Dear Old U.Va.

2009 Football Previews: Boston College

Thursday, November 12 2009 by Tiki

Can it get any worse? I really thought losing to Duke would be the low point. I actually said to Tim, “even if we lose 100-0, I’ll just be like at least it wasn’t Duke.” The problem is, I was just as disappointed in our showing against Miami. It wasn’t the score, although obviously 52-17 is difficult to swallow. It was the effort, or lack thereof. The offense was horrible. The defense missed far too many tackles and assignments. The special teams breakdowns continued. What is left?

As has been discussed ad nauseum (I’ve always wanted to say that), Al Groh is done at the end of this year. I fully expect to find out on Sunday November 29^th that Groh has been let go. Who the new coach will be is obviously the big question among the fans. Still, team has 3 remaining games to focus on. Do they matter? No, not really. Still, wins are nice. A miracle finish would likely get the Hoos into a crappy bowl game. This would be the first step towards that. Plus, on an individual basis, the players want to show the new coach (whomever that might be) what they can do.

This game comes against ACC Atlantic contender Boston College. The Eagles are 6-3 overall, and 3-2 in the ACC. They sit one half game behind the Clemson Tigers, although realistically they are 1.5 behind Clemson because Clemson holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. BC needs a win to keep pace in the division, as well as providing them better bowl game options. They have yet to win a road game this season, so that’s a positive for the Hoos. Let’s take a look at the matchup.

Virginia on Offense

Does Virginia even have an offense? Sometimes, it seems that we don’t. I have actually heard people say that we might’ve been more competitive with Miami if we had left our offense in Charlottesville. Just play defense, and punt when we get the ball. Honestly, this method probably would’ve worked against William and Mary. We currently sport the 119^th ranked offense in the country. For those who don’t know, there are 120 teams in Division IA. Directly ahead of us in the rankings is 0-9 Eastern Michigan. Yes folks, we are worse than a winless team.

The rushing offense is ranked 109, while the passing offense is ranked 104. This is simply a bad offensive team. If somebody can explain to me how we put up over 500 yards of offense against Indiana, I would love to hear it. That was, clearly, the high point of the season for this offense. Since then, the offense’s yards per game has steadily declined, from 201 total yards against Maryland, to a paltry 149 yards against Miami. Three straight games with less than 200 yards of total offense. It is beginning to look like the team has stopped caring, which is disappointing.

The past two weeks, the playcalling has improved somewhat, at least from a balance standpoint. I would prefer to see us as more of a power rushing team, giving 20 carries per game to Rashawn Jackson. That seems to be the most successful weapon we’ve got. But, our offensive line is probably not good enough to be that predictable, and furthermore that does little to advance the team for the future. The past few weeks, we have gone away from the swing passes, screen passes and flair passes that were working so well in our wins. What we have seen instead is a lot of quick outs, and short underneath passes. We have also, sadly, seen a lot of incomplete passes. The past two weeks, UVA quarterbacks have combined to complete just 24 out of 67 pass attempts, a 34% completion rate. Once again, it appears as though the team has quit.

Boston College has a very solid, balanced defense. They are ranked #32 overall, along with #30 against the run, and #43 against the pass. Scoring defense is 27^th overall. In every way, this is a good defense, probably the best defense we’ve played this year aside from TCU.

The Eagles are a base 4-3 defense that plays safe. They don’t blitz much, preferring to pressure the QB from their front 4. Nobody on the team has more than 2 sacks, and they have just 12 as a team in 9 games. What they do is keep everything in front of them, and force a team to move down the field methodically in order to score. For a Virginia offense that struggles to move the ball, this is not a good matchup.

BC’s leading tackler is freshman LB Luke Kuechly, with more than double the total tackles of anybody else on the team. The next 4 on the list are all DBs, which shows that they are all good at coming up and making plays in the running game or underneath passing game. This would lead one to believe that they are susceptible to play-action, something that would be more beneficial to Virginia if we ever tried play-action.

The Eagles front 4 is a veteran group with 2 seniors and 2 juniors, but they are on the small side. Still, they are quick and very good in pursuit. Running up the middle should be the way to go, but again Virginia simply doesn’t do that. We run off tackle, which plays right into the strength of the BC defense.

