record as the head coach at Georgia Southern before he was fired Nov. 29 following a first-round playoff loss.

Sewak was the Southern Conference coach of the year as recently as 2004 and led Georgia Southern to a pair of conference championships and three Division I-AA playoff appearances in his four seasons.

Prior to that Sewak was the offensive coordinator at Georgia Southern for five seasons, including Division I-AA championship seasons in 1999 and 2000. He coached the offensive linemen at Georgia Southern and, before that, at Ohio University and at Hawaii for seven seasons.

As far as I can tell, Sewak, 45, has no connection to Al Groh’s coaching “tribe” and he wasn’t a star at Virginia, although he was a three-year letterman from 1978-1980. But, he has the kind of credentials that would catch your eye even if he didn’t have a Virginia diploma.

Georgia Tech athletic director Dave Braine was on the UVa staff when Sewak was a Cavaliers’ player and said that he would endorse Sewak wholeheartedly. Of course, Braine’s endorsement might not be as welcome in Charlottesville after his comments to the effect that Georgia Tech – not Virginia – belonged in the Music City Bowl.

(I’ve been criticized for giving Braine a forum and let me say, this is the first time anybody has been able to claim that Virginia got a better bowl than it deserved. In past years, the rule of thumb has always been that UVa will get the worst possible option.).

Sewak might not be as much of a no-brainer as London, but at least there’s a position for him. The only defensive coach left after the mass exodus is first-year UVa defensive-line coach Levern Belin, the man who replaced London.

Presumably, accommodations could be made. After all, Golden coached the secondary this past season after coaching the inside linebackers for the previous four.

Belin played inside linebacker at Wake Forest, coached linebackers at East Tennessee State, coached outside linebackers at Ball State and then served as a linebacker/defensive line coach at William and Mary.

London also has coached linebackers during several stages of his career.

Presumably, London won’t be going anywhere until the end of the NFL season, if then. There also was a report in Thursday’s edition of The Washington Post to the effect that Belin may be joining Prince at Kansas State, but I don’t know how much stock to put in that. I do know that I had heard Belin’s name mentioned with another job.

Until then, Virginia needs to find some way to prepare for its Dec. 30 bowl game with only five full-time assistant coaches, although Rocco, for one, has said he will rejoin the Cavaliers on Dec. 19.

The Cavaliers also have recruiting to stay on top off and with committed players taking visits or entertaining offers, it would be reassuring to get some new assistants hired. It will be particularly interesting to see if there is any change in duties for Anthony Poindexter, an offensive coach for all of his time on the UVa staff but an All-America safety during his playing career.

If Poindexter went over to safety, that would open the running backs job to a potential offensive-coordinator candidate, but my guess would be that the Cavaliers stay in house; if they even name a coordinator, that is.

My impression is that Mike Groh had a fair amount of input in the playcalling under Prince. I don’t know why a similar arrangement couldn’t work with Garrett.

 

Leitao balks at positives from Cavs' loss
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
December 8, 2005

If there's one thing that has become obvious in Dave Leitao's first few games as University of Virginia coach, it's that he would just assume go skinny dipping in Lake Monticello than talk about anything good his team may have done in a losing effort.
That was the case following UVa's 62-60 loss to Fordham on Wednesday night - the Cavaliers' first loss at University Hall this season.

When asked about Jason Cain's 16-point, 15-rebound effort - the junior forward's second straight double-double - Leitao said: "It doesn't matter. We lost. It doesn't matter."

When pressed later in his press conference about Cain, Leitao responded: "Of course the numbers show [improvement], but if he plays better and somebody else plays worse, what difference does it make? That's the way I look at it. I'm looking at it from a team [performance], not from any individual performance."

The Cavs (3-3, 0-1), playing without point guard Sean Singletary who was out with a hip injury, shot 41 percent from the field. Without Singletary, the Cavs looked in disarray at times. However, the ball went inside more frequently against the Rams than it has in any other game this season.

In addition to Cain's strong showing, Tunji Soroye had a career-high 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting. He also chipped in on the glass with six rebounds.

"You could take that as a silver lining," said senior guard Billy Campbell, who started in place of Singletary. "It's hard to find a silver lining in losing - ever - but if you want to find one, I think the post guys stepped up and played better. Maybe in the future they can expand their offensive roles and we can get some more balanced scoring."

The only thing Leitao seemed willing to talk about in the wake of the team's second straight loss was his players' desire, or lack thereof.

