the replacements: Brian Kelly

A couple quick links before I get started on coach #3....

- A tie against Liberty? The soccer team is suckin'. They have forgotten how to score goals. They're outshooting most everyone they play but clearly that's not getting them anywhere.

- A little fluff on Chris Cook and Jameel Sewell.

- Doug Doughty writes on the emotional about-face the team has done. The emotional difference between the Hoos and Indiana was so obvious that the 360 commentators were harping on it all game. This is a fired-up team right now - let's hope they're just as jacked up to face Maryland. Hell, it's Maryland - if you're not fired up to kick their ass something fierce, you're probably Duke.

- Heather's power rankings are interesting this week. Especially at the bottom. That's got to be a first.

- And in the shameless self-linkage department, the depth chart is updated, based on the latest out of the official website. Changes:

1. Tyler Brosius is gone.
2. Major wide receiver shuffle: Matt Snyder has gone from starter to off the two deep, and Javaris Brown is no longer on the two-deep either; Jared Green replaces him, and Vic Hall is now listed as a starting receiver. Hall is officially the third-string QB, but I'm not gonna bother listing him there any more unless something happens to one of the top two.
3. Last week, Brandon Woods took over for Corey Mosley as a starting safety; Mosley still gets plenty of time on the field, however.
4. Terrence Fells-Danzer in for Aaron Taliaferro as backup linebacker.

On with the show. The deal is thusly: despite the awesome new direction the scoreboard has taken these past weeks, Al Groh's job is still very much in jeopardy. "One of those Virginia streaks" as Aaron Clark puts it, might just be enough to keep him around, but it really just might require a nine-game win streak and we are seven games shy. Thus the continuing series on coaches that might be, or should be, considered potential replacements. Today we have....

Brian Kelly

Main qualification: Has led three programs to the pinnacle of their successes.

1987-1988: Grand Valley State (DB)
1989-1990: Grand Valley State (DC, recruiting)
1991-2003: Grand Valley State (HC)
2004-2006: Central Michigan (HC)
2007-present: Cincinnati (HC)

Let me diverge a bit here and tell you a little something about Grand Valley State. It is a Division II school in the exurban farmlands of Michigan just west of Grand Rapids, and it is bigger than UVA. It might be the biggest school you never heard of. Their football team (the Lakers) is quite young by college football standards, even for a D-II school, but it has always been a winning one. Winning, but not always successful, if you follow me, at least not til the 1990's. Brian Kelly cut his coaching teeth there, being named head coach before his 30th birthday. His first season as defensive coordinator, 1989, was GVSU's first undefeated season. Throughout the '90s, they won all sorts of conference championships under Kelly, but could never break through in the D-II playoffs - not until 2001, when something clicked, the Lakers rolled up 13 straight wins and didn't lose until they reached the national title game. Since then they've been an ESPN postseason fixture and more successful than any USC, Oklahoma, or Florida you care to throw at me: four of the next five seasons would result in Grand Valley walking off with the title.

Kelly was coach for just two of them. Those titles caught the attention of the folks not too far up the road at Central Michigan, who hired Kelly to fix the mess left by previous disastrous regimes. With the degree of difficulty up, Kelly didn't produce immediate results, but he did do that one thing that will forgive all sorts of mistakes: He broke a losing streak to hated rival Western Michigan, which had embarrassed Central the past two times out. Two years later, CMU was MAC champs and bowling for the first time since 1994.

Kelly didn't coach that bowl game either. Instead, he was at Cincinnati, which was so enamored of Kelly they had him coach the Bearcats in their '06 bowl game, which allowed him to earn the distinction of being the only NCAA coach ever to beat the same team twice in one season. In two full seasons with Kelly, the Bearcats have not yet failed to reach double-digit wins, a mark they reached only one other time in their 120+ year history (in 1951.) They made the Orange Bowl last year, another first, and they don't look likely to be denied another 10-win season.

The point here is that every stop in Kelly's career has been the same chapter of the same book, over and over. Every team he's coached has never been more successful than under Kelly. Every team he's left, he left it better than he found it, and they've managed to maintain that success. Though Kelly never actually coached in a Motor City Bowl, his Chippewas got there on the strength of his regular season, and they've been a regular participant since. Hey, they're a MAC team - that's as good as it gets. And Grand Valley State? They lost this past week to Hillsdale - their first conference loss in something like 44 games. CMU is enroute to yet another MAC CG. Brian Kelly builds teams, somehow. For whatever reason, in three coaching stops he's had the Midas touch of gold, and he's left his past teams with the foundation they need to stay on top.

Downside? Rumor has it he's a bit of an asshole. Actually, some of the rumor has it he's a major-league asshole. Nothing in an actual news article, mind you. Message-board thread type stuff. An example is linked. Some telling quotes:

Also A GVSU alum, I worked in the athletic building when Coach Kelly took over for Coach Beck. (incidentally, Coach Beck left to be the DC at Notre Dame) At first impressions, Coach Kelly was an arrogant, young, egomaniac. He offended a lot of people with his attitude. That being said, he didn't have overwhelming talent when he began, but he won. His teams responded. Moreover, I worked the football games on the sideline. He was hot-headed and foul-mouthed. Of all the coaches I was around, including the opposition, he was the worst!

Also...

I'm a student at Central right now. I was here when he left. It wasn't pretty. I've worked for the football team, and have heard a lot of the players just flat hated him. I don't know if its every really been a documented fact, but I know from talking and hearing from people who were in close contact with him he wasn't the nicest guy.

