Haphazard burning of redshirts real reason Groh needs to go

Critics point at all kinds of numbers when making the case to fire Virginia football coach Al Groh.

The Cavs have turned in two losing seasons in the past three years, with seven to nine losses surely coming by the end of this campaign.

Saturday’s attendance at Scott Stadium, 41,713, was the lowest in nine years.

Then there’s the nearly $2 million salary Groh’s collecting.

Yet the most damning number for Groh is 14, as in the number of true freshmen who have played for Virginia this year. That’s 14 redshirts burned — double the average yearly number of true freshmen Groh has used during his nine years in Charlottesville.

Those 14 young players have been thrown into the action as Groh tries to save his job, with seemingly little regard for what would be best for the kids’ development.

Losing games is one thing. Programs have bounced back from a few rough seasons before, but showing such little regard for your players’ future is inexcusable.

Liberty High School product Corey Lillard got into the game against North Carolina a month ago and hasn’t been back on the field since.

Saturday against Duke, eight games into the season, first-year players Paul Freedman and Connor McCartin made their college debuts.

McCartin, a linebacker out of Fauquier, saw action on the kickoff return team and earned rave reviews from Groh. It’s nice to see a local player get on the field and have success, but at this point in the season it’s a waste.

“Connor did a real nice job on kickoff return, in fact better than that position has been manned in previous games, so that was an upgrade for us to use him,” Groh said in his weekly press conference.

That’s all well and good, but it’s hard to imagine using McCartin on special teams is really going to help Virginia (3-5, 2-2 ACC) turn the season around and get to a bowl game. Seeing McCartin practice in the preseason, though, it was pretty easy to tell that with a redshirt year to bulk up, the 6-foot, 3-inch, 205-pounder was certainly going to be a major contributor at linebacker in the future.

That’s not to say McCartin, who is just 17, doesn’t still have a bright future at Virginia. But could sacrificing his redshirt really be worth it?

The same could be said for Orange County graduate Quintin Hunter, who has played sparingly at wide receiver, or just about any of the true freshmen who have played this year. Chancellor product Dominique Wallace also played early in the season before going down with an injury. You hate to see a player get hurt, but Wallace is likely to get the season back with a medical redshirt, meaning in the long run he’s probably better off than many of his classmates.

At least Hunter has played since the beginning of the season and had a few opportunities to mature on the field against older players and be involved in the Cavs offense. Too many of the 14 first-year players have been treated like McCartin and Lillard, strung along for much of the season only to see the year wasted.

Groh has defended himself, saying he’s just trying to play the best players and do what’s best for the team.

“What we have always done with players when they come in is take the attitude (of) ‘when they’re ready, we’re ready,’” Groh said. “Clearly it would be nice to be in a cycle where everybody could sit around for a year and kind of marinate, get ready to play a little bit the next year, kind of a case (enjoyed by) Texas or Alabama or those kind of places.”

It’s disingenuous to say that other schools have the luxury of redshirting players and Virginia doesn’t. Groh is the one who can’t afford it, not U.Va.

Few are buying Groh’s excuses. High school coaches certainly aren’t. Plenty of them are upset about what’s going on at U.Va., and some are downright furious, though few want to go on the record and potentially burn bridges with one of the state’s most prominent college programs.

It works both ways, though. High school coaches have to look at the way Groh has treated so many in-state recruits and think twice before advising their players to become Cavaliers.

Groh’s desperate attempts to save his job have cost too many young players. Let’s hope for the sake of Virginia’s incoming freshmen, they don’t work.