Big test could lead to big-time reward

During my 30-plus years of covering college football, one of my favorites was 1995, when Virginia took on all comers in one of the most exciting seasons on record.

The Cavaliers faced Michigan at the Big House, Texas in Austin, No. 2 Florida State in an unforgettable upset win, a good Virginia Tech team and a Hines Ward-led bunch of Bulldogs from Georgia in the Peach Bowl. George Welsh’s team actually lost three of those games, two of them in the final seconds, and won two of them in the final seconds, which made great theater.

Point is, football is a lot more fun when teams are competing against the best and that’s what this Saturday is all about. Southern California, the best college football program in the country this decade, comes to town for a 3:30 p.m. showdown with Al Groh’s Wahoos.

Nothing to lose

Doesn’t matter that your beloved Cavaliers are 19-point underdogs to the men of Troy. While Groh’s squad considers the date a great opportunity to shock the world of college pigskins and as a barometer to where UVa’s program stands against the best, even if Virginia loses by 19, the game could have a significant positive impact on the Cavs’ season.

Nearly every Virginia player we talked to on Tuesday mentioned that they stepped up their routines back during the offseason winter program because USC was on their radar. One day in early July, we walked in on Groh in his office to find him working on Southern California. He was supposed to be on vacation.

Training camp was the toughest any of the current Wahoos could remember. Groh knew this team had to get ready.

“When you play the best it brings out the best in you,” Groh said. “Whatever it brings out of us, I think it will bring more out of our team and serve us better than if we had played Alaska State or somebody like that.”

A good barometer

Coming off a 9-4 Gator Bowl season and facing a tough slate of games with a roster diminished by offseason academic and other off-the-field problems, perhaps this is exactly the challenge Virginia needed to prepare itself for what lies ahead.

Some of Welsh’s best teams during his 19-year Hall of Fame run at the UVa helm began with a severe test: No. 3 Clemson in 1984; No. 20 Georgia on the road in ’87; No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 12 Penn State back-to-back on the road in ’89; No. 3 Florida State in ’94, No. 14 Michigan in ’95; No. 17 Auburn in ’97; No. 25 Auburn in ’98; and unranked but dangerous BYU in 2000.

All risks that Welsh was willing to take to make his team better, to raise the profile of his program, to help attract recruits.

USC’s Pete Carroll gets it. While his program is on another level, the same theory applies.

“We’ve opened up on the road against Auburn, Virginia Tech and Arkansas over the years,” said Carroll, who owns the highest winning percentage of any active major-college coach. “Those games have always been difficult challenges for us and really good ones to take on to start the season.

“The focus is there,” Carroll explained. “The need to prepare for the opener is obvious. [Virginia] is one of those opportunities for us. The thought about it is, that when you successfully go through one of those games and get a win, you’ve accomplished a great deal. It means a lot to us: we know how to go on the road; we know how to play difficult opponents; we know how to play in front of big crowds. All of those are feathers in your cap that you get as you head into the season that adds to your confidence. It has meant a lot to us over the years.”

The USC coach said that he could sense a change last year when his Trojans opened up at home against Idaho and the preparation wasn’t the same.

“It didn’t have the same kind of magnitude for us,” Carroll said.

Groh certainly isn’t experiencing that kind of problem with the Trojans coming to town.

Asked if convincing USC to come all the way across the country to play in Charlottesville is a statement that Virginia’s program is doing something right, Groh pondered the question for a second before chuckling with is response.

“Probably says we’re not doing too much right,” the coach laughed.

The whole idea of getting USC as a home-and-home foe (UVa returns the game to L.A. in 2010) came during a brainstorming session between Groh and associate AD Jon Oliver. They wanted to do something “outlandish.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be an age range on the term middle-aged crazy?” Groh deadpanned. “Probably if you see me buy a fleet of Corvettes you’ll realize that I really have flipped with this.”

More seriously, Groh explained his philosophy.

“We like to have some challenging games on an ongoing basis, whether that means every year or not. It’s good for our team. It brings out the best in your team. Competition is not always about scheduling to win. It’s about putting yourself out there a little bit and see what you can do with it.

“I think our team has benefited from the preparation that its taken to get ready for a game like this,” Groh said. “I think the type of players we’re going to play against will be worthwhile for us. I think that as a coach I have benefited from the challenges of getting ready for a team like this. I’ve learned some new things in having to deal with this team and dealing with some schemes that I haven’t had to deal with before.”

The Cavs have a future home-and-home scheduled with Penn State and are looking for more.

Why not? It’s nonconference and gets a team’s attention for its upcoming conference schedule. Both UVa and USC wanted the game early.

Groh said that because the Trojans’ offensive and defensive schemes are so sophisticated and intricate that he can’t imagine having only three days to prepare as he would for a game scheduled in the middle of the season.

Even so, Groh is bracing for what’s coming, the most dominant team in the sport over the past six years. He compared the Trojans to Bobby Bowden’s similarly intimidating, dominant Florida State teams of the 1990s.

Asked if USC is the best team to come to Scott Stadium during the Groh regime, the coach paused and thought about Virginia Tech, FSU, Miami, Penn State, then answered.

“With all due respect to teams that have preceded [USC], yes,” Groh said.

And, have there been nights when he sat in his office after poring over tapes of Southern California’s team when the coach asked himself, ‘What was I thinking?’ Groh’s answer was honest and predictable.

“I’ve had a few of those moments, yes,” he said, unable to keep from chuckling again.

Win or lose, Saturday should be fun and should help the Cavaliers in the long run. So far, we haven’t seen Groh piloting a Corvette. If we do, we’ll let you know.