Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 25, 1995 TAG: 9509250118
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLEMSON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
There's no telling where Virginia would be ranked if it had held onto a lead at Michigan - or if it hadn't agreed to play the Wolverines in the season-opening Pigskin Classic.
``I'll say it again: I think playing the Michigan game has helped this football team,'' UVa coach George Welsh said Saturday after a 22-3 victory over Clemson.
``It's [the Michigan trip] going on the road and playing a quality football team before a hostile crowd and learning how to play with poise. If you're going to execute, you've got to play with poise.''
The Cavaliers never let the crowd of 70,000 get in the game Saturday and now have the rare opportunity to win five football games in September if they can beat Wake Forest for the 12th consecutive year.
Virginia has played five games in September only once previously - in 1990, when it started 5-0 and was ranked No.1 in the country. There won't be five Saturdays in September again until 2000.
The Cavaliers (4-1 overall, 3-0 ACC) never trailed against Clemson (2-2, 1-2), but the game did not start in promising fashion for UVa when Petey Allen took the opening kickoff and slipped and fell at his 2-yard line.
Within moments, Virginia was punting from its end zone, but there was a quick turning point when Clemson's Jeff Sauve missed a 50-yard field-goal attempt and UVa took over at its 33.
``In games like this, especially when you're playing away, those things all add up,'' Welsh said. ``We couldn't even hear [over the crowd noise] there at the beginning. They were loud then and they were loud a couple of other times.''
The fans started filing out as soon as Virginia increased its lead to 19-3 in the third quarter. They didn't want to see their Tigers suffer their first home loss to Virginia in 19 games.
``I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see this,'' said UVa team physician Dr. Frank McCue, who has seen all 35 games in a series that began in 1955.
Danny Wilmer, an assistant coach at Virginia since 1984, ran into the Cavaliers' locker room after the game and came back to shoot pictures of the scoreboard with his camera.
``It's history,'' Virginia tailback Tiki Barber said. ``We made history this week. Usually, we come down here, they run all over us and we don't play well, but that wasn't the case today.
``It's always tough to play well at Death Valley, but Coach Welsh told us that we're the 11th-ranked team in the country and they're [the Tigers] not. We're better than them. We just had a lot of confidence that we were going to win.''
Clemson out-gained the Cavaliers 393-303, but much of the Tigers' yardage came during the fourth quarter, when the outcome no longer was in doubt. There was one close call for Virginia, when quarterback Mike Groh was called for unsportsmanlike conduct in the final quarter.
It appeared to some observers that one of the officials had raised his thumb, as if to eject Groh.
``That's what I thought, too,'' said UVa offensive coordinator Tom O'Brien.
Groh admittedly was upset that he was called for intentional grounding when he thought Barber was in the area of his pass.
``He came up to me,'' Groh said of the official. ``I was on the ground and he said, `There was no one near it.' Of course, I was going to plead my case and, as soon as I did, he threw a flag. If he doesn't want me to say anything, he shouldn't come up talking to me.''
Groh returned for the next series and, while the Cavaliers had only one first down in the fourth quarter, they took precious time off the clock.
``I don't know how you would describe our offense,'' Welsh said. ``Maybe we got a little conservative. I know, in the last six minutes, I didn't want to throw the ball.''
Welsh also relieved Barber, possibly with an eye toward the final three games in a six-game stretch of ACC matchups. After entertaining Wake Forest, Virginia visits North Carolina, then comes home to play Duke.
``I don't know how good anybody else is,'' Welsh said. ``We'll have a chance to win 'em all if we play well, tend to our knitting and don't get carried away.''
Keywords:
FOOTBALL
by CNB