WOODY COLUMN: Groh and his team may be saving each other

CHARLOTTESVILLE Just when it seemed fans of the Virginia Cavaliers could rationalize another disappointing football season with the thought that a new coach would be at the helm in 2010, this happens.

Just when it seemed U.Va. fans could let the soothing thoughts of the upcoming basketball season wash away another bad gridiron experience, here comes Al Groh, with his contract-renewal offense and hope-for-tomorrow game plans.

The Virginia football team should be done. The Cavaliers were embarrassed at home by William and Mary, handled at home by TCU and ran out of gas at Southern Mississippi.

The players should have packed it in. Instead of studying film, the coaches should have been updating their résumés.

But the Cavaliers are on a two-game winning streak. If they win at Maryland on Saturday, they will be 2-0 in the ACC and 3-3 overall.

The words "bowl eligible" will enter the Cavaliers' conversation. And the ACC has nine bowls to fill.

How do you fire a coach who takes his team to a bowl game after a 0-3 start? You don't, not at the cost of $3.4 million.

How has this happened?

"Players need to learn how to practice at this level," Groh said. "Every play of every practice is important. Players who practice on that basis and learn how to 'rev it up' tend to play that way in the game."

In the past 12 games the Cavaliers have played in October under Groh's guidance, they are 11-1. Groh could avoid a lot of grief, and the fans a lot of anguish, if his teams would play better in September.

The players have a role in this. Losing to William and Mary at home is a group effort. Team captain Aaron Clark did not shirk his responsibility. He vowed to do "whatever it takes and anything coach asks" to change the team's dynamic.

That included turning the pregame locker room from a library-like atmosphere -- it is Mr. Jefferson's University -- to more of a mosh pit.

"Everybody was anxious, but some of that anxiety was in a bad way," Clark said.

"It was a good change for us to get rowdy before a game and get everybody juiced up for the first play. That leads to how we're going to play for the rest of the game."

In the Cavaliers' locker room before the Indiana game, a 47-7 victory last week, things started with two or three players yelling and jumping around and ended with practically every player in uniform yelling and jumping around.

"It's was something to see and something I'll remember," Clark said.

The question facing the Cavaliers is whether this will be a season to remember.

The turnaround last year collapsed, and the team finished 5-7.

But Jameel Sewell was not the quarterback in 2008.

He's not just back this season, he appears to be back to his 2007 form, when he and Groh combined to lead Virginia to nine victories in 10 games, five of them by one or two points.

Can that happen again? Hard to say. The Cavaliers' schedule still includes Georgia Tech, Miami and Virginia Tech, all Top 20 teams.

But if Virginia makes a complete turnaround, Cavaliers fans might have to get used to this idea -- Al Groh will be around for a while.

Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or . Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/World_of_Woody