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The Cavaliers continue down the home stretch Saturday against Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. The two teams haven’t met in Winston-Salem since UVa rallied for a dramatic 38-34 come-from-behind victory six years ago. Both teams are 3-2 in the ACC and tied for second in their respective divisions; Virginia in the Coastal and Wake Forest in the Atlantic. The Demon Deacons gained a 33-30 overtime win at home over Duke last week, while the Cavaliers fell at home to Miami 24-17 in OT. Overall Virginia is 5-4, while Wake Forest is 5-3. Kickoff is set for 3:30 pm and the game will be televised by ESPNU.
Virginia head coach Al Groh held his weekly press conference Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights as he talked about Saturday’s game.
Q: How much do you work with Rashawn Jackson and Raynard Horne this week in practice as opposed to what you would normally give them during the week?
Groh: We’re trying to take care of Cedric (Peerman) during the course of the week … he is a fifth-year player, he knows the looks, he knows pass protection, and he knows when this linebacker comes, it’s his man.
Because of the nature of the game he plays, as rugged and physical as it is, the most important thing is to have him well prepared from a sight standpointhe’s seen the looks that he needs to seebut physically ready to go on Saturday. We moderate his plays during the course of the week, so that has resulted in the other potential runners getting their looks, some more on some days. For example on Sundays, we purposely hold Cedric back so Horne gets more turns then than he does on Tuesday. But to answer your question yes, Jackson and Horne have been regular participants in the team work (periods).
Q: When you get to game seven after playing seven straight weeks, can you notice with the players that you have to pull back at all? I’ve only found one other team that has played for seven straight weeks this year at ACC and that’s Duke?
Groh: I wouldn’t say that we really have noticed much, but without having to notice, there are certain players that usually early in the week or towards the latter part of the week, that we’re resting, reducing their turns a little bit. I mean they’re proven players who practice very hard and have shown that they are well prepared for every game. We try to use some sense in getting them ready, and they’ve earned that through what they have done over a period of time.
Q: When people talk about Wake Forest under Jim Grobe, you inevitably hear about his redshirt policy. The last three classes you have redshirted a large majority of your freshmen. Are you seeing benefits from that and is it paying dividends now?
Groh: A little bit, but the only reason I say a little bit is not that it’s not going to, it’s just probably a little bit deeper into that, you know what was last year this is year 6,7, and 8 and these have been the best Wake Forest teams … It’s when you now have a lot of players who have been through that process. Now they have the oldest team in the NCAA.
Certainly that’s a great benefit; you’d really like to get to that if you can. But it takes a while. Really the benefit is felt when those players are fourth- and fifth-year players, and maybe the third year. But usually when they are fourth- and fifth-year players is when they feel the benefit of it and it makes a difference in the games. So it takes a little while to get to that point.
Q: Does it make it easier for you when you have redshirted most of the previous class to redshirt a lot of the newcomers. This year I see you have a bunch of guys coming off redshirt.
Groh: Sure, and you don’t need to interject that incoming talent to certain position as quickly.
Q: Can you talk about Wake Forest and some challenges they present?
Groh: The developmental process has had a lot of continuity with their team because not only have the players remained in the system for quite a while, but the systems have remained very much the same. I mean there has been very little bit of evolution as there are with all teams to accommodate the personnel or different trends that we all learn about as times go on.
Not only have the players been there, but they have been doing the same things for a long time and so they play very knowledgeably. You can tell every adjustment that has to be made on defense, bam they click right into it because they’ve been making that adjustment for a long time. Different pressures that come up offensively, they pick them up very cleanly because after awhile there are only so many pressures that you can concoct. The accumulated turns of doing different things is quite apparent.
What I think is distinctive of their defensive team and something that we appreciate because of how we go about things here, is their players are very good on defense with their block protection techniques and beating blocks. It’s just not all about shooting gaps and running around and shaking guys free, they take blockers on. They use their hands well, they leverage blockers, they push back and that’s something that comes with development that younger players usually have to work on. Across the board they do a very, very nice job of that.
Q: In watching Wake Forest this week, is it clear to see the differences between the offense that played against Duke and the offense that played against Miami?
