Big-10 member Indiana (3-2) heads down to Charlottesville to meet the Jekyll and Hyde UVA Wahoos (1-3), in what should be an excellent match-up Saturday. The Hoosiers began the season on a roll, and won their first three games which were all non-conference affairs. In week four they started the brutal Big-10 conference slate and have lost two in a row (Michigan and Ohio State).
UVA ‘s two time All-American safety, and current defensive back’s coach Anthony Poindexter, will have his #3 jersey retired Saturday. AP is my favorite all-time defensive player at Virginia, and I encourage all fans attending the game to leave the tailgate a bit early, and head in to Scott Stadium for the festivities. I’m proud to call Poindexter and his wife Kim my friends, and I think that AP was one of the toughest Hoo’s I have even seen. In the modern era, Anthony Poindexter is the heart and soul of Virginia Football!
Indiana is 1-1 on the road this season, and this is the first contest ever between the two schools. The game, which is a homecoming weekend affair for the Hoos is Saturday at 3:30 in Charlottesville, and is the last non-conference contest of the regular-season for both teams. Former Virginia head-coach Sonny Randle (worst UVA coach of all-time) is providing the color-commentary on ESPN-360, so I remind all of you fans to not subject yourself to that nonsense, and just go ahead and listen to Dave Koehn and Frank Quayle on the radio!
The Hoosiers are led on offense by wide-out Tandon Doss, who in his last game against Ohio State had 96 yards receiving and 16 yards rushing. Indiana’s Junior QB Ben Chappell, is coming off a 210 yard passing performance last week against the Buckeyes, and in the process became the first IU quarterback to ever throw for 200 yards against Ohio State. Chappell is an accounting major with a 3.7 GPA. Nice! You sure don’t see such a heinous major very often from a major-conference football player The Hoosiers, also, have one of the most experienced offensive lines in the country with 84 combined career starts between them.
Defensively, Indiana is led by a pair of book-end defensive ends named Jammie Kirlew and Greg Middleton. No two teammates on any team in the country, have more combined sacks than this powerful duo with 43 career sacks between them. Look for Indiana to attempt to continue Virginia’s sack problem. The Hoos are giving up 4.25 sacks per game which ranks dead last in that category.
Virginia is coming off their only win of the 2009 season Saturday, and is looking to get their season back on track. The Hoos have not won a home game since 10/25/08 (Georgia Tech). Virginia has a dismal record against the teams that are currently in the Big-10 (4-11), but their last game versus the Big-10 was a win against Minnesota in the 2005 Music City Bowl.
Look for the Hoos to continue to scrap the once, shiny-new, Gregg Brandon-led spread- offense, in exchange for a more conventional, two tight-end set that is run out of the shot-gun. Jameel Sewell will get the start for the Hoos at quarterback and look for Mikell Simpson, Rashawn Jackson, and Torrey Mack to see most of the action in the back-field for the Cavaliers.
Virginia continues to play a ton of freshman, and 10 true freshman have played at one time this year. As a team, 69 different Cavaliers have seen action this season, with 35 percent of them being freshman (24 of 69). I believe Al Groh and Company will be pulling out all the stops to try and win this game. Look for Virginia to run several different trick-plays in this game.
The offensive line has been playing much better as a unit in the past two games, but is still giving up way too many sacks. Not all of the sacks are on the offensive-line’s shoulders, though, as Jameel Sewell needs to make better decisions getting rid of the ball. Sewell also needs to learn how to throw the ball away while moving around outside the pocket and not continue to take so many sacks.
On defense, Mat Conrath is really starting to become a nice player up-front. Last week at UNC, Conrath had three pass-deflections and was constantly harassing QB T.J. Yates. Look for a big game from UVA’s improving secondary against Indiana as well. We really need an interception for a touchdown on defense this week, as well as an improved return-game to go with our already fine kicking and punting teams.
I think Virginia will win this game 38-30. I’d love to see Jameel Sewell continue his progression as the new-found leader of this team. We are going to see Vic Hall on both offense and defense as well Saturday. As always, special-teams and mistake-free- football, will be big keys for UVA to have a chance to win this game. Go Hoos!
