No matter who’s on staff, Metheny ready for UVa
By Jay Jenkins
Published: December 10, 2008

It is different with every situation, but Sherando quarterback Ross Metheny is firmly committed to play football at Virginia.

Others have given second thought to their verbal decision after learning that three assistant coaches, including offensive coordinator Mike Groh, will not return for the 2009 season.

For Metheny, a pro-style quarterback, dealing with adversity — thanks to a pair of season-ending injuries, including a torn anterior cruciate ligament that ended his senior season — has become second nature.

“Actually I have been injured twice in my life, and both have been in the last year,” Metheny said. “Last year in the state championship game I broke my leg in the first quarter. This year I couldn’t finish the last three games with a torn ACL.”

Having dealt with the emotional pain of the initial injury helped very little to ease the void Metheny felt when he learned that his final season of high school football was over prematurely.

“It was crushing either way — there is no doubt,” Metheny recounted. “It was different, a different feeling because this year when I tore my ACL I walked off the field. I played the last drive of the game on a torn ACL.

“I was completely clueless of what had happened. I walked off the field without any pain, not knowing that my knee was hurt as bad as it was. I didn’t know I had played my last high school game. Later in the week, when I found I actually did tear my ACL, it was pretty devastating. Just like the broken leg last year, it is one of those things that takes you a little bit to get over, but once you get over it, you realize you have more football to play.”

That football will be played in the ACC, but for a coordinator that remains unknown. All Metheny knows is that Virginia coach Al Groh has launched a national search to find his third offensive coordinator in five years.

For now, Metheny is focused on rehabbing his knee, something that has been smooth thus far with the guidance of Virginia’s lead physician.

“Dr. [David] Diduch told me that I don’t have to wear my brace anymore, and he was really happy with the stability and motion that I have in it right now,” Metheny said. “I guess right now the main thing is getting it stronger and making sure that I don’t slip on any ice or fall and do anything I am not supposed to do.”

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Metheny expects to be close to 100 percent when training camp opens in August and hopes to push for a spot on the depth chart. He will have some company in two players with starting experience — junior incumbent Marc Verica and two-year starter Jameel Sewell, returning from academic suspension — and redshirt freshman Riko Smalls.

There is also an uncertainty how Orange County standout Quintin Hunter, a prep quarterback, will be slotted upon arrival.

Regardless, Metheny thinks he will be a perfect in Virginia’s offense.

“I think the things that I bring to the table fit very well with the style of offense that UVa runs,” Metheny said. “Our high school offense here at Sherando is really similar to what UVa runs already, and some of the route concepts are similar to what I have been running for four years.

“Hopefully the transition will be a little easier. Seeing Verica play this year, I think I can definitely go in and fit in nicely down there.”

That could change if the offensive scheme is altered, something Al Groh may have been hinting at with a released statement on Monday announcing that three assistants had stepped down.

With a host of powerful running backs in the fold next season — including one of Metheny’s close friends, Chancellor’s Dominique Wallace — the spread offense employed at times this season could be bagged.

It would certainly make Wallace, a workhorse in high school, all smiles. He has said that he could envision pounding over opponents with 30 carries a game at some point during his career.

“We can only hope he does,” Metheny said. “I am fine with handing him the ball all day. He is a beast.”

 

Delaying the inevitable?

Following a 2-9-1 football season in 1992, then-Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine strong-armed coach Frank Beamer into staff changes.

Beamer, a Virginia Tech alum, was 24-40-2 at the time after six seasons. He had no leverage, and his job was on the line.

So Beamer swallowed hard and jettisoned some assistants, including offensive coordinator Steve Marshall.

Sound familiar, Virginia fans?

You can only hope the Cavaliers’ current staff drama turns out half as well.

Beamer, as you know, is still alive and kicking in Blacksburg. In fact, since 1992 his Hokies have enjoyed 16 consecutive winning seasons and six conference championships, the latest of which came Saturday when Virginia Tech defeated Boston College in the ACC title game.

While the Hokies were dusting the Eagles, Virginia coach Al Groh was finalizing changes on his staff. The news leaked yesterday and was announced today.

Offensive coordinator Mike Groh, Al’s son, defensive line coach Levern Belin and secondary coach Steve Bernstein will not return.

Clearly this was not Al Groh’s preference. Overwhelming evidence notwithstanding, he does not consider Mike Groh’s three seasons as offensive coordinator a failure.

But like Beamer in 1992, Groh has no leverage.

Yes, his eight-season record at his alma mater (57-43) towers over Beamer’s at the time. But the Cavaliers have endured two losing seasons in the last three years and are 1-7 against Beamer’s Hokies under Groh.

Moreover, unlike Beamer then, Groh has no reserve of goodwill from which to draw. His promotion of Mike Groh, his academically deficient 2006 recruiting class and his excessive salary (more than $2 million next season) have left him with few allies among fans and administrators.

