Story Links
Oct. 21, 2003
Virginia head coach Al Groh
Q: What impresses you about Troy State?
Groh: Offensively? Power running team. They really assault the line with the ball. They have a fullback who assaults the line, particularly blocks against bottom linebackers. The running back is a hard ball downhill runner. Those two are a very good tandem together.Defensively, their system holds resemblance in the package they run to the Clemson and Florida State packages a little bit. Mix up of coverages, the range of coverages we’ve seen the last two or three weeks–some two robber, fire zones, some blitz man, quite a bit of different things. Once you get to this stage in the season, on offense or defense, somewhere along the line, there’s a good chance that we’ve encountered most of those things from somewhere.
Q: Is he athletically what you would want?
Groh: He’s certainly got speed and range. He doesn’t have as much size, but he’s got speed and range?he’ll be able to play the deep half of the field.
Q: How do you think freshman Tony Franklin’s progressing so far?
Groh: Real good. I think he ought to be confident in himself. He’s had five really positive plays here in the first half of the season. He’s run an interception back for touchdowns so that was his first positive defensive play. ‘Hey, I can play on defense, I can do this.’ He’s had four real positive returns the past two weeks. He’s had a number of positive plays on special teams, so he should be feeling good about himself. That’s the way, in a lot of cases over the last three seasons, the way we’ve tried to bring young players on. Get ’em in a little bit, get ’em in a little more, let ’em do something that they’re accustomed to doing. Feel positive about themselves, bring them on further. That’s what we did with Connor Hughes, that’s what we did with Elton Brown, that’s what we did with Brad Butler. I think it’s here in the second half of the season now, he’s got that little foundation of courage. It’s time to maybe start moving him on to more.
Q: What does he bring to that return position?
Groh: Just a running back sense. He’s had that ball underneath his arm a lot, he’s got a good sense of pace as he fits with the blockers, he’s got a good eye for the opening, and he’s got a little aggressiveness in trying to take the openings.
Q: How would you assess D’Brickashaw Ferguson who has now played in 21 games?
Groh: Good. Real good. He’s getting to the point now where, maybe a little fairly on my part, but because of his ability level and his experience, I pretty much expect everything should go right over there. He had the only sack in the game for us the other day. There were mitigating circumstances on that, but they were circumstances that were under his control. That is, he was just a step late off the ball. I don’t know if it was just crowd noise or whatever, but he was just a step late off the ball. The rusher, who’s a good speed rusher?but not any faster than Darryl Blackstock who he faces every day in practice?beat him off the ball by a step. But that play, coupled with the short punt, was a three-point play. Where the other team got the ball, they were already in field goal range, so two plays together, it just seems like one play, but it was a three-point sack.
Q: What would you say about punter Tom Hagan’s mechanics?
Groh: I think he’d tell you that more than mechanics. With Tom, it’s often a case of rhythm and balance. If he’s got a good rhythm and he’s in balance, he kicks the ball well. If he’s out of rhythm or out of balance, then everything else is askew, whether it’s timing of his drop, the angle of his drop. A lot of times, that’s the mechanic with kickers. It’s not the leg or the hand, it’s the drop of the ball, how the ball hits your foot.
Q: When a guy, such as Brandon Isaiah, has not been in the game a whole lot, do you worry about them being in there for such a key play?
Groh: He made a good play on that didn’t he? That’s a role that usually goes to Kase Luzar. We played a little musical chairs there. Kase was playing Patrick [Estes’] role and Brandon had to play Kase’s role. He really stepped up well. When you have multiple personnel packages as most teams do and then if you have any substitution within that, a lot of times a player either at the receiver or the running back position find themselves in under those circumstances. I’m sure it’s a little bit more challenging than to be in the rhythm of the game. Kind of like a pinch hitter coming in?I’m sure you’d rather have all your swings rather than just come there at the bottom of the eighth. Matt [Schaub] did a really good job on it, did all the things right. There was a guy coming off the edge pretty good, did all the things right to be able to throw the ball under those circumstances, just put it up where it was an easy catch for a guy who?s a ball carrier more than a catcher. Brandon did a real good job with the ball. Obviously that was a critical play, that potentially was a seven-point play?don’t make it, we don’t get any points. Make it, we got a chance to get seven, so our attitude was it was going to take some points to win. We could take a field goal and crawl back into the game, or they’re a hard team to move the ball on, we’re already down there, so let’s try to make the most of it while we can.