If the general public was privy to everything that goes on at practice, "cuss like a football coach" would replace "....sailor" in the vernacular, but Kelly is gaining a reputation even among those circles. Kelly was also criticized for the way he handled a murder case involving one of his players while at CMU. No need to dive into that sordid affair. To cut to the chase, I think most of those criticisms were uneducated garbage; nevertheless, were he to be hired at Virginia, it's one of those things that'd be guaranteed to come up at some point.

So given the sterling track record, why is Kelly #2 on my list after Tuberville? Well, for one, Tuberville strutted his stuff in the SEC. Second, Kelly is likely to be upward-looking, even if he's wearing our blue and orange. For some reason he is always mentioned in connection with the Notre Dame job; it's thought he has his eye on that. I have no more official proof of that than I do of his rumored arrogance and assholery; nevertheless, "wanting to coach at Notre Dame" is probably almost as prevalent among football coaches as profanity anyways.

If hired at Virginia, Kelly would probably bring immediate improvement without any precipitous drop any time soon. Profanity and arrogance are easily overlooked in a winning coach: Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler were two of the most profane, arrogant, violent, sonuvabitch slave drivers ever to stalk the sidelines of a college stadium, and who, I ask you, are the most beloved coaches in their respective programs' histories? Bo's players spent four years hating his guts and the rest of their lives hero-worshipping him. If successful, Kelly will engender those same feelings in the UVA fanbase; unfortunately, he also wouldn't be likely to stick around much longer than, say, four years. It's of small concern: CMU and GVSU are still doing just fine, and we're a big enough name that four years of Cincy-like success would attract a pretty damn good coach next time around. If unsuccessful, those same qualities would make Kelly one of the most unpopular coaches in all of UVA history, and I don't just mean in football. Given his previous successes, it's a risk I'd love to take.

ACC Roundtable #whatever

Nobody bothered to keep track of which one this is in the sequence and I'm too lazy to go back and look through my own archives to find out. You don't even want to know what week the Hokie bloggers think it is; let's just say it's another check in the box for Rule 34 of the Internet.

Anyway, it must be time for another ACC Roundtable, and this one's hosted by Jim Young at the ACC Sports Journal.

1) Most of the ACC has now reached the halfway point of its season. On a scale of 1 (I’m rounding up pitchforks, torches and a mob to storm the football office) to 10 (I’m selling of organs to raise money for a statue of the coach) how do you feel about your team’s performance thus far?

How the hell am I supposed to know? The last time this question was asked, we were 0-3 with a loss to a I-AA squad and I posted a picture of a vomiting pumpkin. Since then we've knocked off Carolina in Carolina and bent Indiana over a bar. The first-team defense has, in seven quarters of action, allowed one field goal. This after offering up 30 points to TCU and 37 to Southern Miss. I'm punting this question. Answer: i. Go look that one up in your Algebra II books.

2) Give me the best case scenario for your team the rest of the way. Then give me the worst case.

10-3, or 2-10. Both are hovering in the crystal ball right now. Taunting me. I will tell you what though: if you offer me 7-5, or to roll the dice and take my chances, I'll take the 7-5.

3) Because it’s my turn to host the roundtable and I like fantasy football, I’m going to ask a few questions with that theme. First,you’re in an ACC keeper league. Which three players on your team do you designate as keepers for next season? (Obviously this rules out seniors, except for Riley Skinner, who I assume has six more years of eligibility remaining.)

First off you are correct about Riley Skinner. The first time I saw Wake Forest play at Scott, it was 2001, they beat us, and I left the stadium cursing his name for throwing multiple touchdown passes. He was a redshirt junior at the time.

So I can only keep three players and roll the dice with everything else? Huh. I'll go with all defense: Ras-I Dowling, Steve Greer, and Matt Conrath. One at each of the three units (line, linebackers, secondary.)

4) Let’s do the reverse of this, with coaches. You’re forced to drop one member of your team’s coaching staff. Who gets the axe? (Head coaches or assistant coaches are eligible here.)

rrrrrgggghhhhh I hate doing this because I have way too much respect for the man, but the last two games don't erase the fact that the program is stagnating and needs a change at the top. Al Groh should be given a really nice watch or whatever's an appropriate going-away present, offered a cushy consulting-type position in the department, and informed that his input will be valued in the search for a new head coach.

5) Let’s say the rest of the ACC is available via free agency. Who’s the one player from the other 11 teams that you’d most like to add to your squad?

[Matt Millen]We need a wide receiver,[/Matt Millen] and the best one is at Georgia Tech. So I'm appropriating Demaryius Thomas.

6) Finally, we’ll stage a mock draft of ACC quarterbacks. Who are you taking with the first pick, and why? And who would you get stuck with if you had to pick No. 12?

I'll take Russell Wilson - he's like a better version of Jameel Sewell. And at #12? Well, if people overlook the fact that Clemson has played some pretty good defenses, I might end up with Kyle Parker, and that'd be OK with me because despite Parker's awful stats, Chris Turner is the worst starting quarterback in the conference. I'd prefer Parker and his potential keepability over Turner's blinding mediocrity (when he's on) as a senior.

weekend review

This continues to be much more fun after a win than a loss. So let's start with some news-ish things.

- As usual, two Mondays before a game, it's time to learn the when and where, and for Georgia Tech it'll be noon on Raycom. Suits me just fine.

