CHARLOTTESVILLE-- Despite a four-game football record that was Virginia's worst in 20 years, nobody on the team seemed to be pointing any fingers.

The Cavaliers may have taken their cue from co-captain and ousted starter Christian Olsen.

"I admire the way that he's handled it," junior tight end Tom Santi said. "He's not complained. Neither has Kevin [McCabe].

"They come to work every day and try to get better and make the team better. We don't really have any prima donnas and we appreciate that out of those guys."

Olsen, who started the first two games, has returned to his previous role as Virginia's No. 2 quarterback.

In a Sept. 21 game at Georgia Tech, he never got on the field. Last week, he directed a 46-yard touchdown drive in the waning moments of a 37-0 victory at Duke.

"You've got to go out and handle it the right way," said Olsen, a 23-year-old graduate student. "If you go out and handle it the wrong way, it becomes a real distraction for a team. It could sink this team pretty fast.

"That's not something I want to do. This is the way I was going to handle it. I knew, if something happened, I was still going to go out there and have fun with my teammates and spend as much time with them as I can."

Olsen wants to follow his father into the coaching profession and has served as something of a tutor to redshirt freshman Jameel Sewell, handed the reins after the third game.

"I'm trying to help him however I can," Olsen said. "I want people to see, 'He didn't play that much but he overcame a lot of adversity.'

"I'm trying to get a graduate-assistant job for this next semester. I just did a resume for the first time [Monday] and I'm going to start sending out e-mails and making phone calls this afternoon."

Olsen endeared himself to coaches and teammates when he asked if the week's top scout-team performer could take his place for the coin flip.

"It's something Marques [Hagans] started last year," said Olsen, referring to the Cavs' starting quarterback from 2004-05. "Why not give the kid who works his butt off all week and doesn't get any attention a chance to let his family see him in the middle of the field?"

Olsen actually was replaced by McCabe for one game before coach Al Groh made the move to Sewell.

"Obviously, we weren't performing well as an offense," McCabe said. "I wasn't doing my job. A lot of guys weren't doing their jobs, but the first guy who's going to get the blame for that is the quarterback.

"It's his job to get the team in the offense and get the wins and that wasn't happening, so we knew a change was going to happen. It's always difficult, but I didn't have to sit down and convince myself to be the guy that I should be. That was a no-brainer."

Judgment call

Groh said he might have let the clock run out if the Cavaliers had not scored their final touchdown on a 2-yard run by redshirt freshman Mikell Simpson with 28 seconds left.

"We're not interested in piling up the score or embarrassing anybody," Groh said. "While we take that into consideration in terms of sportsmanship, I'm also interested in the morale of my team.

"We had a lot of young players in there, not just Mikell, who had not been on the goal line much in their careers. They moved the ball down the field; they deserved the opportunity to feel good about the drive.

"If it made the other players feel a little bit more beaten, that wasn't our intent. But, if it made our players feel a little more upbeat, that certainly was our intent. They had a chance to perform in front of their peers more than they usually do."

By the numbers

The victory at Duke gave Virginia a 10-20 road record under Groh, including 9-3 as a favorite and 1-17 as an underdog. The Cavaliers have lost 16 straight road games as an underdog and Saturday visit an East Carolina team that is favored by 6 ¹₂ points.

Scoped

Groh said that redshirt freshman Andrew Pearman underwent a procedure Tuesday morning to have fragments removed from the knee that he injured at Georgia Tech. Pearman, who missed the Duke trip, should be back by November.