2008 College Football Preview

Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

Since the end of the 2007 season, several Virginia players at key positions have left or have been removed from the team. | See a closeup

Virginia

• Virginia to endure survivor series as players go missing
• Winning 2007 season seems like ancient history for Virginia football
• Virginia's schedule
• Virginia's quarterbacks
• Eligible Virginia players who are not with the team

Virginia Tech

• Virginia Tech reloads for 2008 football season
• Macho Harris may double dip this season
• Aaron McFarling: In football, is it chicken or the egg?
• Virginia Tech's schedule

Teams in the area

• Ferrum: Dual quarterbacks on horizon for Ferrum | Ferrum at a glance
• VMI: Fresh start for VMI, coaching vet Woods | VMI at a glance
• Washington & Lee: New digs, schemes for Washington and Lee | W&L at a glance
• Southern Virginia: Schedule could be tougher for Knights | SVU at a glance

The ACC

• ACC suffering from conference inadequacy
• ACC capsules & players to watch
• 10 ACC games to watch
• Staff picks for the season

When injuries threatened to derail Virginia’s 2007 football team, the Cavaliers adopted a next-man-up philosophy that lifted them to the brink of a 10-win season. That approach will be put to an even bigger test this year.

The Cavaliers knew they would lose All-America defensive end Chris Long. He was a senior. They might have guessed they would lose All-ACC offensive tackle Branden Albert, a junior who passed up his final season of eligibility and was selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. Can’t argue with that.

There were other seniors — prominent players like Tom Santi, Nate Lyles, Jonathan Stupar — whose worth to the Cavaliers was reflected by their invitations to NFL camps.

That’s normal attrition and hardly a reason for UVa fans to feel sorry for themselves.

But, what the Cavaliers have experienced since the end of the 2007 season is abnormal, with more than a half-dozen underclassmen lost to academic suspension, an honor offense and criminal misconduct.

Among the projected returnees who will not be available are starting quarterback Jameel Sewell, starting defensive end Jeffrey Fitzgerald and starting cornerback Chris Cook.

Sewell and Cook, who were among a group of four players declared academically ineligible in January, are working toward a return in 2009.

Fitzgerald has transferred to Kansas State, where he will join another former Cavalier, Olu Hall, who was declared academically ineligible prior to the 2007 season.

Hall was rated the No. 1 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times in 2003. Obviously, he was the Cavaliers’ top-rated in-state signee that year, as was linebacker J’Courtney Williams in 2007.

Williams is gone now, too, having been dismissed from the team last winter after he was arrested on charges of credit-card theft and credit-card fault.

Virginia has been plagued by attrition on other occasions, but seldom from such a wide array of causes.

“Whatever it is, whatever the attrition is, we’ve moved on to the future,” UVa head coach Al Groh said in an Aug. 14 teleconference. “Who’s here is here; who’s gone is gone. That’s a different time frame. I’m finished talking about all of that.”

In his defense, Groh did comment on the arrests of Williams and former defensive back Mike Brown at the time of Williams’ removal from the roster.

“It’s unsettling,” Groh said. “Everybody within the organization is disturbed by one misstep, so it just causes everybody to be that much more watchful [after] two unfortunate incidents.

“Any miscue that we have, whether it’s community issues or internal issues, we always address and reinforce immediately. We would hope the players have a pretty clear understanding of what the value system is and what we expect here.”

So, what happened?

Three Virginia players were charged with alcohol-related violations this summer, including quarterback contender Peter Lalich and starting offensive tackle Will Barker.

Groh said those matters have been addressed internally, but it begs the questions, at what point and to what degree is a coach responsible for his players’ indiscretions.

There were academic concerns even before the Cavaliers played in the Gator Bowl. Cook was not allowed to board the bus that took the team to the Charlottesville airport, and he did not play in the game. Tailback Mikell Simpson returned home to Harrisburg, Pa., and flew to the bowl site by himself only after receiving academic clearance.

While conceding that coaches should be held accountable, Groh, a Roman Catholic, likened the situation to a man who went to Mass each week and asked the Lord’s help in winning the lottery. For two weeks, he prayed and nothing happened. The third week, a voice came from above and told him, “Buy a ticket.”

“In the area of academics, I think our advisors have done a thorough and diligent job,” Groh told reporters at the ACC Football Kickoff in Greensboro, Ga. “It’s as strong a staff as we’ve had at any point. Ultimately, the players have got to buy a ticket.”

Insiders said that Groh repeatedly stressed academics during team meetings this spring. So did strength-and-conditioning coach Matt Balis, and the team responded with its highest cumulative grade-point average in nine years.

Generally, players don’t get in trouble during August. At Virginia, as with many programs, the players stay in a hotel until school is in session. They have curfews. Two-a-days leave them too tired to do much except practice, eat and watch TV.

The rest of the year, players are frequently on their own, and the team is left to police itself. Virginia has a core of senior leaders, including three of the four co-captains, but Groh said the coaches keep their eyes out for underclassmen who might serve in the next wave of team leaders.

Rashawn Jackson, a fourth-year junior fullback, hopes he meets that description. Jackson comes from St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, N.J., the same school that produced Brown, suspended following his arrest on a felony larceny charge.

“Part of being a team member is you have to be liable on and off the field,” Jackson said. “If you’re out and you see your brother making a mistake, it would probably be in your best interests to encourage him not to do so. I’ve done that. I’m not really a partyer or a guy who goes out a lot, but if I see one of our guys in a bad situation, I’m going to give him a hand or a shoulder to lean on and get him out of there.”

“Mike Brown is a good friend of mine. I’ve known him since we were in the seventh grade. We’ve got a lot of happy memories.

“Of course, I was worried for him, but you’ve got to learn to separate friends, family and business. So when it comes to us performing, I only worry about the guys on the field. It’s not about the other guys right now. It’s about us.”