Unconventional Challenge

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Dec. 31 -- Al Groh has been a football coach for his entire adult life, 38 years worth of picking apart offenses on tape and figuring out how to stop them. After only a handful of days researching Texas Tech, he reached a queasy, if not unexpected, conclusion: The kind of offensive madness Coach Mike Leach creates is an anomaly, like nothing ever revealed on those countless reels of film.

"It doesn't relate to anything else," Groh said.

And so the challenge posed to Groh, defensive coordinator Mike London and the rest of the No. 21 Virginia Cavaliers -- those on offense included -- is to do what so few have: keep the Red Raiders from scoring gobs of points in Tuesday's Gator Bowl.

For one month, Groh has searched for patterns in Texas Tech's hell-on-wheels offense, which, as it does annually, produced absurd statistics. It gained 537 yards per game, a national-best 475.6 through the air. The Red Raiders scored 41.8 points per game and attempted 694 passes, more than any team in the country.

Aside from specific tendencies -- where certain wide receivers line up, how wide the offensive linemen stand apart -- Groh found one common thread in Texas Tech's offense: It works. The only way it could be limited, he concluded, would be with an extraordinary effort, not only by his defense but also by the other units.

"Clearly, we have to find a way to reduce this point total down from the average of 42 points per game," Groh said. "That's too much to ask just 11 players to do. We need 33 players to do that. Eleven on defense, 11 on special teams, and 11 on offense. Even if we reduce the point total to a more workable number, it's not reasonable to go into the game thinking it's going to be 10-3. We've got to find a way to chop some of those 42 points off."

Texas Tech's system is a concoction of Leach, its easy-going, norm-defying, pirate-loving coach. After Groh and three Virginia players left a news conference Monday dressed in immaculate suits, Leach arrived with a Starbucks coffee cup in hand, wearing an Under Armour T-shirt under a sport coat.

Leach scoffs at convention, but his offensive system must be taken seriously. He sends five receivers out on every pass play, using patterns that move defensive backs around like chess pieces to create swaths of open space. Quarterback Graham Harrell finds the open receiver with staggering efficiency, throwing most of his passes after dropping back only three steps. Most view Leach's offensive as extreme; he sees it as a modernized version of an old staple.

"We try to distribute the ball to all the skill positions so that we can maximize our effort," Leach said. "Really, it's an idea borrowed from the wishbone, because in the wishbone, everybody touches the ball. I think it gives the other guy a lot to keep track of. The better we are at distributing it, the more effective we are."

More than anyone else, Groh gives Harrell credit for bringing everything together. Groh said North Carolina State's Philip Rivers, now of the San Diego Chargers, is the only college quarterback he has seen who was as accurate. Harrell completed 72.7 percent of his passes, an unreal -- Groh's word -- rate for a quarterback who threw 644 passes.

Harrell's accuracy owes partly to the high number of quick passes Texas Tech uses, which may also neutralize Virginia's best asset: the pass rush led by defensive end Chris Long. Despite throwing 694 passes, Texas Tech gave up just 15 sacks this season. The Red Raiders' massive offensive linemen -- the starters range from 303 pounds to 374 -- are spaced wider than most, pulling ends further away from the quarterback. Harrell releases most of his passes within three seconds of the snap.

"It's a challenge," Long said. "As a defensive lineman, I can't say, 'Oh, they're getting rid of it quick, I'm not going to bring it.' You just got to keep coming. Be relentless. If you get back there once or twice, it'll be a good day. And it might be the fourth quarter before you get back there."

There is hope for Virginia. One of Texas Tech's lowest offensive outputs under Leach came on the only other New Year's Day bowl game the Red Raiders have played, a 13-10 loss to Alabama in the 2005 Cotton Bowl. Playing in January gives Texas Tech's opponent the maximum time to prepare and, as defensive lineman Jeffrey Fitzgerald said, "I'm glad we had a month."

Still, Texas Tech is so confident in Leach's offense and its ability, it rarely shows concern with what the defense presents.

"When the offense isn't clicking, we feel it's a lack of execution on our part," Harrell said. "I've never come out of a game thinking, 'There was nothing we could do against that defense. They had our number.' "