Is change in store for Cavs?

NEW ORLEANS

After covering Al Groh’s football teams for eight-plus seasons, there’s one thing I’ve learned about the guy.

If something isn’t working, he’s not going to stick with it if he has another option.

While the old coaches say it’s strictly taboo to make a major change in how to run a football team after the season has started, my guess is that Groh isn’t going to settle for the status quo when his Cavaliers take the field today up the road in Hattiesburg, Miss. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe dead wrong, but I’m expecting change.

Groh is all about smashmouth football, or as George Welsh used to call it, “Virginia football.”

Dating back to his New York Football Giants days, all through his NFL career and the eight previous UVa teams, Groh has heavily emphasized grind ’em up, spit ’em out, football. Physical football with power backs, big offensive lines, tight ends.

In fact, for the past quarter century, most of the players UVa has sent on to the NFL have been offensive linemen, tight ends, running backs and linebackers. That screams smashmouth.

I’ll be the first to admit that I liked the idea of the no-huddle spread coming in after three years of lackluster offense. I figured if this offense clicked the way it appeared it might, a bowl game would be a cinch.

Something was lost in the translation.

Virginia’s offensive line just never quite made the transition. These are big maulers accustomed to lining up and steamrolling defenders. Instead, they’re watching smaller, quicker opponents race past them like a swinging gate.

The Cavaliers’ quarterbacks, not strong on reading pass defenders, have thusly been ineffective, leaving nothing but a running game that gives the appearance of organized chaos.

Perhaps given time, the spread is the answer to Virginia’s problems. Look at the difference between Michigan in the spread for the first time last year and this season, for example.

However, Rich Rodriguez was hired to bring the spread and bring excitement back to Big Blue football. The transition was tough and patience was tested, but everyone realized it was an investment.

Groh and offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon, who knows the spread like the back of his hand, don’t have the luxury of time and understanding that Rodriguez enjoyed.

All the aforementioned considered and something that Groh said during his press conference on Monday, makes me believe that the spread, or at least elements of it, may be shelved and that the Cavaliers will return to the kind of football they know for the rest of the season.

Call me crazy — and, again, I could be dead wrong — but that’s what I’m expecting today.

This offensive line is too good and too experienced — with a collective 75 career starts — to have played so shoddily the first two weeks, leaving its most experienced player, four-year starter Will Barker, to describe the performances in words we can’t print in a family newspaper.

Groh’s got a couple of power backs in Torrey Mack and Dominique Wallace that should thrive with a huge line in front of them, not to mention Mikell Simpson’s quickness from the running back spot.

What did Groh say that convinced me the Cavs are going to play “Virginia Football” today?

When I asked him about common threads in turning seasons around in the past, he said a couple of interesting things.

“One was a great determination on the part of the players to just make things better; a willingness to continue to grind and work and a belief in the system that allowed them to maintain their confidence that what we were doing and how we were doing it would work out,” Groh said.

Frankly, I’m wondering if the players believe they can win in the spread after the offense was so putrid the first two weeks.

I’m not pointing the finger at Brandon. I’m sure he knows exactly how this thing is supposed to work, but I’m wondering if UVa has the correct personnel to make it work.

Groh also said there have been circumstances where he has reshaped things a little strategically and tactically to put his players in the most promising position for them to win.

To me, that spells change. Doesn’t mean that the Cavs won’t use three or four wide receivers in certain situations, but I expect smashmouth football.

Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora said he’s concerned about Virginia’s size advantage, saying, “We’re not going to get any bigger this week, so we’ll have to do a great job with the speed and quickness we have.”

Fedora told his Golden Eagles of Virginia, “We believe they’ll come in here firing on all cylinders.”

Lastly, the Southern Miss coach told his team not to expect the Virginia team from the tape they watched to show up at Roberts Stadium today.

My guess is, it won’t be the same team.