Month: August 2008

A record crowd of 64,947 assembled at Scott Stadium on Saturday to watch Virginia’s 2008 football debut against the University of Southern California, and they bore witness to a Cavalier dismantling by a bigger, stronger, faster team. The Trojans returned to the West Coast with a 52-7 victory.

“USC—a big, powerful, fast group with superior quarterback play today,” said UVA’s head coach, Al Groh, after the game. “We were anything but big and fast, and our quarterback turned the ball over too many times.”

After playing surprisingly well last year and going 9-4, UVA came into this season with fewer than half of its starters and was a 19-point underdog against the Trojans. The Cavaliers had to scratch, claw and fight for every one of their 187 yards gained while the boys from Troy effortlessly racked up 558 yards.

All that prevented it from being a shut out was a first quarter UVA scoring drive that depended on the Trojans’ generous gift of 25 yards in penalties. When Mikell Simpson ran in that 7-yard touchdown, UVA had already given up 21 points. By the fourth quarter, the Sea of Orange had dissipated into a few miserable puddles, with Trojan fans outnumbering Wahoos as they watched Virginia utterly collapse, fumbling the ball twice in the waning minutes. Both teams put in second and third string players to end the three and a half hour match.

The offense came out with a new pass-heavy look, operating exclusively out of the shotgun until the game was out of reach. Though the pocket quickly collapsed around him, sophomore quarterback Peter Lalich completed 18 of 35 passes for 155 yards, but he began forcing things in the second half, throwing into double coverage for an interception and fumbling a couple of snaps.

“We had a lot of open guys out there that I should have hit,” said Lalich. “There was a lot of times that we could have turned this thing around.”

Throughout the offseason, Groh held his cards close about who would be the starting quarterback. It wasn’t until minutes before kickoff that it was announced that Lalich would play the position—just as everyone had expected anyway. The secrecy, however, was kept up after the game—Lalich said he “wasn’t allowed to talk about” when he got the job.

On defense, Virginia’s front line, sans Chris Long and Jeffrey Fitzgerald, couldn’t get any pressure on USC’s quarterback Mark Sanchez, who started picking on freshman cornerback Chase Minnefield in the second half and racked up 338 passing yards. Southern Cal’s stable of running backs juked and smashed their way past UVA tacklers for 216 yards on the ground.

“To be honest, as far as the plays and all the things they did, we pretty much knew what was going to happen,” said Clint Sintim, UVA linebacker and co-captain. “That’s why I guess it’s so disappointing.”

If there’s any consolation for Wahoos, it’s that the rest of the ACC looks similarly mediocre. Virginia Tech lost yesterday to East Carolina 27-22 and N.C. State was shut out by South Carolina on Thursday. Maryland and North Carolina both struggled to beat Division I-AA teams.

The Cavaliers will have the chance to redeem themselves against Richmond this Saturday.

Okay, I’m back in the blogging saddle. How about that McCain veep pick? Gotta love how the GOP suddenly embraces women when politically expedient (see also their sudden concern for Muslim women). I’m hoping Hillary speaks out loud and clear that Palin is not an adequate "replacement." I think she will; it’s just a matter of when.

My understanding is that Palin’s positions are largely the inverse of Hillary’s. As others have said before me, it’s high time we started making a distinction between being a woman and being for women’s equality.

I wish I could have posted this this morning, but because Monday is Labor Day, I faced an early cartoon deadline and had to deal with that first. (We at Slowpoke, Inc. deeply respect Labor Day, of course.) From my jottings while at Invesco Field Mile High Product Placement Stadium:

I arrived not long before Sheryl Crow sang "A Change Will Do Us Good," a variation on her hit "A Change Will Do You Good." Speaking of song lyrics, I actually heard Lenny Kravitz’s "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" twice in Pepsi Center. Maybe an invitation to Hillary supporters?

Bill Richardson had a nice line: "John McCain may be paying hundreds for his shoes, but America will be paying for his flipflops."

I sat next to a reporter for a German-language Swiss weekly, Woz Die Wochenzeitung. Here’s something he wrote, if you can read German.

By the way, the French TV correspondent I talked to yesterday said the BBC sent, like, 92 people to Denver. I have no way of confirming that, but I would not be surprised.

One thing you couldn’t observe watching TV was the stadium-wide foot stomping that shook the whole place on several occasions.

Al Gore got a long standing ovation.

I loved the Long Island accent of the pet store owner from Florida echoing throughout the stadium: "We can’t affawd faw maw yeahs!"

An hour or so before Obama came on, the text of his speech was released to the press, as was the case with many major speakers at the convention. I didn’t read it, though. I waited to hear it delivered.

As you can imagine, the anticipation kept building and building, and you might say there was some electricity in the air by the time he walked onstage. For me the most spine-tingly moment was when he talked about MLK. But there were so many great memebusting lines — about how Repubs say to pull yourself up by your bootstraps even if you don’t have any boots, and how the ownership society means you’re on your own, and that "it’s time for them to own their failure." Smackdowns don’t get any better than that.

The nonstop activity here is finally catching up with me, and I can feel entire lobes of my brain shutting down. If I start using monosyllabic words only or speaking in tongues, you’ll know why.

I wanted to catch up briefly on some notes I’ve been making about the speeches over the past few days. First off, Biden’s struck me as strong and forthright; I liked that he wasn’t afraid to say "These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader." I thought his right-wing framing of "the dignity of work" was kind of meh — too many low-wage jobs are pretty damned awful, unsafe, and undignified, and it’s time we moved past that overgeneralization (or improved those jobs). But the right is so ridiculously fixated on welfare, I understand why he said it. Overall, a good speech that made him seem likable.

I felt Mark Warner’s speech was effective because it complicated the stupid pro-business/anti-business binary that seems to prevail in most political discourse. Nice name check of TJ.

Would write more, but I need to get ready to leave for the stadium. Not sure about internet access there, but we’ll see.

Perhaps Mark Warner feels he’s had enough television exposure after his speech at the Democratic National Convention. In a press release, The League of Women Voters of Virginia says it won’t hold its customary senatorial debate because former Governor Mark Warner has opted not to participate.

“Exposing voters to a rigorous debate of the critical issues facing this nation today is a cornerstone of the democratic election process in America,” said Peter Maroney, vice president of WTVR, a CBS station that would have aired the debate. “It is regrettable that former Governor Warner has chosen to deny Virginians that opportunity by declining this statewide broadcast opportunity.” WCVE, a PBS station, would have also aired the debate.

Warner and his Republican opponent, Jim Gilmore (another former governor), debated in late July at The Homestead, but the event was not broadcast.

Traditionally, the frontrunner controls the debate line-up, and Warner is certainly the frontrunner. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll puts Warner up 26 points over Gilmore.