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Linebacker Henry Coley (44) has been suspended so Daquan Romero (13) will start in his spot this week. |
The Virginia football team had its bye last week, a time to reflect on many things: improvement, preparation and discipline. The latter was addressed with coach Mike London’s opening statement at Monday’s weekly press conference.
“Three players will be suspended for this game – Jeremiah Mathis , Henry Coley , and LoVante Battle – for violation of team rules,” London said.
Each player has been suspended indefinitely.
It’s never a good thing to speculate on what team rules violations are as that language can mean a number of things. But typically those types of suspensions are a result of disciplinary issues. On WINA’s Best Seat in the House with Jay James, a radio show partner of TheSabre.com, former UVa star defensive back Tyrone Lewis addressed this situation.
“We talked about this with Wake Forest and Jim Grobe and how he got out in front of what was going on in his program. I think Coach London is doing the same thing. He’s shown that he’s not afraid to sit players when they’re not following team rules or they’re doing something that’s not going to present the University in a positive way,” Lewis said. “A lot of these kids tend to forget they’re representing the University of Virginia. They get in their own little world. It’s easy to do. I did it as a student. You don’t think about everything around you. You kind of live in your own little world as a student athlete, but you don’t understand you’re on TV, you’re on the radio, and your name is printed in the newspapers. You’re more than a student every day. You have to represent the University properly and professionally. I think Coach London is going to do a good job protecting the University, and also protecting these kids. When I say protect the kids, you have to protect them from themselves. If you discipline one individual, it tells the other players on the team, ‘Hey, Coach London isn’t playing around. If I want to be on the field and play, I’ve got to do what’s necessary to make sure I maintain a good status so I can play.’ With what’s going on with the season, we don’t need these kinds of distractions right now. That’s another reason why I think [London] is getting out in front of this.”
Best Seat guest and former UVa skill athlete Ahmad Hawkins weighed in as well.
“Coach London has to help those players identify that, ‘I’m the head coach. I don’t care what our record is. I set a certain standard for the program. The record doesn’t dictate how we carry ourselves outside of Scott Stadium.’ Just because we’re losing doesn’t mean you can stay up late, skip class, skip treatments, skip weight room appointments – things of that nature. And that’s the first thing that creeps into a player’s routine when they’re losing. They start to get an ‘I don’t care’ attitude. But as a competitor, it doesn’t matter your record is,” Hawkins said. “You’re your own walking business as a player. You want to make sure you hold yourself to a certain standard. You always want to give your all. You want to sell out for your teammates. Adversity is what forms greatness. When you have adversity, do you shy away and defer? Or do you meet it head on. There’s a teaching tool for everything, and Coach London is holding those guys accountable. By no means is it easy, but it speaks volumes in his efforts to keep the program at a high standard.”
While it’s never a good thing when a coach has to suspend players, perhaps now is the best time for a ‘message’ to be sent. A losing season often can be an opportune time to witness the maturity and resolve of a young team and find out who will step up as leaders. What better way to instill discipline than to overcome a frustrating season? But suspensions certainly were not the teaching tool Coach London envisioned at this point of the season.
Bye Week Adjustments
The bye week gave Virginia an opportunity to prepare for an extra week for an opponent during a time where a win is imperative to keep players motivated and to build confidence. It also allowed for coaches to reflect on what they’re doing and how they can position the team to win games moving forward.
“We spent a considerable amount of time looking at what we do, lined up, motion to, motion away, down and distances,” London said. “I think those open weeks give you an opportunity to do that, to kind of self scout yourself and use critique from both sides of the ball, you know, our defense to our offense and vice versa. We don’t get a lot of opportunities to do that and go out and practice the fundamentals of what we do, what we need to do, and that was a large portion of spending those practice opportunities in getting better but also making sure that we correct a lot of things, whether it’s personnel, scheme wise, that we take a good look at what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and who’s doing it. Those are things that an open week allows you to do, and we try and take full advantage of that.”
Even before the bye with the Wake Forest game, Coach London and his staff began to make personnel changes and varied substitution patterns to try to give the team a lift. It seemingly has helped the defense, which played well against the Demon Deacons. Are more changes in store for this week?
“You may,” said London. “I mean, you may see [changes] in talking briefly about the suspensions, obviously you’re going to see players in the back-up roles and roles that they have to step up in terms of substituting or filling in for some of these players that I mentioned. You’ll notice that Eli Harold will start, the defensive end, and that was a change that was made. But there may be other players that may be in the two deep that will see considerable amount of time in trying to find out how these players can play and how they can perform. So we spent a lot of time, as I said, with the open week trying to find out what we do and who can do it. That’s one of the benefits you have of getting guys healed, getting guys evaluated again and then looking at what you do to put players in a position to help us win.
