CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - After deciding in September to play a redshirt freshman quarterback and stick with him through his growing pains, Virginia is remarkably still in contention in the Atlantic Coast Conference with four games to play.<br>
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The Cavaliers (3-5, 2-2) have lost four of their last six games, but a 23-0 victory against North Carolina last Thursday night, combined with general improvements in the team's performance and seeming parity in the league, make the stretch drive crucial.<br>
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``It's a great benefit of how the conference is lined up right now,'' coach Al Groh said Tuesday. ``If you can work your way through the first part of the season and continue to improve, and if other things around the conference help position you as such, you have a chance to be in the race at the end of the season.''<br>
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Virginia plays North Carolina State, another team that has played inconsistently but still has a chance to win its division, on Saturday at Scott Stadium.<br>
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It's the start of Virginia's most difficult stretch of the season.<br>
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Virginia is just 1-3 against a marginal slate of non-conference teams, but has blanked Duke and the Tar Heels while losing to No. 21 Georgia Tech and Maryland. After the Wolfpack, it plays at Florida State, plays host to Miami and at Virginia Tech.<br>
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In a season when no ACC team has gone unbeaten, the any given Saturday theory is one that gives the improving Cavaliers hope for salvaging something of the season.<br>
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``The whole emphasis is on win your division. Regardless of what precedes it, if you can win your division, you're in the final game and if you're in the final game, whether you're 5-6 or 6-5 or 7-4 or whatever it is, if you're in the championship game, then you win one more game and you're in the playoffs,'' Groh said.<br>
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In this case, the playoffs is the ACC's spot in a BCS bowl game.<br>
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But for all the excitement over the improved play and presence of quarterback Jameel Sewell, as well as a defense that is giving up fewer big plays, the Cavaliers need to keep focusing on getting better every day, not feeling like they have turned the corner, Groh said.<br>
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``I'm not really big on the `turn the corner' business,'' he said. ``There's always something coming the next week that can make you turn the corner in the wrong direction. Whenever you feel like you've turned the corner or you're pretty solid or you've got it made, then you lose a little bit of the urgency ... to prove yourself.''<br>
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Besides, it's not like the Cavaliers suddenly have gotten everything figured out.<br>
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``There were a number of things from the game last week that, while we played better, we can't continue to have,'' Groh said, listing dropped passes there were at least five and penalties as areas where immediate improvement is required.<br>
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``We've got to get those viruses out of our system this week or else, if we're still afflicted with them Saturday, we're going to have trouble,'' the coach said.<br>
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The Wolfpack (3-4, 2-2) comes into the game in the same situation as Virginia. Its two victories are more impressive they came against Florida State and No. 18 Boston College and its losses came at home against No. 24 Wake Forest and at Maryland.<br>
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``We're at similar stages, trying to get over the hump,'' Chris Long said.<br>
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``It's a wild year in the ACC,'' Long said. ``A couple of weeks ago, if we had told you all the season's not over, I think a lot of people would have smirked at us.<br>
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``Well, it's not.''<br>
Notes: Freshman defensive end Jeffrey Fitzgerald leads the ACC with 11 tackles for loss. ... N.C. State won the last meeting, 51-37, in a duel between Wolfpack quarterback Philip Rivers and the Cavaliers' Matt Schaub. Each quarterback threw four TD passes and they combined for 803 passing yards. ... Virginia has won six of the last nine matchups in the series.
