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March 26, 2007
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UVa Spring Football Central
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Charlottesville, VA — Poll Virginia football fans about the most pleasant surprise about the 2006 season and you’ll probably find a majority who cite the emergence of Jon Copper as a stalwart on the Cavalier defense.
After playing primarily on special teams as a redshirt freshman in 2005, Copper started all 12 games last season and led the team in tackles with 81. It seemed like he never left the field, participating in a team-high 785 plays.
The product of Northside High School in Roanoke admits all that game experience has made this spring a completely difference experience.
“This time last year I was, well, I would not say lost, because I knew a lot of stuff about the defense, but it was more textbook knowledge,” Copper said. “I was trying to take a textbook and apply it to the field, which was a lot harder. Now when plays happen, I understand from experience what is about to happen before it occurs.”
Copper is one of nine returning starters on the Virginia defense that finished last season ranked 17th in the nation, allowing just 289.5 yards per game.
“It is a good feeling,” Copper said of seeing so many familiar faces around him during spring drills. “Last year there were more guys like myself and Jeffrey Fitzgerald and Antonio (Appleby), who were pretty new to the defense.”
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Copper says that year of playing time under his belt has made a world of difference in his approach.
“One thing you learn when you finally get out there and get some experience is that it is never as bad as you think and it is never as good as you think,” he said. “I think you do play with a little more freedom and you anticipate things that about to happen.”
Copper notes the depth of the linebacking corps is another asset the UVa defense did not benefit from last season.
“Linebacker can be a pretty rough position,” Copper said. “If you can have three or four guys at the inside position who can contribute, like I think we will this year, then you can give a guy a blow. It helps to be able to have a rotation. It will probably be more like my first year when we had Rich (Bedesem) and Kai (Parham) and Ahmad (Brooks). I think that helped out a lot overall as far as guys being fresher when they played.”
Copper is eager to get farther into spring ball as the players get past the phase of “knocking off the rust” as he puts it and can focus on getting better.
“The first few practices of spring ball seems like we spend more time getting back into the swing of things,” he said. “The rest of the spring we’ll work on improvement. I think all of us have a lot of areas we can improve. I know I do.”
Copper relishes having head coach Al Groh work with the linebackers to achieve that level of improvement.
“It’s been a good experience, ” he said. “He (Groh) is coaching us about the finer points of `This is why I made this call and this is what I’m expecting from you guys.’ It really helps us to understand what is going on.”
Copper is certainly one player with a full schedule this spring. In addition to his football duties, he and fiancé Holly Dixon will be married May 19.
“It is a little bit of a balance,” Copper said about concentrating on football, his academic load and preparing for the wedding. “Spring ball ends on April 14 and then I have about five weeks before I get married. The registration is done, the church is set and the honeymoon plans are all final, so we’ve gotten most of the work out of the way already.”
Like Spring Football, it is an experience he is looking forward to enjoying.