The Pack-Line Defense

Just found a great article that details the Tony Bennett Pack-Line Defense... It's well worth a read.

CLICK THIS!

Road Map to Relevancy, Part I

Apologies to my loyal Wahooze readers --- I've been having a hard time battling the depression of an 0-3 start to the football season. Now I'm fighting to wrap my mind around the win at North Carolina and the 47-7 shellacking of a decently solid Indiana team. What does it all mean?

Like Ben Gibson summarized, it's just Al Groh's annual October charge to save his hide. Nothing more, nothing less. Virginia Football is just not very good, as far as programs go. Top to bottom, there are damning problems holding our team back. We have a rickety infrastructure.

I think that deep down, we all know that this football program can be so much more than a .500-type outfit. But yet, here we are, wallowing in more mediocrity, losing games we shouldn't lose (WILLIAM AND FREAKING MARY), blowing late leads (Southern Miss), and then rubbing the fans' noses in the regret and disappointment by winning games it doesn't seem like we should win (UNC) and blowing out decent opponents (Indiana). At the end of the day, we're 2-3 and beelining toward 5-7... not good enough. Not nearly good enough.

UVA Football has become equal parts depressing, confusing, and grind-your-teeth-and-slap-your-momma frustrating. The Indiana win was nice, but I couldn't keep the vivid flashbacks of the William & Mary pick six out of my mind. And so it goes... Virginia Football will drive you completely nuts.

So how do we go from this point -- maddening inconsistency and a low overall ceiling for how high the program can rise -- to where we want/need/deserve to go? How can we transform a schizophrenic 6-6 also-ran program into a gritty, tough, consistent 9-3/10-2-type team that nobody ever wants to face? How can we repair the infrastructure, rattle Virginia Tech's cage by gaining a toehold on in-state recruiting, and obtain some degree of national respect? How can we make Virginia Football relevant?

Here is one fan's road map...

Step #1 -- Fire Al Groh and hire a new coach. Hire the right coach.

Seems obvious, right? Well, it's easier said than done. I don't want to spend too much time beating on this drum that has already been pounded to death, but we need to find a charismatic leader who can sell and properly promote the program. All Xs and Os aside, we need a media-friendly coach who can breathe some life into this deflated fanbase and repair our damaged public perception. (See also: Tony Bennett's effect on Virginia Basketball.) Also, we need our coaching hire to be somewhat "splashy" from a national perspective. We need college football fans around the nation to either say: "Wow, Virginia was able to get THAT guy?" (Tommy Tuberville) and/or "Wow, Virginia really did the right thing by hiring that guy!" (Charlie Strong, Derek Dooley, maybe Mike London.) Once we generate some forward momentum via a nice splash with the coaching hire, we can move headlong into...

Step #2 -- Lure the fans back into the fold.

Get the right coach, and most hardcore fans will return to the stands. But how do you bring back the casual fans? The ones that make the difference between 50,000 butts in the seats and a packed house for a Saturday in Scott Stadium? Well, it starts on the fundamental level of actually appreciating the fans and making that appreciation apparent. Make the ticket prices more palatable, offer a sincere apology for the reseating disaster, put the program on the line with a REAL "commitment to excellence" -- declare that this is an also-ran program no more; that Virginia Football is headed in a new direction and will not accept mediocrity. Have that message echoed in everything the coach says (and he should be saying a lot, working every media outlet that will have him.) Here's the master stroke: break away from the Al Groh policy of "one voice" and allow the assistant coaches to get out and work the media themselves. Sell the product, build excitement, develop some forward momentum, and get the fans excited. Virginia fans are great fans; they'll come back in droves.

To be continued...

"Why Do You Hate Me, Al Groh?"

Here's a great piece from Ben Gibson from bleacher report. He really succeeds in putting everything Virginia football fans feel into words. Definitely deserving of a five-minute read...

"Why Do You Hate Me, Al Groh?"

WCAV Interview with Tony Bennett

If you haven't seen this yet, it's certainly worth five minutes of your time.

One-on-One with Coach Bennett

UVA 16, UNC 3

Nice win today. Tough, gritty, aggressive defense; a commitment to running the football. I like it. It's Al Groh's best recipe for success.

One down, four to go.

Indiana, you're next.

GO HOOS!

Five.

Something profound dawned on me today: We want our football team to lose, to guarantee Al Groh's swift dismissal at the end of the season. But if we lose TOO MUCH, would it potentially hurt our ability to find a good replacement; to hire the slam dunk head coach to take us back to winning and eventually to the next level?

Let's say we follow the current trajectory and end up at 1-11 or 2-12 this season. Wouldn't that show the world that this program is at ground zero, lacking the basic foundational infrastructure to win, and probably almost completely devoid of talent? It would certainly damage our standing in the unspoken/unseen pecking order of BCS conference teams, taking us down to Duke / Iowa State / Baylor levels of hopelessness.

Now let's say Al Groh rallies the troops to a 5-7 finish. It's bad, he'll still definitely get fired, but we'll still be hanging in there as a potential sleeping giant in the college football world. There would be evidence of upside, and a sense that the floor is still fairly high here at UVA.

The risk is that if we rally too much and get to 6-6 and a bowl game, however unlikely that may be. Would Al Groh get another season? One more year of Al Groh would plunge this program into the dark ages, and I think the administration and BMDs ("big money donors" -- an acronym I'll use a lot on this blog) understand that. But going 6-3 down the stretch would certainly get certain short-sighted fans excited.

So now for the rest of the season I'm officially pulling for the football team to win... five games. No more, no less.

And I'll call my shot. We *should* win the following games: Indiana, @ Maryland (god they're awful), and Duke. I think we'll also beat Boston College here at home. That takes us to four wins, which leaves one more win for the finding. I think it comes either @ UNC this weekend or home against Georgia Tech later this month. (But we better not win both of those games, because that would be six wins.)

This team isn't nearly as bad as they've played to this point, and for everything I dislike about Al Groh right now, he's not that bad of a coach. We'll win some games this season. The key is how many.

Five. That's what we need. No more, no less.

Five.

2010 Baseball Schedule Announced!

With football swirling the stinkhole, I find myself daydreaming of February baseball. And now the schedule has been released! Check it out...

Bang it HERE for the press release.

And HERE for the schedule pdf.

If anyone ever wants to go to a game, please let me know. I know Diddy and the Keens will be going to a lot of games with us, and I'm sure Joe and the Rookie will want to catch one or two also.