More reaction to UVa's win over FSU; a look at the statistical matchup between UVa and Virginia Tech; Thanksgiving Day football picks
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Virginia 14, Florida State 13
Several weeks ago, I was looking at some old columns that I wrote while writing for the Cavalier Daily. One of them was called, "So you think there's a chance," a tribute to the famous "Dumb & Dumber" quote. The column was about the chances that UVa would still make a bowl in the 2009 season after starting the year 0-3. At the time I was rereading this a few weeks ago, in late September I believe, I found myself wondering the same thing about this year's team. Could it make a bowl game? I thought it unlikely after losing to Southern Miss 30-24 on Sept. 24, more unlikely than at the beginning of the season, when I predicted a 5-7 record. Well, now it is Nov. 24, and Virginia is two days away from clashing with arch rival Virginia Tech, not just to go to a bowl game, but for the ACC Coastal Division crown and a chance to face Clemson in the ACC Championship game. Since that loss to Southern Miss, the team is 6-1, with only one bad loss to N.C. State Oct. 22, which is looking more and more like an abberation.
This team could have laid down after losing to Southern Miss, or after needing overtime to beat Idaho, or after losing to N.C. State. The Cavaliers could have said, "Hey, we've helped the program get a little better this year on the field and we are doing good things in the classroom and in the community, but we just can't compete with the likes of Georgia Tech, Miami, and Florida State in the ACC." Now, the team has beaten all those teams and has only one more hurdle to get over -- Virginia Tech.
The play cornerback Chase Minnifield made last week to save that touchdown and prevent FSU from going up 17-7 typifies the effort the team has given this season. Upon first impression, a tackle at the 1-yard line isn't a big deal. The Seminoles were just going to punch it in from there, right? Well, that didn't end up happening and that play was magnified x1000 at the end of the game. It was an absolutely huge play, as was the sack by Steve Greer and Minnfield on FSU's second-to-last possession, which knocked the 'Noles out of field goal range. They had to punt and that was when QB Michael Rocco and the Cavaliers marched down the field for the go-ahead drive.
Rocco was the man on that drive as he showed great poise in the pocket and picked apart the 'Noles defense which had basically not allowed Virginia to even get close enough to try a field goal after scoring its first TD. First was the crossing pattern to Perry Jones for nine yards. That got the momentum rolling. And that deep ball to Tim Smith down to the FSU 35 was a thing of beauty. Smith was pretty open, but still, I didn't think Rocco had a huge window there and he laid it in there perfectly -- right where he needed to. And his catch was pretty good, too, because he had to contort his body to get in a good position to make the catch.
Then Rocco his Jones down at the 10. All "Superman" Perry Jones has done all year is make huge play after huge play and that was yet another. Then running back Kevin Parks easily made into the end zone on a 10-yard TD run.
And just like that, Virginia is up. And it was too fast, to be honest. FSU had over a minute to get into field goal range. If you watch the highlight video on virginiasports.com, you can see coach Mike London hang his head just a bit when Parks scores because he knows the Seminoles were left a lot of time to score.
But the defense held strong and UVa withstood some craziness at the end of the game to somehow win it. In my previous post about this game, I was discussing the facemask call on Cam Johnson and the incomplete pass call as if I agreed with the calls but then said they were "incorrect." That was a typo. Even though I didn't necessarily like the way the game was officiated, I absolutely agreed with those two calls. Now, the barking signals call, I don't know. Like I said, if it happened, that was wrong and we should've been penalized. There are conspiracy theories out there saying that it was called to get FSU a better chance at a field goal because an FSU win would've knocked UVa out of the ACC title hunt and ensured that Virginia Tech and 40K Hokies would be making the trip down to Charlotte, which would be great for the conference. I don't know about all that but I do know that one way UVa can make sure it doesn't have to blame the refs Saturday is by soundly beating the Hokies. An easy win would leave questions about officiating out of the mix.
Another thing about the end of the game is I said the Hoos thought that they had won the game twice. Well, actually, as my friend Dan Stalcup pointed out to me, it was kind of three times. The barking signals call was originally thought to be offsides on Florida State. In that case, there would have been a 10-second run off, and the game clock was at :08, so that would have been the end of the game. In fact, when you see the replay, you can hear someone saying yelling "Offsides!" and it sounds like London.
