I really didn't want to write about football. I tried to come up with something else, and there are certainly some noteworthy events around the sports world: USA Basketball's loss in the joke of a sport called Olympic basketball, Barry Bonds' quest for 700 homers in the midst of perhaps the greatest single season in baseball history, the NFL preseason (noteworthy, yes, but miserable to watch).
The bottom line, however, is that football is all anyone can and wants to talk about in Charlottesville. It's not just about Virginia football -- it's about college football in general. I've never seen so much excitement for a Virginia Tech game around Grounds than there was last Saturday, because kickoff meant college football has begun.
When I look back at my time here at the University, one of the things that I will always remember is the transformation of Virginia from a basketball school to a football school. Three short years ago, those six magical Saturdays were social events, with the fiery enthusiasm saved for the hardwood battles that came in the winter. Not to say that Virginia was like Duke (in either sport) by any means, as the Cavaliers had 14 straight non-losing seasons under George Welsh, but one gets the feeling that things weren't the same as now. The emphasis was more on what you were drinking beforehand than the team that Virginia was playing.
Enter Al Groh. With a trio of excellent recruiting classes, Groh has revived a stagnating program. One of the nation's top three recruiters, according to ESPN's Tom Lemming, Groh has infused speed, size and raw talent into a program that those around the game say will be a national title contender in the future -- if not this year. He is building a pipeline for the NFL that comes through Charlottesville, and people are starting to take note.
Virginia has commitments already from 21 high school seniors for 2005, giving them the consensus top class in the country as of now. Though as many as five Cavaliers could go in the first round of next April's NFL Draft, Groh has the cupboard well-stocked enough for his Cavaliers to become a true powerhouse in the new-look ACC.
Groh's efforts have been welcomed with open arms in and around the city. Virginia sold a record number of season tickets for the second straight year -- the ticket office reported that they had sold 38,767 entering today. This is almost 7,500 more than the last year of the Welsh era and an amazing 2,500 more than last season. In fact, four of the top six crowds in school history came last fall, including the top two (Florida State and Duke), yet I would be surprised if those records were not broken this year.
It's not just the home crowds, either. Virginia fans are driving up and down the East Coast to support the 'Hoos. Student groups are organizing trips to every game, road tripping to sing the Good Ol' Song in someone else's backyard. For the 2003 Tire Bowl, a sea of orange descended on Charlotte. You couldn't walk anywhere in the Queen City without seeing masses of orange shirts or V-Sabers.
Perhaps the best thing about Groh is that he is not just building an elite football team, but an elite program. He ardently supported the addition of a marching band and has even gone so far as to make musical suggestions. He has pushed to make Scott Stadium into a hostile road environment, for which he sees a sea of orange as necessary. Groh has encouraged fans to wear orange instead of the traditional shirts, ties, and sundresses, and the athletic department handed out 3,000 orange fever shirts to incoming first years Monday night. Football Saturdays have always been something special, but Groh has taken them to a whole new level. While this is certainly no SEC environment, Groh has done the unthinkable
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