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Oct. 20, 2001
VIRGINIA HEAD COACH AL GROH:
“I thought as the game went on, they played progressively better and we played progressively worse. They certainly looked like a NFL team on the field, at all positions. It was pretty apparent from the outset that the core of their plan was to take the big people and overrun the little people — a pretty good idea.
“We could have played a lot better offensively. We had some plays to make and we left some plays on the field. I thought we hung in there for a while on defense, but I don’t think we played well at all on offense at any particular time. If we are going to have a chance [to win], we are going to have to play better on offense. … When you end up with seven points, its hard to say we had a good night. There are a lot of us involved in the operation that would have liked to have done better.
“They got a couple a big chunks of yardage in the passing game on third down, which kept them on the field. We didn’t play a couple of coverages as well as we would have liked to play them. Those were plays that we made on the first half to get them off the field. We were going to have to have a good third down game against this team because they are a very big, powerful team, at least in how they match up against us. We did a fairly decent job with that for awhile.
“Once again we ended the third quarter with a dramatic interception and I was very disappointed with our play in the final 15:02 of the game.
“If you are going to beat a team like this, you have to be on your A-game from the start. Everybody has to bring their best game. Not everyone brought their best game tonight.