Groh being Groh: Former UVa. coach preps for pitched battle
Any advantage that there might be had related to the familiarity between the UVa. and Georgia Tech football coaching staffs should go to the ‘Hoos, former Virginia coach Al Groh is saying.
“I say that because one, I taught our defense what we are doing here to the head coach and to the secondary coach. They have all my playbooks and all my cutups. Those two coaches and the linebackers coach have sat through endless hours with me discussing defense, making game plans, and analyzing our performance. There is no dilemma or no secret analyzing how Al Groh thinks,” said Groh, now the defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, which hosts UVa. on Saturday in a key ACC matchup for both schools.
Read the rest of this column at VaSportsOnline.com.
Groh being Groh: Former UVa. coach preps for pitched battle
Any advantage that there might be had related to the familiarity between the UVa. and Georgia Tech football coaching staffs should go to the ‘Hoos, former Virginia coach Al Groh is saying.
“I say that because one, I taught our defense what we are doing here to the head coach and to the secondary coach. They have all my playbooks and all my cutups. Those two coaches and the linebackers coach have sat through endless hours with me discussing defense, making game plans, and analyzing our performance. There is no dilemma or no secret analyzing how Al Groh thinks,” said Groh, now the defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, which hosts UVa. on Saturday in a key ACC matchup for both schools. Read more
Press Conference: Al Groh
Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Al Groh talks with the media in advance of the team’s game with Virginia on Saturday.
On how Saturday’s game will be different
“Every Saturday night, there are only two ways you can feel in your competition. You can feel a sense of satisfaction from accomplishment you get because the result was in your favor, or you can have that haunting feeling of loss that everything you did all week brought you no satisfaction. So if you are in competition, or if you are a veteran of competition, then it really does not make a difference what color jersey the team you are coaching wears, all that counts is the result. That is what I work for every week. I try to work toward the satisfaction of our team accomplishing something, and avoid that haunting feeling that causes sleepless Saturday nights. This will be the same for me as it has been for 41 years.”
Read the rest of the story on VaSportsOnline.com.
Press Conference: Al Groh
Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Al Groh talks with the media in advance of the team’s game with Virginia on Saturday.
On how Saturday’s game will be different
“Every Saturday night, there are only two ways you can feel in your competition. You can feel a sense of satisfaction from accomplishment you get because the result was in your favor, or you can have that haunting feeling of loss that everything you did all week brought you no satisfaction. So if you are in competition, or if you are a veteran of competition, then it really does not make a difference what color jersey the team you are coaching wears, all that counts is the result. That is what I work for every week. I try to work toward the satisfaction of our team accomplishing something, and avoid that haunting feeling that causes sleepless Saturday nights. This will be the same for me as it has been for 41 years.” Read more
Will UVa. D be better in 4-3?
Depending on how you account for things, around half of the NFL uses a 3-4 defensive front – featuring three down linemen and four linebackers. The scheme is popular with pro coaches looking for ways to slow down West Coast offenses that rely on timing in the passing game and quick hitters on the ground. Teams employing the 3-4 need to have guys with size to play in the front seven, and especially on the line, where the three down linemen need to be able to take on blocks that free up linebackers and safeties to make plays behind them.
The problem with trying to use the 3-4 in college, as former Virginia coach Al Groh found out, comes in recruiting players to fit the scheme.
“I like the 3-4. I think it is a great defense, but it is a little harder to recruit to because of the size of the guys that you’ve got to get,” said Anthony Poindexter, a former All-America at safety and holdover from the Groh regime now on staff with new UVa. coach Mike London. Read more
Saying something nice about ol’ Al
The guy could prepare kids for the NFL, even if he had a hard time winning games
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Ambivalent about college athletics as I am, I’ve wondered over the years about whether or not we might not want to expect college coaches to think, you know, about things other than wins and losses. The thinking on that line being, well, college teams are attached, at least in name, to a college, i.e. a learning institution, so why not teach ‘em something, too, along the way?
Regular readers of my columns know how critical I was over the years of Al Groh and his failed tenure at his (and our) alma mater – how he couldn’t beat Tech, heck, couldn’t beat anybody consistently other than Duke, and even couldn’t do that at the end, that sort of thing.
Turns out he was taking care of business behind the scenes in one way that I would like to see more coaches emulate.
