Catch a tiger

By Jay Jenkins

Published: July 21, 2008

GREENSBORO, Ga. — As expected, Virginia was given the Rodney Dangerfield treatment on Monday.

The Cavaliers and the reigning ACC Coach of the Year were given no respect.

On the heels of a nine-win season and a trip to the Gator Bowl, Virginia garnered just 161 points and was predicted to finish fifth in the six-member Coastal Division in the ACC’s preseason poll as voted on by members of the media at the league’s annual kickoff. UVa, which was picked to better only Duke (85 points), trailed Virginia Tech (383), North Carolina (288), Miami (253) and Georgia Tech (195).

Clemson, which landed 59 of the 65 first-place votes in the Atlantic Division, tied Virginia’s Tech point total and easily distanced Wake Forest (304), Florida State (265), Boston College (154), Maryland (147) and N.C. State (112).

Virginia did, however, land one first-place vote as one pollster predicted that the team would advance to the ACC Championship game in Tampa on Dec. 6.

“I bet all of you guys are laughing at him,” Virginia coach Al Groh laughed.

It marked the lowest that the Cavaliers had been picked in the preseason balloting since 2002 when they were pegged as the league’s eighth-best team, which also bettered only Duke.

The task of proving the naysayers wrong will be the same as it was seven years ago when the program finished tied for second with Maryland behind Florida State.

Where would Groh place Virginia, a program in need of replacing six starters on offense and defense and its punter and placekicker?

“I don’t even play that game,” he said. “I have a hard enough time coaching the team, trying to go from game to game.”

That was just one of the more head-scratching questions thrust Groh’s way during a 90-minute session as reporters chased column-producing topics.

“I don’t really concern myself with when the early-signing date ought to be, who should be in the playoffs, should we have playoffs?” he commented. “Is it a good conference or isn’t it?

“Look, we try to play who they give us and each one of us does our job. I am just trying to do what my job is supposed to be.”

The job description is unique this season with numerous holes to fill on the inside of the offensive line and the outside of the defensive line. Replacing the well-rounded leadership skills of two first-round draft picks is also a must, but Groh leaned on history.

“There’s a lot of young players on the team that the coaches are looking forward to coaching,” Groh said. “When Chris Long and Branden Albert were getting ready to start, I don’t recall that there were any people saying, ‘Oh wow, this is incredible, these guys are going to start.’

“Now everybody is saying, ‘What are you going to do without these guys?’ None of those people were saying, ‘Isn’t it fantastic that you are going to start playing them,’ which is a credit to the players. Nobody was saying, ‘This is unbelievable. I can’t wait to see Clint Sintim play.’ Now everybody is talking about Clint Sintim being a big-play player. There are players coming up who are going to have the opportunity to do what those players did — go from no-name players in the eyes of people who didn’t know to people who everybody is saying, ‘What are you going to do without?’”

High marks

Just weeks after a gut-wrenching loss to Texas Tech in the Gator Bowl in January, the program was dealt a black eye when four players, including quarterback Jameel Sewell and cornerback Chris Cook, were deemed ineligible academically.

From the academic results during the spring semester, it would appear that the members of the program learned a valuable lesson from their counterparts.

“We took the circumstance very seriously,” Groh said. “When a player comes [to Virginia] he should be expectant of success and we all have a role in that. Every hallway that he walks down in school, we want a high level of success.

“We did have, in the spring semester, the highest grade-point average in the program in the last nine years.”

Groh said it was a result of “diligence on everybody’s part” inside the McCue Center.

“We have always been diligent with it,” he said, “but perhaps the results got the attention of some players in some ways. It is pretty obvious to everybody what happened.”

Perfect timing?

Playing Southern California, regardless of the depth chart, is a daunting task.

Groh admitted that Monday.

Opening the season with the Trojans, however, could be the best-case scenario (as odd as that sounds).

“It’s as good a time as any in that we only wanted to play it the first game and they only wanted to play it the first game,” Groh said. “We thought in that respect it was a good time … given who the opponent is and as much importance as we put on conference play and finishing in our division to try and get in the championship game.

“What would it be like if we were playing a major conference game and then we have got Southern California? Regardless of what the result was, whether you won or lost, it would be distracting certainly and perhaps harmful in terms of our conference, so we wanted to play it first.”

Groh has watched countless hours of film on the Trojans and proclaimed that they were “the most talented college football team” he had witnessed since doing pre-draft work on Florida State in the mid- and late 90s.

“They had the most guys drafted last year,” he said, “and a couple of NFL general managers told me that they might have more drafted this year.”

Grab a dictionary

On Sunday, Sintim was asked to describe quarterback Peter Lalich, the favorite that many expect to be the team’s top quarterback.

“Me and John [Phillips] agreed on the word ‘eclectic,’” Sintim said. “He absorbs different cultures and he just uses them. He listens to rap, techno, all different types of things.

“He knows a lot, he knows a lot of miscellaneous information. Petey is just eclectic.”

When told of the description of Lalich, Groh offered a hearty chuckle.

“I am impressed with Clint,” Groh said. “[Clint and John] are roommates, so they probably had to think about that for a while, collaborate on which word they were going to drop.

“It was based more on his iPod than his throwing ability.”

A holding pattern

The fate of cornerback Mike Brown, a junior, could be determined in a local courthouse on Thursday.

Likely waiting on the proceedings, Groh was unwilling to offer an update on Brown’s status with the program.

“I think that’s an issue that we’ve addressed two or three times,” he said. “I think we’ve addressed it pretty thoroughly, and until there is something to re-address, we will just let it sit there.

Groh said a decision will be made about Brown, who was charged with a series of felonies, “whenever the information I am looking for comes to me.”

Extra points …

Incoming rookie Jimmy Howell remains the leading candidate to assume the starting punting duties. “Jimmy will have a real good shot at this job,” Groh said. “He was aware of this quite some time back, so he has had a good prep period, both mentally and physically, to get ready for this camp coming up.” … Wide receiver Kevin Ogletree, who had a team-best 52 receptions in 2006, has added a “greater sense of purpose, Groh said. “He sees that given his circumstance that it is not just all about talent.” Despite missing last season recovering from ACL surgery, Ogletree has blossomed as a specimen. “He has a lot more body on him, more muscles, more size.” … Denzel Burrell and Aaron Clark will open training camp on Aug. 4 in a tight race to replace former outside linebacker Jermaine Dias. “I have been pleased with what the reports are about what they have done in the offseason program,” Groh said. “I would suspect that they’ll stay in that competition throughout training camp. I am looking forward to that competition, frankly, and I think that this is a spot where there’s a chance that the players might be able to very clearly determine it themselves.”