College Football Nation: Craig Littlepage
Here's a look at what others in the ACC are saying about the move, thanks to quotes released from their respective schools:
Clemson AD Terry Don Phillips
“This is a good decision for our conference. We are adding two programs that have won the national championship in football and been consistently outstanding in basketball. That includes Syracuse winning the national championship in 2003 and Pittsburgh’s five Sweet 16 appearances in the last decade.Miami President Donna E. Shalala
"The addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh extends our footprint on the Eastern seaboard, which further enhances the national exposure of all of our universities and athletic programs.
“We can accomplish all of goals in all sports in the Atlantic Coast Conference. That most assuredly includes football. Our challenge individually as a university, as well as collectively as a league is to continue to improve in all facets of our program. That includes facility improvements and other infrastructure, and the attraction of outstanding coaches and student-athletes to our campus.”
“As a proud Syracuse graduate, I am delighted the Orange and our colleagues at Pittsburgh are joining the ACC. Both of these universities are good fits for the ACC academically and athletically and are led by first-rate presidents.”Virginia AD Craig Littlepage
"During so much uncertainty in the college athletics' landscape over the past year and a half, the ACC routinely examined this very fluid situation in an effort to build upon its position among the nation's elite conferences. The ACC has considered the opportunities and decided to accept the applications for membership from two outstanding institutions that are excellent fits academically, athletically, and geographically. I am pleased that schools of the quality of the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University had an interest in joining the ACC."Maryland AD Kevin Anderson
“It’s rewarding to think that there are a number of prestigious institutions like the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University that want to become a part of what the ACC has become both on and off the field. These two institutions are a great fit for the league based on the quality of the athletics programs and based on the quality of their academic reputations.Duke coach David Cutcliffe
“We already compete against Pitt and Syracuse in a number of our sports and have appreciated the quality and sportsmanship of those teams. The competition against quality programs in a number of sports will certainly enhance the experience for our student-athletes.
“From a regional standpoint, adding these two high-quality schools will enhance the marketing footprint of the league. Both Pittsburgh and New York City will offer the conference new opportunities to attract fans in all our sports. We look forward to discussions about the future of the league and would encourage a future expansion.”
"One thing that never wavered during this process was the confidence we had in the leadership at both the conference level with commissioner [John] Swofford and the institutional level with Dr. [Richard] Brodhead and Kevin White. Strengthening the foundation of our league has been a priority, and we've accomplished that goal. The University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University have tremendous traditions in both academics and athletics, and we are proud to have both schools join the ACC."
BCA recognizes minority milestone
Virginia coach Mike London and AD Craig Littlepage will host coach Ron English and AD Derrick Gragg, and while no official NCAA record currently exists, the game is believed to be the first football game on the Division I level with the opposing coaches and athletic directors being black.
“This game between Eastern Michigan and the University of Virginia affirms the progress seen in hiring for the highest levels of intercollegiate sport," Littlepage said in a prepared statement from the BCA. "UVA sends congratulations to EMU’s leaders, Dr. Derrick Gragg and Ron English, on the occasion of Eastern Michigan’s 1,000th football game.”
"College athletics has been a major part of my life for the past 20-plus years and I am honored to be able to play a role in this historic event," Gragg said in a prepared statement. "I have great respect for Craig Littlepage and his contributions to intercollegiate athletics as a coach and athletic administrator. I am certainly looking forward to Saturday's game."
“It is significant that we are experiencing such tangible events as this in intercollegiate athletics today," BCA executive director Floyd Keith said. "This event follows a breakthrough year in the hiring of football coaches on the college FBS level. As we move forward into 2011, I am encouraged that this trend will continue and such meetings will become more commonplace on our fall Saturday afternoons.”
Here’s how the ACC hierarchy looks heading into Week 12:
1. Georgia Tech (10-1, 7-1 ACC; LW: No. 1) –The Yellow Jackets clinched the Coastal Division title with their convincing win over Duke, and have the bye week to enjoy it before hosting rival Georgia. They remain at No. 7 in the BCS standings this week, and have earned their spot as the top one-loss team in the country.
2. Clemson (7-3, 5-2; LW: No. 4) – With their win over NC State, the Tigers are finally in a position to make the program’s first appearance in the ACC title game. First they need to guarantee it with a home win over Virginia this weekend. It's been an impressive season for the Tigers in the first full year under coach Dabo Swinney.
