we don't care about the football stuff

"In an interview session that was mostly devoted to football," the RT's Doug Doughty managed to not care about what the interview session was mostly devoted to. Shenanigans were the order of the day in the resulting article, or more importantly the denial thereof. We're talking of course about Peter Lalich, who denies using marijuana, or any illegal drug at all, during his probation. All this he-said-he-said stuff, ayyyy. It's easy for a guy to deny stuff and not that hard for reporters with nothing better to do to find evidence of it anyway, but I believe Lalich here. If he says he didn't, he didn't, and I feel fairly confident in saying that because it seems likely Al Groh feels the same way - the guy played against Richmond after all.

Press conference highlights are very non-highlighty. No, we didn't learn anything about UConn from playing USC, because they have a very different scheme, and the talent level WHOA hold on let me catch myself right about the place Plutoid Ralph should have stopped. No, we didn't learn anything about UConn from their last game because the rain was literally coming from the ground up. Got their players' numbers memorized real good though, check this out, I even got their left tackle. Oh, and Denzel Burrell roolz.

UVA Notes from the RTD, summarized as only I can:

- You can pay more than you would for an actual basketball game to hear the heavenly words of Jim Calhoun at the coaches' clinic.
- Ryan Benincasa has been beating everyone we can throw at him in the faceoff circle in lacrosse practice. This places him on par with our opponents, who also beat everyone we threw at them.
- Groh's looking for chances to play Steve Greer and Cam Johnson. They didn't play against Richmond because "the game was real tight, and the guys out there were doing a good job." (Groh's words.) Also, Groh didn't want to have to face any questions about why we lost to a I-AA team and flushed our Congressional Bowl hopes down the toilet with two true freshmen on the field at his favorite defensive position with two perfectly healthy seniors on the bench. (My words.)
- Zane Parr and J-K Dolce did in fact play against Richmond, which I couldn't help but notice because they made life mad difficult for Eric Ward.

Lastly there is this article from ESPN regarding soccer coach George Gelnovatch. Specifically, it hints at a hot seat and unhappy alumni, it was printed September 5, and it's a highly ironic article because the other thing that happened September 5 was the school's announcement that Gelnovatch has been extended through 2012. I am the least qualified person ever to comment on Gelnovatch's suitability for coaching this team, although I will say that the sideways comparison to Bruce Arena in the ESPN article is slightly unfair - if we are going to look for a coach that measures up to Arena, we will be looking for a long time. The team did knock off George Mason and Hofstra this weekend to recover their record to 2-2; both opponents are more or less patsies. Chris Agorsor scored goals in both games and seems to be well on his way to living up to the bevy of accolades he got coming out of high school. Next is VCU, who hasn't beaten anybody of note and has lost to our ACC brethren, UNC and Wake.

Tomorrow: the year's second Blogpoll Roundtable!