- Mikell Simpson didn't practice on Sunday but did join the film session, which is plenty encouraging. I guess I'd put the odds at 50/50 he'll play against Maryland, which, any time a player doesn't even leave the field on his two feet let alone under his own power, that's as good as you can hope for.

The other interesting point from that article:

After kicking the ball out of bounds twice on kickoffs, Chris Hinkebein was replaced on kickoffs by Robert Randolph.

"It wasn't done to our satisfaction," the coach said. "Unfortunately, nobody's made it clear to us that we can have a preference."

That last sentence is straight out of Groh's very unique dialect of coach-speak, and translated it means: "Hinkebein pissed me off by kicking it out of bounds after I specifically told him not to do that again, but Randolph needs a gale-force tailwind to get the ball inside the 10." Ultimately the result is kind of the same either way; might as well stick with the guy who has the stronger leg.

- Some Vic Hall fluff. It might be that that hip pointer he suffered was the best thing that happened to the team all year. Hall's been a stand-up guy about this quarterback situation and ultimately, Sewell is probably the best man for the job anyway and needs his reps. With Hall at receiver we have a steady quarterbacking situation and finally someone who can get open for him to throw to besides Kris Burd every so often.

- Once again, winning leads to personal honors. Ras the Destroyer is your ACC DB of the week. I knew about the sack, the fumble, and the pick, and did not even notice the nine tackles. Normally it's bad news when a DB is your leading tackler, but this is mainly due to all those short passes that did not become longer runs. Goes back to that point I made yesterday about quality tackling that kept IU from converting any third downs. Dowling joins Matt Conrath and Robert Randolph as ACC honorees.

- Jerry Ratcliffe points out that the 536 yards our offense racked up were not only more than 150 more than either Ohio State (with super-recruit Terrelle Pryor at the helm) or Michigan (and wunderkind quarterback Tate Forcier) could manage against Indiana; they were also the most since Marques Hagans, Michael McGrew, Wali Lundy, Jason Snelling, et. al., posted 549 yards on the Tar Heels in a 56-24 blowout in 2004. Here are the stats from that one; Hagans needed just 10 completions to get 209 yards through the air.

- Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks a bowl game is back on the table.

Recruiting board gets a minor touch-up, although I'm not ready yet to put anyone back to blue status.

- Added is QB David Olson.

- Removed are LB Quayshawn Nealy and RB Khalek Shepherd, about whom nothing has been heard for months.

FWIW, which is nothing really, if I were to pick one name to put in the blue category, it'd be DT Johnathan Hankins, whose visit to Ohio State was some time ago and has not yet resulted in a commitment. It may be a little while before anyone goes back up there, though.

High schools.....

KEVIN PARKS: The standard two touchdowns - one on a run of 74 yards - in another West Rowan blowout.

RIJO WALKER: A nice day on offense: 10 catches for 140 yards. On defense? Not so much: Bethel got steamrolled, 67-35.

Also, the DeMatha/Good Counsel showdown turned out to be a doozy.

Here's a new feature for you. Just for fun, here's the transcript of the Monday press conference, and here are the best blurbs of Groh-speak from the whole affair:

- "The answer to many questions like that, Paul, is you certainly wouldn't say 'no.' So if it's not 'no' I guess it's 'yes' but how 'yes' it is..."

- "There is certain 'you shouldn't do's' in there but more or less you have to give 'em their head and let 'em make their decisions."

- "It seems that Chase Minnifield does not have the fair catch in his repertoire." (That's not Groh, that's the lead-in to a question, but it's still funny cuz it's true.)

And the official Circumstance count: 6.

Interesting times in the ACC this week. Every winning team - and one of the losing ones - scored 40-some points. Let's see how this week looked from the bloggy point of view.

- Virginia Poly took out a couple past upsets' worth of frustration on Boston College and housed them, 48-14. Gobbler Country hopes that wasn't the apex of the season, and further hopes the apex is next week against Georgia Tech. I totally could not agree more. Wouldn't a bell curve look great for VT's regular season? Some blowouts in the middle, with the season bookended by a pair of losses? Let's make this happen. BC Interruption, meanwhile, recognizes that when someone runs for 8.8 yards a carry, he becomes a verb.

- UNC got back on track, dealing with a I-AA opponent the way you're supposed to. Tar Heel Fan still thinks the offense kinda sucks anyway. Despite the 42 points.

- NC State joins Boston College in the got-smacked-down category. By Duke. I wouldn't know how that feels. At all. Nope. Not me. Not us. Anyway, YANCSTSB found out.

- Testudo Times hands out a fat stack of D's and F's, which you'd expect after losing to Wake Forest 42-32 in a game that wasn't even remotely as close as the score said. Also, they're almost as up in arms as UVA fans are about redshirt burning. And what true freshman jumped into the game for Maryland? Why, former UVA commit Caleb Porzel. And he went backwards: -2 yards on 3 carries.

(Side note: I wonder why we call it "burning the redshirt." That would imply you get rid of it, when in fact, you still have it available. Only by keeping the freshman on the sidelines do you get rid of the redshirt option.)

- Miami also clocked a I-AA opponent. OK.

