Since returning to Virginia in 2001 to coach his alma mater, Al Groh has preached about needing the right players to fit his NFL power offense and his complex 3-4 defensive scheme. And for five years, students, alumni and fans alike have waited with patience for the time when Groh would have the desired pieces in place to bring Virginia the National Championship that first enticed him to leave his post as head coach of the NFL's New York Jets.
Last year seemed to be Virginia's year -- when the right combination of personnel and scheduling could merge to form the Cavalier's missing piece to the BCS puzzle. But if Virginia's 45-33 loss at Maryland taught the Cavalier faithful anything, it's either that "Groh's time" was last season and has since passed, or that it's still a long way off.
Saturday's loss wasn't a case of Virginia's players not "getting up" for Maryland. No, Saturday, Virginia was simply outmanned in every facet of the game, aside from special teams play. A Cavalier defense that in its first three games of the season had allowed an average of only 275 total yards gave up 289 yards by halftime and 570 on the day. Maryland's Sam Hollenbach, a junior quarterback who only two years ago was fourth on the depth chart, threw for 320 yards and two touchdowns. Hollenbach, who looked like an All-American instead of the first-year starter he is, repeatedly found wide receiver Danny Melendez open downfield for big gains, two coming late in the fourth quarter on third and long situations for gains of 15 and 24 yards.
Lance Ball, the Terrapins third-string tailback at the start of the season, ran for 163 yards on only 17 carries. If you're keeping track at home, that's an average of 9.6 yards per carry. More often than not it looked as if Ball was running the same delayed up-the-middle draw play but consistently bulled his way through the Virginia front seven and into the secondary. Even the secondary, which repeatedly held Ball to between 10- and 20-yard gains throughout the first three quarters, couldn't stop him from scampering untouched for a 35-yard touchdown run with 8:44 remaining.
And while the corners and safeties manning Virginia's skies were certainly reacting to plays -- see Nate Lyles's vicious hit on Jojo Walker in the second quarter for proof of that -- they weren't making solid reads or getting good jumps on Maryland's play calls. Too many times the young and inexperienced corners and safeties seemed to react once the ball was already in the air or already secured by the receiver. Even though Lyles's hit on Walker earned him the No. 1 spot on Saturday's Sport Center's Top Plays, Walker still managed to hold onto the ball for an 18-yard gain and a first down.
As the game wore on, even the defensive coaching staff seemed bewildered at Maryland's offensive attack, switching away from Virginia's 3-4 base defense into a 4-3 scheme, in addition to using nickel packages to try to slow the Terrapins. But none of it worked. Five times the Maryland offense started drives inside its own 20 yard line, and, five times, it marched the length of the field for touchdowns. The only thing stopping the Terrapins from running up 60 was their own mistakes. After punting on their first drive of the game, they were forced to punt only once more, in the third quarter after a holding penalty backed them inside their own 10 yard line. Hollenbach also threw two interceptions, one of which was returned for a Virginia touchdown.
"Things aren't always going to go perfect," Groh said after the game. "We probably didn't come into the season expecting to have a perfect season. At some point in each game we weren't perfect, and now we've had a game that the outcome wasn't perfect, so this is where the challenge comes in -- to have the resolve to come back and play better."
With their perfect veneer tarnished, the Cavaliers can find solace in the fact that this Saturday's game at No. 18 Boston College offers them a fresh opportunity to prove themselves anew to their fans and the rest of the ACC. Unfortunately, Boston College is a bigger and better team than the one that manhandled Virginia last weekend in College Park and will assail Virginia's defense with a physically bruising offensive line and rushing attack.
Despite giving up 570 total yards of offense, Virginia still found itself with the lead at the start of the fourth quarter and wasn't totally out of the game until Maryland's final touchdown put the score out of reach.
Senior kicker Connor Hughes, who aside from four made field goal attempts watched the game from the sideline as an observer, summed the game up best.
"It's not a game we could have won -- it's a game we should have won," Hughes said. "We'll look at it as a learning thing and move on."
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