ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 21, 1996 TAG: 9610220029
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monday Morning QB
SOURCE: FROM STAFF REPORTS
Before Saturday, some people may have wondered if Tiki Barber still returned punts for Virginia.
As far as catching the ball and doing something with it, he hadn't been.
When Barber finally fielded a punt and had some running room Saturday, he dashed 74 yards for the Cavaliers' first touchdown in a 62-14 victory over N.C. State.
``It was one of the first ones all year when the punter out-kicked his coverage,'' said Barber, a senior from Cave Spring High School in Roanoke. ``I was starting to get a little frustrated.
``Most of the ones I've been able to catch, I've had to fair catch. On the one today, I thought, `I can return this one.' I wasn't thinking touchdown. I was just happy to get one I could return, period.''
It was only the fourth punt Barber has returned all season and the first since the second week. His 35.8-yard average would lead Division I-A, but he doesn't have nearly enough attempts to qualify.
Barber's only previous punt return for a touchdown, also 74 yards, was against Navy in his sophomore year. Barber is the only player in UVa history to have two punt returns of more than 70 yards.
Borrowed time
Barber's touchdown was followed by two blocked punts, both resulting in touchdowns, and suddenly it became apparent that the starters weren't going to play much in the second half.
The Cavaliers were leading 31-0 almost midway through the second quarter and Barber, bidding for a school-record sixth straight 100-yard game, had carried 11 times for 44 yards.
As if on cue, Barber rounded right end on a short-side sweep and sprinted 52 yards for a touchdown. It was his longest run of the season and the fourth-longest of his career.
``Before that run, I thought, `I'm not going to get 100 yards today. I'll be out of the game,''' said Barber, who squeezed through an envelope-sized hole in front of the UVa bench.
``I knew at that point I was near 100. Coach [Andre] Powell told me at halftime that I'd have one more series and then I'd be through.''
Barber finished with 17 carries for 132 yards, giving him five of the top nine rushing performances in the ACC this season. He has rushed for 100 yards or more in 15 of UVa's last 19 games, including the Peach Bowl.
Tight-lipped
Coach George Welsh put an end to a one-game, 12-day ban on player interviews that resulted from comments made by Barber before the Cavaliers played Georgia Tech.
``No comment on that,'' Barber told a reporter from North Carolina. ``It's in the past. I'm not dealing with that anymore.''
Barber's observation that Virginia had better athletes, a better game plan and better coaches than Georgia Tech came back to haunt the Cavaliers when Tech beat them 13-7 in Atlanta. He's been hearing about it for two weeks.
``It felt good to get all that stuff behind me and play football,'' said Barber, scheduled to resume his heavy media obligations today with a conference call with the Florida media.
He's nationwide
Will Brice was more of a punter than a place-kicker Saturday when he kicked off three times as the Cavaliers tried to keep the ball away from would-be Olympic sprinter Alvis Whitted.
Virginia has one of the nation's most effective kickoff specialists in Rafael Garcia, who regularly kicks the ball deep into the end zone. However, Brice gets more elevation on his kicks and was used when UVa kicked into the wind.
Brice's only punt for 2 1/2 quarters was a 34-yarder into the wind. When he finally got an opportunity, he took advantage of the jet stream to boot a 67-yarder, his longest of the season.
``That second punt felt pretty good, '' said Brice, whose 47.2 average leads Division I-A. ``I didn't want to come out of here with one punt for 34 yards.''
Good timing
VMI, Ferrum and Washington and Lee were a combined 1-15 prior to Saturday, when all three teams won. It was the first time the three teams won on the same day since Oct.14, 1995.
They had almost the same opponents then as they did on Saturday. VMI beat UT-Chattanooga last Oct.14, and W&L beat Hampden-Sydney. Ferrum downed Guilford 30-24 and beat Chowan 29-9 the next week.
Since last Oct.14, the teams are a combined 7-21.
Rambling men
VMI had a season-best 445 yards of offense Saturday in its 28-14 victory at Southern Conference rival UT-Chattanooga. Thomas Haskins and Jason White had 328 of those yards on the ground.
White, a 6-1, 250-pound sophomore fullback, has 176 yards rushing in his past two games, establishing himself as a back of the future. Two weeks ago at Georgia Southern, White ran for a first down on third-and-14. At the end of that play, VMI coach Bill Stewart turned to assistant head coach Donnie Ross and said, ``That son of a gun there is going to be all-world one day.''
Haskins currently carries that banner for the Keydets (1-6 overall, 1-4 Southern). He was disappointed he had only 597 yards in VMI's first six games, but he wasn't always healthy. Prior to last week's game against Marshall, for example, he spent Thursday night in the hospital with a sinus infection.
Haskins snuck out that afternoon to practice, but the nurses caught him and had his coaches send him back to his bed.
Although Marshall limited him to 72 yards, he never rested against UT-C. Haskins ran for 227 yards Saturday, the fifth-best single-game total in school history.
Small favors
There were a few hundred VMI students who were just as happy as Stewart the Keydets won Saturday. When the team got back from Chattanooga, Tenn., at midnight, VMI's freshman class was given a reprieve from the rat line until Monday morning.
Stewart was glad to give them the break, and also liked avoiding the possibility of a winless season. ``Before you get win two, three, four and five, you've got to get number one,'' Stewart said. ``Mission accomplished.''
Turning the corner
Ferrum coach Dave Davis didn't see much of a difference in his team's performance Saturday, a 12-9 overtime victory over Chowan, than in any of this season's previous games, all losses.
``We've been playing like this for a while,'' he said. ``We finally crossed the line.''
There were plays that brought back memories of the Panthers' seven-game losing streak that dated to last season, like having 10 men on the field for a failed extra point because a freshman was celebrating on the sideline instead of blocking on the kick.
``Most of their production was coming from our mistakes,'' Davis said.
Chowan didn't have much production to speak of, though. The Panthers held Chowan to 20 yards.
Ferrum (1-5) won a close game because of the running of sophomore tailback Emmanuel Baker. Baker set a single-game school record for rushing attempts (42) and racked up 168 yards.
Ferrum needed that because their leading rusher, Maurice Clark, missed the game. Clark, a freshman who was the Group AA player of the year in 1995 at Amherst County High School, had a family emergency last week and didn't practice enough to play.
Renaissance man
It's hard to say which meant more to Washington and Lee senior fullback Aaron Wilkinson on Saturday. Was it scoring his first career touchdown in a 17-13 victory over Hampden-Sydney? Or was it being named the first recipient of the Gary R. Fallon Memorial scholarship?
Probably the latter. Wilkinson, a former linebacker who played high school ball in Pensacola, Fla., alongside current Tampa Bay Buccaneer Derrick Brooks, is the Generals' in-house poet, musician and orator.
Coach Frank Miriello often has the pony-tailed Wilkinson give readings for the team. Often those readings are letters from former players, most of whom played for Fallon.
Pyrrhic victory
Although W&L made a gain in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference standings, it lost leading tackler Travis Wisdom for the year.
Wisdom, a senior linebacker who entered the game with 61 stops, broke an ankle on the second play of the game. Junior defensive end and best pal Jack Boyd had a career-high 19 tackles in his absence. Wisdom's replacements, Brad Baker and David Foster, combined for 11 tackles, a pleasant surprise to their coaches.
LENGTH: Long : 159 lines KEYWORDS: FOOTBALLby CNB