- Georgia Tech beat Florida State in a pretty epic game with no defense. Final score: 49-44. I wanted to watch, I really did, but you see Michigan was on at the same time, and when either one of the top two are on, there will be no distractions. Unless they're on at the same time. That just sucks. Anyway, screw the game. From The Rumble Seat informs us that it's homecoming week at GT, and at GT, that means it's time for the Mini-500. I have some friends who graduated from GT who assure me that this event is hilarity wrapped up in hijinx wrapped up in awesomeness and topped with a WTF bow. I suppose that this is the sort of thing you'd expect at a school where The Ratio is something like 75/25 and therefore there are no women around to ask "just what are you idiots doing?" However, the '70s-era photograph of multiple grown-ass men in Beatles haircuts, power mustaches, Daisy Dukes, and high-top socks, careening down what passes for a hill in Atlanta and riding tricycles, confirms the description as accurate. I only wish I'd thought of this while in school myself. Granted, my event would have been over a shorter distance. But then I wouldn't have had to wait for snow in order to grab a refrigerator box and go careening down the hill in front of the bookstore parking garage.

Well, they can have their traditions. We have our own tradition to take care of this week. We call it Kicking Maryland's Ass. Let's not miss out.

what the hell?

In retrospect, maybe we should've seen this coming? For the third year in a row now, Al Groh's Hoos have picked a random game that looked just like any other going in - which is to say, trouble - and gone all SUPRISE BUTTSECKS on some hapless opponent. The only difference between Indiana '09 and Maryland '08/Miami '07 is the meaningless touchdown at the end. The shutout would have been nice, but it's the least of anyone's concerns. The point is that random, out-of-nowhere blowouts that make you scratch your head and ask yourself the above question somewhere around "27-0 in the second quarter" have been something of a hallmark of the Groh Decade.


It's so funny how I learn, every year, how quickly the fortunes of our football team can swing, mid-season. You'd think in my 10th year of UVA fanhood I'd have learned this lesson by now, but you'd be wrong; apparently I am not a fast learner. Two weeks into the season - actually one week, really, because eight days is all it takes to end up 0-2 - everything was DOOM. Two weeks after being 0-3 - again, actually just one week - I'm about to open my fat mouth about bowl games again.


Yes, bowl games. Before the Southern Miss game, you may recall I opined that our trip to Hattiesburg was a must-win game, because three out of the next four would keep us in bowl contention but UNC was already penciled in as a loss. One UNC upset and an Indiana-stomp later, here we are with a very good chance to pull off that 3-of-4 trick that looked very possible even at 0-3.


The lesson to be learned from Saturday is merely this: We will have an actual chance in every game left on the schedule - and in several cases much more than just a chance - because the defense is legit. I don't care if it was "just" Indiana or "just" UNC's bland, thoroughly predictable offense. Carolina has many problems but talent is not one of them, as evidenced by their ability to rack up large numbers of points against crappy teams. And Indiana has played Ohio State - one of the top ten defenses in the country - and wouldn't you know it, the defensive statistics match up pretty well. Hell, we're top-20 ourselves, and ninth (ninth!) in the country (the country!) against the pass, with opponents averaging just five yards per attempt. God, if only the offense could follow suit. For one fantastic Saturday afternoon, Indiana found out what happens when they do.


***************************************


It almost makes no sense to analyze the game, because usually that involves "what went right" and "what went wrong." Yesterday it was what went right, what went right-er, and what went more-er right-er.


- The offense was absolutely sparkling. That's the first time we've been able to say anything nice about the offense without adding ten major caveats afterwards. Take away the bad snap over Verica's head (which is a "rushing attempt" only in the most technical sense) and we averaged 5.5 yards per carry. A less statistical way of saying this would be that I thought we'd be able to run pretty much at will against IU, and we did. The offensive line spent all day bulldozing the IU defensive line, and Messrs. Simpson, Jackson, and Mack reaped the rewards.


- Duh. It seems so obvious. Hm, Vic Hall is not outplaying Jameel Sewell at quarterback and our wide receivers aren't outplaying anybody? What to do, what to do. Huh. Hey, let's line Hall up at receiver and throw at him a lot. You'd think this sort of thing would occur to me earlier, but I'm glad it occurred to the coaching staff this week, because Hall's pass-catching was huge. The only other receiver that's shown enough flashes of brilliance to give me hope for the upcoming weeks is Kris Burd, who had just two catches against IU. But they were big ones. In any case, though, I like the idea of Hall at receiver and wholeheartedly endorse it going forward. He's got a little catching up to do but if he stays there the rest of the season, he'll lead the team in receptions.

- Sooner or later someone is going to figure out that they need to watch the running back who we just play-faked to.

- I do not fault Al Groh for having Simpson in the game just long enough to get hurt. I've always felt, if you're blowing someone out, you should keep your foot on the gas pedal until the fourth quarter. Or until you have a triple-digit lead, whichever comes first. And Simpson was not being overworked: 15 carries in 2 and a half quarters works out to 24 in the game, which isn't excessive. He's barely had any work this season. Last week was the first time all year he'd gotten a decent number of carries. After that drive would have been the right time to sit him, but seven minutes left in the third quarter is still too soon.

- I do wonder what the hell we were doing going for two in the 2nd quarter. I dunno, maybe Al wanted to work on something, but not only was that some bizarre timing, it was a whacked-out play that was doomed from the start. It couldn't have been more obvious we were going for two, and that being the case, why send the kicker out there? I don't get it.

- Two weeks in a row now the tackling has been impeccable. Big reason why our pass defense is so good. Enemy receivers are getting no yards after contact at all. That's how you turn third-and-four into fourth-and-one instead of first-and-ten.