There are a ton of things that can be pointed at as reasons for UVa's turnaround. I think a major one, though, is London putting a stop to the silly QB carousel of Rocco and true freshman David Watford. It might be weird to think that the offense could be affected that much by it, but it has certainly played better with just Rocco under center. If you throw out the 40-point game against William & Mary, the UVa offense scored just a tad over 21 points per game with the two-quarterback system, not counting the overtime touchdown against Idaho. Starting with the one-quarterback system against Miami, the offense has scored 26 points per game, and that is arguably against tougher opponents and factoring in the 14-point game at FSU, which was the lowest output of the season. So to say it didn't matter is impossible if you ask me.
Rocco seemed to gain a lot of confidence since and really took a leadership role once he was given complete control of the offense. And his number of interceptions went down -- way down. I think he had seven or eight in the two-quarterback system but he has had just one or two since then. His touchdown number has gone from two early in the season to 11 now. His development and poise in the pocket has been remarkable and we are going to need him to put it all together and play his best game of the year Saturday to defeat Virginia Tech.
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Let's breakdown the head-to-head stats matchup as we look ahead to Saturday's big game (with national ranking in parentheses).
Virginia offense vs. Tech defense
Rushing - 177.64 (40) vs. 104.91 (13)
Passing - 233.36 (60) vs. 202.64 (35)
Total - 411 (42) vs. 307.55 (12)
Scoring - 25.27 (76) vs. 16.91 (10)
Tech offense vs. Virginia defense
Rushing - 201.27 (26) 123.36 (28)
Passing - 222.82 (71) vs. 213.73 (50)
Total - 424.09 (37) vs. 337.09 (25)
Scoring - 29.36 (51) vs. 20.82 (28)
Turnover margin
Tech - +.45 (27), Virginia - -.09 (63)
Time of possession
Tech (6), Virginia (29)
Coming later in the week: Players to watch
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PICKS
I went a miserable 1-4 last week in college picks (I didn't do NFL picks), including a loss since I picked FSU 31-21 over Virginia. I am now 114-53 on the year. Here are my picks for tomorrow:
No. 25 Texas at Texas A&M, 8 p.m. ESPN - Texas A&M 31-27
Lions at Packers, 12:30 p.m. FOX - Lions 34-31
Dolphins at Cowboys, 4:15 p.m. CBS - Cowboys 24-14
49ers at Ravens, 8:20 p.m. NFL Network - Ravens 23-21
Virginia 14, Florida State 13
Several weeks ago, I was looking at some old columns that I wrote while writing for the Cavalier Daily. One of them was called, "So you think there's a chance," a tribute to the famous "Dumb & Dumber" quote. The column was about the chances that UVa would still make a bowl in the 2009 season after starting the year 0-3. At the time I was rereading this a few weeks ago, in late September I believe, I found myself wondering the same thing about this year's team. Could it make a bowl game? I thought it unlikely after losing to Southern Miss 30-24 on Sept. 24, more unlikely than at the beginning of the season, when I predicted a 5-7 record. Well, now it is Nov. 24, and Virginia is two days away from clashing with arch rival Virginia Tech, not just to go to a bowl game, but for the ACC Coastal Division crown and a chance to face Clemson in the ACC Championship game. Since that loss to Southern Miss, the team is 6-1, with only one bad loss to N.C. State Oct. 22, which is looking more and more like an abberation.
This team could have laid down after losing to Southern Miss, or after needing overtime to beat Idaho, or after losing to N.C. State. The Cavaliers could have said, "Hey, we've helped the program get a little better this year on the field and we are doing good things in the classroom and in the community, but we just can't compete with the likes of Georgia Tech, Miami, and Florida State in the ACC." Now, the team has beaten all those teams and has only one more hurdle to get over -- Virginia Tech.
The play cornerback Chase Minnifield made last week to save that touchdown and prevent FSU from going up 17-7 typifies the effort the team has given this season. Upon first impression, a tackle at the 1-yard line isn't a big deal. The Seminoles were just going to punch it in from there, right? Well, that didn't end up happening and that play was magnified x1000 at the end of the game. It was an absolutely huge play, as was the sack by Steve Greer and Minnfield on FSU's second-to-last possession, which knocked the 'Noles out of field goal range. They had to punt and that was when QB Michael Rocco and the Cavaliers marched down the field for the go-ahead drive.
