The season’s third installment of Cavalier Call-in aired on Monday night as Mac MacDonald and Al Groh talked about Wyoming and Western Michigan. Coach Groh also took several calls from the listening audience – though no questions were posed about this week’s starting quarterback. That’s a good thing because a starter – either Christian Olsen or Kevin McCabe – isn’t expected to be named until later in the week.
Regardless of who plays quarterback, Groh is always happy to win.
“It’s a curious phenomenon. If you win 40-35, people think you played well. If you win 51-0, people think you played well. If you win 13-12, people don’t think you played well,” Groh said. “It’s a three-way game – offense, defense, special teams. We’ve been aiming for quite some time to have a defense that can win games by itself and the defense did that the other day. Special teams had a number of big plays. We had a relatively clean game, that is we had one turnover and four penalties. … The other team was in the red zone four times and got six points – that makes for a pretty good game [defensively].”
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Jon Copper was recognized as the BB&T Student-Athlete of the Week on the show. |
The show also honored a BB&T Student-Athlete of the Week. This week’s announced honoree Jon Copper.
“If we just go on numbers alone, in this particular case it’s an easy way to go,” Groh said. “With 10 tackles, two assists, three tackles for loss, one sack, and a terrific play on the goal line to be part of causing a fumble that really turned the game around, we selected Jon Copper.”
Here are some of the call-in highlights.
Katie in Staunton called in to ask about waiting so long the first two weeks to go with Kevin McCabe .
“What people have to take into account is that we go out there every day with these players. By the time spring practice, fall practice, training camp, and so on is done, we’ve probably had 100 practices with them,” Groh said. “There’s a lot of body of work with each player, whether its quarterback, guards, or a nose tackle, there’s a significant body of work that goes into those decisions relative to playing time. We stand by that body of work and what they’ve shown us. Not every player plays every play perfect no matter which position it is so if all you do is give players a quick hook, then you have a lot of chaos on your team and tremendous lack of confidence on your team.”
Cathy from Charlottesville called in and asked about Nate Collins , who she said was impressive during the Wyoming game.
“I was impressed too. Nate did a real good job in the game. We’re going to try to use him a little bit more this week and expand his role into a couple of other units,” Groh said. “He’s one of those kids that has a lot of purpose to him, he feels comfortable in new surroundings without much of an adjustment period. He’s a very mature kid. The really interesting thing about the impression that he’s made and the success he’s having here early is that he has limited [experience] in the things that he’s doing.”
“He went to a small prep school in Connecticut and the level of competition wasn’t the most stringent. He was the most dominant in terms of size and athletic ability and as a result he found himself playing many positions,” he added. “During the course of his career, he played defensive line, linebacker, wide receiver, quarterback, and running back. In fact, he played quite a bit of quarterback last year. … He flew under the radar a little bit, wasn’t hyped by all the different services but that’s because he didn’t go to a major school but he had major ability. If everything keeps going the way it is, he will be a big help to us this year.”
Rich in Charlottesville asked about the offensive line rotation and playing so many different guys throughout the game.
“Jordy Lipsey probably had one of the four or five outstanding training camps of anybody on the team. He really just came in and took this job and he played very well on Saturday. … He really has established himself at that position,” Groh said. “So Ian-Yates Cunningham went over and gave us a lift in terms of overall athletic ability at right guard. We have three tackles we’re working with so they’re really the only three in the rotation. We’re trying to play all of those players in a game … because they are all young players also. If we don’t do that, we’re already back to square one, that is back to where we were in the Pittsburgh game, which is with a whole bunch of inexperienced players. … We wouldn’t do it if we thought there was a significant difference between all the players, but there really isn’t.”