So about that bowl thing. It's back on the radar, but it's still a long uphill climb. Of the opponents left on our schedule, three are ranked and four are not; getting to a bowl requires beating all those unranked teams and/or scoring a major upset. No slip-ups allowed. The good news is, does the ACC really scare you very much? Only two teams in the conference remain undefeated in ACC play, and one of 'em lost to William & Mary. Yay crappy conference. One week at a time, and if all goes well we too can aspire to play in a bowl game in Mobile, against a third-tier MAC team, sponsored by a bailed-out bank. Sounds like fun.

Blogpoll ballot, Week 6

Ballot below, suggestions encouraged, etc. etc.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Virginia Tech
3	Florida	1
4	Texas	1
5	Southern Cal	2
6	Ohio State	2
7	Boise State	2
8	Cincinnati	2
9	Miami (Florida)
10	Iowa	4
11	Georgia Tech	1
12	LSU	2
13	Oregon
14	TCU	1
15	Penn State	2
16	Nebraska	4
17	Oklahoma State	1
18	Brigham Young	6
19	Oklahoma
20	Houston	5
21	South Florida	1
22	Kansas
23	South Carolina	2
24	Pittsburgh
25	Utah
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Auburn (#11), Georgia (#18), Wisconsin (#23).

Not much by way of explanation here. Auburn and Wisconsin drop out because the only thing keeping them around was an undefeated record. Auburn took it in the nuts from a team they shouldn't have lost to, and their defense is frankly appalling. And Wisconsin's flimsy resume doesn't look any better now that there's a loss attached to it. I'm still not particularly enthused about anything below Oklahoma, though. I expect a lot of shuffling in that part of the ballot in the coming weeks. Kansas is a fraud and cruising for an ass-whooping in two weeks, but they're an undefeated fraud, and hey, at least they didn't lose to NC State, Pittsburgh.

Anyway, suggestions encouraged as always.

game preview: Indiana

Date/Time: October 10, 3:30 PM

TV: ESPN360, which isn't really TV

Last matchup: Never

Last week: UVA 16, UNC 3; OSU 33, IU 14

Line: UVA by 6.5 (!)

Opposing blogs: The Crimson Quarry

Injury report:

(coming tomorrow)

So I've spent all week trying to decide which angle to go with for this preview. Is this a toilet-bowl matchup of two assed-out teams trying to decide which one is going to miss bowl eligibility by a slimmer margin? Most of the rest of the country seems to think so, hence the relegation to ESPN360 among other indignities. Or maybe we're on our way to showing we're not that bad, and Indiana is the crap team they've been since forever and we should stomp them but good. Or maybe, heaven forbid, it's the other way round, although that last was never under consideration for use in this article. Anyway, I still haven't decided.

Regardless, though, this is a must-win. Maybe the mustest-win on the whole schedule. Maybe ever. In history. My reasons are a lot more selfish than "Al Groh's on the hot seat," mind you. See, I have this cousin. He's good people. And his college football fanhood followed much the same track as mine: grow up worshiping one team, then go to a different school and simply add that school to the pedestal. I grew up rooting for Michigan. My cousin? He grew up in Ohio. And he's the kind of guy who thinks a bottle opener that plays the OSU fight song when you open a bottle is the perfect Christmas gift for a Michigan fan. So you can imagine what holiday dinners have been like. We have been banned from discussing this subject at the dinner table. Literally. Shut up, we have been told. Car rides have been made miserable for other family members. And you might have guessed by now that my cousin is an Indiana grad. Which, of course my brother would go to Purdue so that these get-togethers would be just that much more interesting. Anyway, we have to win, otherwise Christmas is going to suck.

HOW WE CAN KEEP MY THANKSGIVING FROM BEING RUINED

- Press coverage from the cornerbacks. When airing it out, Indiana favors a dink-and-dunk passing attack that relies on a high completion percentage, and they throw primarily to wide receivers Tandon Doss and Damarlo Belcher. We have three excellent cornerbacks that have plenty of athleticism, and IU's offense is similar to UNC's in this respect, so there's no reason to lay off with soft coverage. Have Dowling, Cook, and Minnifield get up in their grill and take away the short game.

- Heavy doses of Mikell Simpson. Just like last week. Michigan gashed Indiana something fierce in the running game. Or, more specifically and correctly, Michigan's Carlos Brown gashed Indiana something fierce. Brown carried 11 times for 83 yards - a sparkling 7.5 ypc - and Michigan's running plays look a lot like ours did against UNC, as both are run out of the shotgun. (Michigan uses more zone read, but the end result, if it's a handoff, is the same.) And Carlos Brown and Simpson are very, very similar running backs. We can rack up some rushing yards the same way Michigan - and incidentally, Ohio State with Brandon Saine - did. I'd like to see a little more Torrey Mack too so that Simpson doesn't disintegrate in November, but regardless Simpson is a weapon we should lean on this Saturday.

- If the wide receivers could get open, that'd be sweet, so that Jameel Sewell doesn't have to dance aimlessly in the pocket and make previously unknown defensive ends look like superstuds.

HOW WE CAN MAKE SURE I GET AN INDIANA BOTTLE OPENER TO GO ALONG WITH MY OHIO STATE ONE

- Indiana has some reasonably frightful running backs and a pretty creative running game to the outside. If the outside linebackers have a subpar game, IU's Darius Willis has a sneaky second gear and a way of running away from people that results in long running plays.

- Frankly, IU's defense is pretty nondescript, but they're good enough to make bad teams have bad days. Western Michigan put up all of 22 rushing yards on them. But as implied above, they're also bad enough to let good teams have good days. So our performance is entirely on us, and Southern Miss aside, we have yet to reach the 20's in the points department. If we don't get any offense, we're in for a struggle no matter what the defense does, and yes, our offense is definitely bad enough to lose us this game.