"I've been fighting all year long to get sustained effort," Leitao said, "so I'm not nearly surprised we haven't gotten to the point where we can get consistency in our effort."

Still, the Cavs not bringing "A" effort was curious since they knew they would have to compensate for Singletary's absence. Teams tend to rally when their best player is sidelined.

Added Campbell: "We have to bring intensity and energy every night for 40 minutes regardless of who's playing. It was a disappointing game for us.

"We played about 30 minutes of good intensity, but it's a 40-minute game and that's why Fordham was able to come out on top. They played 40 minutes of intensity."

The Cavs will have some time to stew over the loss. Their next game isn't until Dec. 17 when they play at Gonzaga.

"It's tough ending like this," Campbell said, "because now we have to focus on finals and studying and preparing for a top 20 opponent like Gonzaga. [It's] very tough. We just have to get our minds right and get focused."

Leitao wasn't concerned that the team wouldn't have a chance to redeem itself for another 10 days.

"We're in search of a team that can consistently play harder and with more energy on defense, and more aggressive and together on offense," he said. "Whether we have a game tomorrow or in ten days from now, it doesn't matter. We have to find a way to get there."

DUNKS. Singletary's consecutive game streak was snapped at 34. It was the first game he has missed in his career. The school had no update on his injury. ?

The loss to Fordham (2-6) snapped UVa's 11-game non-conference winning streak at home. ?

The Cavs outrebounded the Rams 37-26. For the season, they've outrebounded opponents 250-182. ? Reynolds, a 79.9 percent free-throw shooter coming into this season, is shooting 66 percent (16 for 24) through six games.

 

At a crossroad
Groh faces tough task in replacing three assistants
Posted: Thursday December 8, 2005 12:51PM; Updated: Thursday December 8, 2005 2:19PM

SI.com's Cory McCartney takes a weekly look around the college football nation, with inside reports from each of the six BCS conferences and beyond.

ACC
If Virginia coach Al Groh hasn't sent his wish list to Santa yet, he may want to ask for a break -- because that's the one thing the Cavaliers coach could use about now. In the last week, Groh has lost both of his coordinators and his associate head coach, starting safety Tony Franklin has been charged with possession of marijuana and middle linebacker Ahmad Brooks is questionable with a back injury for the Music City Bowl against Minnesota on Dec. 30.

Just breathe, Al. Just breathe.

Offensive coordinator Ron Prince took his dream job at Kansas State and defensive coordinator Al Golden faces the gargantuan task of rebuilding Temple as it enters the Mid-American Conference. You might even argue that Danny Rocco is in a good situation at Division I-AA Liberty. But these vacancies put Groh in a bind he hasn't had to deal with since taking over in Charlottesville in the winter of 2000.

All three coaches were charter members of Groh's staff, and replacing them will determine not only the product on the field next season, but also affect who's on the field. Golden, Prince and Rocco were prime examples of Groh's philosophy of hiring young, energetic coaches who were willing to beat down recruits' doors. Golden and linebackers coach Mark D'Onofrio, who was Golden's roommate at Penn State and could join him at Temple, were a major part of Groh's New Jersey recruiting movement, and brought in 3,000-yard career rusher Wali Lundy. There departures could have an effect on this fertile recruiting ground.

The state of Virginia Cavaliers' football is looking a lot like an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. We've got breakups and drugs, all we need is narrator Jim Forbes: "But backstage, things were falling apart."

Paramount for Groh is bringing in new coaches who will add instant credibility, not only for recruits who may be having second thoughts about heading to Charlottesville with the staff's shakeup, but also because the Cavaliers have to contend with that in-state beacon of stability -- Virginia Tech.

Next season will be critical for Groh and Virginia. While the Cavs did upset Florida State and earned a bowl bid this season, they finished 6-5, resulting in another letdown in a year when they seemed poised for a breakthrough. The Cavaliers went 9-5 in '02 only to go 7-5 the next year. They rebounded with a 9-2 record in '04, but lost five of their last eight this season after starting 3-0 and climbing to No. 19.

This is officially turning into the winter of Al Groh's discontent. How he rebounds will determine if Virginia can compete with Boston College, Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech in the new-look ACC or if this season's 6-5 record is a sign of things to come.

 

Singletary sorely missed in UVa backcourt
By Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
December 8, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE - If ever there was an indicator of how much point guard Sean Singletary means to the Virginia basketball team, Wednesday night's game against Fordham was it.
With Singletary in street clothes because of a bum hip, the Cavaliers lost 62-60 to a Rams squad that entered the game with a 1-6 record.

