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August 19, 2003
By Erik Brady, USA TODAY
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Matt Schaub performed a magic act at the University of Virginia last season: Now you see him, now you don’t, now you see him all the time.
He went from starting quarterback to the bench and back to starter, where he emerged as the Atlantic Coast Conference’s surprise player of the year. He won a slew of other awards in his star-making season, but this month he packed the trophies into a tote bag and handed them to his mother.
“Take ’em home,” he told her. “Last season is over. We’ve got another season to work on now.”
That leaves room on his shelves for more hardware ? and for big dreams. Virginia is touting Schaub as a candidate for the Heisman Trophy, that much-hyped award given annually to the most outstanding player in college football.
No one in Virginia history has finished higher than fourth in Heisman voting. Schaub, 22, is probably a long shot. But Virginia coach Al Groh is unapologetic about pushing his quarterback for the award.
“Matt is a returning conference player of the year,” Groh says. “You have very few of those every year in college football. That makes Matt a candidate. It’s like winning a primary in politics.”
Schaub (rhymes with lob) enters this season as Virginia’s favorite son, but it wasn’t always so. As he prepares for the Cavaliers’ opening game against Duke on Aug. 30, Schaub is often reminded of last season’s opener against Colorado State: He played poorly (73 yards passing), the Cavs lost ? and he got booed, then benched.
“I probably would have done the same thing to myself,” Schaub says with a shrug.
His family still feels the sting of some of the barbs hurled his way from the home stands.
“He didn’t have to hear those things. We did,” says Lindsay Fitch, 25, Schaub’s older sister. “A lot of it was coming from football parents in our section. It was very hard. I didn’t want to go to a game ever again.”
Debbie Schaub, Matt’s mother, says the experience reminded her of a child who has a bad day in middle school. “A mother still lies awake at night a week later when the child is long since over it,” she says. “But looking back, hard as it was, I realize now that kind of thing is a rite of passage for any football player, especially a quarterback.”
Schaub won back his job in relief the next week in a loss to Florida State and led the Cavs to a 9-3 record the rest of the way, including a win against West Virginia in the Continental Tire Bowl. He finished second in the country in passing percentage (68.9%) and led the ACC in touchdowns (28) and completions (288).
How did he manage this reversal of misfortune? Schaub doesn’t seem to have a clue. “I just knew I had to remain focused,” he says. “I knew I’d get another chance and I had to be ready when I did.”
Schaub threw a lot of short and medium passes in Virginia’s pro-style West Coast offense. Backs caught 44.1% of his completions, wide receivers 41.3% and tight ends 14.6%. The Cavalier Daily, Virginia’s student paper, had fun with this in an April Fool’s Day spoof that said the you-know-what trophy would be renamed “the Scheisman” in honor of Schaub’s “uncanny ability to repeatedly throw screen passes to running backs.”
Schaub hopes to throw long more often this season. But deep threat Michael McGrew, his top returning receiver, broke a leg last week and will miss the season; Billy McMullen, last season’s big-play receiver, has moved on to the Philadelphia Eagles.
“Obviously, I want to take more chances down the field,” Schaub says. “I’m all for going deep, but, hey, whatever it takes to win, that’s what we’ll do.”
Leading by example
It is hard to find anyone who has a bad word to say about the 6-5 quarterback with the easy smile and easygoing manner. Well, his sister says he’s stubborn. And his father says he sometimes leaves his socks on the floor. But otherwise his family and friends rate him something this side of St. Francis of Assisi:
? “He’s the nicest guy I have ever met in my whole life,” girlfriend Emily Mollick says. “He puts himself out there for you every day.”
? “He’s purposeful and unflappable,” Groh says. “He’s not a fur-flies type of personality. He’s the same guy every day in terms of his approach and his demeanor.”
? “He’s the most hard-working person I’ve ever known,” wide receiver and roommate Ryan Sawyer says. “And he’s too level-headed to let all the hype get into his head.”
The hype includes a school-operated Web site, schaub4heisman.com. This is new territory for Virginia: The last time it ran a full-scale Heisman campaign, for quarterback Shawn Moore in 1990, Web sites had not yet sprouted like mushrooms. Moore finished fourth behind winner Ty Detmer of Brigham Young.