- Turnovers. Notice what happened last week when we ceased handing free possessions to the other team. Are we actually through with that William & Mary, 7-turnover bullshit? Or are we just going to be a turnover-ridden team this year? This is a good game to find out, because the one turnover answer we do have is that the offense isn't going to rack up enough yardage to overcome stupid turnovers, so going forward, you can consider this a pretty standard item. Yes, "don't turn the ball over" is good advice for any team that wants to win a game, but it's more than good advice for us - it's an essential.

HOW THE GAME WILL GO

Well, ESPN's Heather picked us last week and we vindicated her, as she likes to remind you (hey, she was the only one. She's got bragging rights) and she's sticking with it this week. I feel obligated to mention it because there has to be some kind of good luck charm running around somewhere and this might very well be it. I haven't picked us to win since Week 1 and we all know how that turned out, but this week I'm joining Heather in the Go Us category. The defense, too, is starting to get a little ESPN-style love and they use some very sabermetricy numbers to bear that out, so it's not just blabbermouthing. Indiana is an unspectacular team that is good at several things but not really outstanding at anything. This is an improvement over the Indiana that everyone knows and loves to have for Homecoming so that the alums can enjoy a stress-free Saturday afternoon and write big checks to the football team, but I think we match up well against them. We're coming off a feel-good win, it's our own Homecoming, and Anthony Poindexter is getting his big day - the fans should be feeling a lot less mutinous than they were to start the TCU game. I think we'll win this game. It might actually be closer than the UNC game, and it will almost certainly be just as low-scoring. Our offense and defense are the worst and best units on the field, respectively, and I don't think either team will make the 20-point mark. But I think we'll get the win.

REST OF THE ACC

Boston College at Virginia Tech, 12:00
North Carolina vs. Georgia Southern, 3:30
Duke at NC State, 4:00
Maryland at Wake Forest, 6:30
Miami vs. Florida A&M, 7:00
Georgia Tech at Florida State, 8:00

the replacements: Tommy Tuberville

Every Wednesday-ish for a while, until such time as it stops being useful to do so, I'll pick one name and yak about what I think. I won't be getting to every name on the Which Coaches post, nor will I limit myself to the names on that list. And no, last Saturday's win doesn't lift Al Groh off the hot seat. Not sure when that'll be, but I'll probably know it when I see it, and that wasn't it.

To get the suspense out of the way, today's spotlight is on my #1 choice to fill the job should Groh be let go. #1 by a long, long shot.

Tommy Tuberville

Main qualification: Compiled an 85-40 record at Auburn in ten seasons, including a 13-0 season in 2004.

Coaching resume:

1980-1984: Arkansas State (DE/LB)
1985-1993: Miami (various, eventually DC)
1994: Texas A&M (DC)
1995-1998: Mississippi (HC)
1999-2008: Auburn (HC)

Tuberville will probably have his pick of coaching jobs after this season. Given his record, any AD that doesn't at least put in a phone call is either a dope, or working in Division II. But it's a thin year for coaches looking to get hired. Check out the list of schools with coaches on the hot seat. Akron, Kent State, UNLV....this is not a heavyweight list. The only BCS schools where the coaches look very, very gone are Colorado, Louisville, Illinois, Florida State, and of course, Virginia.

TFSU is out of course, because of the whole Jimbo Fisher thing. And even if you scroll on down to "medium heat", you only add Maryland and Clemson to the BCS list, neither of which are going to fire their coach this year. Friedgen's buyout is keeping him safe, and Dabo Swinney has only just now coached the equivalent of a full season for crying out loud.

So yeah: Colorado, Louisville, Illinois, or Virginia. I feel pretty secure in declaring our job, should it come open, likely to be the single most attractive anywhere in the country this offseason, unless someone like Georgia does something stupid. At Colorado you don't have much of a recruiting base and you have to deal with some pretty well-entrenched superpowers in your conference. Illinois has similar problems, if not of quite the same magnitude, but there's a lot of lousy history there and a very distinct "basketball school in a football conference" feel to their team. Louisville, well. I suppose if you like playing Connecticut every year and recruiting against both the Big Ten and SEC. Meanwhile, here at UVA we sit on a gold mine of instate talent if we could just stop it going off to LSU and Alabama, and the ACC is so ripe for the taking it's not even funny. This is parityville, and a really good coach can make a huge dent right away. See: Johnson, Paul, 2008. Probably the only downside is that we require our student-athletes to actually major in something and furthermore actually attend class and get actual grades. If there's a coach that sees this as too much of an obstacle, we're probably not meant for each other.

(This, by the way, is also a good argument for making a change this year. Next year who knows what jobs might be open. When you're looking like the best option in a buyer's market for coaches, that's fortuitous timing if you can take advantage.)

Alright then. So having made the case for why Tommy Tuberville should choose Virginia, why then should Virginia choose Tommy Tuberville?

That's the easy part. Tuberville can frickin' coach. The record speaks for itself. An SEC championship - not an easy accomplishment - and his list of bowls looks like a tropical kitchen. Three Citruses, two Peaches, a Sugar and a Cotton. And a Music City thrown in there on an off-year. Tuberville also achieved a 7-3 record against Alabama, and that's not to be ignored in a rivalry where Alabama has a 39-33 edge. No sense doubting his recruiting chops, either. If you can recruit against the SEC you can recruit against the ACC.

