For a former scout-team quarterback who inherited the starting role in the third week of the season, sophomore Marc Verica has not had such a bad year.
Verica has “won a lot of games and helped us win a lot of games this year early on that we might not have won without him,” senior tight end John Phillips said.
On the other hand, Verica certainly has not had a stellar season either. After getting off to a predictably tremulous start in his first two games – in which he led Virginia to just 6 total points and committed six turnovers in road blowouts at Connecticut and at Duke – Verica appeared to be rejuvenated by the return of senior running back Cedric Peerman from injury as Virginia went on a four-game win streak. The Cavaliers put up 26.5 points per game during the streak, and Verica averaged 232 yards in the air while throwing five touchdowns and four interceptions.
Just as Virginia’s winning ways came screeching to a halt, however, so Verica returned to becoming turnover-prone in the games that followed. The sophomore has thrown three interceptions in each of the last two games as the Cavaliers threw out any opportunity they may have had at a trip to Tampa Bay for the ACC Championship game.
“He's just kind of going through some growing pains right now,” Phillips said. “He's had some unfortunate incidents with interceptions and whatnot, but you're going to have that - that's expected.”
When the Cavaliers take on Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium Saturday, Verica will quickly have to put his turnover woes behind him. The Hokies are second in the ACC and 16th in the country in turnover margin this season, forcing 25 turnovers while committing just 15.
Of course, forgetting that you have thrown six interceptions in two games is easier said than done.
“You can’t let that stuff get into your long-term memory frame,” said Peerman, who fumbled to the opposition for the first two times in his career in back-to-back games against Miami and Wake Forest earlier this season. “You just have to realize that you can master the present, and you can be successful.”
In Verica’s defense, however, he has often been hindered in losses by a stagnant running game and has been forced to play catch-up as Virginia gave up early leads. Of their 11 games this season, the Cavaliers’ opponents have gotten on the board first on eight occasions.
“You can’t help [Verica] out, say, the same way we helped out [former Virginia starting quarterback] Marcus Hagans,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “The year that Marcus was a first-year starter, we had the No. 1 rushing offense in the conference, and steamrolled some teams with it, so there were quite a few games where we were able to let Marcus go 8-14 and score plenty of points. We haven’t been able to do that, so it’s forced some circumstances where Marc, under his situation – first time and so forth – has had to be, in some games, kind of be the man, make the plays that win the game.”
Verica also has shown that he is not afraid of attempting to thread the ball in between defenders. While this is perhaps an admirable mentality, Groh noted it is one that can get him in trouble.
“You mean like, ‘Peyton Manning can’t make this throw, but I can?’” Groh said when asked about Verica’s gun-slinging mentality, adding, “I know all those Westerns that we watch are fictional, but usually, eventually, the gunslinger gets his, because there’s a faster gunslinger. It’s usually the guy who waits for his shot who survives for a long time.”
As Virginia gets ready to head to Blacksburg, Verica has plenty of incentive to take better care of the ball. With a win, the Cavaliers would become bowl eligible, afford the seniors their only win against the Hokies in their careers, and rob Virginia Tech of the chance to play in the ACC Championship game.
Looking even further down the road, however, Verica has even more riding on this contest, although he may not be thinking about it right now. With junior quarterback Jameel Sewell – who was suspended this season for academic reasons – eagerly awaiting his chance to return to the team in the spring, a productive trip to Blacksburg would certainly bode well for Verica as he attempts to earn back the starting job for next season.
“It oughta be fairly competitive,” Groh said of the spring quarterback competition. “We’ll be looking at a spring in which we’ll have two guys who have started an appreciable amount of games, as opposed to last spring when we had no players who had started [an appreciable number] of games.”
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