Q: When NG Andrew Hoffman was out, NC Melvin Massey got a lot of time to play. How did he do?
Groh: He did well. He’s maybe just a few pounds heavier than Brennan Schmidt was last year and just a couple pounds lighter than Brennan Schmidt is this year. Brennan had an excellent game the other night, so it had to give him a lot of confidence playing against a player like that. I’m sure to be Andrew’s size and to have the same quickness Melvin does would be a real good package, but he doesn’t so he’s learned to use leverage and his hand quickness has improved significantly that he’s able to use that to accomplish leverage. He seemed to hold up pretty well in there.
Q: TE Heath Miller has had more touchdowns than any ACC player. How much of an accomplishment is that?
Groh: I’ll let the touchdowns speak for themselves, speak of his play. I don’t know who would win the bet, but I think he’d have a good chance to win it, if he bet someone that if you add up Patrick [Estes’] catches and Heath’s catches that they’d add up to more than all the other tight-ends in the league. On that basis, he’s certainly been productive for us, he’s blocked well for us. This speaks of Heath Miller in that he’s obviously a guy with a real feel for the passing game, he’s a very productive player and yet he’s really interested in blocking. A lot of guys who play that position profess interest in it, but the development of their skills speaks otherwise. He’s very interested in those plays and doing a very good job with them. That’s what he does with everything.
Q: What’s it like having a guy like RB Alvin Pearman who can do whatever you ask him to?
Groh: Obviously it’s a great asset to the team. I think he demonstrated once again?certainly not for the first time?but he demonstrated on Saturday night the heart with which he plays. That’s what you got to have. Florida State played three tailbacks the other night, and you can see they can all go. We’ve on occasion had the opportunity to play two or three and certainly have two right now, but we’re pretty much going with one. He had to do the work of one, and that’s what was significant of a lot of different positions. Florida State was able to play three, so towards the end of the game, the guy they had on the end seemed to have a special spurt that nobody else on the field had that played six linebackers and 10 defensive linemen. That’s quite a bit more than we had in the rotation. A few times I’ve spoken of mature programs and that’s what you get over a period of time. That’s why I’ve said on occasion here that we’ve had two really good groups, we get a third one now and we really start to fill in all the blanks. We have a fourth one, and we’ll have them all filled in. That’s why every day is a recruiting day as well as a coaching day.
Q: The first place Alvin Pearman played was wide receiver. Have you ever thought about moving him back there?
Groh: No. We had him there mostly because right from the start, he had an energy about him and had a purpose about him, and we could see he had speed that very few players on that first team had. We couldn’t afford to let that speed to go unused. When we made the decision to put him in wide receiver, at that time Antoine Walmack was healthy so obviously we had a geared to him runner. Had Antoine stayed healthy, then Alvin might have stayed at receiver for that year, because Antoine was probably going to get it 25 times a game. Our losing him early caused us to reshuffle the deck and Alvin was quickly back at running back.
Q: You said the other day that if a team loses a game, it’s generally because of being outplayed in the fourth quarter. Do you think the team was just worn down in the fourth quarter?
Groh: I’m sure that was a factor, but whether that’s an actual reason or an excuse, I don’t know which category it falls into. In my mind, I put it in the category that come the fourth quarter, they played a little better than we did?for whatever reason. They had more Ovaltine in the morning than we did. Maybe the ability to rotate players did in fact make a difference.
Q: Is 3:00 P.M. vs. Troy State your ideal starting time?
Groh: Yeah, I’ve noticed that, besides the night games, that seems to be the best time to get the crowd out. Because we depend so much on the student crowd, as well as the older crowd, we thought we’d give them more time to tend to whatever it is that needs tending to before the game and to try to ensure that we have the most people in the stands as possible which I thought was great the other night. I thought we had a great crowd. That student section was filled earlier than I’ve ever seen it. In fact, one of our top players that we’ve had here on his official visit said that he wants to make his official visits during the season, because he wants to see what the fan base is like at each school. He said ‘it was awesome.’ I think he was definitely right about that. The time that the student body got there in the student section was unprecedented since I’ve been here. The energy they had, the orange that they had, I thought it was great. I’ve really had more commentary at this point right now with kids who were here as recruits rather than I’ve had with our players, because I spoke with them a lot after the game Saturday night after the players had left. There was a constant theme amongst all of them about what a great environment it was, and they couldn’t believe the students never sat down.