Al Groh, you can stay a little while longer. My rush to judgment after the Wyoming game was clearly unfair and uncalled for. After rattling off four straight victories, including three conference games, and two more nonconference games that should be victories coming up, I'm thinking that it's very likely that UVA finishes with at minimum a winning season and a bowl game appearance. Eight victories seem attainable, with perhaps more. We still haven't found out how good this team can become. They seem to get better each week with Sewell finally starting to play the way we hoped he would this year, Cedric Peerman and the offensive line playing excellently, and the defense led by Chris Long playing stifling defense and creating plenty of turnovers.

There is also a chance in my mind now that UVA could win 10 games this year (if you include the bowl game and potentially the ACC championship game) and I could finally win a bet against a certain other contributor to this blog. That's probably exceedingly optimistic, but we can dream can't we. That would probably require going at least 9-3 in the regular season, which would mean beating VA Tech probably, which we haven't done since 2003. Tech's offense looks horrible, so perhaps there's a chance with the game in Charlottesville. I also am pretty certain that Tech won't be winning the Coastal division this year with the schedule they have left (at Clemson, at Boston College, FSU at home, Miami at home, at Virginia, and at Georgia Tech). None of those games are easy wins for this year's Tech team. In fact, I think they are going to probably lose three of them, starting with this coming weekend at Clemson. Virginia has the advantage of not having to play FSU, Clemson, or BC this year. We have Miami, Tech, Wake, NC State, and Maryland left in conference.

Updated prediction for 2007 UVA football team: 8-5 with a loss in a mid-range bowl game. But a victory over Virginia Tech.

I was calling for Al Groh's head after the embarassment at Wyoming. It wasn't the first time I had. If you check the archives, you'll find me calling for his head in late 2005 when that season was going down the tubes. Winning the bowl game in Nashville late in the season didn't encourage me much in the future of the team. Last year clearly confirmed that, but the end of the season and all the returning players gave me hope. Instead, we got off to a horrible start against a small time team like Wyoming where we were outgained in yardage by a factor of four and Wyoming had 28 first downs to our 5. It was truly embarassing as I read it on Espn.com out here on Guam (unfortunately, Jefferson Pilot Sports doesn't have any games on out here). Squeaking out victories in the last two games has me a little more encouraged, though not confident. Perhaps the emergence of Cedric Peerman and Peter Lalich as offensive starts will result in the rebirth of the UVA offense. Chris Long continues to play like a man child. Perhaps there is some hope to have a winning season and make a bottom feeder bowl given our weak schedule. Anything less than 6 wins, and Groh needs to go. He probably needs to go anyways.