Redshirts Burned

For those of you keeping track of how, exactly, Al Groh is "scorching the earth" on his way out the door -- here is the exhaustive list of the redshirts he has [needlessly and stupidly] burned so far this season:

OT Oday Aboushi

DB LoVante' Battle

TE Paul Freedman

DE Will Hill

QB/WR Quintin Hunter

PK Drew Jarrett

HB/DB Perry Jones

DB Corey Lillard

LB Connor McCartin

DB Laroy Reynolds

WR Tim Smith

ATH Jovanti Sparrow

DL Brent Urban

HB Dominique Wallace (will receive a medical redshirt)

LB/TE Tucker Windle

That's 14 members of the excellent 25-person 2009 recruiting class. For 56% of this class, Al Groh has traded in the potentially super-productive fifth year in the program in order to have them play as true freshmen and help this team to a 3-5 start, including home losses to DUKE and WILLIAM AND FREAKING MARY. I don't just think this is idiotic, I think it is downright negligent. These kids committed to Groh and the University of Virginia, placing complete trust in the coach, assuming he'd make the decisions that best served them as students and as players.

Even more than the nepotism used in promoting Mike Groh to offensive coordinator, I think burning these redshirts this season has been Al Groh's worst decision and most damning mistake as head football coach at the University of Virginia. It is an unforgiveable sin, in my humble opinion, as most of these players aren't on the two-deep at their positions, don't travel with the team, and only see action on special teams. They are losing their fifth year of college football in order to play a handful of meaningless plays in a lost season. Egregious.

I just hope our next head coach can find the roster depth to extend mid-career redshirts to a few of these players in order to potentially salvage their future as football players.