Beggars Cannot Be Choosers

He wants it, bad.  But wanting it is just not enough.
He has to give the fans a little return on their investment.

I personally can't stand the guy, but Doug Doughty wrote something in his UVA Insider column on Friday that has stuck with me through the weekend...

"UVa’s recruiting successes continue to generate some excitement, but for the first time during the 16-game Mike London coaching tenure, I’m beginning to sense some disenchantement with the product on the field."

Doughty is exactly right.  And Saturday's weird, wild, alarming, unnerving, depressing, confusing 21-20 overtime win over the Idaho Vandals probably added even more disenchantment to the fanbase.

Let's just be honest.  The special teams were downright abysmal.  The coaching decisions were often strange, and sometimes just completely horrendous.  The offense moved the ball (496 yards) but couldn't score, and the defense held Idaho in check (296 yards) but gave up too many clutch plays for the second week in a row.  From top to bottom, the team seemed shaky -- at times way too lose, at other times way too tight -- and totally uninspiring and uninspired.

We're now 17 games deep into Mike London's career as UVA's head football coach.  Of those 17 games, there aren't many to be proud of.  Richmond was a solid win last year.  It was nice hanging with USC in the Coliseum.  Of course, the Miami win from last year was huge.  And we thumped William & Mary to open this season.  What else you got?

On the message boards, I try to stay positive and say the right things, because those people are just SOOOOO sad and depressed, and always eager to jump off the ledge in order to dodge the falling sky.  Some of my posts from the last two days:

• This is year TWO of a 4-5 year rebuilding process.  We're less than halfway there.
• We won the game yesterday. And while it was ugly, and a little bit alarming that we allowed a clearly overmatched opponent to press us into overtime, it was still a win. Beggars cannot be choosers.
• We're young at key spots, young in terms of coaching, and trying to belly-crawl out of a crater the previous coaching regime blasted us into.
• Patience is difficult, but that's exactly what we as fans need to do -- be patient. Celebrate the small victories, even if those include "bad" wins against inferior competition. It's all part of the building process.

Do I believe that shit?  Some days, I do.  But that's mostly just to get me through the hard grind of life.  Virginia Football just means so much (too much?) to me, I have trouble facing this possible reality that Mike London is going to fail, that there is a mountain of evidence pointing in that direction, but that we have to ride it out.  Can't fire him early, lest we'll never be able to attract any sort of decent coaching candidate ever again.  Agreeing to coach Virginia is a risk most coaches worth a damn would not take, ESPECIALLY if the job comes with the danger of a quick hook if you don't win games.  So we're stuck with London, for better or worse, while he learns on the job.

Remember, this is just his fourth year as a head coach, at any level.  He's the equivalent of a redshirt junior.  Think about that for a second.  It's a little bit scary.  But the man is recruiting his ass off, and he's raising the talent level... but that also raises the expectation level.  Those incoming recruits have no doubt been promised playing time, so now it's going to be on them to play well, and it's going to be on London to lead them to success.

Our team right now is a mix of marginally-talented upperclassmen from Al Groh's last few years at the helm, and properly-talented young players from London's first full recruiting class.  In other words, at most spots you're choosing between a guy without talent who might not make as many mistakes but who won't make the kinds of plays that can win you games vs. a young guy who will make a ton of mistakes but who has the potential to make game-changing plays.  I don't know what the right or wrong answer is, but I do know our ceiling is low until Groh's players cycle off of the roster and London's players gain the necessary experience to emerge as bonafide good players.

But by that time, will all of the fan support be gone?  Without wins (or at least competent play) in the interim, will that potential future success be doomed before it can happen?

More angst: Will London's recruiting ability be hamstrung by a pitiful win-loss record?  It's pretty easy to recruit against Virginia when you can pop in the tape of that Idaho game and say "Mike London will only lead you to embarrassment and failure.  And oh yeah, you'll have to go to class and show class while you're doing it."

But back to this year's team.  I think there are really five things damning us right now, some of which are fixable in the short-term.

#1 -- The offense is moving the ball well (37th in the nation with 439 yards per game) BUT not scoring points (74th in the nation with 27.2 ppg).  It's not like we're stalling on the goal line, either.  We drive into opponents' territory but outside the red zone, and then see drives stall.  Gotta score points to win games, yardage doesn't matter.

#2 -- Special Teams.  The coverage units are fine, but everything else stinks.  Robert Randolph has cooled down to his normal mediocre self after a hot start.  Dominique Terrell is lost trying to return punts, just absolutely lost.  The unit isn't opening any running lanes on kickoff returns.  The whole operation is just putrid right now.

#3 -- Safeties.  They suck.  I'd rather get Harris and Walker on the field to have a baptism by fire and learn from their mistakes than continue hoping Mosley and McLeod will finally see the light come on.

#4 -- Turnovers.  We're giving away too many, and not generating enough of our own.  (103rd nationally in turnover margin.)

#5 -- Coaching mistakes.  Mike and Pierce covered these, no reason to beat harder on the drum.

We really need this bye week right now, to maybe get some things sorted out.  At 3-2, this season is still salvageable.  But is it already too late for Mike London?  Has he already lost too many fans?  If this 3-2 record ends up being 3-9 at the end of the season, how does London pick up the pieces?  Have we seen anything from the first five games to make us think that anything other than a 7-game losing streak is about to occur?  Duke at home on November 12th --- circle it on your calendars.

I titled this post "Beggars Cannot Be Choosers" because a win is a win is a win, and we're not good enough to expect style points.  And that is very true.  But style points is what spins the turnstiles, and spinning turnstiles is ultimately what determines the success or failure of a program and that program's head coach.  Beggars can't be choosers, but it's about time to beg for a win that looks good to the naked eye.

GO HOOS.

And hey, we won and Virginia Tech lost.  Always a good Saturday.