Some Virginia fans would likely be upset by his tendency while at Auburn to mine the jucos and prep schools for talent that might not have had the easiest time getting qualified for NCAA competition, and probably also by Auburn's skirting the edges of legality in keeping their players qualified once at school. This is where UVA's often-frustrating insistence on actual academic achievement would come in handy: Auburn - the school itself - has never had any problem looking the other way when it came to the rulebook. There's quite a messy history there. In fact, Tuberville is probably to be praised for his restraint in running a near-completely clean program in an atmosphere so permissive of shenanigans that the school president himself once flew out to Louisville to meet in secret with an under-contract coach whose AD most definitely had not given anyone permission to speak with anyone. While Alabama and Kentucky and such were getting in serious hot water in the early part of the decade for recruiting violations, Tuberville kept his hands clean in that regard. Any rulebook issues Tuberville might bring are minor to the point of non-issuedom, and almost certainly easily quashed by a much less permissive administration at UVA.

Tuberville offers, quite simply, the fastest route to success. He's the most pedigreed candidate out there and far and away the most known quantity. The level of success that he had at Auburn would probably not be duplicated here, but it wouldn't be out of the question either. Tuberville is 55 years old and has another 10-12 years of coaching in him. The major question is whether the administration would be willing to fork out. Al Groh makes about $1.8 million, and Tony Bennett about $1.7. Tuberville was getting $2.8 million in base salary at Auburn, and other compensation pushed his total yearly value north of $3 million. I've been working under the assumption that the administration would be willing to pay a new coach a salary similar to Groh's, but not much more if at all. Would it take $3 million to hire Tuberville? I don't know. But if it does, I think UVA will consider itself priced out and look elsewhere, which would be a disappointment.

Certain interwebz message-board-type rumors have Tuberville halfway in the job already. Watching tape of our recruits, chatting up the admin, already overusing the word "circumstances", that sort of thing. Not being the sort to believe everything I read on the interwebz, because most of it turns out to be, you know, complete horse hockey, I will buy these stories when the ink is dry on the contract. But you have to admit these kinds of stories are better than the opposite. Because Tuberville, assuming he's affordable and therefore taking care of the balance sheet viewpoint, makes sense from every angle you can think of. He'd bring instant credibility, being the kind of guy the boosters would be happy to loosen their wallets for. Plain and simple, this is the coach we want.

weekend review

This'll be a little abbreviated because I'm nervously watching the Tigers play this make-or-break playoff-before-the-playoff against the evil Minnesota Twinkies and their spawn-of-Satan manager, Gardenhire. Die Minnesota die. Anyway. Just a couple bullets, plus the usual features: recruiting board update, senior seasons, and the blog review to see what everyone else thought about the weekend.

Bullets:

- Some honors for UVA footballers both past and present. Anthony Poindexter will have his jersey retired in that confusing ceremony where they "retire" something but don't actually retire anything. Can't we call this "honoring the number" or something like that? So that'll be before the Indiana game this weekend. Makes you wonder why it took so long.

- Also, how about this for cool: Robert Randolph and Matt Conrath get ACC PotW honors as co-specialist and co-defensive lineman. Good things happen when you win. Also, the ACC continues to be quite good at honoring folks whose biggest contributions don't necessarily show up on the stat sheet; this week, that'd be Conrath, whose three blocked passes only appear in the box score as more incompletions for T.J. Yates.

- The Maryland game is on at 4 on ESPNUVA. Works for me: Any game not relegated to ESPN360 is a good one.

Recruiting board update! Nothing good. Recruiting continues to be dead in the water, and in fact going backwards as no doubt you've heard we had our first decommitment.

- For decommitting and booking it to NC State, Tyler Brosius does not get removed. Decommitments don't get off so easy. No, the punishment for this is to be sent to the very bottom of the board and enshrined in a special set of particularly hellacious colors. Random thought: Now that we've beaten UNC it'll be interesting to see if NC State does too, as any Pack fan will tell you that UNC is their biggest rival and follow it up with a Go To Hell Carolina.

- Removed is Nick Dew who surprise surprise committed to Tech. I wonder why I didn't do that a while ago.

- Added DTs Brandon Sparrow and Ainsley Miller and OT Michael Justice. In some cases this is the sort of thing I warned you about; Justice, for example. Justice is almost certainly a fallback plan if both Kolb and Havenstein look elsewhere. We absolutely cannot stick ourselves with just one offensive lineman in the class.

Here's what went on this week in the high schools:

KEVIN PARKS: I probably ought to start getting used to calling him KP. Parks has run for 1,341 yards and 19 touchdowns, which would be pretty damn impressive in a full season. Over seven games it's unreal.

E.J. SCOTT: Just one catch for nine yards in Good Counsel's 21-7 win over McNamara. It's been a quiet season for Scott. The bigger news is this Friday's showdown between Scott's Good Counsel team and Kyrrel Latimer's DeMatha.

RYAN COBB: Caught a touchdown and had five tackles in Don Bosco's 49-8 win against Passaic.

TYLER BROSIUS: Oh wait I don't care.

Now for the rest of the ACC. We'll save the best for last, too.

- Gobbler Country did not enjoy the Hokies' trip to Bizzarro World as VT had a bit of an interesting time against Dook.

