Thursday, October 12, 2006
History lesson favors Cavaliers
Cavs have played only one true freshman
Doug Doughty
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With every Virginia loss, there have been growing comparisons to the Cavaliers’ 1986 football team, but I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing.
Like this one, the ’86 team had a six-game record of 2-4, en route to an overall mark of 3-8, UVa’s worst in the last 25 years.
Presumably, coach Al Groh would prefer to the Cavaliers’ 1988 team, which also went 2-4, only to win its last five games. But there are more similarities to the 1986 team and, besides, that losing season was followed by 13 straight winners.
The greatest similarity, in my mind, was that the 1986 season was George Welsh’s fifth and the 2006 season is Groh’s sixth. Latter-day fans tend to remember the Welsh era fondly, but, in 1986, people were voicing some of the same qualms about Welsh that they’re now voicing about Groh.
After a glorious 1984 season (8-2-2) that was capped by a Peach Bowl victory over Purdue in Virginia’s first-ever bowl, the Cavaliers fell to 6-5 in 1985 and, when the slide continued in ’86, nobody was viewing Virginia as a budding power.
Within four years, however, the Cavaliers were ranked No. 1 in the country.
That’s not saying that I expect Virginia to be ranked No. 1 again in 2010, but I could see the Cavaliers becoming a Top 25 team.
For one thing, Virginia has two promising young quarterbacks stacked up, current signalcaller Jameel Sewell and recruit Peter Lalich, providing he lives up to his commitment, which appears likely.
Sitting out the 1986 season as a redshirt was quarterback signee Shawn Moore, who went on to enjoy a career that was among the best in UVa history.
What should concern some people is that if another Shawn Moore came along today, he probably wouldn’t go to Virginia. If Tiki and Ronde Barber came along today, they probably wouldn’t go to Virginia. If Thomas Jones came along today, he probably wouldn’t go to Virginia.
Why? Because Danny Wilmer isn’t around to recruit them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Not retaining Wilmer as an assistant coach was the most ill-advised decision of Groh’s coaching tenure.
“It always comes back to Wilmer,” media gadfly Jeff White chides me.
Yes, it does.
Groh wasn’t alone. Then-new North Carolina coach John Bunting interviewed three coaches off the Welsh staff. He hired Andre Powell and Gary Tranquill, but passed on Wilmer.
Count Bunting not hiring Wilmer as one of the best things to happen to Virginia during the Virginia era.
There are 24 Virginia players on current NFL rosters. More than half of them were recruited by Wilmer, and he hasn’t been around since December 2000.
I’VE BEEN CRITICIZED before for always trotting out Wilmer. Some people have said Groh and Wilmer couldn’t have co-existed, but I don’t believe that.
At times during Welsh’s career, he didn’t want his coaches calling recruits during the week, for fear that it would disrupt their game preparation. Meanwhile, Wilmer was chomping at the bit.. Groh likes to recruit, which is a big difference.
Groh’s a good recruiter and he’s had some good recruiters on his staffs, most notably Al Golden and Mike London, although there have been others. I’m not saying that a Mike London couldn’t have recruited a Shawn Moore; I just believe that Virginia has lost the contacts and the continuity it had in southwest Virginia when Wilmer was mining this area.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Virginia struggled at roughly the same point in the Groh and Welsh eras. In deference to the self-described “old redhead,” Dick Bestwick, it should be noted that he, too, was a willing recruiter who left Welsh with All-ACC players like Jim Dombrowswki, Lester Lyles, Ron Mattes and Bob Olderman.
It was the Welsh staff that recruited the two quarterbacks (Matt Schaub and Marques Hagans) who led Virginia to four straight winning seasons under Groh, but Groh’s first staff recruited well, as did Welsh’s first staff.
Where I see a similarity is in the commitment that both Welsh and Groh made toward winning right away. Neither coach used widespread redshirting to build for the future and it showed in downturns in 1986 and 2006.
It is interesting that, through six games, 15 of Virginia’s 2006 signees have not played and remain eligible to take a redshirt. At no point in the Groh era have the Cavaliers played as few freshman.
IT WAS INTERESTING TO see former Virginia athletic director Terry Holland taking part in hall-of-fame ceremonies last week at East Carolina because UVa never had a hall of fame while he was athletic director (and still doesn’t).
Last week’s column made reference to that oversight and talked about the multitude of 1950’s-era UVa football players who are in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and some of the ones who aren’t, like Johnny Papit and Jim Bakhtiar.
“Jim Bakhtiar was the best linebacker I have seen play at UVa,” reader Bob Husted wrote.
If he was watching in 1958, he’s seen a few.
