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After a tremendous 3-game home stand that featured a thrilling overtime win over No. 18 North Carolina last week, the Cavaliers return to the road this Saturday at Georgia Tech. The Cavaliers have climbed above .500 for this this season with a 4-3 overall mark. They trail the Yellow Jackets by a half-game in the Coastal Division standings. Saturday’s kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPNU.
Q: Do you have a secret formula when it comes to winning close games? After what happened last year, do you have a secret that you can tell us all about how you pull these out?
Groh: Well, I don’t know. It’s certainly not a secret, but it doesn’t just happen. Every year you gotta assess your team and see what kind of team you’re going to have and what kind of games you can play. If that assessment says that the games are more likely to be close at the end than they are to be big margins, then you need to prepare for those type of circumstances, which means practice them a lot so that the players have a sense of we’ve been there before.’
We’ve got the scoreboard there (on the practice field and) we put situations up … there’s 22 seconds left in the game, the ball is on the 19-yard line, we’ve got two timeouts left; not only are these plays that we’re going to call, but this is what we need to do. If we make a first down, and we don’t have any timeouts left, we have a short kind of free timeout, here’s what we need to do to make sure we can get the next play run without wasting time, get out of bounds whatever the case may be.
It’s not a secret formula for sure, but there is a plan of preparation to do that and I think the players have a good awareness of what we are trying to do in those circumstances and what’s going to get called and kind of an idea. We try to prep them every week. If a team has a history on how they try to play those situations, we try to prep them for what that might be. For example, if the team has the ball, how do they start the drive or at what point do they take a shot. Those kind of things.
We do put a lot of time in on it; we know that those are situations that we are lucky enough to be in them and fortunately we’ve been lucky enough to find ourself in that circumstance. That’s all you can ask is to be there at the end game whether it’s on offense or defense with a chance to win it.
Q: When do you anticipate not having a season like that?
Groh: Really probably the way this conference has been going for the last few years, not for a long time. There are so many games that come down to this. It really doesn’t impact the performance of the team up to that point. It’s going to stand for what it is, but it certainly can very much change the numbers on the scoreboard and in the long run that’s all that counts.
Q: When you have younger players that haven’t been through the situations like Marc Verica that are able to step in there and have that game tying drive executed in a game. Is it different than doing it practice now that he has that confidence?
Groh: For sure. It’s all well and good to say that we handled it well in practice, but if you don’t handle it well in practice you can get back and make the corrections and the changes without it going on your record.
We want the players to perform the same way. It’s not about, Jeez, the game’s on the line here.’
It’s just, this is the call that was made and just execute the call the same way you did in August. It’s the same coverage; it’s the same pattern just do it the same way.’ And if you do it on a repetitive basis, then the players made that execution enough to have a lot of confidence in it.
Q: John Phillips said they were smiling and laughing, the guys that had been through it last year, he said he kind of knew that we’re going to do this because he had done it before. Do you see that confidence in the players that did it last year and now maybe in the guys that just did it this year once?
Groh: I would see it just a little bit differently than John. I wouldn’t say necessarily that we just know it’s going in there, but there’s a calm that we’ve been there before and we know how to handle the situation. Now we are going to have to perform, but at least we’ve been there before and we know what the situation entails and how we have to go about our business. That’s very much the case with the staff as well as the players. You know we’ve been there before; we’ve made the calls … There’s not the sense of excitement amongst the participants that there perhaps is amongst those who are watching it.
Q: Georgia Tech’s Morgan Burnett leads the team in tackles with two-and-a-half for loss and five interceptions. Is he an exceptional player?
Groh: (He’s a) very good player; they’ve got some very good players on defense. They’re way up there in every defensive category in the ACC, which is consistent with where they’ve been over the last few years.
Q: Clint Sintim said regarding the blocking schemesI’m always confused probably everyone else isn’tbut chop blocks, cut blocks, Clint says there’s a way to do it legally and from what he can tell they’re are doing it legally. How would you describe their blocking schemes?
Groh: As we would describe it to the players, 1) most of the schemes are designed to try to out-leverage defenders, that is get angles on defenders and 2) they’re trying to get as many defenders on the ground on every play as possible. As opposed to necessarily taking them and moving them back, trying to get as many defenders knocked down.
Q: Do you have to account for defensive players like Burnett and the other standouts they have the way you would an Hakeem Nicks? Do you circle them on the blackboard and tell your guys about them?
Groh: Oh, sure, We always try to make sure that we know not only what we’re playing against, but even before we know what we’re playing against, that we try to emphasize to the players in their preparationknow who it is that you’re playing against. Even if it’s the same scheme that we played against in previous weeks, the players involved in that scheme, they’ve got different style, different techniques, you’ve got to know who your playing against. It’s like any athlete in anything; know who’s guarding you in basketball, know who’s pitching to you. And then beyond that we really try to highlight those players that by their very presence, they could take over the game, and if that’s allowed, it’s going to be hard to win.