- Willy Mac at Block-C had the same criticism of his own team's offense as I had for UNC's, which obviously would not be good for Clemson. Also, losing to Maryland causes Block-C to cease caring about what week it is, which is really nothing more than the usual symptom of lost-to-Maryland-itis. Take two Vitamin Dukes and call me in the morning. Meanwhile, Testudo Times points out that the ACC Atlantic is now basically a complete flip-flop from the predictions. Dude, Maryland is the only undefeated team in that division, how did that happen?

- State Fans Nation is grumpy after NC State's loss to Wake.

- With Florida State's loss to BC, Tomahawk Nation is fed up with Bobby Bowden. Very fed up. Extremely fed up.

- Finally, let's enjoy a last little bit of UNC schadenfreude before we finish. We'll start with Dr. Saturday, who doesn't have any schadenfreude for us but his ACC roulette wheel is a fun read nontheless. I do take issue with one statement:

...the Tar Heels finished with a pathetic 173 yards total offense on 2.9 yards per snap, but probably suffered more from committing three turnovers to the Cavaliers' zero, one of which led to the game's only touchdown.

Actually, I think the 2.9 yards per snap hurt them way worse than the turnovers. One was the recovered punt, which led to another punt. One interception was just the game-ender, which by that point the game was almost certainly a foregone conclusion anyway. One interception did lead to a touchdown, but as it was already 9-3 and Carolina didn't score again, it was mainly icing on the cake. UNC only advanced past the 50 three times and never into the red zone, and turnovers had very little to do with that.

Anyway, UNC. Actually, the prevailing opinion tends to be "wow, we suck", the offensive line and coordinator being the main targets of blame as the Carolina fanbase starts to wonder about basketball season. No, the main thing is that Heather Dinich appears to be the only one who called this the right way. Which, uh. Yeah. I didn't see it coming and neither did the Carolina faithful:

Despite the dangerous nature of a desperate UVa team, UNC should win this game and it should not be close. Anything else is simply going leave the Heels open to more questions about their toughness coming off a loss not to mention doubts galore.

UNC 35 UVa 10

Actually, the money quote is in the comments section:

Just to cheer you guys up, the coaching was actually probably worse in last year’s UVa game. Feel better….?

Which, he's right: if you recall, Butch Davis had about exactly as much time as Verica used up to move the ball fewer yards downfield than Verica had to and try to kick the game-winning field goal, and instead opted for overtime. You can tell UNC - no offense, really, it's just the truth - is a basketball school because if this was Clemson who kept losing to us like this, the fans would not only have backed a moving van up to Davis's house but in the dead of the night they'd have broken in and packed it up, too.

I'll leave you with three lines from Carolina March: one which is so hilariously true, one which is just hilariously hilarious, and one which should be just enough to keep you enjoying these little UNC wins:

It's almost as if The Oldest Rivalry in the South exists solely to annoy the SEC by being battled over by two basketball schools.

So funny because it's true.

Let's make this perfectly clear. There is no way Virginia can win on Saturday.

So funny because it turned out not to be true at all.

There's no excitement, no hatred, just a distaste towards Mr. Jefferson's bourbon-breathed imbecilic followers.

See you in Charlottesville, same time, next year.

UNC video is up

Finally. The videos page now contains the highlights from Saturday's win over UNC. It is recommended, for your health, that you go check this out. A new season means I get the chance to debut some NEW AND IMPROVED features, plus, it wouldn't be a very good video if I didn't immortalize Al Groh's classic "hard to stick a fork in" line. Which I did. You have to admit, the man gives great sideline interviews. Anyway, off you go to watch the first football highlight video of the new season.

Blogpoll ballot Week 5

I am a bad, bad Blogpoller for not having this in for the early deadline, but circumstances didn't allow it. Al Groh is in his ninth season as our coach, so you know by now how circumstances can make a mess of things.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Virginia Tech
3	Texas
4	Florida
5	Boise State
6	Cincinnati
7	Southern Cal	4
8	Ohio State	4
9	Miami (Florida)	4
10	LSU	7
11	Auburn	3
12	Georgia Tech	6
13	Oregon	2
14	Iowa	6
15	TCU	8
16	Oklahoma State	7
17	Penn State	5
18	Georgia	8
19	Oklahoma	3
20	Nebraska	1
21	South Carolina	2
22	South Florida	2
23	Wisconsin
24	Brigham Young
25	Houston	17
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Michigan (#21), North Carolina State (#25).

This seems nepotistic to me. Why is Oklahoma State ranked so high? Well, they beat Georgia, that's why. Why's Georgia ranked so high? Well, they only lost to Oklahoma State. And LSU, which is now pretty high up there because they beat Georgia. It's a vicious circle. Much the same is true for Oklahoma and BYU. The problem is, who do you replace them with if they're not worthy of ranking? The waiting list includes Pitt, Michigan, Stanford, and Boston College, all of whom have losses to teams that ranked teams shouldn't lose to and not much in the way of a marquee win.

Also, TCU took a big drop which seems weird, except it seemed weirder to keep them ranked in the top ten when their best win of the year is Clemson, which just gacked against Maryland. Us beating UNC did not counteract that very much at all. I sort of had an epiphany and realized their schedule so far really kind of blows. So I dunno, I guess there's still a lot of perception bias in this thing. One thing I did try to reward is being 5-0, which only eight teams can claim. They're all on there now, even though Wisconsin has played nothing but crummy teams and squeeeeeaked by four of them.

As for programming this week, the weekend review thingamajig will just have to wait til tomorrow. One win does not, unfortunately, lift Al Groh off the hot seat, so Wednesday we'll look at another potential replacement. Hopefully I can squeeze Akil Mitchell in there somewhere.