How Far Can Coach London Take Virginia?
It was not long ago that Virginia was a consistent winner. From 1989 to 2000, they never had a losing season. In 2001, when Al Groh took over, the team went 5-7 and finished 8th overall in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The next four years Coach Groh led the Cavaliers to bowl games. However, the following four years, from 2006 to 2009, they had just one good season. Things got really bad in 2009 when the team opened the season with a loss to William & Mary. That was when it was time to go a different direction. Coach Mike London was the choice.
There was not much left for Coach London to work with last season and he did a good job winning four games last year…although three of those games were against Richmond, VMI and Eastern Michigan. The only quality win on the resume was against Miami. But this year should be better with a lot of returning talent on both sides of the ball. They do open the season up against William & Mary again and this is a very good Tribe team that Virginia better not be overlooking.
In the long run Virginia will be better in 2012 than they are in 2011 and Coach London needs to keep building off of that success by getting quality recruits that Coach Groh was missing out on by the end of his tenure in Charlottesville. But nothing is a better recruiter than winning and those quality recruiting classes will start dwindling away if the Cavs cannot turn these four and five win seasons into seven and eight win seasons. The past has proven that Virginia can win consistently…they just need to find the right man for the job and Coach London is looking like the right guy so far.
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