Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 19, 1993 TAG: 9310190050
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Besides, there's always a publication like Sports Illustrated to remind the Cavaliers that "the Swoon starts in October."
That's what SI wrote in its college football section, in which UVa was ranked 54th out of 106 Division I-A teams.
"It's probably something that will be mentioned this week because we don't want to repeat history," UVa co-captain Jerrod Washington said. "But, as they say, talk is cheap."
The Cavaliers, who dropped to 5-1 with a 40-14 loss at No. 1-ranked Florida State, will entertain No. 12 North Carolina (7-1 overall, 4-1 ACC) at 3:45 p.m. Saturday in a game that will be televised regionally by ABC.
UVa has been 5-0 three of the past four years, including 1990, when the Cavaliers won their first seven games and were ranked No. 1 in the country before finishing 7-4. Last year, a 29-28 loss to Clemson in the sixth game was the first of four losses in five games.
"I don't know what happened to us," senior linebacker P.J. Killian said. "I think in the past we tended to put the whole season on the next game and you can't afford to do that.
"I remember after the Clemson game last year, everybody was so down. We just couldn't believe it had happened. You're up [28-0] and you wonder just how the hell you can lose a game like that. It's different this year, definitely."
The difference, according to Killian, was that Virginia followed a miserable first half Saturday, when the Cavaliers trailed 30-0, with a more respectable showing over the final 30 minutes.
"I don't think Florida State quit playing in the second half," Killian said. "They're not No. 1 because they give up. They go for the jugular. They were still throwing long with three minutes left."
Ordinarily, UVa coach George Welsh refuses to compare teams and seasons, but he made some subtle changes early in hopes of late-season dividends.
"The only thing I did not want to do is get them fired up week after week," Welsh said. "There's only so many times you can do that. I didn't want to feel like we didn't have any emotion left for the last four or five weeks."
Welsh's early Virginia teams were strong second-half teams, four times finishing the regular season with four or more consecutive wins, "but last year we weren't the same team," he said. "No question."
Remarkably, UVa has won its sixth game of the season only once since 1983, but that may be a reflection of the schedule as much as anything. Over the same stretch, UVa is 8-3 in Game 7.
"We don't deserve any credit until we start winning big games and start winning in November, which is something coach Welsh's teams always used to do here," defensive end Curtis Hicks said in a preseason interview that remains appropriate six weeks later.
"For the last three years we've started like gangbusters. They've hyped us and hyped us. . . . Then toward the end we fold up our tents. I don't think we're bitter [at the lack of respect]. We realize we have to go out and earn it."
\ McCLELLAN MAY PLAY: Greg McClellan, feared lost for the season with a possible fractured collarbone, may return to practice this week after X-rays proved negative and his injury was diagnosed as a bruised chest.
McClellan removed his shoulder pads after Florida State's second touchdown Saturday and went to the locker room for the last three quarters. Welsh did not rule out the possibility that McClellan could start Saturday.
\ MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: Virginia had 10 plays Saturday of more than 15 yards and four of more than 30 yards, not including a 58-yard kickoff return by Jerrod Washington that was the longest against the Seminoles this season.
The Cavaliers got inside Florida State's 35-yard line on six of 12 possessions, including the last series of the first half, when the clock ran out with UVa at the Seminoles' 14. It was the first time in 19 possessions inside an opponent's 20 that the Cavaliers had failed to score.
\ EXTRA POINTS: Virginia had 10 penalties for 70 yards Saturday and, with 44 penalties after six games, is on pace to break the school record of 76 set in 1948. . . . After being forced to call timeouts on the first series of each half, Welsh said offensive coordinator Tom O'Brien might go from the press box to the field if the problem persisted. . . . UVa's final six opponents have a combined record of 28-11, 21-4 when not facing each other. . . . Welsh on being a three-point favorite over Carolina: "That's really weird. I'm surprised."
by CNB