Virginia’s problems start in trenches

Two weeks and two lopsided losses into the new season, Virginia fans are looking around wondering what is wrong with their football team.

While the checklist isn’t as long, perhaps, as it was a week ago, most of the problems can be traced to back-to-back disappointing performances by the Cavaliers’ offensive line. Considering that most of those linemen have at least a season of experience under their belt, it must be unsettling for UVa quarterbacks to wonder if these big wide-bodies really have their backs.

Texas Christian, a team with speed — but not the among fastest defenses the Cavaliers have faced in recent years — kept Virginia quarterback Jameel Sewell running for his life most of the day. He must have had flashbacks to the 2006 season when he broke into the starting lineup as an unprepared freshman and performed under similar duress.

A steep fall

The 2009 season wasn’t supposed to go this way. Granted, the line misses NFL first-round draft choice Eugene Monroe, but everyone else is back and that line led the ACC in the fewest sacks allowed.

In Saturday’s 30-14 loss to 16th-ranked TCU, the Cavaliers’ offensive line gave up, count ’em, eight sacks — the most a Virginia team had given up since Florida State got nine in 1997. Heck, they only gave up 16 all of last season, and the most any opponent managed was two.

It’s a good thing that Sewell has wheels, or the count would have been even more embarrassing.

You thought Virginia’s offense was putrid the last three seasons, well get a load of this. In two games, the Cavs have averaged around 222 yards, around 70 less than last season’s average, when UVa was near the bottom of the FBS barrel.

The Cavs haven’t been able to run it consistently or throw it consistently or move the changes consistently. Oh, Gene Monroe, Branden Albert, D’Brickashaw Ferguson, Brad Butler, where art thou?

It’s not the scheme

Coach Al Groh insists it’s not the new no-huddle, spread offense that has been the problem. Last week’s befuddling seven turnovers against William & Mary and yesterday’s lack of production have one thing in common: Shoddy performances by the O-line.

“Giving up sacks, especially coming off the year we had last year, is disappointing,” said senior fourth-year starting right tackle Will Barker. “As an offensive line, we take pride in protecting our quarterback.”

One would forgive Sewell if he responded with a “Say what?”

Sewell is a team guy and would never point fingers. About the only thing Virginia has going for it right now is that through its first 0-2 start since 2002, is that hasn’t thrown in the towel and is sticking together, just like the ’02 squad hung in there and won a bowl game.

Barker didn’t mind, well maybe he did mind, but fessed up anyway that most of the offensive problems lie on the ample shoulders of the big uglies up front.

A team that controls the offensive line can do pretty much anything it desires. One that can’t is doomed, and that’s what is worrisome about the prospects of this team turning things around.

Virginia scored two touchdowns after it was 30-zip and TCU coach Gary Patterson called off the dogs. Still, those scores displayed some positive signs for the Cavaliers. The passes were significant downfield throws, which boosted Sewell’s confidence and perhaps showed new offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon that Sewell could complete some deep throws. Brandon seemed reluctant to call downfield passes until midway through the third quarter, and even then, Sewell was trying to escape the mitts of the charging Horned Frogs’ defense.

Word on the street was that perhaps TCU’s defense’s lone kryptonite was a pro-style quarterback who could throw deep, but up until late in the game, Sewell never had time to throw deep.

Sewell said after the game that he played with “no confidence last week,” which he said led to three interceptions as he came off the bench behind starter Vic Hall. With Hall out with a hip injury Saturday, Sewell played wire-to-wire and was intercepted only once, when a ball bounced off a receiver and into TCU’s hands.

The difference?

“Just them believing in me as a coaching staff,” said Sewell, who completed 8 of 18 passes for 120 yards and two scores. “I played very poor last week, and just to have them start the game with me and keep me in when things didn’t go well, that helped a lot with my confidence.”

While the two late TDs may have seemed meaningless in some circles, they were important to Sewell and his teammates, who are desperately searching for any kind of spark to reverse their fortunes.

Still, until the offensive line gets its act together, Virginia is going to struggle.

The Cavs rushed for 137 yards last week but a mere 57 against a very good TCU defense that led the nation in run defense last year (47.1 per game).

Brandon’s plan was to run a lot more out of the spread than perhaps some observers expected. But, as Groh has pointed out many times, all running backs run the same when there’s no hole.

Until the Cavaliers fix that problem, nothing is going to change.