3. Virginia Tech (7-3, 4-2; LW: No. 3) – The Hokies got a complete effort against the bedraggled Terps, and haven’t given up on their goal of a 10-win season. While it’s not the finish they had been hoping for this year, Virginia Tech deserves credit for regrouping instead of letting back-to-back losses to Georgia Tech and North Carolina snowball into a disaster.
4. Miami (7-3, 4-3; LW: No. 2) – The Canes have been struggling on both sides of the ball lately, and turnovers have been costly. This isn’t the same team that started the season with a 3-1 record, and the loss to North Carolina on Saturday ruined any remaining shot Miami might have had of receiving a BCS bowl bid.
5. North Carolina (7-3, 3-3; LW: No. 6) – The Tar Heels have reversed their fortunes, and now look capable of contending for the Coastal Division. Unfortunately for them, it’s too little, too late. Still, the program is capable of improving upon last year’s eight-win season and earned a bowl appearance. Hardly the disaster it started out to be. I know UNC just beat Miami, but I keep my power rankings the way my Top 25 looks, and I just sneaked the Tar Heels in this week at No. 24.
6. Boston College (7-3, 4-2; LW: No. 5) – The Eagles have found ways to overcome their weaknesses all season, and Saturday at Virginia was no different. BC picked up its first road win of the season, and kept its hopes alive to sneak into the ACC championship game. They’ll need some help from Virginia this weekend, though, as BC needs Clemson to lose.
7. Florida State (5-5, 3-4; LW: No. 9) – With Christian Ponder watching from the sidelines, backup quarterback E.J. Manuel made a smooth transition into his starting role, and everything was clicking on offense for the Noles in their win over Wake Forest. They seem to have salvaged their postseason hopes, but can’t afford an embarrassing slip-up now at home against Maryland.
8. Duke (5-5, 3-3; LW: No. 7) – Duke proved that there is still a significant gap in the Coastal Division between the best team and the Blue Devils, though the conference standings indicated Duke and Georgia Tech were closer. Duke still has a chance to become bowl eligible, though, and they’ll be catching Miami while it’s down.
9. Wake Forest (4-7, 2-5; LW: No. 8) – It was a disappointing home finale for senior quarterback Riley Skinner, who had an uncharacteristically off performance in the loss to Florida State, and the Demon Deacons will be home for Christmas. Wake has a bye week this week, but it does the Deacs little good now.
10. Virginia (3-7, 2-4; LW: No. 10) – If athletic director Craig Littlepage hasn’t begun to think about the program’s future without Al Groh, now is probably the time to start. With only one home win this season -- against Indiana -- the Cavaliers’ fans have had little to cheer for. The only hope left is to play spoiler against Clemson and beat rival Virginia Tech.
11. NC State (4-6, 1-5; LW: No. 11) – The Pack has lost five of its past six, but this one stung particularly hard because it ended NC State’s hopes at bowl eligibility. It won’t get any easier as the Pack will face a ranked Virginia Tech team on the road this weekend.
12. Maryland (2-8, 1-5; LW: No. 12) – The best news for the Terps is that there are only two weeks remaining. They’ll have to face a Florida State team on the road this Saturday during a game in which the Seminoles are still playing for something. Even if Ralph Friedgen were to lose his job -- a costly $4 million option for Debbie Yow -- little would change in 2010.
Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage recently told the Associated Press that he will evaluate the job coach Al Groh has done at the end of the season.
Groh, though, doesn’t wait that long to look in the mirror. He said he evaluates what he and his staff have done on a weekly basis.
“We’re fairly self-critical,” said Groh, who is currently 59-50 and in his ninth season at Virginia, heading in the direction of his third losing season in the past four years. “It’s the nature of coaches that when things don’t turn out score-wise the way we want them to, to be very self-critical. If I wasn’t that way by nature, then I’d probably sleep better on Saturday nights.”
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| Bob DonnanUS Presswire | |
| Al Groh owns a 59-50 record during his time at Virginia. |
Needless to say, it’s been a restless season in Charlottesville.
The problem for Groh is that it’s not the first. Virginia is 3-6 heading into Saturday’s home game against Boston College, and has lost 10 of its past 13 games. The Cavaliers ended the 2008 season without a bowl appearance and on a four-game losing streak. They picked up right where they left off, starting this season with a three-game losing streak. What appeared to be a turnaround midseason was halted by better competition, as the Cavaliers have lost three straight to Georgia Tech, Duke and Miami.
