Coming off a big win against No. 22 Miami, the Virginia Cavaliers are excited about the victory and looking forward to the next few weeks, which could turn this season into a storybook finish. The win, however, has to be short-lived, according to head coach Mike London. It's time to think about the competition, which for this week, means traveling to Durham to face Duke, a team that's beaten Virginia in each of the past two years.
London faced the Blue Devils last year while coaching at Richmond, but doesn't see that as much of a benefit to him heading into this game.
"I don't know how much of a benefit – I can't recall if they ran the pistol," London said. "Obviously the quarterback was different – Thaddeus Lewis. This year they have two quarterbacks that come in: one that throws, and Renfree does a good job running the ball."
"[Last year at Richmond,] we started out fast and I believe we blocked a punt early on and did a couple other things in the game, which kept us in it and kept us on them. So there is value to starting fast as we started with Miami, and there's always value to that. We have to keep harping that particular point on to our players, particularly when you're on the road, when you're away."
Duke quarterback Sean Renfree has thrown more interceptions (15) than touchdown passes (11). But last week in Duke's upset of Navy, he completed 28 of 30 passes, with no picks in 314 yards.
"It's an offense where the receiver runs certain routes and they sit in holes and pockets, and there's a high opportunity for completions, and when you saw the game before, I think it was something like 28 for 30 and he hit his first 16 and was in a rhythm."
"We have tape and you look at things and you study things you try to do some things to take him out of his rhythm, you try some coverage things, whether you blitz or you do different inside/outside techniques or whatever it may be, but they have some great offense where they take him, they utilize the skill of two very good receivers, they spread you across the field horizontally and make you defend a lot of gaps. He does a great job of throwing the ball and filling those games and making you go tackle those players."
"We're still learning how to play, we're still learning how to play games, and this is going to be an important game for us because it's the next game of our second season and I keep telling that to the players. Duke has beaten Virginia the last couple times and you can't forget about those things, no one's counting the other opportunities we have. This is the next and most important game for us now."