Thursday, April 27, 2006
Groh sees silver lining in kicking situation
Latest grid commitment from tight end
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's UVa Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
See Doug and Randy talk sports every week with the Sports edition of the TimesCast
Recent columns
To watch Ryan Weigand’s first punt sail for 50 yards Saturday, you would have thought Virginia’s kicking issues had been resolved for next season.
Then, Weigand got off a couple of clunkers and you had to wonder.
“That’s the way it’s been,” said coach Al Groh in an aside to the media following UVa’s spring game. “But, there have been years around here when we didn’t get [the 50-yarders], so I guess we can be happy for that.”
Weigand, punting for both teams, averaged 39.3 yards on nine attempts.
In Groh’s five seasons as head coach, only one punter has averaged 40 yards and that was a George Welsh holdover, Mike Abrams, in 2001.
In a nine-year span from 1993-2001, Virginia did not have a punter average fewer than 40 yards. In the past four seasons, UVa’s punters have averaged 34.8, 34.5, 35.8 and 39.3 yards per punt.
It’s no wonder there were no complaints with Gould’s punter. His average, in contrast with his predecessors, was pretty respectable.
Presumably, Groh would have been content with Gould as the Cavaliers’ punter for the next two years; however, Gould, the younger brother of Chicago Bears’ place-kicker Robbie Gould, was recruited “to kick off the ground,” as Groh has said several times.
Weigand was recruited out of junior college in the middle of last summer and was redshirted in the fall. He has two years of eligibility remaining and has been projected as the Cavaliers’ punter for 2006.
Gould almost certainly will be the No. 1 place-kicker and kickoff specialist, the latter job vacated by Kurt Smith, although it was walk-on Noah Greenbaum whose 44-yarder as time expired lifted the White team past the Blue team, 10-7, in the Cavaliers’ spring game Saturday.
Gould had been wide right from 46 yards on the previous drive, not that Greenbaum’s game-winner is about to win the job for him.
However, it may be time for UVa fans to stand back and realize how fortunate they’ve been with Hughes and Smith over the past four seasons and wonder if kicking needs to be added to the list of concerns for this year.
IT WASN’T TILL this column was under way that Virginia had taken its sixth football commitment from a junior, Mark Ambrose, a 6-foot-6, 223-pound tight end from Mt. Carmel, Pa., located approximately one hour north of Harrisburg.
“I’m projected as a receiving tight end,” said Ambrose in a short telephone interview, “but, I can block, too. You need to be able to do both.”
Ambrose had offers from Virginia, Syracuse and Temple and thought Boston College was about to offer after an Eagles’ delegation was in his home earlier in the week.
Connecticut also had expressed interest and Ambrose had spoken with a West Virginia recruiter, “but West Virginia doesn’t really use a tight end,” Ambrose said.
If it seems that Virginia is loading up quickly, consider that the Cavaliers may take only 14 commitments. Part of the reason for that is the number of 2006 UVa signees who may need to spend a year in prep school.
Preliminary indications are that as many as six to eight members of the 24-member recruiting class announced by the Cavaliers in February will be going to prep schools.
Trenton (N.J.) linebacker Almondo Sewell already has said he will go to Hargrave Military Academy and Orange County coach John Kayajanian says that nose tackle Asa Chapman will need a year at prep school, most likely at Fork Union, before he matriculates at UVa.
Virginia assumed from the time that Winston-Salem (N.C.) Mount Tabor quarterback O.C. Wardlow committed in August that he would not enroll at UVa until 2007.
IT’S NO WONDER that one of the first offers received by Virginia quarterback recruit Peter Lalich was from Ohio University. Lalich’s father, Todd, and his grandfather, Peter, played basketball at Ohio University.
In 1945-46, Peter Lalich played professionally for the Youngstown (Ohio) Bears in a league that was considered a forerunner to the NBA. One of his teammates was Press Maravich, who later went on to coach at North Carolina State and LSU and is maybe best known as the father of “Pistol” Pete Maravich.
“Peter was named after Pete Maravich,” Todd Lalich said. “Pete Maravich died in January (1988) and Peter was born in May, later that year. Of course, my father was named Peter, too, so we covered all of the bases.”
Todd Lalich lettered at Ohio U. in 1971-72.
