Dear Old U.Va.

The 3rd Week in the Bottom 10 and

Thursday, September 24 2009 by MelbourneHoo

I am going to maintain that we should stay in the bottom 10 for a fourth week after the bye.  We did not do anything to get ourselves out of it.  With that said, I am going to put my thoughts out there on what the UVA coach should be.  I will not pretend to have a clue about what Littlepage will do and I have not done the research to know what the shortlist really should look like.

Things I want to see in a UVA football coach:

1. Zero tolerance for criminal activities.  No questions asked, you break the law, you sit.  If you do it again or if it is bad enough the first time, you are gone.  I will not tolerate having a program that bends the rules so that players can act like criminals. 

2. I believe that a program like ours will not challenge for the national title or even the ACC title every year.  I am sorry that is not the kind of program that we will ever have.  HOWEVER, I expect a legitimate go at least at the ACC title every 3-4 years.  Some schools have the ability to just “reload” with a minimum of three 4 star recruits at every position.  We do not have that luxury.  When we get hit by a player going pro early or a bad injury, it hurts.  With that said, there is no reason that at least one out of every 4 years, we can align the talent to the system and win.

3. That last sentence is a great introduction to my next point.  UVA has lacked a system on offense.  We had a west coast offense with a west coast team in Schaub.  That was the last time we had a real identity on offense.  Hagans excelled because of who he was.  Since then, we have not had an offensive identity nor have we had the players to match the meager attempts at a system.  Maybe Lalich was the guy for the “TT” spread, we will never know.  Even in our great run at 2007, our only true offensive identity was that we could win a close game.

4. VT is not just another game. VT is our rival.  We need to beat them at least once in a while.

5. Recruiting – We should never, ever, lose a recruit to Duke.  We should be poaching on occasion from Notre Dame, Penn State and the Carolinas.  We need to be considered an equal choice to VT for big game implications.  A game against William and Mary should be an opportunity for our walk-ons to play with their high school friends because our starters already put the game away.

6. Youthful energy- I love coaches getting fired up.  I love going for it on 4th down. I would call a blitz every down if I could.  I would only use the draw play on 1st down and third downs when you need more than 8 yards.  Does anyone remember Groh’s chest bump a couple years ago, given he had something to cheer about but still that was great.  Everyone criticizes Groh for making bold promises when he took the job, while I fault him for not delivering, I loved hearing it then.  Tell me lies, I will eat them up.  Talk to the fans and get them fired up. Sure, some are going to hate you but still do not alienate everyone.

Please add to these or disagree, if I have time to type it up I would also like to post things I don’t want in a coach.