Virginia is now in first place in the Coastal Division.
“Wow, didn’t know that,” senior outside linebacker Clint Sintim said. “Not too bad for a team that was picked to finish ... second to last [in the ACC ahead of] Duke.”
No, Clint, it’s not too bad. Nobody thought Virginia would be in this position in July — and that was before Peter Lalich got thrown off the team. SportsCenter called sophomore quarterback Marc Verica Marc Ver-eec-a two weeks ago and then simply avoided using his name in the highlights of Virginia’s 24-17 win against No. 21 Georgia Tech.
I hope ESPN looks up the correct pronunciation for next week, because Verica is making a name for himself and the name is not that hard to articulate. Following his picturesque two-minute drill a week ago that kept Virginia alive in the eventual overtime win against then-No. 18 North Carolina, Verica threw for a career-high 270 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the team’s first win on the road against the Yellow Jackets.
This from a guy who was on the scout team six months ago.
There are more simply dumbfounding numbers from this game that shed light on Virginia’s absurd turnaround better than anything I can say.
Put it this way: if I had told you earlier that in week nine, Virginia would have one loss in the ACC to Duke by 28 points and two wins against top-25 teams, how would you have reacted?
That’s not all I’ve got. Here are some more numbers that will make you, like me, feel ashamed that you ever hopped off the Cavalier bandwagon.
1. Road rebirth. Starting with the obvious, the win at Georgia Tech was Virginia’s first win on the road this season; this coming after the “Cardiac” Cavs went into cardiac arrest in two previous games on the road, losing at UConn and Duke by a combined 63 points.
Then the stats get even more obscene. This was Virginia’s first win against a ranked opponent on the road since Sept. 22, 2001, when it downed No. 19 Clemson. It was also the first time the Cavs won back-to-back games against ranked opponents since 2002, when they beat then-No. 22 N.C. State and then-No. 18 Maryland in back-to-back weeks.
Now, onto the individual numbers.
2. Can Sintim sack Long? With 1.5 sacks Saturday, Sintim now has 9.5 through eight games. Extrapolate that out to a 13-game season — Virginia needs just one more win to assure a 13th game — and he ends the year with 15.5 sacks. That’s 1.5 more than Chris somebody — you know, the one who now starts for the St. Louis Rams — had last year.
Even before the start of training camp, Sintim said it would be great if he got double-digit sacks. With reaching that goal now a virtual certainty, I asked him how he feels about 14.
“It’d be great to have 14,” he said.
How about 15?
“Fifteen would be even better, because Chris had 14 last year.”
I didn’t get to asking him about 15.5, but I can imagine he wouldn’t have objected to that either.
3. Peerman pounding. More of the obvious: in four games since getting healthy, senior running back Cedric Peerman has been ridiculous.
“There’s nothing that I could say about Cedric that would do him justice to anybody who saw it with their own eyes,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “His play, as much as everybody that probably you’ve ever seen, just speaks for itself.”
I couldn’t agree more — stats don’t give him his due. Senior offensive tackle Eugene Monroe has described Peerman’s impact with opposing defensive players as sounding like “a car crash” — the only difference is that following the collision, Peerman somehow stays on his feet and gains another 4 yards.
Nevertheless, it’s worth mentioning Peerman’s numbers. Since returning from injury at the start of Virginia’s winning streak against Maryland, Peerman has averaged 111.3 rushing yards per game and 5.3 yards per carry while rushing for 6 touchdowns. He has also hauled in 23 catches for 122 yards.
Of course, Peerman missed much of the first four games with a leg injury, so his numbers at the end of the year won’t seem terrific to the passive fan. Let’s just pretend, though, that these were the first four games of a 13-game season. Again extrapolating, Peerman ends the year with 1446.25 rushing yards, 19.5 rushing touchdowns, and 74.75 catches.
In case you didn’t know, Peerman was ordained as a minister not too long ago.
Would the Almighty mind explaining this?
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