Assistant media relations director Cathy Bongiovi Stewart is chairwoman of an eight-person committee that is directing what Virginia envisions as an understated Heisman campaign. “No billboards, no bobble-heads,” she says. “We’re taking a softer approach. We want to get his name out there, but we’ll wait to see how he’s doing and then make our big push in October.”
The Web site has a dozen family photos provided by Schaub’s mother. Schaub vetoed a few others, including shots of him as a youngster suited up for basketball in “knee-high socks with short shorts. I’d rather keep those in a shoe box in the back of the closet.”
The shy boy in the pictures used a succession of youth teams to make new friends as his family moved from Pittsburgh, where he was born, to Albany, N.Y., and on to Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia. He was a three-sport star at West Chester East High in suburban Philadelphia.
Schaub still loves basketball: His intramural team at Virginia finished second among 80-some teams last spring. And he is still a little like the quiet, driven boy in the photos: Coaches want more swagger.
“They tell me to be more outspoken and vocal now that I’m a captain” with fiery cornerback Almondo Curry, Schaub says. “He’s more of an in-your-face guy. I’m more of a lead-by-example guy.”
Schaub’s father, Dale, works for a rail transport company; Dale and Debbie now live in Atlanta and attend almost every Virginia game. “Matt was always a good athlete and a good student,” his father says. “And he was good at budgeting his time, which was a blessing.”
Schaub counts it as a blessing that he chose Virginia over the 15 or so other schools that recruited him. “Virginia is a magical place,” he says. “You find out about it the first day you step on The Grounds ? the history, the tradition, Thomas Jefferson, The Lawn.”
No shortage of ACC contenders
Schaub wears a tuxedo on the cover of the new Cavaliers’ media guide, a formal declaration of his Heisman candidacy. He wore considerably less on one jaunt around The Lawn four years ago.
According to unofficial Virginia tradition, a student should run naked around the sacred centerpiece of the school at some point before he or she graduates. The strait-laced quarterback has done both ? streaked The Lawn and graduated.
Schaub is a fifth-year player who earned his degree in economics in May; he’ll take graduate courses this semester.
When he was a freshman ? or first-year, as they say at Virginia ? he and some buddies streaked from the steps of the Rotunda around the terraced lawn and back. “You try to get back fast,” Schaub says. “That’s where your clothes are.”
Sawyer, Schaub’s roommate then as now, was along for the excursion. “It’s just something every student does,” Sawyer says. Like most, they ran late at night. “That way there aren’t so many people around. And it’s pitch dark.”
Sawyer graduated in May, too, with a degree in religious studies. He figures to be among Schaub’s favorite receiving targets this season. “If I beat him in a video game,” Sawyer says, “Matt will always keep playing until he beats me.”
That competitive fire was evident on the field last season, when Schaub led the Cavs to four come-from-behind wins in the second half.
This season, “our goal is to win the ACC,” Schaub says. “That’s it. Anything else is icing on the cake.”
That won’t be easy. Virginia is ranked No. 17 in the USA TODAY/ESPN coaches poll, but three other conference teams are ranked ahead: No. 12 Florida State, No. 13 Maryland and No. 14 North Carolina State. Eight of the nine ACC schools have returning quarterbacks, including North Carolina State’s Philip Rivers, a four-year starter and strong Heisman candidate.
The Cavs last won a share of the ACC title in 1995. Mike Groh, Al’s son, quarterbacked that team. Now he is Virginia’s quarterbacks coach.
“Mike’s advice is paramount,” Schaub says. “He knows what it takes to win here.”
Mike Groh is the only quarterback in Virginia history to lead the Cavs to nine wins and bowl victories in back-to-back seasons. Schaub can be the second.
“Matt is really a coach’s dream,” Mike Groh says. “Nobody works harder.”
ACC defenses, take note: Watch out for an accurate, resilient, unflappable coach’s dream in a tuxedo ? or, more likely, a baseball cap worn backward.
Oh, and just in case, watch out for the naked reverse, too.