“We desperately want to win a game. We want to play and win a game,” London added. “That’s priority for us, and the who and the what and all those things are important for us to answer. But we’re going to try to put the people and places and things in place to help us win the game. This past week was primarily the focus on that.”
A Time to Heal
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The bye week also allowed some time for injured players to get healthy, particularly wide receiver Tim Smith . After injuring his ankle in the Louisiana Tech game, Smith re-emerged against Wake Forest with some big plays for the Hoos.
“I think specifically for Tim it was great timing for that to occur,” London said. “When you have those ankle sprains, those high ankle injuries, sometimes it takes a long time for a guy to get back from that, and particularly when you’re a runner and you’re a receiver and you have to run routes that you’ve got to cut and do things on, and I think that that’s been something that it’s healing for him and has gotten to a point where I think he’s maybe about as close as to 100 percent as can be, but you’re one route away from back in the same situation. But I think for Tim and for a lot of other guys, getting those nagging injuries that they’ve gotten back to where they feel that they’re ready to perform again.”
Testing UVa’s Young Secondary
One of the greatest challenges for Virginia this week will be defending veteran Wolfpack quarterback Mike Glennon. While it’s Game 9 of the season, the Cavaliers still have a young secondary that will see its share of tests on Saturday.
“Mike [Glennon] has been around a Dana Bible offense and Tom O’Brien offense for a while, and he’s demonstrated he’s got a great arm,” London said. “I think he’s thrown for about 3,000 yards, I believe over 31 touchdowns, and so he’s a guy that engineers a lot of scores like the scoring drive at the end of the game when they beat Florida State. So there’s a lot of things that he has going on for him being an experienced fifth year guy. As far as from a coverage standpoint, obviously we’re going to have to play really good coverage, and I think most of the teams that go and play NC State, the game plan is to try to get him off the spot.
“You hear about that on the TV games they play, not letting it be kind of be seven on seven where he jumps back and he can stay in the pocket and just throw the ball. That’s been the game plan for a lot of the teams that have played him. But he’s done a good job staying on the spot, he’s done a good job moving out of the pocket, and it’s evident when you watch him play, that experience of a fifth year guy in that system has done him well. He’s definitely a major concern for us.”
This Week’s Quarterback is …
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… Phillips Sims, of course. Barring an injury, a disciplinary issue, or some sort of dramatic change in level of play from Rocco and Sims, it is safe to assume that Sims is the quarterback through the remainder of the season. But it’s obvious the Alabama transfer has some work to do in order to become a winning quarterback at Virginia. London addressed areas of improvement for his young quarterback.
“You know, for a quarterback in the system that kind of relies on timing, obviously the timing of when the ball has to be thrown based on the breaks of the receiver is something that Phillip needs to continue to keep working on. I think that’s been part of the issue is knowing when to throw the ball. Sometimes a receiver is not going to be looking at you when the ball needs to be thrown, and sometimes you have to throw that ball in a spot or in an area that will lessen the rush on you,” London said. “And so those are some of the things that we continue to work on with him, his timing, because I think it’s important that it adds to less hits on him, less opportunities for teams to sack him and more opportunities for the passes to be completed, and then there goes the efficiency. The efficiency goes up. The issue is that these games count. They’re W’s and L’s, whether you get them or you don’t get them. So for him, getting there and accelerating that process of when to throw the ball is critical, critical to our success.”
Certainly, getting the ball out quickly and accurately is a key element against NC State. NCSU is tied with Maryland for No. 1 in the ACC in sacks with 24 and the defense ranks No. 2 in the ACC in interceptions with 10. In other words, the Wolfpack will make you pay for holding the ball or throwing it into coverage. The good news is that if the offense can protect the pocket and the quarterback can make well-timed, accurate throws, then State is vulnerable. The Pack D is last in the league in passing defense and 10th in passing efficiency defense.
Worth Noting
- This is Virginia’s first trip to Raleigh since 2007.
- Virginia has lost six straight games, matching the six-game streak that ended the 2009 season. A loss this week would make this UVa team the first to lose seven games in a row since the 1981 squad started its season off 0-7.
- NC State head coach Tom O’Brien was an assistant coach at Virginia from 1982-96.
- According to UVa’s media relations notes, the 1944 meeting between these two teams resulted in a 13-0 NC State win. The Wolfpack won despite failing to make a single first down and recording just 10 yards of total offense, an NCAA record for fewest yards gained by a winning team. How did NCSU pull it off? State recovered two UVa fumbles in the end zone for touchdowns.
- Virginia has just one interception so far this season. NC State could be a remedy for that issue, though. UVa has intercepted at least one pass in 24 of the last 27 meetings.
- The Cavaliers’ DaQuan Romero will start in place of Henry Coley at strong side linebacker this week. Demeitre Brim will be the back-up player in that spot.
