Saluting some of UVa’s best

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Published: September 5, 2008

One hundred and twenty years of Virginia football and only one Cavalier team managed to win 10 games in one season: the 1989 squad.

While researching a book that I recently wrote on the history of Wahoo football — insert shameless plug here (The University of Virginia Football Vault ... a history of the Cavaliers, Whitman Publishing, coming out in October) — and having covered that team, it was evident that the ’89ers were one of the greatest UVa teams to ever grace the field at Scott Stadium.

Looking back in time

Today’s game against Richmond has been tagged Virginia’s “Retro Game,” celebrating a 10-year era of the program from 1984 to 1993, a span in which Hall of Fame coach George Welsh led Cavaliers football out of a 30-year darkness. When the Wahoos take the field today, they will wear uniforms similar to those of that era, the familiar orange jersey and white helmets with an orange and blue stripe.

The $16 ticket prices are also a throwback to those glory days, back when UVa used to appreciate the fans who did show up.

While this is only the 19th anniversary of the 1989 team’s accomplishments, the players from that season will be the focus of today’s festivities. Several of those players are expected to have their jerseys (not their numbers) retired or honored today. Certainly such an honor is long overdue for Herman Moore, one of the greatest receivers to ever come this way.

A ton of the players from ’89 will be there, including Shawn Moore, Herman Moore, Marcus Wilson, Chris Slade, Ray Savage, Roy Brown, Kevin Cooke, Trevor Ryals, Jake McInerney, Johnny Wilson, Tony Covington, Scott Griese, Paul Collins, Ron Carey, Keith McMeans and more.

“That was the first team we had that won a lot of games ... great talent, great leadership,” said Welsh, who will also be there. “The offense’s execution was unbelievable and we had a pretty good defense.”

First shot at ACC glory

It was also the first ACC football championship for Virginia, shared with Duke, which the Cavaliers pummeled earlier that season.

The Cavaliers finished 10-3 that season, having opened up against No. 2 Notre Dame, the defending national champions, at the Meadowlands. It was a game that Welsh lobbied hard for, convincing the Kickoff Classic folks that his team had finished the 1988 season with five straight wins, had most of its starters returning, with Moore-to-Moore, a big-time offensive line, and good running backs in Wilson and rookie Terry Kirby.

Virginia lost, 36-13 to Lou Holtz’s Irish, but the loss helped the Cavaliers in the long run as they played 11 consecutive weeks with only a 34-20 setback against No. 15 Clemson stopping a 10-win rampage.

Along the way, UVa bounced back to stun No. 12 Penn State in Happy Valley in the season’s second game, 14-6, then won over Georgia Tech, Steve Spurrier’s Duke team and a stubborn William & Mary squad before the loss to Clemson. After that, UVa relled off six straight wins over UNC, Wake, Howard Schellenberger’s Louisville, No. 18 N.C. State, Virginia Tech and Maryland before losing to Jeff George’s Illinois squad in the Citrus Bowl.

The Cavaliers finished 18th in the final Associated Press poll that season, but were probably better than their ranking.

Welsh thought his team was a bit in awe of playing Notre Dame in the Meadowlands. The Cavaliers hadn’t yet been a part of such hype, and it showed.

“We got psyched out and played poorly in the first half,” Welsh remembered. “I think we evened it up in the second half. But it helped us a lot psychologically, because when the team looked at what we did in the second half, I know they realized that they played Notre Dame pretty evenly, and that helped us the next three or four years.”

Welsh also learned that he had worked his team too hard in preparation on game week, causing him to back off a little in ensuing games. In fact, Penn State coach Joe Paterno had told Welsh that the Cavaliers looked sluggish against the Irish.

However, that wasn’t the case the next game at Penn State. Because the Notre Dame game had been on a Thursday night, UVa had 10 days before facing the Nittany Lions. This group of Cavaliers was fresh.

In fact, after Virginia pulled off the upset, Paterno told Welsh that the Cavs played like they were in midseason form.

Two big plays in the game involved Penn State star tailback Blair Thomas — a called back touchdown run where he stepped out of bounds, then a great defensive play by Savage, UVa’s linebacker, who had covered Blair man-to-man on a pass route to the end zone late in the game.

“You know how far [Thomas] was out of bounds?” Welsh said. “He was right in front of me. He hit the chalk ... it was about an inch.”

Virginia won a close call against Louisville, 16-15 on a McInerney field goal set up by one of Shawn Moore’s runs.

However, it wasn’t close three weeks later when the Cavs battered Maryland in Byrd Stadium to clinch the ACC crown. Led by Moore, who had a hand in five touchdowns that chilly night in an incredible offensive show, UVa won 48-21 in a nationally-televised game.

“It was cold as hell that night,” recalled Shawn Moore, the only player from that team to have his number (12) retired. “I’m not a cold-weather guy. But there’s something about playing in cold weather when quarterbacks tend to throw a tighter spiral and it seemed like everything I threw that night was on the money.”

The Duke game was always a sore subject for UVa. There was bad blood between the two programs, and Spurrier fueled the flames after the two teams shared the ’89 ACC title with identical 6-1 league marks.

Virginia had hammered the Blue Devils 49-28 at Scott, and so after the season when UVa players said they shouldn’t have to share the crown with Duke, Spurrier went off. He claimed that because UVa had lost to Clemson (the ’88 champion) and Duke had upset Clemson, that Duke shouldn’t have to share.

Spurrier said that Virginia had never beaten Clemson and probably never would, although he didn’t stick around to the very next season when UVa ended the Tigers’ 29-game stretch of series dominance. By then, Spurrier had high-tailed it out of Durham to take the Florida job, getting out while the getting was good.

“We scored touchdowns on seven straight possessions in that game,” Welsh said of the Duke win. “I’ll tell you what, I might have been able to score 70 that night if I had wanted to.”

Both Welsh and Moore agreed that looking back on things that the ‘89 team is probably overshadowed in history by the ‘90 squad, which was ranked No. 1 in the nation for a three-week span.

Today will be filled with memories about one of the golden seasons in Wahoo history.

Meanwhile, coach Al Groh is hoping his 2008 squad can begin to build some memories of its own. A win over the visiting Spiders would get things rolling.