Best. Christmas. Ever.
There, under the tree all bedecked in orange and blue, lay the gift we’d all been waiting for. Even better, we got to open it a few days early.
No, not a Wii, not a new bike, but Virginia football’s leap into the 21st century.
While most of us were away on break, Al Groh & Co. announced the hiring of Gregg Brandon to replace Mike Groh as the football program’s offensive coordinator. Brandon had been the head coach at Bowling Green, where he had previously served as offensive coordinator for Urban Meyer.
Yes, that Urban Meyer. Two-time national title-winning Urban Meyer. Recruited Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow Urban Meyer. King Genius of the Spread Offense Urban Meyer. Brandon and Meyer built the spread from the ground up. They took elements of the run and shoot, the wishbone, the old triple option, basically every one of the most lethal offenses the game had ever seen, and made a new beast. They built a Frankenoffense and jolted it to life.
While Brandon was designing the offense and calling the plays, Bowling Green averaged close to 500 yards and 40 points a game. Forty points. The 2008 Virginia squad didn’t score 40 points in its first four games. Combined.
Brandon’s offense is a perfect complement to the pro-style 3-4 defense Groh favors: When run correctly, both are fast-paced, aggressive systems. With former linebackers coach Bob Diaco moving to the booth as defensive coordinator, we should see a defense that gets after the opposition and tees up our offense for success.
But as Billy Mays would say, that’s not all. Brandon was a great catch, but the true jewel in the net might be the Hoos’ new wide receivers coach, Latrell Scott. Scott played at Hampton, then coached at Richmond and Tennessee, and built a reputation as one of the best recruiters of Virginia talent.
Scott’s recruiting skills may be what truly make the difference during the next few seasons. Year after year, most of the top recruits in the commonwealth have ended up at Virginia Tech, especially the athletes from the Tidewater area. Brandon needs athletes for his spread, and Scott can go get them.
We may not even have to wait a year to see Scott’s impact. This year’s top recruit from the Old Dominion is Morgan Moses, a 6-foot-7, 347-pound man-monster at left tackle. Rivals.com has him as the No. 1 best tackle and the No. 1 best offensive lineman in the country. Among his final schools are Virginia, Virginia Tech and Tennessee. His lead recruiter for the Tennessee Vols? Latrell Scott.
Last year’s offseason was one in which virtually all of the wheels came off at the same time for this program. This year, the pieces seem to be coming back into place. Quarterback Jameel Sewell spent his time on academic suspension getting his grades and life together, tutoring in Charlottesville schools and serving as an assistant coach for Charlottesville High School. As a result, he’ll be back on the field next season; signs indicate suspended defensive back Chris Cook will be, as well.
Sewell should fit Brandon’s system like a glove. He’s tall, standing at 6-foot-3, he’s athletic and he showed great strides in developing his option reads during the 2007 season. The version of the spread Brandon showed off at Bowling Green required a playmaker at quarterback who could distribute the ball effectively. Long plays generally developed at the line of scrimmage, option pitches or wide receiver screens that broke for 20 yards or more. Sewell isn’t the best long-ball thrower in the country, but neither was Omar Jacobs, who did well enough playing for Brandon that he was the odds-on favorite for the Heisman at the start of his senior season.
I’ve used this space several times before to go after Coach Groh. I was frustrated by the string of discipline problems and by an approach to offense that seemed to lack ingenuity. So I want to be the first to say this: Well done, Coach.
Firing your son couldn’t have been easy. Nor, I imagine, was firing two more assistants. But you admitted the program needed a new direction and went out and got the pieces the puzzle had been missing. Even if the pressure to bring change came from powers higher up than the football offices — perhaps even higher up than the athletic department — you took the challenge in stride and delivered back-to-back home runs.
Now take us where you promised. By adding the World’s Coolest Offense and an up-and-coming young recruiter, the talent to bring conference titles and national prominence is well within your reach; talent that fits your mantra of smart, tough and focused. Go get ‘em, keep them on the straight and narrow once they get here, and show us something.
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