UVA football coach Mike London talks with reporters on the ACC media teleconference on Wednesday. The Cavs (1-2) host Boise State (2-1) on Friday.
COACH LONDON: We’re excited about having an opportunity to play again nationally against a very good football team here in Charlottesville Friday night. It’s a team that has a lot of exciting, exceptional players on it. Our guys are looking, again, for a chance to play at home. Hopefully it will be a very loud, raucous crowd on Saturday. With that being said, I’ll take any questions.
Q. Fourth quarter offense against William & Mary, what can you say about going back to the film and looking at it? What happened from the third quarter to the fourth quarter in your opinion of the offense?
COACH LONDON: Well, I mean, obviously field position is a big part of it. Came out in the third quarter and scored. We hadn’t done that the previous two games. Had a big punt return by Maurice Canady. We get a punt blocked. They get two points. We get a roughing-the-passer penalty which extends the drive, even though we stopped them on a fourth-down play. Fourth quarter not having the ball as much, we put ourselves in a huge hole in terms of field position, which allowed them to have some advantages in that standpoint. Every game we’ve looked to try to improve where it is, what we can do to make sure we’re a better football team. We’ve improved in a lot of areas, but obviously we have a long ways to go in some others. Our goal, again, the next contest, which is Friday night, is to be a complete team playing a complete four quarters. That’s always a goal. But we got to improve on some of those things to help give us some opportunities against a very, very good Boise State team coming in.
Q. Going into that game, bring us into the locker room of this last game. You finally got that win you said you were eager for in a tough non-conference schedule you have. Being in that locker room and how the guys responded, what the environment is like going forward now.
COACH LONDON: Yeah, you look across college football, it’s hard to win football games. But it’s important that you have positive experiences as well. As I said, the main focus was to get a victory. That was accomplished. It was to close, to finish. We didn’t finish against Notre Dame with 12 seconds left. We finished last week. We need to continue to keep finding ways to put us in positions that are going to allow us to finish games much stronger or with leads or not making it as close as the last two games have been. We’re all ruled by the psychology of results. When you have a win, it can catapult you to other opportunities. So we keep talking about the mindset of what we have to have. When you play, you can play against anybody. So we’re going to have to have that mindset, play with that mindset, execute with that type of mindset, as I said, with an excellent Boise State coming in here on Friday.
Q. I think you alluded to this the other day. Was there a time maybe when you were up 35-20 when you thought one more score, you could get another quarterback in the game? How concerned are you particularly with quarterbacks getting hurt all over college football that you don’t have a guy who has thrown in a game yet?
COACH LONDON: Well, not this season, you’re right. Yeah, you look at a point in the game where we were up, then the next thing you know, like I said, there’s a penalty that puts them in better field position. There’s a blocked kick, they get the ball back. You want to always have a chance to play as many players as you can to gain that game-playing experience. We would have liked to have put Connor (Brewer) in or any other quarterbacks that we have that we want to try to get reps for, but it didn’t present itself. So we’ll go into this game, the game planning, Matt Johns has a game plan, Connor Brewer has a game plan. There are other quarterbacks in case of emergency, they know some of the things we need to get done as well. Would we have liked to have played him? Yes, we would. It didn’t happen. Like I said, if there’s any opportunities present themselves, this game, this season, we definitely want to be able to do that. The bottom line is to win the football game, and that was the main objective.
Q. I’ll preface this question by telling you I understand that during the course of the season you have very little time to worry about the fortunes of a player on another team. I’m sure you’re either aware or were made aware of what Greyson Lambert did last weekend at Georgia. Your thoughts when you heard those numbers, what you thought of that.
COACH LONDON: Actually I didn’t hear the numbers. I heard he had a good game. I’m happy for him. I’m happy that Greyson is at a place where he feels he can make a contribution and do the things he needs to do. I’m happy for our guys. I’m happy for the guys that stayed here to be here at Virginia. I’m happy for Matt Johns, who he is, what he means to our team. Like I said, you always wish players well that leave your program, for the various reasons they may have. The things I can control, we can control, are the players that stay here, want to be here, become great student-athletes here. That’s what the focus has been, on our game, and getting ready for the Boise State coming up.
Q. He was 24 of 25 for 330 yards and two touchdowns last weekend. For the most part you’re very pleased with what you’ve seen from Matt Johns this season. When you hear about Greyson’s success down there, does it give you pause at all or have you had opportunity to think about why things didn’t work out for him there?
COACH LONDON: As I said, I’m happy for his success. My concern is about the guys that we have here, the reasons why they’re here, why they chose to be here, why they chose to stay. My concern is about Matt Johns playing the best that he can play. As I said, you wish all the players that have come and gone are doing things in their lives, you wish them all the success in the world. Why wouldn’t I want to? At the same time the most responsible outcomes for us are based on our players that are here. We’ll continue to keep working on the things that we need to do for Matt or Smoke Mizzell or Canaan Severin or whoever to have really good games, as well.
Q. Talk about this Boise State defense. What stands out about them?
COACH LONDON: One, they’re very active. They’ll play multiple fronts. Even front, four-man front, they’ll play an odd front, which is a three-man front. They have a really good rush defensive end. If you look at their safeties, they’re highly involved in the running game, stopping the run. They’re very physical tacklers. They get a lot of people around the ball. It’s indicative of a team that can run. Kind of who they play, their style of playing. Again, it’s a very accomplished defense. I know pre-season they had high hopes, just like everyone. Everyone has to go through injuries and next-guy-up mentality. They played really sound football. As I said, they’re a really good football team, particularly because their safeties are so much involved in stopping the run.
Q. Mike, I think one of the players said T.J. had a block on one of the touchdowns. How many plays was he in for roughly? How close is he to 100% this week?
COACH LONDON: Yeah, he was downfield blocking, as T.J. is. He’s a guy that’s going to give 100%. Happened to be a pretty good block on that long run there for Smoke. T.J., as I said, practiced Monday, practiced today. Looked really well. Looks healthy. Looks good. I mean, obviously you have to have play in the game, collision. Through padding, just like I said, our doctors, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, he’s really shown himself to be a guy that’s going to be ready to play. He will more or less start this game and hopefully he’ll be able to add to this team’s productivity.
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