Head coach Dave Leitao, taking a page out of the Al Groh playbook, chose not to comment on Singletary's injury after the game. "He's been hurt," was all Leitao said.

UVa players didn't find out Singletary wouldn't play until 2? hours before tip-off Wednesday. His status remains day-to-day, though considering the shoulder problems he played through last season before having offseason surgery, anything that kept him off the floor has to be somewhat serious.

Singletary's absence showed just how thin the Cavaliers are at point guard. Junior J.R Reynolds, a shooting guard, has had trouble adjusting to the point when needed. Senior Billy Campbell is a walk-on who had played 55 career minutes prior to this season.

"We really didn't have a point guard out there," Leitao said. "Billy's not a natural point and neither is J.R."

Virginia would get a boost if junior point guard T.J. Bannister was fully healthy. Bannister has appeared in two games this season after having offseason sports hernia surgery. He played two minutes at Georgia Tech and seven against Fordham.

"He's really not ready mentally, physically and in game shape to compete right now," Leitao said.

Raising Cain

Forward Jason Cain, one of Leitao's favorite verbal targets, is starting to show some promise. After scoring 14 total points in the first four games, Cain has had back-to-back career nights coming off the bench.

Against Georgia Tech on Sunday, he had 15 points and 11 rebounds. Against Fordham on Wednesday, he scored 16 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, nine of which came at the offensive end. Cain, who saw sporadic playing time under Pete Gillen last season, averaging 11.9 minutes per game, has played over 30 minutes in each of the last two games and seems to be making giant strides.

"Of course the numbers show that," Leitao said. "But again, if he plays better and someone else plays worse, what difference does it make? I'm looking at it as a team, not from any individual performance."

Coming back?

With the football team looking to fill two coordinator positions, plenty of names have already been bandied about, whether they are valid candidates or not. One name that would seem to make sense for the defensive coordinator opening is Mike London, who left an assistant job at UVa after last season to be defensive line coach for the Houston Texans.

London coached Virginia's defensive line for four years before leaving. He worked with Groh when the two were with the New York Jets in 1999 and 2000.

The Texans are 1-11 and it appears head coach Dom Capers will be out of a job after the season. That could mean the end of the line for his assistants as well.

"Like I told Coach (Capers), I'm just trying to win games here," London told the Houston Chronicle. "I'm under contract here. Whatever happens, happens. Obviously, my first preference is to stay here and stay in the NFL. But as our profession goes, I'm not going to put my head in the sand. It's always flattering to go back to where you came from with a higher title and position."

Notes

Left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson was named to Sports Illustrated's All-America second team. Kicker Connor Hughes was an honorable mention. ? Left guard Branden Albert and outside linebacker Clint Sintim both made the Sporting News' Freshman All-America third team.

- Andy Bitter

 

One and done
Parity hitting ACC where it hurts - in the pocketbook
The Best Seat in the House
Chris Graham
chris@augustafreepress.com

The Atlantic Coast Conference will have but one team in the Bowl Championship Series - again.

Certainly that wasn't the plan when commissioner John Swofford and his cohorts on Tobacco Road initiated the move to expand the conference from nine teams to 12.

"When they took in Miami and Virginia Tech, and you look at Florida State, they were thinking they had three perennial contenders for a BCS bid right there," said Jim Johnson, a sportswriter who covers ACC sports for www.southernpigskin.com.

And the hope was that two of those three would snatch up BCS berths - the one taking the bid that is awarded to the conference champion, the second taking one of the at-large spots in the big-bowl series.

That was a major part of the justification for adding three schools to the ACC mix - that everybody would benefit by the extra dose of BCS money into the conference's coffers.

With just one team - Florida State - representing the league in the BCS again this year, though, the schools are taking what is essentially the same pie that it had in front of it two years ago when the conference had nine members and dividing it into 12.

"That said, I don't think the ACC is suffering," said Skip Sauer, an economics professor at Clemson.

"It will be dividing its BCS money by 12 instead of by nine. So by dividing by 12 instead of by nine, it's going to take a hit in terms of the BCS money that each school will be able to count on. But Miami is still going to go to a good bowl. Virginia Tech is going to go to a good bowl. So it's not a total loss," Sauer told The Augusta Free Press.