Q: When Paul Johnson took the Georgia Tech job a lot of attention was paid to how that offense would work in a BCS conference. Did you share a similar type of curiosity?
Groh: No, it worked pretty well before and it has a long history of being successful. That style of offense has got a long history. Some years back it was the prevalent style of play, so it’s not as if something has been invented that never worked before.
I was trying to think of a good analogy the other day, but space flight has come a long way since the first launchings, but it’s a lot more sophisticated and lot more intricate and we can do things with those rockets and go to the moon now. Heck, all they were trying to do with the first one was do a couple of orbits. Now we’re sending people to the moon, but it’s still rocket flight.
You know this is still wishbone-based offense. It’s just a more sophisticated, more souped up version.
Q: Can you talk about what challenges that presents to your defense?
Groh: First of all, unfamiliarity. It’s just a different style of play than what players are used to, so we have to orient them to the particulars. But that’s kind of the case every week, (which) is getting the picture of who it is that we’re playing and understanding the opponent, it’s very helpful to players. It’s very critical to players that they understand the opponent and how that team is trying to play them; what pictures the opponent is going to give them.
Q: The Virginia Tech players before they played Georgia Tech this year said that the way they saw it, it was pretty much stay in your assignment, everybody kind of knows what’s going to happen, what their assignment is and just to do that, and that simplifies it. It’s probably oversimplification, but is that kind of what it comes down to?
Groh: It does, but actually it doesn’t it make it much different than last week was … We were discussing this this morning, frequently it’s a way you hear coaches talk about it a lot of time. Coaches say, well, this is assignment football.’
What does that mean that last week was? Everybody for himself? Just run around and try to make tackles? It was the same thing. Whatever the run is, whether it’s a power run, a toss sweep, an option play, there’s a way that the defense is designed to fit on the play. Everybody’s got to fit on the play as the defense was designed, so it’s the same every week. The principle is the same.
Q: Everybody focuses on how different Georgia Tech’s offense is now. Previously when Jon Tenuta was there, defensively it was blitz, blitz, blitz. Has that changed under the new staff and new coordinator? Obviously they’ve got some talented people.
Groh: Actually you’re on the right track … When coach Johnson went there, everyone said, Oh, wow, now that he’s got these type of athletes to work with, what’s this offense going to be like?’
If you have any sense of what was going on, I mean I didn’t follow it closely, but enough to know that many of Navy’s games were won 48-36 and so kind of what we are seeing is, sure they have a certain level of athlete to plug into the offense, but they’re also with a group of athletes that’s providing much lower scoring defense. And that’s probably the great addition to the overall team capacity (which is) an offense to go along with a defense that can keep the points down lower. It’s not the same schemes as they ran previously, and it’s not as high a pressure percentage, but it’s a higher-pressure percentage than we have seen in quite some weeks.
Q: How dangerous is Georgia Tech with the passing attack? They don’t do it very often but they have the highest yards per catch.
Groh: They’re very high in the conference in passing efficiency. Actually it was the play that won the game last week.
Getting back to the old wishbone history, when Oklahoma and Texas and those teams were really running wild with it, it was always the play action pass that seemed to break everything open.
Q: You guys saw a little bit of Jonathan Dwyer last year, and he was kind of more running behind Tashard Choice, but he was coming off an injury last year when you guys played him. How much improved is he since then?
Groh: I’m hoping he doesn’t get too much better. We saw him most of the game because Tashard (Choice) had hamstring problems early in the game. We were very impressed with him last year. He is clearly a back who can run well in any system. He’s to a large degree he was a one-back or I-formation back last year. Now he’s the hit-it-on-the-track, right-up-the-middle-back this year. (He’s) strong, explosive off the mark (and) a real good fit for this offense, but as I just said, I think clearly would be a good fit in any offense.
Q: At the midpoint of the season, what would be your assessment or evaluation of the ACC? Just in the last week three teams were out of the top 25 and three new teams in the top 25?
Groh: Similar to what it has been in preceding years. Every week it’s up for grabs in every game and if you don’t bring your very best game every week then it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard on the best of circumstances; it’s going to be real hard if you don’t bring your best game.
Q: Would you say that there are really no clear favorites at this point in the season? After seven games usually you could point to one person and say, hey, they played well?
Groh: Based on everybody’s record, that’s … not what I’m saying, that’s what the teams are saying.
Q: This team you’re playing here this week is the only one with three conferences victories. Do you think they make a case that they’re the best team to this point?
Groh: In the context of what we were just saying, the sooner you can bank them, the better off you are. If they’ve already got them, everybody is still trying to get the third one. No telling whether you will or not frankly.