Really, what else can you call this? So far this season, the Hoos have been blown out twice and struggled to beat a 1-AA team. Sure, there are excuses for this latest embarrassment: Verica’s first game, an injured Peerman, blah blah blah. But the offense didn’t score more than 3 non-garbage time points and the defense was torn up like a sign by a Scott Stadium usher.

Really, there’s no excuse for the complete dismantling at every level last night. A Virginia team should never be 40 points worse than a UConn team. Hell, the Huskies weren’t even 1-A til recently, so it’s not like the Hoos were facing some juggernaut. No offense to UConn, but we should at least be able to play a competitive road game against them any given year, rebuilding or not.

There’s a lot of talk already about firing Groh. I’m not going that far yet. But I’m also not able to not go anywhere near that sort of talk. The coaching staff needs to seriously rethink its approach in every way. They have to figure out their attrition issues with regard to academics and behavioral problems. They have to figure out the utter lack of depth on this team and the continual failure to have a succession plan for various units. They have to figure out why there seems to be a lack of any offensive identity in this program. They have to figure out why they haven’t been able to develop a quarterback since Matt Schaub (jury still pending on Lalich, of course). Unfortunately, these are all long term issues. And it’s certainly tough to consider giving Groh another 4-5 years to try and figure things out again. I just don’t see an easy solution either way if things progress to the team’s second losing season in three years (with a Chris Long fueled aberration in the middle).

But, let’s cross that bridge if needed. This season isn’t completely lost yet. And the other ACC teams could be weak enough even for the Hoos to some how salvage a winning season. A bye week and a game against Duke could give this team a chance to iron out its Blue Ridge size wrinkles. Let’s see how this plays out. But I think we’re all entitled to a big dose of pessimism after last night.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under The Good Ol Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.