UVa struggles with halftime adjustments

As Georgia Tech’s field goal split the uprights at the end of the first half, Virginia’s players sluggishly jogged to the locker room at Scott Stadium.
At the same moment, a handful of coaches departed their perch in the press box, jumped on an elevator and headed for the same spot.
The groups would meet in mere minutes with Virginia trailing by seven points.
What would be in store? What corrections could be made? How could the errors that lead to numerous first downs be fixed?
Virginia (3-4, 2-1 ACC) seemed to fail in that respect as the Yellow Jackets outscored the Cavs 21-3 in the final two quarters en route to a 34-9 victory that essentially left Virginia searching for a bowl berth to salvage another season.
Having been outscored by 84 points the past three years in the second half, it leads one to think what truly goes on after the intermission.
“There are certainly some [adjustments] that there is the opportunity there to be made, but there is a lot … very frequently what happens at halftime is whatever adjustments were made during the course of the first half are just confirmed and more clearly defined for the players,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “Frequently those adjustments have to be made on the run, often during the course of the series when you don’t have a chance to talk to the players. But you change your play selection.
“That’s more the case on defense than it is offense. Okay, here’s something that just a lot of offenses do, is they’ll package their plays by series. Okay, in this in a lot of game plan will look literally like a box.
They’ll have boxes on the sheet; okay. Just like a package. And in box A ... okay, these are the players that are going to run during this series. And in box B, these are the plays they’re going to run during that series. And the intent of that is to stay one move ahead of the defensive team.”
As the head coach and the defensive coordinator of the team, Groh must maximize his time during a contest. That leads to quick adjustments on the fly.
“Once you see by a series on the sideline, what’s going on, sometimes you have to change the whole style of calls that you’re making on defense,” Groh said. “And then come off and tell the players why you did it, and the next time this happens, this is what we’re going to do.
“So, obviously, that takes some adaptability on the part period of the players to have that happen during the course of the series. And if not, then it occurs on the sidelines there.”
While avoiding from citing the current team as a proper example, Groh said some of the former teams picked things up well on the fly.
“We’ve had some teams that were particularly good at that,” he admitted. “I remember citing some examples with the team in ‘07 and there were two or three circumstances where we put some things in on the bench that we hadn’t put in yet that year that we had added in previous seasons.
“And that group [heard] ‘Look, fellas, this will take care of this situation for us. Can we do this? And can we do this? We can do this. Or I’m not comfortable with that. Or I’m not comfortable with that.’”
Groh said he demanded merely an “honest answer” from his players.
Virginia’s coach could be staring at his players again at halftime this week should Duke’s passing attack create problems in a game that the Cavaliers are favored to win by seven points.
“Coach Groh has always made great changes during games,” Virginia linebacker Denzel Burrell said. “He just knows the game and he knows the opponent. It is on us to execute what we are given.”