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The Cavaliers close the regular season with their annual battle with in-state rival Virginia Tech Saturday in Blacksburg. The game is slated to kickoff at noon and will be televised by ESPN. This is the 90th meeting between the two foes; Virginia Tech holds a 47-37-5 advantage and has won eight of the last nine meetings. After an undefeated October that saw them go 4-0, the Cavaliers have dropped three straight and stand 5-6 overall. They need one win to become bowl eligible for the sixth time under head coach Al Groh. Virginia Tech is 7-4 overall and needs a win to capture the Coastal Division crown and play for the ACC championship in December.
Groh held his weekly press conference Tuesday. Here are some of the highlights as he talked about Saturday’s game.
Q: One of the themes that always comes up is players who are recruited by both schools and by both staffs. I imagine that gives you a deep background of the personnel that you are looking at; in some cases you’ve been looking at these guys since they’ve been 16 years old. Does that make a difference in evaluating personnel?
Groh: Yeah, very definitely. Last week for example we were playing a team that we haven’t played in quite some time with very few players we were familiar with in recruiting, so it really was a start from scratch to identify the personnel and get strengths and weaknesses. This team (Virginia Tech) we play them every year and we know many of the players and so it really cuts down on that work.
Q: What is more important focus for your players in your opinionis it to be bowl eligible, to focus on your business or are you okay with them thinking they might have a chance to knock off their rival?
Groh: Oh sure, there’s a lot of elements to the game. Anytime you add more elements to it in any rivalry games it brings a little bit more into it than the team that you don’t play on an ongoing basis.
Q: Has there been any kind of common thread for most of Marc Verica’s interceptions in terms of being inaccurate, bad reads, or going the wrong places, etc. ?
Groh: When there’s too many guys around the player then clearly the read wasn’t as precise as we would like it to be. Most of them have been into traffic rather than erratic throws.
Q: Is this conference as indecipherable as the standings would indicate? Here we are in week 12 or 13, do you know who the best team in the ACC is?
Groh: No, and I think the way it explains itself, I don’t mean this to be negative towards any player, (but) look at the 12 teams in the conference and … let’s figure out which teams that we know the quarterback is going to be red hot tomorrow.
Q: (Russell) Wilson (at NC State)…
Groh: (He’s) the closest thing to it. Now, it took a while. Now he’s 11 games better than he was the first week. There’s a case there to answer David’s question where we can see it’s happening. As a result his team is scoring more, he’s doing better. But probably with a few exceptions throughout the conference, the quarterback play is very unpredictable from week to week and therefore the results of that team is very unpredictable.
Q: All three phases of the game are obviously important. Do you stress being sound fundamentally in the special teams, an area that Virginia Tech seems to thrive in?
Groh: We certainly do. But we stress that all the time, not only to avoid the things that could take the game away from you, but just in the same context whether it’s an interception that you make and run it back or you hit a big play; those are the plays in one fell swoop that can change the game.
There have been certain games this year … that if you just see the score come across the ticker, you know it’s 24-18 (and) that’s great, but what it really was was an 18-17 game except this guy ran a kickoff back.
The way it is right now and again because there are no Sam Bradfords, and Graham Harrells right now throwing the ball in this league, that the points have to come from someplace and they’re not always coming, for many of the teams in the conference, they’re not always coming offensively. I think every team is trying to find them in what ever way they can.
The little bit that I was up on what happened in the Wake Forest game last week is apparently a great example. I don’t think they got an offensive touchdown and yet Boston College had to come from behind and beat them at the end and the other team didn’t have an offensive touchdown. It’s … a 21-0 Boston College victory except for three unexpected touchdowns… three non-offensive touchdowns. So it’s just crazy that way.
I’m sure it’s hard for you all to get a sense of it and it’s hard going into the game just have a sense of how the game is going to go. You’ve really got to see from game to game.
Q: As a coach, what does this rivalry mean to you?
