Photo by sharkycharming

Virginia vs William & Mary: Good news, Tribe alumni! Those of you who survived your education and its notoriously high (if maybe misleading) suicide rate have a reason to keep on keepin’ on after the season opener against UVa’s Cavaliers. W&M officials ought to think about hiring on cornerback B.W. Webb as a campus counselor for at-risk students following his performance in the game. He was on call for three passes from Virginia quarterback Jameel Sewell, turning the last of these picks around for a touchdown. Sewell was just one of three quarterbacks (in addition to Vic Hall and Marc Verica) to take the helm of an offense that coach Al Groh promised was all-new and all-different — but proved to be all-slippery at best. In its 26-14 loss, Virginia committed a whopping seven turnovers, as if they were trying to catalog the possibilities for losing the ball. A bad snap, a fumble, a confusing backward pass, and a total punt fail contributed to Virginia’s efforts to do 9999 damage to its season’s prospects.

The Tribe only needed not to lose, and despite penalties that cost them a total 100 yards, redshirt senior quarterback R.J. Archer did the job, throwing a harmless eye-en-tee in the fourth and a touchdown early on to capitalize on Virginia’s self-destruct sequence.

What’s Virginia’s path to recovery? Next week, Virginia plays #17 Texas Christian University, and the Cavs have everything to prove. The team (surely) can’t commit more turnovers in their next game, so Groh would do well to focus on the more glaring problem in the offense: the hole in the team’s pocket. Quarterback-by-committee might be the right strategy to try to stop the bleeding in a game pockmarked by disastrous turnovers, but the team needs a leader. In the team’s only highlight during the game, Sewell lit up for 5 passes for 45 yards and 4 carries for 35 yards. That’s a place to start.