Groh’s staff comes together

About a month from spring football practice, Virginia fans should be feeling pretty good about what has transpired with their coaching staff since December.
From this viewpoint, it appears that coach Al Groh has assembled the best staff, top to bottom, he’s had during his eight years at the helm of the Cavaliers.
The staff will feature two former head coaches in offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon (Bowling Green) and special teams coordinator Ron Prince (Kansas State). Completing the staff, though not yet announced, is veteran defensive coach Bob Trott, who has served as a coordinator for five different college programs.
Shifting around
Groh, of course, will be UVa’s official defensive coordinator, a job he has held in an unofficial capacity since the Music City Bowl in 2005.
Former Wahoo grad assistant Chad Wilt will coach the defensive line after getting seasoned as part of a strong Liberty program. Latrell Scott, who coached Tennessee’s wide receivers last season, will fill the same role for Virginia and is a strong recruiting bonus as well.
Add those coaches to Anthony Poindexter — wisely moved from running backs coach to the UVa secondary — along with Dave Borbely on the offensive line, Wayne Lineburg at running backs, and Bob Price at tight ends/recruiting coordinator, and that’s a solid staff anywhere you go.
Just look at the defense. Wilt will add youth and passion to the line, while no one is as passionate as Poindexter in the secondary. He’s unquestionably the fire of the entire staff.
The addition of Trott
Then you’ve got Trott coaching the linebackers and Groh as the coordinator.
Trott, 54, comes to UVa from the Cleveland Browns where he has coached the past four seasons on Romeo Crennel’s staff. Trott, who played at Carolina under Bill Dooley when Groh was an assistant, has 34 years of experience.
While he coached in the NFL for nine years for the Browns, Giants, and Patriots, the guy has been around and is very familiar with the 3-4 defense.
When he was defensive coordinator for Ken Hatfield’s Arkansas team, the Razorbacks won the Southwest Conference title in 1988 and 1989. When he was defensive coordinator at Clemson in 1990, the Tigers led the NCAA in total defense.
Trott also was DC at Baylor, Duke, and Louisiana-Monroe and has coached in 11 bowl games.
And who knows defense better than Groh?
That’s mostly what he has coached his entire career and when most of his defensive staff left for other jobs prior to the ‘05 Music City Bowl game against Minnesota, Groh took over coaching the entire defense.
During that month and afterward, he had players coming up to him expressing that they hoped he would continue to coach them — that they had learned things under his tutelage that month that they never knew.
As a result, when he lured Mike London back from the NFL as defensive coordinator, Groh gave London the day-to-day assignment of running the defense. However, it was Groh that called the defensive plays and chose the strategy.
Ditto for last year, when London took the Richmond head coaching job and Groh lured veteran Bob Pruett out of retirement.
“It wouldn’t have been fair for Bob to have all that responsibility with a system he was unfamiliar with,” Groh said. “We had a great working relationship.”
Now, there’s no one else with the title. It’s Groh’s baby all the way and if he’s willing to burn the midnight oil, Virginia should be better because of his input.
Meanwhile, the defensive staff is already working hard to get on the same page.
While some have questioned if Poindexter is ready to handle the secondary for the first time all by his lonesome, Groh has no reservations. He pointed out that he has been joining Dex and Wilt on a daily basis in reviewing last year’s defensive film and getting on the same page. No doubt Trott will be in those meetings soon.
Offensively, Brandon has pumped so much energy into the program it’s ready to explode. Wide receiver Jared Green said last month that the players on that side of the ball are chomping at the bit to start working the new spread offense.
Meanwhile, Prince will be a great sounding board for all the coaches, including Groh.
Having coached in the wild and wooly Big 12 the past three years, Prince, nicknamed “Big Sexy,” — Ron probably had hoped we would have forgotten that in three years — has been exposed to a lot of football, including facing some of the nation’s most explosive spread offenses.
Certainly he can provide helpful information to Brandon on things he learned about defending those offenses that might help Brandon scheme around those opponents’ plans.
But Prince is here to breathe life into a part of Virginia’s program that really hasn’t done much of anything for the past several years: special teams.
The Cavaliers plan to put more emphasis on that phase of the game than ever before and Prince is a great place to start.
While at Kansas State, his Wildcats led the nation in kickoff returns in 2006 (I still maintain that Chase Minnifield is going to break one for a TD), led the country in punt returns in 2007, and led the nation in blocked kicks last season.
“We definitely need an upgrade there on special teams,” Groh said.
Clearly the Cavs weren’t much to write home about in that department last season when they finished No. 92 nationally (out of 119 FBS teams) in punt returns and No. 70 in kickoff returns.
With Prince having served as offensive coordinator at UVa prior to his Kansas State stint, there’s a great level of trust between he and Groh.
“We made it a practice to speak weekly with one another over the past three seasons, about football in general and about our respective teams,” Groh said.
Maybe Pruett was right when he said a couple of weeks ago, announcing his retirement, that Virginia has good days ahead.
“I believe Virginia’s football future is so bright, that we’re all going to have to wear sunglasses,” Pruett said.
While Pruett’s a hip guy, we’re not sure whether or not he stole that line from Timbuk 3’s song of 1989, but it might just be a prognostication that Wahoo fans will be ecstatic about should it come true.