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Don’t say hot seat: Mike London, UVA players sidestep talk

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london acc kickoffUVA wide receiver Canaan Severin started to tell a story about a fiery pregame speech from last season from Virginia coach Mike London that seemed, based on how Severin was selling the story, to be going in the direction of giving insight into how London addresses to his team the subject of being on the coaching hot seat.

But then Severin caught himself. It was a good speech, he said, and left it at that.

Virginia went out and won the game that came after the speech, against Miami, but then lost the season finale at Virginia Tech to finish 5-7, under .500 for the fourth time in five seasons under London.

Another losing season has London back in the familiar territory of being on the hot seat, and with the beat writers picking the Cavs to finish dead last in the Coastal Division in 2015, this could very well be the end of the London run in Charlottesville.

London sidestepped the details of the pregame Miami speech when asked about it at the 2015 ACC Football Kickoff earlier this week, along with sidestepping really any talk related to the obvious about the hot seat situation.

“Whether as players or coaches, all of us have to operate on the strengths that we have,” London told a gaggle of reporters at the Kickoff. “Sometimes you might get away from that, but when you do the things that you feel you and called and believe that you are, then you operate in those type of things.

“That was one of the messages, and will continue to be the message, that as we came out of the season, we went into spring and came out of spring, we need to operate on our strengths, don’t worry about what anybody else says. Just focus on what we are, who we are, and what we can do on this team.”

The 5-7 finish in 2014 did represent improvement over the disastrous 2-10 finish in 2013 that ended with a nine-game losing streak. UVA was competitive even in defeat, playing defending national champion Florida State into the fourth quarter on the road, and having fourth-quarter leads in losses to North Carolina and Virginia Tech.

The improvement earned London another year at the helm of the Virginia football program, but didn’t quiet the hot seat talk, at least among fans and sportswriters.

But in the locker room, anyway, talk of London’s future is “something that is out of our control,” senior defensive tackle David Dean said.

“We love Coach London. He brought all of us here, gave all of us the opportunity to play college football. So we go out there and go to battle for him, but at the end of the day, we can’t pay attention to that situation,” Dean said.

Wide receiver Canaan Severin said the focus among players is “trying to keep turning things around.”

“We have a fire in our belly,” Severin said. “We can’t control what we can’t control. Control the controllables, to be honest. That’s what we have to do. None of us are Craig Littlepage or Jon Oliver. We can’t control that. We just have to focus on what we have to do.”

“All we really focus on is making ourselves better and making our team better, and winning games,” Dean added. “We don’t let anything go to our head, and we don’t let anything go to our heart. We just go out there, and we try to do our jobs.”

It sounds like London’s message, that players and coaches need to spend their time focusing on the positive, has taken root.

“There’s a lot of negative that’s out there, a lot of narratives that are written and talked about, whether it’s scheduling or hot-seat issues, whatever it is. I talk about the positives, of the scheduling being an opportunity, not about the players that left, but the players that stayed, the players that are here, the players that are getting ready to play this season,” London said.

“Life is full of ups and downs and wins and losses and things like that. If you can focus on the job, the task at hand, talking to myself, talking to the team, talking to the coaches, then that’s all that matters. If you can focus on those things, it’s about results, for us on the field.”

– Story by Chris Graham

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