New-look Cavs open season with Tribe

The waiting game is over.

After countless drills during the grind known as training camp with teammates lined up across the way, Virginia finally faces another foe on the grass-covered field tonight at 6 p.m. at Scott Stadium.

The Cavaliers (0-0) kick off the 2009 season against in-state foe William & Mary (0-0), which enters as a 19-point underdog.

“I am so ready to hit somebody else,” said Virginia linebacker Denzel Burrell. “It has been a long time coming. We are ready to throw on the pads and get going.”

While the contest does not have the national appeal of the season-opening contest from last year, which saw Virginia get drubbed 52-7 by top-ranked Southern Cal, facing the Tribe could present challenges.

“There’s a lot of mystique or a lot of fanfare with a team like USC, [more] than there is with William & Mary, but we have to prepare the same way,” said Virginia linebacker Aaron Clark. “Whether they have a Trojan symbol on their helmet or a Tribe symbol, you can’t worry about the grandeur that comes with a lot of teams.”

With Texas Christian, the nation’s 17th-ranked team, providing a tough test next week at Scott Stadium, Virginia should learn more about the product that will be on the field, which is often tough to determine in the preseason.

“You practice against yourself for 28 days, so you speculate that, ‘Oh, we dominated the offense today,’” Clark said. “Then they’ll come back and throw long touchdowns, so it’s all back and forth when it comes to practicing.

“You never know what you’ve got until the first game.”

Virginia will enter the program’s 120th campaign with a new look on offense. The Cavaliers replaced former offensive coordinator Mike Groh with former Bowling Green coach Gregg Brandon after finishing 105th in total offense last year.

With the move came an overhaul of Virginia’s playbook, leaving the team with a much-ballyhooed spread offense.

What it will look like remains to be seen.

“What we have always been interested in, one, offensively, is making the ball move,” coach Al Groh said. “Whatever system best fit the players that we had, that’s what we have always been interested in. So we are really not a run-oriented operation. We are not a pass-oriented operation. “We haven’t thought of being the pro-style or open offense. We just want to move the ball the best way we can with the players that we have. So when the ball moves, we are comfortable. And when it doesn’t, we are less comfortable. So we are very comfortable with what we are doing, and we chose it.”

Who operates the system today is also a mystery, and Al Groh hinted that more than one could see time. Vic Hall, considered the clear favorite, battled Jameel Sewell and Marc Verica, the 2007 starter and 2008 starter, respectively, in the preseason.

“We’re impressed with all three of them,” Al Groh said. “I think there’s a good chance that more than one of them will play in games this year, so it’s not that big of a deal.

“Players are comfortable with all three players at quarterback.“

There is no such drama at William & Mary. In fact, the Tribe, a program that went 7-4 last year and narrowly missed the FCS playoffs, comes a storybook subplot.

They will start quarterback R.J. Archer, a former standout at Albemarle High. A senior, Archer was a regular at UVa football games throughout his childhood.

“I am looking forward to it,” said Archer, who will be making his second career start at quarterback. “Watching so many games there growing up, it is going to be exciting to get back there and play.

“It should be great. Growing up, I obviously thought I was going to be playing at UVa, but the chance to get to come back and play against them, it is going to be really neat.”