Offensive switch not enough for UVa

HATTIESBURG, Miss.

Al Groh’s offense was broken and he did his best to fix it.

After his Virginia football team couldn’t grasp the wide-open, no-huddle spread offense in the first two games of the season, Groh returned to what his players knew best. In only three days of practice, the Cavaliers ditched the Star Wars stuff and just played football.

On Saturday at Southern Mississippi, the Cavaliers looked more like Groh’s former teams. None of that designer stuff. This one was bought right off the rack. Simple as well water.

Virginia easily put up a season high in total offense with 390 yards, ran the ball better against a team that’s stingy against the run, opened up the passing game and watched as several young running backs and receivers began to carve out their reputations.

In spite of all the changes, it was the same old result. Groh’s Cavaliers fell to Oh-and-Three in a 37-34 loss to Southern Miss, the first time since 1982 (George Welsh’s first year in the program) that UVa dropped its first three games.

“We made a lot of progress today,” said the embattled Groh in the face of defeat. ““We’re going down a different track now ... In the long run, we didn’t do quite enough. I’m very encouraged and very positive of all the efforts of the players today.”

Quarterback Jameel Sewell, who showed signs of shaking off the rust of a year away from the game in last week’s loss to 15th-ranked Texas Christian, looked like his old self — or at least the Sewell of the 2007 Gator Bowl season — as he passed for 312 yards and two touchdowns.

Sewell’s completion percentage wasn’t quite what it used to be (26 of 46 with one interception), but he appeared more comfortable in this offense than the spread where everything looked disjointed in losses to TCU and William & Mary.

We saw true freshman Tim Smith, redshirt freshman Javaris Brown and sophomore Kris Burd develop before our very eyes and perhaps offer some optimism for what lies ahead.

Sewell hooked up with Smith on a 69-yard touchdown pass early in the game that helped lift the Cavaliers’ spirits. It was the second scoring connection between the two in the past two weekends.

“That one felt like high school, just throwing it up there and letting the boys go get it,” Sewell grinned about the 69-yarder. “I’m trying to work on every throw I make because I’m not as accurate a quarterback as I need to be.”

Meanwhile, with starting running back Mikell Simpson hampered by a leg injury, Groh called upon redshirt freshman Torrey Mack and true freshman Dominique Wallace, players that the coach has referred to as Wali Lundy-like and potentially Thomas Jones-like, respectively, to carry the mail.

Virginia’s O-line did away with the wider splits from the spread and closed the ranks as they pounded out 148 yards on the ground with the help of Sewell’s ability to scramble when his protection broke down. The Cavaliers would have been the first team to crack the 100-yard rushing mark against the tough Golden Eagles in the last eight games, had it not been for 56 yards in sacks of Sewell when the protection broke down.

Yeah, four sacks are a lot, but better than the stunning eight that TCU stuck on the Cavs a week ago.

USM’s blitzing tactics late in the game was more than Virginia’s line could handle at times as the Golden Eagles fought back from a 34-17 deficit with 7:19 remaining in the third quarter. The Cavaliers never scored again after that and managed to only post 36 yards of total offense from that point on, a time when they needed it most.

While the offense had shouldered most of the blame for the first two losses, 34 points should be enough to win a game.

This time, Virginia’s defense failed in the clutch and special teams ... well, they weren’t so special, allowing the second-longest kickoff return (100) yards in Southern Miss history to swing the momentum, plus another return that helped start the comeback.

The Cavaliers’ early domination of the game, often capitalizing on USM mistakes, threw a scare into Golden Eagles’ coach Larry Fedora, who said that Groh’s offensive changes caught him completely by surprise. However, his staff made adjustments throughout the game and found a way to stop Virginia when it mattered most.

Stuck with another loss, the Cavaliers did leave town with their self-respect intact.

“The offense showed that we have a potential to score,” Sewell said, noting that the team feels better about the prospects of still turning this season around than it did a week ago. “We can move the ball down the field for the most part. Even though we lost, we did have bright spots.”

Bright spots that Groh believes can improve during the upcoming bye week for his squad. Virginia doesn’t play again until Oct. 3 at North Carolina.

“We got back to our roots this week,” Groh said. “Clearly, after what we got accomplished this week in only three days, there’s more we can do to make what we did today better. We can expand what we’re doing with the extra time. The players embraced it and went to work on it. How they fought and stuck together was impressive.”

Sewell said that he knew everyone on the team wanted to win, but it’s not that easy.

“You’ve got to go out there and work and if we take that attitude then this bye week can be an advantage for us,” the quarterback said.

If Groh truly is at his best when his back’s against the wall, then it may require his best magic yet to make the Cavaliers contenders in the upcoming ACC schedule. Anything less seems mighty risky.