I don't like to cast judgements after the first game of any season. It doesn't make or break a season. In this case, I will make an exception. What I saw on Saturday in Charlottesville should be the end of Al Groh as coach of Virginia. It's not just the fact that they lost at home to William & Mary, but the offensive ouput has been pretty much the same over the last four years: inconsistent and lethargic at times.
You can't go by the mantra that defense wins championships. If you're gonna put a pile of puke out on the field and say it's your offense,it's not gonna work. You're not going to win unless you have a brick wall for a defense. And I will give Groh credit for fielding a good defense. It's been consistently good during his time at UVA. You can't say that about the offense. And the defense was pretty good Saturday. They held the Tribe to 3.4 yards per carry on 37 carries, and 184 yards passing. The score may not indicate it, but the offense kept putting the defense in bad spots, and UVA held William & Mary to two touchdowns and seven field goal attempts, while Virginia's offense and special teams turned it over SEVEN times! And because of that, the Tribe had the ball for over 35 minutes of the game.
Bad losses have been aplenty during the Groh regime. In 2003, Virginia lost 31-7 to a South Carolina team that had only won five games that year, and barely bear Louisiana-Lafayette the week prior. In 2005, after handing Florida State their first loss of the season, Virginia lost 7-5 to a UNC team that also won five games that year, and had given up 69 points to Louisville the week before. The next year, in 2006, Virginia lost at home to Western Michigan, and the offense was putrid there, just like the week before, when they needed a missed extra point to beat Wyoming. The next year, they did lose to Wyoming, and the offense didn't even show up there, gaining only five first downs THE ENTIRE GAME! And last season, while they shut out Richmond, they got lucky a lot in that game, and could have lost that game. And let's not forget the drubbing by Duke, 31-3, where Marc Verica threw four interceptions. Oh, and let's also not forget Groh's record against Virginia Tech, which will ultimately be his undoing-one win, a 35-21 victory in 2003.
But back to Saturday, the offense was really ineffective. And there was some terrible play calling as well. One play that really stood out was a 4th and 1 that Virginia went for in the second half. They decided to run Marc Verica from the shotgun on a QB keeper. Needless to say, it didn't work, and Virginia turned it over on downs. I don't think Marc Verica should be running QB keepers. In fact, I thought I saw a turtle fly by when Verica was running. The logical thing to do in that instance wold have been to have Vic Hall or Jameel Sewell run that. They would have stood a better chance of getting the first down. But seriously, the beginning to this season is reminding me of what happened at Auburn last season. They brought an offensive coordinator in to run the spread offense. It didn't work so well at the start, and the offensive coordinator was fired a month into the season. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens, and Groh gets booted soon after.
I wouldn't shed a tear at this point if Virginia got rid of groh. I was a supporter of Groh for a long time. But bad loss after bad loss has soured my view on Groh, and he is becoming another in a line of coaches who have had ties to Bill Belichick and have become subpar coaches (Groh was an assistant coach in 1992 when Belichick coached Cleveland). The best thing for Virginia to do is get rid of Groh and start over with a new coach and a new philosophy and get Virginia football back on the map, just like it was in the days of George Welsh.