BC will play a lot of cover-2 zone, keeping the receivers in front of them. It is because of this that I think that Virginia can move the ball against BC with the run. The question is if we will stick with the run if it struggles early on, or if we fall behind, which we probably will. If we give up on the run, the LBs and DBs will feast on the short underneath routes, and could probably end up with multiple interceptions.

For anybody who doesn’t know, last year’s ACC defensive player of the year, Mark Herzlich was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a very rare form of bone cancer, in his left leg. Herzlich was originally a commit to Virginia, before changing his mind and attending Boston College. Herzlich, right now, is cancer free after several rounds of chemotherapy. Fans and players around the ACC have joined together to raise money in Herzlich’s name for cancer research and rare disease awareness. For Virginia, this program is called “Hoos For Herzlich” and has a goal of raising $9,494, which will be presented to Mark prior to the game on Saturday.

Virginia on Defense

Does anybody remember when this was considered a pretty good defensive team? I do. Through 6 games, the Hoos were allowed just 293 yards per game, ranked 21^st in the nation. TCU had amassed 380 total yards, which was aided by an inept offense that held the ball for just 24 minutes. That 380 represented the maximum yards allowed by the Hoos defense through 6 weeks. Despite the offensive woes, the defense was able to keep us in games, and even win a few.

Since the Maryland game, however, the defense has failed. In the past 3 games, the defense has allowed 447, 424 and 515 total yards. Keep in mind that two of those games were at home, and one of them was against Duke. DUKE!!! Georgia Tech has the #16 offense in the country, so giving up 447 to them is, perhaps, excusable. But Duke is 65^th and Miami is 46^th and we allowed both teams to completely dominate us.

Perhaps the defense is tired, from spending roughly 35 minutes on the field every game. Perhaps they have just quit. That is certainly what it seems like. Missed tackles, missed assignments, and missed opportunities have plagued the defense over the past 3 weeks. On the bright side, sacks are up.

Boston College does not have a great offense, ranked 92^nd in total offense, including 62^nd in rushing and 91^st in passing. They are efficient though, as they are 45^th in scoring offense, with over 29 ppg.

Freshman QB Dave Shinskie has completed under 55% of his passes, which is not good. I wonder if he wants to transfer to Virginia, because 55% is pretty good for us (50.9% on the season). On the bright side (for BC), Shinskie has 11 TDs and 7 INTs, which again would be pretty good for us(6 TDs, 7 INTs).

The star of BC’s offense is sophomore RB Montel Harris. Harris has already improved on his tremendous freshman season, with over 900 yards rushing, 13 TDs and over 5 ypc. Once again, for comparison purposes, Rashawn Jackson has averaged 5.6 ypc but has barely 1/3 the carries of Harris. Nice job Brandon!

At WR, the Eagles start two seniors, but rotate 4 or 5 guys throughout the game. Rich Gunnell is the leading receiver, with 40 catches, but he is more of a possession guy. The big play WR is Colin Larmond, Jr., with 21 catches for almost 450 yards. Freshman TE Chris Pantale is 3^rd on the team with 15 catches.

The Hoos run defense has been good in the first half recently, but they have fallen off in the second half as they tired. Obviously, the Georgia Tech game skews things with their triple option offense. Still, Miami runs a more traditional offense and still gashed them for over 250 yards. If Boston College sees a similar advantage in time of possession, Montel Harris will have another big game. However, if the Hoos defense can actually get some rest on the sidelines, they may well be able to shut down a mediocre Eagles offense.

Conclusion

On paper, I feel like the Hoos have a chance at this game. I felt that way the past couple of weeks as well, and they fell short. Way short. I feel as though the team has given up, much like the fans. I saw maybe 30 thousand people at the Duke game, and I would be surprised if there were that many for this game. People simply have better things to do.

So far this season, I have attended 5 games, and watched 1 at MelbourneHoo’s house.  The other 3 games, I watched from my couch.  Anybody wanna guess which 3 games I watched from my couch?  You guessed it.  I watched UNC, Indiana and Maryland from right here on my couch.  I am planning on watching the game this week from this very spot.  Therefore, the Hoos are going to come out on top.  Yes, I am that superstitious, but only when it comes to sports.

Prediction: Hoos 24, Eagles 13