In order to go to a bowl game this year, Virginia would have to win its final three games, which include BC, Clemson and rival Virginia Tech. Both the Tigers and the Hokies are ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 this week. Virginia’s chances of reaching the postseason seem slim. Again. That doesn’t mean, though, that the Cavaliers don’t have anything to play for.
“We’re playing to win on Saturday,” Groh said. “Really, in the long run, that’s what we’re playing for every week, just to walk out of that place on Saturday and say that everything we put into it -- the planning, the practice and the competition -- hey, we’ve got this to show for it. That’s about as long-term as my world is -- next Saturday.”
Unfortunately for Groh, a UVA alum, he’s running out of Saturdays. Groh’s contract doesn’t expire until Dec. 31, 2011, but the noticeable drop-off in attendance at Scott Stadium has caught Littlepage’s attention.
According to the Associated Press, Virginia is averaging 46,605 fans for its five home games, down more than 7,000 from what last year's 5-7 team drew. Fan support is one of the factors Littlepage told the Associated Press he is concerned about.
“When I walk out there, I have an idea of how many people are there, but frankly, once we’re playing, I don’t know if there’s six or 60,000 there,” Groh said. “I’m just trying to concentrate on doing my job.”
No one is questioning his effort. Groh made the painful decision to fire his son as offensive coordinator this past offseason, bringing in Gregg Brandon to install the spread offense. Without the personnel, though, the offense won’t work. Groh adjusted after the first three games and it paid off with a three-game winning streak.
When asked on Sunday night if he and his staff are doing everything they can to win games, Groh said that “to say everything would be egotistical.”
“I’ve never come out of one in a lot of years, even when we’ve won pretty well, that I thought I got them all right,” Groh said. “We analyze ourselves first, before we do anything else. Certainly there is plenty to analyze there, but as we did talk about in our meeting with the players [Sunday], the coaches’ job during the game is to put the players in position to make plays. We spend the whole week trying to do that, and come up with the right plan for that, and the right ideas, and everybody has to be able to respond to that particular thing.
"We’ve had some games where we’ve done a really good job of it. We had some real good things, some very, very good things down in Chapel Hill that frankly put the players in position to make the plays that determine the game. We did some real good things the previous two weeks in those games. But in the long run, they didn’t result in enough points or enough wins.”
And in the long run, those are the bottom-line numbers Littlepage will have to consider at the end of the season.
Posted by ESPN.com's Heather Dinich
The ACC closed the regular season with a bang, not a bust. Clemson and North Carolina State both earned their bowl eligibility, and so far the league is 2-1 against the SEC with the Wake/Vandy game still in progress. (I'll check back on that one when I get back to the hotel, which won't be for a while.) Until then, here are a few thoughts from all of today's games, and what a week it was:
GEORGIA TECH 45, GEORGIA 42
This was arguably the ACC's biggest win of the season, and will be even tougher to beat in the Orange Bowl. Now, that's how you represent. On the road against a ranked SEC team. If this is what Paul Johnson did in his first year, imagine how tough the Yellow Jackets will be to beat in his third, when he's brought in his own recruits. And no doubt the win over Georgia helped win some local talent over. Even without an ACC title, Georgia Tech fans have at least nine other reasons to celebrate, the latest being the biggest.
VIRGINIA TECH 17, VIRGINIA 14
Regardless of how they did it (with defense and coaching) the Hokies deserve credit for making it to the ACC championship game again. Virginia Tech was probably the one team in the ACC that met preseason expectations, as they were picked by the media to win the division. Nobody, though, probably expected it would be this difficult. Virginia, on the other hand, ended its season with a four-game losing streak and failed to become bowl eligible for the second time in the past three years. AD Craig Littlepage stands behind his earlier statement this season that Al Groh's job is secure, regardless of how he finishes the season.
CLEMSON 31, SOUTH CAROLINA 14
Dabo Swinney hasn't had an official interview yet for the head coaching job, but his win over rival South Carolina spoke louder than anything he probably could have said anyway. The Tigers are now bowl eligible and will be an attractive team to a lot of bowls. One of the most impressive aspects of this win is that Clemson's defense outplayed South Carolina's, which was one of the best in the SEC. Swinney made a tough call firing former offensive coordinator Rob Spence, but judging by the success they've had since that move was made, it was the right one. Of course, having a healthy offensive line and the right combination there has also made a tremendous difference.
