2008 Virginia Cavaliers
Written July 11, 2008 by Jason Lowry
To help you get going on the upcoming football season Jason Lowry is going to give you his 2008 Virginia Cavaliers football predictions. The Cavaliers are coming off a pretty impressive season where they finished 9-4 overall, but did suffer a tough loss to Texas Tech in the Gator Bowl. The Cavaliers finished only one game behind the Hokies for the Coastal division lead, and need a lot of close win to do so. This year head coach Al Groh will have his work cut out for him with only 11 returning starters and a bunch of important holes to fill on both sides of the football. To get a good idea at just how he plans on doing so, he is a look at what the Cavaliers are planning to line up on both sides of the ball this season.
Offense:
The Offense does return 6 starters to this side of the ball, but they will be handing over the reigns at the quarterback spot to sophomore Peter Lalich who was okay in limited action last season. To help things go a little smoother he should have no problem handing the ball of to senior Cedric Peerman who was the top rusher in the ACC after 6 games, but an injury stopped that run. This year they hope to have him back healthy, but they did find a solid backup in junior Mikell Simpson, who put in 8 touchdowns last season. Also make things better, is the fact that Lalich will have all 3 starters returning at the wide receiver spot, and the best of the group is likely Kevin Ogletree who missed last season with an injury. John Phillips will likely be the new starting tight end, and hopes to improve on his 2 touchdowns from last season. The offensive line could be a little shakey as they return both their starting tackles in junior Will Baker and senior Eugene Monroe, both of whom are considered to be two of the best in the ACC. Three new faces take over on the inside in sophomore Jack Shields at center, fellow sophomore BJ Cabbell at the right guard spot, and senior Zak Stair at the left guard spot.
Defense:
With only 5 returning starters on this side of the ball, there either need to be plenty of improvement or some great young talent to help the Cavaliers to another winning season. Its going to be interesting up front as they don’t have a single returning starter on the defensive line. It looks like senior Alex Field and sophomore Sean Gootschalk will take over at the two end spots, and junior Nate Collins will be the starting nose tackle. The team does return 3 of the 4 starters at linebacker, and it should help ease the pain of an inexperienced defensive line. Seniors Anthony Appleby, Clint Sintim, and Jon Cooper are three of the best linebackers in the ACC, and it looks like they will be adding junior Denzel Burrell to the starting mix this season. The secondary is only returning two starters here and it looks like this might be a weakness more than a strength. Sophomore Ras-l Dowling will likely start along side junior Vic Hall at the corner spot, while fellow sophomore Mike Parker takes over the strong safety spot playing next to senior Byron Glaspy.
Prediction: 5th in the ACC Coastal
We like some of the talent on this team, but we just don’t think they are going to come close to repeating their success from last season. They are pretty weak on both the offensive and defensive lines, and they are relying to much on a young quarterback to get the offense going. This team isn’t as bad as Duke, but if they don’t take care of business on Sept. 27 at Duke, then this team might be a little worse than we thought.