Indeed, the ACC will have eight teams playing in bowls this year. And while you could deride the payouts given to the seven non-BCS teams, "the strength of the conference, as evidenced by all of these teams going to good bowls, will contribute to the image of the conference in the future, and will help a one-loss or two-loss team get an at-large BCS bid," Sauer said.

"There has been talk this year about the ACC being the best football conference in the country. I think there had been competitive football played in the middle of the pack of the ACC for a long time, but it hadn't been recognized until the past two years with the addition of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Now you can't ignore the quality of play in the league," Sauer said.

Perhaps the ACC is too competitive for its own good.

"If you look at the two teams that everybody has been talking about this year, Southern Cal and Texas, if you look at the depth of the Pac 10 and the Big 12, it's not really there," Johnson told the AFP.

"There's a lot of bad football teams and a lot of mediocre football teams in both of those conferences," Johnson said. "They don't have a layer of three or four top 20 teams to get through in either of those conferences. So yes, it's ironic that the depth that the expansion has brought to the ACC is also going to shoot the ACC in the foot as far as getting that second BCS team in."

Sauer said the conference - like a team in the throes of rebuilding - should look at the silver lining in the clouds overhead.

"It's not an obvious win this year. But it had its chance. It was in the mix. And that's all you can ask for, really," Sauer said.



 

Echoes of Bustle
The Sound and The Fury
Chris Graham
chris@augustafreepress.com

The news that Ron Prince and Al Golden are headed out of Charlottesville to head-coaching gigs of their own sounds a lot like what happened a few years back at Virginia Tech.

If you remember the goings-on in Blacksburg after the 2001 season, Tech's offensive coordinator, Rickey Bustle, was under fire for, among other things, his rather unimaginative play-calling. His offense with All-Everything quarterback Michael Vick in 1999 and 2000, as a case in point on that, had been criticized as "first down - run, second down - run, third down - 'Hey Mike, do something.' "

Recruiting was suffering as a result - Vick himself reportedly steered current Penn State senior signal-caller Michael Robinson away from his old stomping grounds, telling him that Tech wasn't the place to go for somebody who wanted to learn to become an NFL quarterback.

And then there was this - the word on the streets that winter was that MV2, Vick's younger brother, Marcus, was also leaning toward going elsewhere, perhaps even Tech's rivals to the north and east, to play his college ball.

As fate would have it, Bustle was subsequently offered a chance to become the head man at Louisiana-Lafayette - which, while being a step or two or more down on the Division I-A food chain from Virginia Tech, was at least a step up in terms of it being a head-coaching job.

Bustle was replaced by Bryan Stinespring at the head of the Hokies' offensive ship, Marcus Vick committed to play at Virginia Tech, and the rest is history.

Golden's road to the coaching job at Temple looks like it fits the Bustle model to a tee - the Virginia defensive coordinator is getting out of town ahead of the firing squad to take over a moribund program that went 0-11 this year (and lost to Virginia in Charlottesville by a 51-3 count last month).

Prince getting the Kansas State job is something else entirely - K-State was in the BCS in 2003, and it hasn't been that long since Bill Snyder had the Wildcats on the short list of perennial national-championship contenders.

If UVa. coach Al Groh wants to add his program to the above list, he will have to find replacements for Prince and Golden who can take the offensive and defensive units to the next level.

Whoever those people are will find a suitable amount of talent on both sides of the ball - including Michael Johnson, Cedric Peerman and Deyon Williams on offense and Ahmad Brooks, Kai Parham, Chris Long and Marcus Hamilton on defense.

The talent that has been available to the program to date - including current NFL'ers Darryl Blackstock, Elton Brown, Chris Canty, Heath Miller and Matt Schaub - has been woefully underutilized in Groh's tenure, which has seen the development of a number of pro prospects while failing to register won-loss records (Groh's best season to date was his 8-4 campaign in 2004) commensurate to the ability of the players contributing to Virginia football.

The sentiment among the fan base - as evidenced by the postings on message boards and comments made elsewhere - is that Groh might have to scrap his beloved 3-4 defense, which works in the NFL with the right personnel, but has failed miserably against the stronger opponents on the team's annual schedule.

It might also be worthy of the effort to attempt to lure former offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave back to Central Virginia - if only to try to recapture the magic of 2002 and 2003, which featured the elevation of once-criticized quarterback Matt Schaub to Heisman Trophy candidate-status.

The bottom line is that the next two hires by Groh will go a long way to determining how his reign in the Piedmont will be judged - as a success, ultimately, or as a $1.7 million-a-year failure.