Virginia Football and Mike London’s Career Rests On A Thin Line

Everyone knows that hope springs eternal in sports.

Every team hopes that this will be the year their team overcomes the odds and stuns the sporting world.

After all, the Duke Blue Devils stunned just about everyone by winning the ACC Coastal Division and sweeping the Commonwealth of Virginia by overcoming a 22-point deficit against the Cavaliers and stunning the Virginia Tech Hokies to take coach Dave Cutcliffe and company to their first 10-win season in school history.

Yet, the hope that so many fans cling to in the dog days of summer remains conspicuously absent in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Coming off a 2-10 record under head coach Mike London, the conversation is not about developing redshirt quarterback Greyson Lambert or the experience coming back on both sides of the ball. The prevailing discourse is on when London will be fired and who can Virginia get to replace him?

Ouch.

Coach London’s press conference at the ACC Media Days had to feel a bit like the Spanish Inquisition, but he sat there confidently and defiantly, ready to prove everyone wrong.

“I see a team that is unified,” he said. “I see a team that is older. The focus for me is to put a team together that is competitive and I believe we’ll be competitive. At the end of the season we can speak to the outcome.”

Outcomes would be the exact conversation London wants to avoid. In four seasons with the Cavaliers, London is 18-31, (8-24 ACC) with just one winning season to his name. If you take out FCS opponents, Virginia is just 14-31.

If you take out Miami, Virginia is 5-23 in the ACC.

Despite the promise of the 2011 season, it appears now that coach London is in way over his head and that the hot seat will soon reach a boil.

However, it’s July and we should try to stay positive so let us focus on trying to keep people employed.

So how does London do that? Bolster his offensive line that was so porous last year.

While the glamour position of running back, quarterback and wide receiver grab headlines, the offensive line is the key to any team’s success.

If the offense is a car, that line is the engine.

No matter how pretty the rims may gleam or the paint scheme may impress, it is not going anywhere without the hogmollies up front beating their opposite number.

Virginia has had stellar offensive line talent over the years but the unit results have suffered since 2011.

In the lone winning season for the Cavaliers, the rushing game averaged over 160 yards per game averaging 4.2 yards per play.

In 2012 that number plummeted to 128.5 ypg and 3.7 yards per play before a slight resurgence in 2013 to 156 ypg and 3.8 yards per play. However, that number is skewed by two big games against VMI and Ball State.

In the other 10 games, Virginia had a grand total of 3.4 yards per play and 1,286 rushing yards.

Combine that with an average of nearly seven penalties per game on offense and the “dynamic” David Watford averaging 2 yards per rush and the problem becomes clear.

Virginia simply needs more discipline and bigger gaps from the line. As much as we can blame the skill players for an anemic offense, they have to be picked up from their teammates up front.

That means a strong cohesive unit that can keep the momentum of a drive going.

Not see it curtailed by a sea of yellow flags or a blitz not properly picked up.

With the less-than-mobile Lambert behind center, Virginia has to find a way to overcome losing 34th overall pick the 2014 NFL Draft Morgan Moses.

Otherwise, Virginia is going to lose more than games, they will probably lose their coach.