Virginia hosts the No. 12 team in the country this Saturday for Homecomings, the undefeated Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. You'd think that the media wore out the "Mike London vs. Al Groh" story line last year, but sure enough, people again want to know if knowing and working under Groh gives Mike London any type of advantage.
People are aware, though, that it's not like London spent five years at Virginia spying on Groh's office and secretly eavesdropping on conversations, right? That is to say, it's a two-way street. Al Groh knows Mike London just as well as vice versa, if not better.
"Not that it gives me any advantage," London said on Wednesday. "Coach Groh has done an excellent job. He's got his mindset in terms of defenses and how he prepares for games. Having been under him and knowing him personally, I mean, very driven and very committed for his players to do well, and to come up with game plans to affect the opposing offense."
Nor is there any tension, according to London. While coaching under Groh, London had a good relationship there, and now that Groh has moved on to Georgia Tech, his and London's relationship remains professional.
"I think more so than anything else, it's not about me versus coach or anything like that. I mean, he's there at Georgia Tech, and he's representing them and trying to win games for them. I'm here at Virginia now and trying to do the same for both of our programs. But, again, there is hopefully a mutual respect and one that they're going to try to do things to beat us, and we're going to try to do things to beat them. But that's a part of the competition of this thing called college football."
So, in today's non-post post, what have we learned today? First, having coached under Al Groh previously does not give Mike London any advantages. Second, what exactly do you expect a coach to say when you ask about his relationship with his former boss? I mean come on, this isn't a Gary Williams / Debbie Yow situation here. We don't actually like rioting.