AS ALWAYS, a Virginia loss brings out the Al Groh haters, once again claiming that the old ball coach has let the Wahoo faithful down. Admittedly, at a glance, the evidence can seem rather compelling: four straight losses to the archrival Hokies (Groh is 1-6 against his Virginia Tech counterpart Frank Beamer), two losing seasons during his watch, no ACC titles to brag on and not a New Year's Day Bowl or better to date. Pretty condemning results indeed. But before pulling out the pitchforks and torches, maybe a brief stroll through Virginia football history is in order.
For all intents and purposes, Virginia football as we know it began when George Welsh took over in 1982. There had been successful coaches prior to this, but no consistency in the program. Welsh took the Cavs to their first bowl game, the 1984 Peach Bowl, en route to becoming the most successful coach in ACC history. In addition, he was named National Coach of the Year three times during his tenure.
So it appears Groh had some big shoes to fill, right? Well, in one sense, yes. He replaced a Virginia legend, someone who took football at the University to an entirely new level. Yet at the same time, he inherited a program that had unquestionably seen better days. A year before Groh's arrival, the Hoos failed to win seven games in a season for the first time since 1986; they had also dropped four of the past six to the guys in maroon.
George Welsh will always be remembered as the person who took Cavalier football from the Cadavaliers to legitimate contenders. But the team seemed to plateau somewhere around seven, maybe eight wins per year. This doesn't seem too unreasonable for a school never known historically for big-time football. In fact, only Florida State, Michigan and Nebraska can match Welsh's run of consecutive seven-win regular seasons, making the feat seem even more impressive.
So why do we now call for the ax to fall on Groh's tenure? Is it because after seven years in Charlottesville, he's posted two losing seasons? Perhaps that's too many for our fans to endure. But it is also probably worth noticing that our team has a chance, with a bowl win, to reach 10 wins for only the second time in school history.
Lets face it, Virginia doesn't have the same recruiting pull as Virginia Tech, which has a national title appearance, a plethora of double-digit win seasons and seemingly endless Thursday night prime time slots on ESPN to entice athletes. The Hokies won football predominance in the Commonwealth long before Groh arrived. Yet despite this, our coach has more than once hauled in recruiting classes ranked in ESPN's annual top 10 for all of college football. Unfortunately, many of the young, talented assistants he's brought in have moved on to the NFL or to their own head coaching positions -- Bill Musgrave, Ron Prince, and Al Golden to name a few -- but at least this speaks to their abilities. For now, I'll hold my tongue on the issue of Mike Groh being offensive coordinator. It seems a little too much like nepotism for me, but that's another debate.
Coaching legends Bobby Bowden and Beamer have remarked that if the college football environment at the time of each one's hiring was as cutthroat as it is today, they would not have lasted past the first several years. This might seem to be nothing more than empathetic rhetoric, but a look at the facts suggests otherwise. When Beamer took the helm in Blacksburg, the Hokies put up four losing records in his first six seasons, including a pair of two-win campaigns in 1987 and 1992. He went 1-5 against Welsh and Virginia in this span. At this point, as one might imagine, his future with Tech was in peril. But the athletic department stuck with him, and the breakout season came in 1993, when his Hokies went -- and doesn't this sound familiar -- 9-3. The rest is history.
In light of this, a Groh-bashing celebration seems premature at best. If college coaches aren't given time to develop winning programs, but instead have unrealistic ultimatums shoved at them, then the era of great football dynasties is history. After all, at the end of the day, there are plenty of good teams much worse off than nine wins.
Ross Lawrence is a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences.
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