Unlikely Cavs lead special teams

A pair of true freshmen who played a major role in Virginia’s win over North Carolina could have easily been standing on the sidelines at other schools if not for their respective gut feelings.

Spurning scholarship offers, placekicker Robert Randolph elected to jump at the chance to wear a UVa uniform and, hopefully, win a scholarship at some point in his career.

Having verbally committed to play at Northwestern, punter Jimmy Howell shifted gears when a spot was available and jumped at the chance to punt in the ACC from the opening snap.

Together, and in subtle fashion, the two helped lift Virginia past North Carolina, 16-13, in overtime on Saturday.

Randolph nailed his first career field goal in the third quarter and held his breath as a seeing-eye PAT was blocked and snuck over the crossbar to force the extra session.

Howell, used early and often, punted seven times, averaging 40 yards per kick. More importantly, the rookie landed three punts inside the 20-yard line.

“Given that it was clearly going to be a field position game and that [UNC] wanted to play that kinda game, when we could put them down there that was greatly to our advantage,” Groh said.

Howell, who has already punted 40 times this season, credited the players on his punting unit with making the plays that forced North Carolina to work with long fields.

“It was fantastic to see,” he said. “In some of the other games my punts have gone inside the 20, but they haven’t been inside the 5-yard line like they were against [UNC].

“The guys did a fantastic job. We missed one but you can’t get them all. It was great because it gives us good field position. Those guys did their job and I just tried to do mine.”

Howell knew early in the contest that it was a game that was likely to be dominated by the two defensive units.

“I sort of figured early in the game that might get a good bit of action, but hey, you have to go out there and do your best no matter how many kicks,” Howell said.

Howell said the success of the punters and the kickers, including Randolph, should be given to special teams coach Bob Diaco.

“He pushes all of us tremendously,” he added. “He does a good job motivating all of us with his pep talks and if we do bad, he lets us know it, but he’s not letting you know like he is going to beat us into the earth.

“He just makes us mad to where we want to work harder, pick ourselves up and do a better job next time.”

That was the case, in a way, for Randolph.

After seeing his first field goal sail through the uprights against UNC, Randolph’s second attempt was blocked by Bruce Carter, the ACC’s kick-block specialist.

“I was told I had to work faster after the ball is snapped when I got off the field,” Randolph said. “Then they came back and told me it wasn’t very good protection.

“I just tried to block that kick out and keep my confidence through the rest of the game.”

Randolph appeared headed for a redshirt season until Yannick Reyering injured the same knee that ended his campaign with the Virginia soccer team in 2007. After Reyering missed a field goal against East Carolina, Randolph was inserted to attempt a field goal that eventually evolved into a pass from Scott Deke to John Phillips on a fake.

He went on to tack on the extra-point following the game-sealing score, burning his ability to redshirt this season.

“I came in thinking I was going to get a legitimate shot and every day I just kept thinking that,” Randolph said.

With Reyering’s status unknown — he was not listed as out for Saturday’s game at Georgia Tech — Randolph knows he could be called upon again and will need to work faster and kick stronger.

For now, he is just happy to be a Cavalier, something that Howell echoed despite getting grilled occasionally by friends by passing up the chance to play at Northwestern, which is 6-1 right now and ranked No. 22 in the BCS.

It was worse when Northwestern won its first four games and Virginia was 1-3 overall. The Cavaliers are now 4-3 overall and 2-1 in the ACC, good enough to be tied for second place in the league’s Coastal Division.

“Somebody was joking around with me about that, but I still love it here at Virginia,” Howell said. “And here we are doing well now.”