2007 Football Schedule Analysis Part IV: The Coaches
This is Part IV of an ongoing series of posts detailing my analysis of the 2007 UVA Football Schedule.
This article probably could have been more aptly named "Al Groh and Mike London" as they're the main coaches I wanted to talk about. But I'll try to give the other coaches a mention as well.
Al Groh
Is he on the hot seat? I don't know. Do I care? No, not right now. What I care about right now is what he's doing with this team in preparation for this season and the next few seasons. As far as I can tell, most of what he's doing is very positive.
The team managed to redshirt all but one player from last year's recruiting class and appears poised to do the same with this most recent class. That alone gives a lot of promise to this year's team as well as, at least, the next two years.
Groh was not completely to blame for all of the problems the team had last year. But as the captain of the ship, he must deal with taking the blame for most of it.
Hot seat or not, he needs a winning season and a bowl game, at least, to keep even the most forgiving fans involved in the program. Personally I think he'll be fine. But the performance on the field will dictate that.
Mike London
Mike London was probably the most important addition Groh made to the team last year. London is consistently mentioned by recruits as being one of the reasons they are staying involved with the Virginia program. He brings excitement to the program. And, it appears, he's a very good defensive coach.
Every few weeks someone mentions London as a possible successor to Groh down the road. No one has any idea where London will be when Groh is no longer our coach. And no one knows what London wants to do. But its nice to know we've got such a solid coach and great recruiting in the fold no matter what.
Mike Groh
Speaking of hot seats... When Al named his son as the offensive coordinator, there was a bit of an outcry. That's rather expected, I'd say. Everyone was already clamoring for daddy Bowden to can son Jeff, so it seemed like a tricky choice to name Mike to that high of a position.
In 2006, it was hard to tell how good of a job Mike was doing. The offensive line couldn't give the quarterback or running backs enough time to actually get anything done.
The one positive thing I can say is that at least we didn't run the stretch play as many times in a single game as we did against UNC in 2005...
This year the offense should be cohesive enough for us to get an idea about the play calling and the job Mike is doing. To be honest, I don't know what to expect...
Dave Borbely
Borbely is a coach I don't know too much about and honestly haven't heard enough about since his hiring. Ironically, he may have been the most important coach over the last six months and may be the most important coach over the next six months.
Why? He's the offensive line coach. They're the unit where most of our problems started last year, and they're the unit that has the potential to show the most improvement this year. If he's done a good job preparing the line for the season, I have confidence that we'll be a solid team this year. If that unit falls short again... we may be in for another tough season.
Up Next: The season opener, September 1st, @ Wyoming.