Virginia pounds IU on the ground

There’s absolutely no truth to the rumor that Craig Littlepage filed an application for Virginia to become members of the Big Ten late Saturday night.

The Cavaliers’ athletic director might have been tempted after watching UVa do easily what Big Ten powerhouses Ohio State and Michigan couldn’t — blow out Indiana.

Behind its most explosive offensive attack in five years, Virginia pounded the visiting Hoosiers, 47-7 before the smallest crowd at Scott Stadium in a decade, 45,371. After a rocky 0-3 start, coach Al Groh’s Cavs won their second straight, while Indiana dropped its third straight to stand at 3-3.

Meet might with might

Groh anticipated his team’s most physical test thus far from Indiana, but it was the Cavaliers who did all the pounding, piling up 536 yards of total offense, the most by a UVa team since 2004 (549 vs. UNC). Not too shabby considering that ninth-ranked Ohio State only managed 378 yards, while then-top 25 Michigan had 372.

Meanwhile, the defense produced its second consecutive stout performance, shutting out the Hoosiers until the final eight minutes of the game. Up until that point, Indiana had only two drives beyond UVa’s 30-yard line, with neither producing any points.

Word on the street was that the visitors might be vulnerable to the pass and fifth-year senior quarterback Jameel Sewell found his rhythm, completing 20 of 30 passes to eight different receivers for 308 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. Senior running back Mikell Simpson took care of the other TDs, becoming the first ACC back to rush for four scores in a game this season before being carted off the field with a neck injury late in the third quarter.

“We wanted to be very aggressive with the ball early,” Groh said. “What we could see that if you turned it into a trench fight, they had some pretty tough kids that were hard to knock out of there and that we were going to have to be pretty open and diversified from the outset.”

Speed kills

While Indiana wasn’t quite the stereotypical plodding Big Ten team — three yards and a cloud of dust — it was evident that the Hoosiers struggled against a speedier group of Cavaliers.

Sewell and Simpson found the same form as the best year of their career, 2007, when they led Virginia to a rare nine-win season and Gator Bowl appearance. Sewell was near flawless and his receiving corps, led by Mr. Everything Vic Hall, stepped up to provide big plays all afternoon long.

The offense that struggled to avoid shooting itself in the foot the first few weeks of the season was loaded with magic on Saturday.

Virginia recorded eight plays of at least 20 yards in the game, a rare sight in recent years around Wahoo football.

For the second straight week, the Cavaliers reaped the benefits of playing no-turnover football and instead capitalized on opponents’ mistakes. Two of UVa’s first three scores were set up by a strip sack by corner Ras-I Dowling and fumble return by Rodney McLeod, and later an interception by Dowling as Virginia stunned Indiana with a 21-0 lead midway through the second quarter.

Groh didn’t like his team’s toughness after the 0-3 start and began to strongly emphasize how it needed to improve in that phase of the game. The Cavaliers responded with a physical win at North Carolina last week, beating the Tar Heels 16-3 after entering that game a two-touchdown underdog.

A one-touchdown favorite on Saturday, Virginia dominated Indiana from wire to wire.

On a day when Anthony Poindexter, one of the greatest defensive players in Wahoo history, had his jersey retired, the Cavaliers played his brand of physical football, limiting the Hoosiers to 82 yards on the ground and only 272 yards of total offense.

Meanwhile, UVa’s much-maligned offensive line got its act together and opened gaping holes in the Hoosiers’ defense as Simpson gained 83 yards and Rashawn Jackson another 73 on the ground.

One of the big raps against the Cavaliers recently was that they couldn’t run the football. During the 0-3 start, they mustered a meager 266 yards on the ground.

Against the Hoosiers, they accumulated 231 yards rushing, the most by a UVa team since putting up 249 against Texas Tech in the Gator Bowl, capping off the 2007 season.

“We’re continuing to find things that could fit out players,” Groh said of his

O-line. “We had some success today with a play that has been quite good for us over the years that accounted for an appreciable amount of yardage and some touchdowns. As we always say, those holes look pretty good when the guys are moving them out of the way and the line did a really good job.”

Indiana coach Bill Lynch made no excuses for his team being manhandled and overwhelmed by the Cavaliers.

“UVa is a very good football team and much better than people think,” the Hoosiers coach said. “Their win in Chapel Hill last weekend started it, and I thought they played great today. They blocked us all day today and we had trouble staying on the field.”

Indiana converted 6 of 16 third downs against UVa, the nation’s eighth-best team in third down efficiency defense.

“They have a lot of weapons on offense and they are a very good defensive football team,” Lynch said. “They physically got after us and beat us on both sides of the ball.”

Until Indiana scored midway through the final quarter, the Cavaliers had held their opponents out of the end zone for the previous 119 minutes, 43 seconds, since a 57-yard scoring run by Southern Miss back Tory Harrison in the fourth quarter of that game.

“Our team has clearly taken another step down the road of progress,” said Groh. “There’s a long way to go yet. We haven’t gotten to the halfway mark of the season, so the challenge is to keep the progress moving forward.”

It was a good day for the embattled UVa coach. His team won its second in a row and he celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary with wife, Anne, whom he met while coaching at the U.S. Military Academy with Bill Parcells.

Could it be that we’re witnessing another run that Groh has managed to put together when things appeared to be at their worst?

“We know the challenge next week is always one of our biggest challenges each year,” Groh said of next Saturday’s trip to Maryland.

One step at a time.