“I think a lot of people wonder, How does UVa. have so many players playing in the NFL when the team wasn’t doing well at the college level? I think one of the reasons is that Coach Groh ran an NFL system, so the transition and the learning curve for us wasn’t as steep as it was for some other college players,” four-year NFL veteran and 2006 UVa. alum Brad Butler told me recently.
Butler had just spoken to a group at a local high school about civic participation, a key interest of his dating back to his days on Grounds at the University. I admitted to him later that I hadn’t been following his NFL career as closely as I had some of our fellow alums. You can tend to forget the O linemen, especially when they play in obscurity in Buffalo, aka the team in the AFC East that never makes the playoffs. Read more
Butler: Life lessons, and some football
Former UVa. standout, NFL veteran talks politics, civic engagement at WHS
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Without football pads, wearing dress slacks and a light blue Oxford, no tie, Brad Butler could have passed for the high-school government teacher that he basically was for an hour at Waynesboro High School Thursday afternoon.
Which isn’t to say that the University of Virginia alum hadn’t been prepared by the NFL for the worst that the teens in the audience were capable of giving him.
“I play for the Buffalo Bills, and we have some pretty tough fans. I’ve heard just about everything in the book, so I’m not above being confrontational,” said Butler, a four-year NFL veteran in the fall and early winter, and a politico the rest of the year.
Butler’s visit to WHS was sponsored by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Butler, a 2006 UVa. graduate and four-year starter at right tackle, interned at the Center for Politics, and learned the way of famed UVa. political-science professor Larry Sabato well. The message he scrawled on a flip chart at the front of the room relayed Sabato’s “Politics Is A Good Thing” mantra, and Butler told his personal story to try to relate to the teens how an informed and involved populace can make for good politics, good government and a good country. Read more
Groh: You know where he’s gonna go
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Al Groh’s name is being connected to two defensive-coordinator jobs right now – the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, where he would reunite with long-time colleague Bill Parcells, and the ACC’s Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, where two-time ACC coach of the year Paul Johnson is looking to get a handle on his D after flaming out in the Orange Bowl last week.
You can guess where Groh is going to end up, can’t you?
“They’ve got that program winning in a hurry. As a fan or as an opposing coach, if winning impresses you, you have to be impressed with what Paul has done there,” Groh told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in acknowledging his interest in the Georgia Tech job. Read more
Focus | London: ‘I will make winning a priority’
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Mike London is back for a third stint on the sidelines at Scott Stadium, this time as the man in charge of righting the course of the wayward University of Virginia football ship.
“I will make winning a priority, but also by doing it the right way, and also by making sure that it’s OK to embrace the academic qualifications and expectations here at the University,” said London, who was formally introduced as the head football coach at UVa. at a press conference Monday afternoon. Read more
Focus | The next UVa. football coach
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Before we get to the next UVa. football coach topic, I have a commentary on a point raised in Daily Progress sports editor Jerry Ratcliffe’s column on the sacking of Al Groh.
Ratcliffe wrote that it was “bush league” for the athletics department to have informed the news media of Groh’s dismissal before he could talk to his assistant coaches, most of whom ended up being jettisoned with him.
Maybe I’m more tied into what’s actually going on than the rest of the media, but I was first informed of the pending Sunday early-afternoon news regarding Groh’s dismissal on Thursday. Read more
Groh not ‘retained,’ given $4.33M buyout
National search begins for new UVa. coach
Story by Chris Graham
Al Groh’s tenure as head football coach at the University of Virginia has come to an end, with an announcement from athletics director Craig Littlepage that Groh, 59-53 in nine seasons at his alma mater, would not be retained.
In a statement released by the UVa. sports information office this afternoon, it was reported that Littlepage had met with Groh earlier today to inform him of the decision.
The statement stopped short of saying that Groh had been fired, and did not indicate either that Groh had resigned. Read more
The World According To ChrisGraham.com: The team that revived Wahoo Nation
Posted by afp on June 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment
That’s counter to our nature as UVa. sports fans. We’re so used to losing the big game that the question isn’t whether we’re going to win or lose, it’s how are we going to blow it this time. O’Connor had everybody but the OU fans in attendance last night convinced that Game 3 of the Super Regional was going to be little more than a coronation that was going to end with a dogpile of orange and blue.
Link to column on TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
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