Starting off 1-2 is not necessarily a measure of how good a team really is. The way the Cavaliers opened up the 2008 football season, however, suggests the chances for a quality season are low. Being overwhelmed by the No. 1 team in the country is one thing, but barely beating an Football Championship Subdivision school and being blown out by a team that has only been a Division I team for eight years are other issues. One part of the Cavaliers’ game has been particularly lacking: running the ball and stopping the run.
In the 52-7 defeat by the USC Trojans, the Cavaliers mustered only 32 rushing yards compared to 208 by their opponent. Against Richmond, the Cavalier defense fared better, only allowing 19 yards rushing while running for 91, with senior running back Cedric Peerman leading the way with 60. The progress unraveled against Connecticut, however, with the Huskies garnering 382 yards on the ground, compared to the Cavaliers’ 31. In this game, the Huskies had 506 total yards of offense, while the Cavaliers managed 219, only 9 more than Connecticut leading rusher Donald Brown, who had 206 for the game with a 10.3 average per rush attempt.
“They rushed for 382 yards. Anytime a team does that, then that’s just crazy.” senior linebacker Clint Sintim said.
When asked about the rushing differential in last week’s game, Coach Al Groh noted that the Cavaliers’ strategy was not so different from Connecticut’s.
“As was pointed out to the team, the play that gained the most yards [Saturday] night for UConn is almost exactly the same play as one that we ran repeatedly for low results, so it’s not like, ‘Well we should put that play in.’ It’s, ‘We’ve had that play in, we ran it quite a few times last night, we’ve run it over the year.’”
Adding to the defensive mishaps thus far this season have been missed tackles.
“It’s just sloppy,” Sintim said. “I take full responsibility for that. It was just poor play.”
Virginia has a bye this week, providing some extra time to prepare for the next game at Duke and to review its early season mistakes. Groh said this team is a “work in progress,” so development of the young players is one of the major goals of the season.
“This [bye] would come at a good time for us,” Groh said. “We always thought we would have the opportunity during this time frame then to try to get something with these other young players and see what they might be able to do for us.”
The Cavaliers are a young and mildly inexperienced team, so bumps on the road are expected. Yet, off-field issues, like sophomore quarterback Peter Lalich’s probation problems, have added more unbalance to the team. Sophomore quarterback Marc Verica started his first game ever at the collegiate level last Saturday and put up decent numbers. Lalich practiced Sunday, but there is no word yet about whether he will play against Duke on September 27.
How does Virginia bounce back after a lackluster start as it heads into its ACC schedule?
“We’ve just got to find the things that caused us to lose this game and just eliminate them this week,” Verica said after the loss to Connecticut.
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