Virginia coach Mike London has no doubts that when the season opens against Richmond on Sept. 4 his players will be ready to compete and play hard.

But will they be ready?

As of right now, the Cavaliers need a few more weeks to eliminate the mistakes London says can lead to "self destruction."

“Every once in a while there’s lapses in practice, where the quarterback-center exchange, or the quarterback overthrows a guy that’s wide open," London said. "Somebody makes the wrong check back there in the secondary, and then you get a ball thrown behind you.

"Everybody wants to win, but I keep telling them their physical efforts have to match or exceed, probably exceed, their desire to win. Everybody wants to win, but your physical efforts have to exceed that. That’s the thing we keep trying to hammer home -- you can’t have fumbled snaps from center, you can’t overthrow a guy who’s wide open. It’s hard enough when you have the physical matchups to beat a guy. You’ve got to eliminate those things that can put you in trouble."

The staff is also still searching for playmakers. The running back competition has increased since the return of a healthy Dominique Wallace and Keith Payne, who had to meet London's requirements in the classroom. Coming out of the spring, Perry Jones was the player who stood out, but now he's being pushed by the rest of the group.

“Perry hasn’t done anything to take away his reps or anything, it’s that the rest of them have raised their level," London said. "Now the challenge is to find out who’s an every-down back, who’s a third-down back, what can we do with this back? I think it’s a good problem to have, but we don’t have that go-to guy right now.”

They only have two more Saturdays to figure that -- and everything else -- out.