Quite the physical challenge for the Hoos

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Published: August 27, 2008

The current crop of Cavaliers has faced some great athletes and some great teams over the past three or four years, but they haven’t faced anything quite like what’s coming to town this weekend.
Southern California, ranked No. 2 or 3 depending on your poll preference, has collected some of the top talent in the land in recent recruiting classes. Combine that talent with great coaching and you get the Trojans, the only team to play in six consecutive BCS bowls and put together six straight
11-win seasons.
Not easily impressed
When Al Groh, who has been around the game on both the collegiate and professional levels for 40 years, said he has learned some new things in studying USC’s sophisticated schemes, that should tell you something.
Groh’s general impressions of the Trojans aren’t that different than most college football fans, although he has been busy studying the men of Troy since summer.
“I’m tremendously impressed [with USC],” Groh said. “They have great talent, some very intricate and sophisticated schemes, and are very well coached. They’re about as good a team as we’ve ever seen, probably reminiscent of the Florida State teams of the mid-90s when they had guys like Warrick Dunn, [Derrick] Brooks and Marvin Jones, players of that nature.”
Wow.
ACC fans, Virginia fans in particular, remember those great Seminole squads of Bobby Bowden. Hard to imagine any team being better than those guys.
If Southern California is as good as those FSU teams, maybe we should get out our calculators.
We don’t think Groh is blowing smoke or trying to make USC feel overconfident. When the boys in Vegas list a team a 19-point underdog, they’re usually pretty well informed.
Pulling out the stops
However, this ain’t Groh’s first rodeo.
Could it be that he has a few tricks up his sleeves? Between the head coach and two of his assistants, Bob Pruett and Steve Bernstein, they’ve just about seen it all and prepared against it all. That’s a lot of experience when you add it up.
If Groh and his staff only had a week to prepare for the Trojans, this one might be a blowout. Maybe it will be anyhow. Maybe USC is just that good.
However, usually when Groh has plenty of preparation time, he’s at least made opponents sweat. West Virginia in the Tire Bowl, Larry Fitzgerald and the Pittsburgh Panthers, Minnesota’s national-leading rushing team in the Music City Bowl, Texas Tech’s overwhelming offensive attack in last December’s Gator Bowl.
Still, if Southern Cal is as good as billed, then perhaps no amount of preparation will help.
Virginia’s players raved about USC’s team speed during this week’s media briefings. Cavalier offensive players talked a lot about how the Trojans played hard, aggressive defense and swarmed to the football.
Groh couldn’t help but point out just how complicated USC’s schemes are to opponents.
Just what does separate the Trojans from most of the other talented teams that have come into Scott Stadium during the Groh regime? Afterall, there’s been some pretty good Virginia Tech, Florida State, Miami, and Penn State squads that have come to Charlottesville since 2001.
“It starts with the talent level,” Groh said. “The higher the talent level the more comfortable coaches feel in expanding their schemes. The background of their staff is very extensive. It starts with Pete [Carroll], who had an extensive time frame in the league as both a coordinator and head coach. A number of guys on the offensive staff have background in that league. They cover a lot of territory.
“Pete’s teams have always been very full throttle, high-energy teams,” Groh continued. “There’s been a multiplicity of what they’ve done that we’re familiar with that shows up in different schemes that both the offense and defense use. It’s clear that they’re very broadly situationally prepared for things that come up.”
Virginia safety Byron Glaspy, who along with his secondary mates will be under full attack by the Trojans’ big-play guys on Saturday, said that it has been a chore to become familiar with all of USC’s personnel groupings, shifts, motions, and formations. That’s what Groh meant when he talked about Carroll’s and his offensive staff’s NFL roots.
On the other hand, Carroll threw a few compliments Virginia’s way.
“It’s a really well-coached team,” Carroll said. “They do a beautiful job scheme-wise on both sides of the ball. The style of offense, the 3-4 defense, all the things they do are upscale and technically really solid stuff. [Groh’s] coaching over the years bring [Virginia’s] program a fantastic system. The style of play is familiar to me because of the 3-4 stuff — he coached with Bill [Parcells] over the years in the NFL — and the offensive stuff is very NFL oriented.
“We’ve got our hand full,” the USC coach said.
Well, he sounded serious when he said that his team would have its hands full in trying to beat Virginia. Then again, he does live near Hollywood.