So when athletic director Craig Littlepage declined to exercise the annual rollover clause in Groh’s contract, effectively trimming its duration from four years to three, and likely suggested (wink, wink) changes, Groh had a choice.

Comply or walk.

He complied, and to avoid singling out Mike Groh, made Belin and Bernstein collateral damage — defense is not the problem.

The problem now becomes finding quality replacements. Sure, the job market stinks like month-old eggnog, but who wants to take a gig with a boss who’s one substandard year away from unemployment himself? Who wants to work in an atmosphere where every game is a referendum on the Big Whistle’s job security?

Richmond coach Dave Clawson did precisely that after last season when he resigned to become Phil Fulmer’s OC at Tennessee. And look how that turned out.

How this turns out we cannot know. But we can surmise, and the hunch is today’s changes are cosmetic and delay the inevitable divorce.

In the spirit of Campaign ’08, call them lipstick on a pig.

Posted by David Teel
 

Redskins sign Hagans to practice squad
The former U.Va. and Hampton High star spent most of this season on the Kansas City Chiefs' practice squad.
Daily Press
4:59 PM EST, December 9, 2008

Washington signed former U.Va. and Hampton High star Marques Hagans to its practice squad in one of many moves Tuesday.

Hagans, a 5-10, 205-pound wide receiver, has played in six career games with the St. Louis Rams (four games in 2007) and Kansas City Chiefs (two games in 2008), totaling nine receptions for 108 yards. He spent the majority of the 2008 season with the Chiefs' practice squad.

Hagans originally entered the NFL in 2006 as a fifth-round draft pick of St. Louis out of Virginia, where he played quarterback, wide receiver and kick returner.

In addition, the Redskins signed offensive tackle Devin Clark and guard Will Montgomery and have placed offensive lineman Justin Geisinger and tackle Chris Samuels on injured reserve. Guard Rueben Riley also was signed to Washington's practice squad.

Chicago signed wide receiver Devin Aromashodu off the Redskins' practice squad to the Chicago Bears active roster.

 

ACC expansion mostly a case of more is less
Posted to: Bob Molinaro Sports
Bob Molinaro
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 10, 2008

Despite a close identification with the baby boomer generation, I try very hard not to preface my comments with the words, “Things aren’t as good as they used to be.”

In general, I don’t go along with that sentiment. I’m happy to be knocking out this column on a laptop rather than the manual typewriter I used on my first newspaper job.

The good old days are overrated.

Well, maybe not when it comes to rock music.

An exception should also be allowed for Atlantic Coast Conference basketball. When the subject is ACC hoops, I confess to glancing in the rear-view mirror more than I probably should.

Once, the ACC was mostly about basketball, and a lot of us liked it that way. Now it’s a women’s soccer conference. Or a lacrosse league.

But perhaps I exaggerate.

What good is nostalgia, after all, if you can’t wallow in it.

If you’re like me – and I pray that you’re not – you’ve stopped wondering why ACC basketball isn’t as interesting as you once remembered it. You already know why.

Wholesale changes to the college landscape have something to do with it, but conference expansion also is to blame.

Growing to 12 teams to please the football gods, the ACC warped the beautiful symmetry of the traditional home-and-home series, which was at the heart of the conference’s tight-knit, fierce basketball rivalries.

As a result of unbalanced schedules, the standings, if not largely meaningless, are deceptive and wholly unsatisfying to anyone trying to get a handle on the relative merits of teams.

And what has the ACC gained from expansion?

Money? Sure. But certainly not prestige. The ACC is 1-9 all-time in BCS bowls. Virginia Tech, at least, has mostly put a pretty good face on the conference’s image leading into the bowls. But when will Florida State and Miami start pulling their weight?

A running joke for bloggers and commentators all season, ACC football invited additional ridicule when attendance for its championship game Saturday at Raymond James Stadium was announced at 53,927.

Some estimates suggested that fewer than 30,000 were actually at the game to watch Tech and Boston College, despite confirmation that returned tickets were distributed to more than 80 local charities in the Tampa Bay area.

In comparison, the SEC title game in Atlanta drew a capacity crowd of 75,892, with many tickets going for scalpers’ prices.

Proponents of the glass-is-half-full philosophy point out that 10 ACC teams qualified for bowls. Yes, by beating up on one another. The ACC season was a forgettable race to the middle.

Once, basketball was the tonic for a football hangover, but for another year the ACC doesn’t appear loaded with quality depth or interesting scenarios.

For now, the flag flies high with unanimous No. 1 North Carolina. But whereas the Big East features eight schools in this week’s top 25, the ACC boasts of only three.

Never mind that the Big East has about 35 teams from which to choose, the ACC was once the standard by which other conferences measured themselves.

By stretching from Beantown to South Beach, the ACC has stretched itself too thin. I’ve been told that it’s long past time I got over my disenchantment with the new-look ACC – which isn’t really so new anymore – but that won’t happen while another basketball campaign is in session.

Truth be told, as a result of a relatively listless football season, the ACC is starting to look more like a basketball conference again.

Just not the kind it once was.