Groh: It’s more the case of seeing the difference between the offense the last two games and the offense of earlier in the season. The offense now is a little bit more in line with what traditionally has been the style of Wake Forest offense.
Q: If you had been told nine games in that Alex Field would have five sacks and eight tackles for loss, you’d be pretty happy with that?
Groh: Very much so, yeah he’s doing a great job for us.
Q: I guess Matt Conrath has four sacks. He hasn’t made as many plays as Alex of late, but is that decent amount of production for a redshirt freshman considering what you lost?
Groh: Very much, given the guys they were filling in for those were two home run hitters. We’re really very pleased with what we’ve gotten from Matt. Matt is one of those players who, now after nine games regardless of a player’s class in school, but just relative to how much time he has played, anybody who is doing something for the first time after nine games, guys got the opportunity to pick up quite a bit of experience. Call him a freshman he should be playing more experienced than that; call him a first-time starter, he ought to be playing like he knows what’s going on.
Both of those players have taken ample opportunity with the turns they get, which is basically to play the whole game each week, and they have progressed significantly from where they started the season.
Q: Do you see any similarities between Riley Skinner and Marc Verica?
Groh: We can be hopeful that it would turn out that way. But yes, I can certainly see why you could see the possibilities of a developing story.
Q: Skinner wasn’t highly recruited…?
Groh: Right.
But we should be so lucky. This Skinner, he’s a marvelous player. I thought for the length of Matt Ryan’s career that certainly no player meant more to his team over an extended period over the last three years than Matt Ryan did to his team and this is not to diminish what the other players are contributing, but Riley Skinner would fall into the same category. He makes great decisions, he’s accurate, he’s cool at the end of the games. He’s clearly the engineer of that train.
Q: Is it kind of amazing to talk about a guy who on an off day throwing when he completes 66% of the passes, you end of talking about the pass that comes along the sideline that he makes on a number of occasions?
Groh: The thing that I think we all remember is that the balls that we didn’t get were all put into the category of point-scoring throws. And those are the completions that for the previous three or four weeks have elevated our production.
How’s the Georgia Tech game go if we had just missed the throw to (Maurice Covington)? Or the throw to (Kevin Ogletree)? … that’s why I said there were so many plays in the game, we’re a foot early or a foot short, we’re early with the ball, a foot behind the ball, a foot away from the ball.
When you think that this in this whole conference, all four games were basically decided on the last play of the game. Wake Forest and Virginia are the two teams during the course of 2+ seasons, almost three seasons now, who have played in the most games in this conference that were decided right at the end.
That was the case last year when the two teams played. And now a year later, it’s just been more added to their total for each team. And last year substantiated that because clearly it was decided on the last play.
Q: In some years past about this time of the year, you have talked about being “in the hunt.” Will you broach that with the team this week or are you just going to stay away from that?
Groh: We haven’t mentioned one single thing about the conference race, really since the start of the season. Everything’s been about, let’s get it ready for the next one.’
I think a lot with teams, it certainly is the case with teams at the end of games, when on so many plays the game is on the line and it is the case during the course of seasons, that teams and players need to keep a lot of focus on the process and not on the outcome. You get one of those late drives where you’re on offense or defense, it’s just got to be about, what do you have to do on this particular play?’ It’s not, well, if we do this we’re going to win, if we don’t do this we this we might not win.’
That’s too much. You’ve just got to focus on the process of what that takes on that play. It’s the same thing with each game, it’s got to focus on the process of: what’s it take to win this game? Then we’ll see what it all adds up to.
Q: Regarding team bonding. Is this one of the most tightly bonded teams you’ve had since you’ve been here?
Groh: I don’t compare teams, they’re all different. It’s not fair to the previous teams. But this team has become over the course of the season, as unified really as it could be.
And that took a little process because there were so many players who were new in the mix. Just because you were on the team last year doesn’t mean that (clasps hands together).
It’s different going through the off season program or … going to the games together. It just took a little while for players to solidify that commitment to each other, as well as to the group goals. But from that aspect it’s everything that you would ask of a team, yes.