Thursday, December 07, 2006
Groh not ready to ‘anoint’ Sewell
Coach thinks Renner could play in 2007
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's UVa Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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Editor's note: Doug Doughty will be on vacation during the week Dec. 10-16. His UVa Insider column will resume Dec. 21.
In looking at the 2007 football season, it has become increasingly apparent that, as the quarterback goes, so goes Virginia.
Presumably, that quarterback will be Jameel Sewell, who will be a third-year sophomore, but Sewell’s performance over the past three games was just spotty enough to raise some question.
“Obviously, one of those games in there was brilliant, against top competition, as good a competition [Miami] as there is,” coach Al Groh said in a postseason news conference Nov. 28.
“I was talking to somebody who told me that he had been talking to Tom O’Brien, who said that Miami team had the best-looking defense he had seen all year. That was Tom’s perspective.
“In the two games that bracketed that game, the moving parts were just going too fast [at Florida State and Virginia Tech.]. Hopefully, that’s something that solidifies itself.”
The UVa defense should be good again, the offensive line should be experienced, wide receiver Kevin Ogletree will return from a 52-reception season and there is depth and talent at tight end.
Of course, tailback is an issue, but so is quarterback.
“I was listening to something driving in [to work] and they were talking about Rex Grossman,” said Groh of the Chicago Bears’ third-year quarterback. “I guess he’s had some of those games where things have just been moving too fast.
“Somwehere along the line, he was anointed. I would say, in this particular case [with Sewell], you might want to keep the anointing oils in the closet for a while.”
Groh let it be known that Sewell might have a restricted spring schedule after undergoing surgery to his left [throwing] wrist, which makes you wonder who will be getting repetitions in the spring.
One-game starter Kevin McCabe has another year of eligibility at his disposal, but McCabe couldn’t possibly have been happy with results of the 2006 season, when he threw a game-winning touchdown pass against Wyoming, started the next week against Western Michigan, then was benched for good at halftime of the Western Michigan game.
McCabe didn’t step on the field in the last 8 ½ games.
“I’m going to talk to Kevin [and] see what his plans are and talk to him about my plans,” Groh said. “I haven’t made a determination there yet.”
ASIDE FROM SEWELL, the only scholarship quarterbacks who are certain to be at spring practice are rising fourth-year junior Scott Deke, who has yet to play in a college game, and redshirt freshman Marc Verica.
(Of course, they could always take a look at the state’s all-time total-offense leader, ex-Gretna quarterback Vic Hall, but we don’t want to go there. Hall was a back-up cornerback and special-teams “gunner” this past season as a redshirt freshman).
If there is a challenge to Sewell, it most likely would come from Peter Lalich, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound quarterback recruit from West Springfield. You see true freshman quarterbacks play elsewhere in college football (Arkansas, Georgia and Florida this season), but it hasn’t happened at Virginia.
Heck, the Cavaliers had not previously used a redshirt freshman quarterback to the degree that they used Sewell this season.
Lalich was chosen for the Elite 11 camp held every year for the nation’s top prep quarterbacks “and I went out there and watched him out there next to Troy Smith, the [Jordan] Palmer kid from UTEP, the quarterback at Pitt [Tyler Palko], as well as 10 other quarterbacks from around the country,” West Springfield coach Bill Renner.
“I’ll tell you what now, and I bounced around the NFL for five years, if God keeps Peter Lalich healthy, he’s playing in the NFL. He’s that good. He’s as talented as anybody at any position in this state, [but] picking a quarterback is very specific to what you want to get done.
“If you want to throw the ball down the field and you want to have a pro-style passing game, Peter Lalich is as good as anybody in the country. If you want to run around and do the Michael Vick thing, then you pick [Hampton’s] Tyrod Taylor. I learned that from [Lalich] being recruited and people saying, ‘That’s not the offense we run.’ ”
So, could Lalich play for the Cavaliers next year?
“I don’t think this kid needs a redshirt year,” Renner said. “Forget the physical talent. OK? Let’s put aside the fact that he’s very skilled physically. He’s mentally more superior than he’s physically skilled. That’s a pretty big statement.
“In the last three games, he probably called 90 percent of his own plays. He understood the offense. He understood what we wanted to attack. He just has a photographic mind and that just impresses me more than any physical attribute. This kid, mentally, knows football. And, that’s why he can play as a freshman.”
IN RECRUITING, Fork Union Military Academy coach John Shuman said Virginia has indicated it will offer a scholarship to Anthony Castonzo, a 6-foot-6 ½, 255-pound offensive tackle and tight end from Lake Zurich, Ill. Shuman said Castonzo was a 4.4 student out of high school and had 36 out of a possible 36 on the ACT.
Castonzo was at Virginia on an unofficial tour Thursday with former Cave Spring quarterback Danny Aiken, who has attracted UVa’s interest as a deep snapper. Aiken also played tight end and defensive end at Fork Union and had a touchdown Tuesday in a scrimmage attended by dozens of scouts.
Shuman said that North Carolina has provided the papers that would enable linebacker Jarrell Miller to get a release from the national letter-of-intent he signed with the Tar Heels last year, but Miller, who has expressed an interest in UVa, is experiencing second thoughts.
