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Sept. 25, 2004
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery
VIRGINIA HEAD COACH Al Groh:
As we had expected, this was certainly the most physical team and the biggest test we’ve had so far. We were tested real good. They’re going to have a good team this year. … I thought we met the test at a lot of points. Twice we stopped them inside the ten and twice we went the length of the field. It’s hard to win a football game and we did two hard things to do it.
(On the fourth down stop) We had practiced that play in that circumstance twice this week. … We had the right call for that circumstance. We got good pressure.
(On the 96-yard touchdown drive) The offense knew what they had to get done. The game was in the balance at that point.
(On Hagans) Marques did a terrific job leading his team. He did it in a number of different ways. Running the ball, he made some good decisions. … He didn’t do anything that was unexpected from our behalf. … He had one miss today, excellent runs. He’s been that way for four games now. We’d like to think if this is his break-in timeframe, the best is yet to come.
(On the touchdown pass to McGrew on third and one) Sometimes that’s a good opportunity to take a shot on it. Obviously, Marques threw it out there terrifically and Mike McGrew really went and got the ball, did a terrific job on the play.
(On Pearman playing WR) He got about 10 reps on Thursday. … He spent a good amount of time yesterday with John Garrett reviewing things. But what he did today speaks volumes about the purposefulness and personality of the team. … Alvin continues to be a major part of the heart of this team.
(On big plays) They just came today. On the pass to Heath [Miller], it was just a big-time throw – right on the belt, threading it between two guys.
SYRACUSE HEAD COACH PAUL PASQUALONI:
We gave up too many big plays. The … long touchdown run, we busted an assignment and missed the contain, and [Hagans] took the ball the whole length of the field and scored. We had a couple of other big mistakes. The tight end on the bootleg was an awful big play.
The problem in the second half was that we couldn’t get the ball back. We went for it on fourth down, and we certainly would have loved to make that. The key issue there was not being able to get the ball back and Virginia taking the ball 96 yards … put the last nail in the coffin.
We clearly did not tackle well today. That’s something I thought we took a step on against Cincinnati and I think we took a step back today.
(Comparing to the Purdue loss) I think this was a different game. When you’re playing a quarterback who is as quick and as fast as their quarterback is, you can’t afford to be out of step at all. … This is a different team than the team that lost to Purdue.
I just wished we could have got the ball back just to see what would have happened. It would have been more fun.
(On Hagans) He fakes well on the bootlegs. And he’s so fast coming off the bootlegs, that puts a lot of pressure on the contain. I thought we really chased him on some of those bootlegs. Even the one he hit to the tight end, Ryan LaCasse was running step for step with him. It was just a shame that we blew the coverage on the tight end.
(On Virginia) Defensively, they’re a very good team. They’ve got an excellent offensive line. They have excellent backs, and they have a quarterback who is just simply a ball of dynamite.