NC STATE 38, MIAMI 28
The Wolfpack are now bowl eligible, and odds are they wind up in D.C. for the first Eagle Bank Bowl. It's hard to believe NC State entered the month 2-6. The turnaround can be attributed to the coaching staff, the health of the team, and quarterback Russell Wilson. He did it again today, throwing for two touchdowns and running for another. They racked up 439 yards against what was one of the better defenses in the ACC. While NC State made a run similar to the one it did last season, the program took another step forward by finishing the job. Last year, their four-game winning streak was marred by back-to-back losses.
BOSTON COLLEGE 28, MARYLAND 21
Dominique Davis proved he is a capable quarterback and an accurate passer. He's good enough to win his next game, especially if he gets another outstanding performance from the defense and Montel Harris adds another 100-yard rushing performance. When the Eagles hold opponents to under 100 yards rushing like they have their past five opponents and the offense doesn't make mistakes, it's usually a winning formula. It's also a formula that doesn't bode well for the one-dimensional Hokies.
FLORIDA 45, FLORIDA STATE 15
FSU coach Bobby Bowden said before this game it would be interesting to see how much they had closed the gap with their rivals. Maybe he'd rather not know. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the Gators this season. They've made their case as the best team in the country. FSU placekicker Graham Gano was the best offense the Noles had. It was another learning experience for Christian Ponder, who was benched in favor of Drew Weatherford.
NORTH CAROLINA 28, DUKE 20
The Tar Heels finally got what they needed from quarterback T.J. Yates, and were able to snap the two-game losing streak. Yates threw three touchdown passes, and the defense looked like it did a few weeks ago when Trimane Goddard intercepted a pass in the final minute to seal the win. Duke fans should still be happy with the job David Cutcliffe did this season as he brought the program back to respectability.
Posted by ESPN.com's Heather Dinich
- Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in an e-mail that "Al Groh will be our head coach" regardless of what happens in the Cavaliers' final two games. UVa. still has to face Clemson and rival Virginia Tech. That's a good thing for Littlepage, who just gave Groh a contract extension at the end of last season.
- Clemson interim coach Dabo Swinney might not be so lucky.
- There was legitimate first-round draft talent on the field in Winston-Salem on Saturday, and he went after Virginia like a "mad dog." Then again, maybe it was just the unis.
- Georgia Tech "got whipped" but the Jackets still have something to play for -- like which bowl game they're invited to.
- Boston College is three wins away from playing in the ACC Championship Game, a surprising scenario considering its 2-3 conference record.
Posted by ESPN.com's Heather Dinich
Virginia quarterback Peter Lalich will not play against Connecticut on Saturday, coach Al Groh announced today in a statement released by the school.
Sophomore Marc Verica will make the first start of his career.
"We stand by Peter and in talking with him have made a decision which is best in the short term for him, the team, and our University," Groh stated. "We have a strong set of standards and values on our team that reflect those of the University and we do not compromise those values to win football games."
Lalich started the first two games for the Cavaliers and appeared to be their best option after losing Jameel Sewell to academic issues -- Lalich was the only quarterback with experience left on the roster. But Lalich encountered some off-field issues of his own in July when he was arrested for underage purchase of alcohol. Earlier this week, the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported Lalich admitted that he violated terms of his probation, a confession Lalich recanted on Tuesday.
This was all reported last week, but Lalich was still allowed to play last Saturday against Richmond.
"I love my team and my teammates and the way they have let me know that they trust me and have my back," Lalich said in the release. "Because I care so much about our team, it is best for me to step back temporarily from my starting position so that my teammates can focus 100 percent on getting ready for the game."
"Coach Groh and I have frequent conversations and we agree on this. I appreciate that coach sees me first as a person, then as a quarterback. I make mistakes like everyone, but I have followed the terms of my probation and I am committed to our team and the University of Virginia."
Virginia athletics director Craig Littlepage supported the decision.
"Peter and coach Groh came to a decision and I fully support it," Littlepage said in the release. "Over the past 24 hours I've had conversations with both Peter and coach Groh. The focus of our discussions shifted from due process and fairness and moved toward what would be best for Peter and the team, at least until such time that matters were cleared up about his probation status."
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