Groh: It’s fun. It’s fun. It’s a big game atmosphere, if you like participating in big games and they’re the most fun of all. So it’s a lot more fun than playing Alaska State.
Q: If you go down and look at how your team’s have done against other teams in the ACC with the exception of Florida State and Virginia Tech, you’ve had a winning record or close to 500 against just about all of them I guess. Do you spend any more time thinking about these games just trying to figure out why the teams haven’t done better against Virginia Tech?
Groh: Oh sure. I think from a competitive standpoint anytime that you don’t reach the objective that you are looking for, you’re spurred to look for more answers (and to) dig deeper.
Q: Is there a common denominator in the games?
Groh: The majority of them have been very close games at the half and into the third quarter. I remember down there two years ago, it’s … nothing to nothing at the half or we’re ahead 3-0 and with a minute to go we get sacked, fumble the ball, it falls onto the 15-yard line they score. It stays 7-3 for a long time. Chris Cook goes for an interception (and) misses the ball late in the third quarter now it’s 14-3. It’s been a lot of those kind of plays.
Last year I think we had the lead (with) 40 seconds to go (and) we’re trying to get some more points out of that. We throw an interception (and the) next thing we know they get a touchdown and now we’re behind. So it’s been those kind of things.
Q: Can you talk about preparing for any one of Virginia Tech’s quarterbacks?
Groh: The list is a little bit longer with this team than most of the others. If you include anybody who receives the ball from the center to that question and the answer puts Greg Boone in the mix. We now have three pretty diverse type players.
Clearly there is nobody to compare Greg Boone to, who was a terrific quarterback in high school and excellent safety, really I thought probably the best player in the state that particular year.
There’s Tyrod (Taylor) who is kind of a Pat White type of player and there’s Sean (Glennon) who seems to be able to do it under any circumstancescome in the middle of the season, come in the middle of the game. They’ve got a real good stable guys to rely upon (and) can go in number of different directions with what is needed.
Q: With the Virginia Tech defense, they get a lot of mileage out of that side of the ball don’t they?
Groh: Yes, they play very good defense. We always appreciate looking at good defense and clearly there’s a philosophy and system that has been in place for quite a while. Players are recruited specifically to fit the criteria of the system. Most of the players who are playing because it’s a very mature program and system, there has always been depth ahead, so most of those players have been redshirted. What I am getting around to is that the system has been a long time in development (and) most of the players who are playing it, even if they haven’t played in games before, have been a long in development. And so the two mesh. You have a well defined (system) and they’re well disciplined to what they do. That is they’re not buying into the newest fad that is going around … they know how they want to play and they know who they want to play it with and they
get those players and they spend plenty of time training them. And they do a real good with how they put their game plans together and all those things combined make them real tough.
Q: Last year was all Chris Long and Xavier Adibi, but this year there doesn’t seem to be marquee guys, especially in the front seven. I guess Jason Worilds is it.
Groh: Worilds is a very good player. He will be a high reputation player by the time he’s finished. He’ll have a lot of production. (John) Graves will have a lot of production by the time he is finished. (Kam) Chancellor will have a lot of production; he is already starting to get a little bit of a reputation. (Macho) Harris (is) a high reputation player. It looks like the other corner, (Stephan) Virgil s a very good player. Some of those same players (are) in the same status as some of their predecessors who weren’t all that well known until they started accumulating 2-3 years worth of statistics.
Q: You seem to have a greater appreciation for Sean Glennon than a lot of Virginia Tech fans do. What is it that you like in what you’ve seen from him?
Groh: To anybody, I’d say he’s pretty responsible for the fact that there’s an ACC championship trophy down there in one of those trophy cases. Not too many championships go to teams without a quarterback who’s done a good job. Was he the MVP of the game? I would certainly say that he was the MVP of the game here last year. So I’m sure those are two games that are very important to fans that he was the MVP of, so from our perspective it’s pretty easy to give him his props.