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| UVa QB Michael Rocco virginiasports.com |
Then Rocco his Jones down at the 10. All "Superman" Perry Jones has done all year is make huge play after huge play and that was yet another. Then running back Kevin Parks easily made into the end zone on a 10-yard TD run.
And just like that, Virginia is up. And it was too fast, to be honest. FSU had over a minute to get into field goal range. If you watch the highlight video on virginiasports.com, you can see coach Mike London hang his head just a bit when Parks scores because he knows the Seminoles were left a lot of time to score.
But the defense held strong and UVa withstood some craziness at the end of the game to somehow win it. In my previous post about this game, I was discussing the facemask call on Cam Johnson and the incomplete pass call as if I agreed with the calls but then said they were "incorrect." That was a typo. Even though I didn't necessarily like the way the game was officiated, I absolutely agreed with those two calls. Now, the barking signals call, I don't know. Like I said, if it happened, that was wrong and we should've been penalized. There are conspiracy theories out there saying that it was called to get FSU a better chance at a field goal because an FSU win would've knocked UVa out of the ACC title hunt and ensured that Virginia Tech and 40K Hokies would be making the trip down to Charlotte, which would be great for the conference. I don't know about all that but I do know that one way UVa can make sure it doesn't have to blame the refs Saturday is by soundly beating the Hokies. An easy win would leave questions about officiating out of the mix.
Another thing about the end of the game is I said the Hoos thought that they had won the game twice. Well, actually, as my friend Dan Stalcup pointed out to me, it was kind of three times. The barking signals call was originally thought to be offsides on Florida State. In that case, there would have been a 10-second run off, and the game clock was at :08, so that would have been the end of the game. In fact, when you see the replay, you can hear someone saying yelling "Offsides!" and it sounds like London.
There are a ton of things that can be pointed at as reasons for UVa's turnaround. I think a major one, though, is London putting a stop to the silly QB carousel of Rocco and true freshman David Watford. It might be weird to think that the offense could be affected that much by it, but it has certainly played better with just Rocco under center. If you throw out the 40-point game against William & Mary, the UVa offense scored just a tad over 21 points per game with the two-quarterback system, not counting the overtime touchdown against Idaho. Starting with the one-quarterback system against Miami, the offense has scored 26 points per game, and that is arguably against tougher opponents and factoring in the 14-point game at FSU, which was the lowest output of the season. So to say it didn't matter is impossible if you ask me.
Rocco seemed to gain a lot of confidence since and really took a leadership role once he was given complete control of the offense. And his number of interceptions went down -- way down. I think he had seven or eight in the two-quarterback system but he has had just one or two since then. His touchdown number has gone from two early in the season to 11 now. His development and poise in the pocket has been remarkable and we are going to need him to put it all together and play his best game of the year Saturday to defeat Virginia Tech.
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Virginia offense vs. Tech defense
Rushing - 177.64 (40) vs. 104.91 (13)
Passing - 233.36 (60) vs. 202.64 (35)
Total - 411 (42) vs. 307.55 (12)
Scoring - 25.27 (76) vs. 16.91 (10)Tech offense vs. Virginia defense
Rushing - 201.27 (26) 123.36 (28)
Passing - 222.82 (71) vs. 213.73 (50)
Total - 424.09 (37) vs. 337.09 (25)
Scoring - 29.36 (51) vs. 20.82 (28)
Turnover margin
Tech - +.45 (27), Virginia - -.09 (63)
Time of possession
Tech (6), Virginia (29)
Coming later in the week: Players to watch
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PICKS
I went a miserable 1-4 last week in college picks (I didn't do NFL picks), including a loss since I picked FSU 31-21 over Virginia. I am now 114-53 on the year. Here are my picks for tomorrow:
No. 25 Texas at Texas A&M, 8 p.m. ESPN - Texas A&M 31-27
Lions at Packers, 12:30 p.m. FOX - Lions 34-31
Dolphins at Cowboys, 4:15 p.m. CBS - Cowboys 24-14
49ers at Ravens, 8:20 p.m. NFL Network - Ravens 23-21
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