2007 Football Schedule Analysis Part V: @ Wyoming
This is Part V of an ongoing series of posts detailing my analysis of the 2007 UVA Football Schedule.
It seems that most of the debate about this game among the fans falls into three categories: the altitude, the Cowboys and the Cavaliers. I'll address each of those three topics in turn.
The Altitude
War Memorial Stadium doesn't really look that imposing to visiting teams when you glance at the first sentence on Wyoming's facilities page for the stadium. It lists the capacity at only 32,580 - which I believe is a little more than half of what Scott Stadium holds.
But then you get to the end of that paragraph (emphasis mine):
A beautiful artificial turf, installed in the summer of '05 sets off this breathtaking stadium, which at an elevation of 7,220 feet is the highest Division I football stadium in America.
Woah. That's a little intimidating.
This has been one of the biggest topics of discussion on the message boards. So how much merit is there to this concern?
Enough.
Every game takes preparation. Every first game of the season takes that much more preparation. But playing that first game of the season under those conditions will put an extra kind of stress on the team and the coaches. The players will need to manage their endurance better than they're used to. This is especially some of the younger players who may not know how to manage their bodies for a full game at the college level yet anyway. I don't see this being a problem for someone like Chris Long as much as it is for someone like Keith Payne.
Then again, this 2007 rendition of the Cavaliers is a team that actually has some depth (relative to last year at least). Not at all positions. But we have depth at enough positions that we shouldn't have a problem with the "Iron Man" syndrome like we did last year. This year's team is also looking like its just going to be plain better than last year's team. We beat Wyoming last year (don't remind me of how close it was, please) and we're better this year. Altitude can only do so much damage.
The conditions of the game are definitely something the staff needs to be very cognizant of. However I don't think its nearly as big of a deal as some people have it out to be. In the end, things like Sewell's production, the offensive line's cohesiveness and the secondary's ability to lock down Wyoming's receivers all game will make much more of an impact than the altitude.
The Cowboys
For all the volumes of information I have available to me on the Virginia Cavaliers, It's amazing how little information I have on our opponents. Wyoming is no exception. Here's what I do know.
The Cowboys run a 3-4 defense. Their front seven is very deep - last year's team had 17 linebackers; this year's has 14. Their coaches tend to make good use of the depth with lots of rotations. I get the impression that their defense will be a stiff first test for our [hopefully] improved offensive line.
Their offense is a different story. From what I can tell, they lost at least three starters on the offensive line alone. That should be making Chris Long and Jeffrey Fitzgerald smile.
Even though the QB that we saw last year (Jacob Doss) is still on the team as a senior, it appears he's fallen to third string. Sophomore Karsten Sween looks to be the starter after taking over for Doss last year. Another QB we might see depending on how fall camp goes is Ian Hetrick, a transfer from Santa Rosa JuCo in California. Sween is a lefty so I'd think it'll be useful that our defense has been practicing against the lefty Sewell. From the accounts that I've read, their running backs and tight ends will be the same as last year while their receiving corps is a bit younger.
Overall, it sounds like this must be somewhat of a zero-sum proposition. Their defense should be better, but their offense might be a little worse than what we saw last year.
The Cavaliers
So how do the Cavaliers match up against the Cowboys?
I think I've got two different answers depending on who has the ball.
When the Cowboys have the ball, I'm pretty excited to see what an extra year of practice has done for our defense, particularly the front seven. I have a feeling that Long and Fitz will be able to expose Wyoming's relatively inexperienced line and open things up for the linebackers to put some serious pressure on the quarterback. That stacks up well for allowing our shaky secondary to ease into the season - if the quarterback isn't given time to get the ball in the air, he likely won't be able to make very good throws.
It's when Virginia has the ball that I'm a little more interested to see what happens. If you read Part II of this series, you'll know that I'm just not sure what to think about the offense. We should be better than last year. But how much better? The depth of the Cowboys' defense and their frequent substitutions won't be giving the offense much room to learn as they go, so Dave Borbely and the other offensive coaches had better have this team very well prepared.
Summary
I'm not sure what to think about the Cavaliers' offense against the Cowboys' defense. But I just don't think the Cowboys' offense is going to be able to put up many points on our defense. I also don't think the altitude issue is going to be as much of a problem as some are making it out to be. I'm not going to make a score prediction yet (I'll save that for a later article) but I'm counting this game as a W.