<p>Al Groh had his chance. He beat FSU, but couldn't beat UMD. He is inconsistent and it seems that Virginia is not heading toward national prominence under his guidance. </p>
<p>Clearly if we can beat FSU, we have the talent. It seems that the coach is our problem. I think we need to recruit a good NFL coach - not a ok one like Groh - like USC did with Pete Carroll. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>IM SO ****ING ANGRY THAT WE LOSE TO TECH!</p>
<p>S**T</p>
<p>F**K</p>
<p>well, our offense was HORRIBLE throughout the whole game..............:(</p>
<p>Ugh. Can't believe I stood outside Scott Stadium for 4 hours to see that kind of effort...</p>
<p>How about spending the money on some more scholarships or endowed chairs for professors?</p>
<p>I personally think that Tiki Barber would make a good coach in a couple years.</p>
<p>pete carroll got fired from the nfl. Al Groh was still wanted by the jets when he agreed to come to virginia. UVa was the worst program in college football until welsh got here. If you haven't noticed FSU is not very good this year. However, UVa defeated GA tech which just won AT Miami. Yes UVa is inconsistent this year. They have struggled on the road and then got tech after a bad defeat with an extra week to prepare. Get over it. The academics at virginia (ie. the important part) leaves no room to hide for players that are bad students (like many if not most of the top players). For example, Matt Leinart is currently taking 1 class-- ballroom dancing at USC. This could never happen at Virginia (3 classes = academic probation).</p>
<p>I know a lot of people think we should care more about academics than sports. Academics are very important, but so are sports. Remember, even if football doesn't bring in net profits - which it may - you have to include factors such as alumni donations and overall school exposure. </p>
<p>If we want to become a University that not only academics but the general public know about, we have to do two things:</p>
<ol>
<li>Build up our sports program</li>
<li>Build up our science and engineering programs</li>
</ol>
<p>The sports program will attract more applicants and get the Virginia name out there - like Michigan. Our liberal arts programs are top notch, our science and engineering programs are not. Science and engineering programs are what make American Universities internationally known - unless you are Harvard or Yale and have 400 some years of history. Look at Berkeley. </p>
<p>Stanford built its reputation off of Silicon Valley and soon other fields followed - law, business, english, etc. In the early 1900s, if you compared Virginia vs. Stanford - no contest, Virginia would be considered much, much better. Same goes for Duke in the 1960s-1970s. Why do you think we have more famous alumni who graduated in the early 1900s than in the late 1980s?</p>
<p>Fine. Save money to spend on science by not buying out Groh's contract. Michigan's athletic department does not make money even with one of the top programs and certainly largest football stadiums. Uva does not need more applicants, it needs better applicants. Virginia's academic competition is not berkeley and michigan as many think. It is the lower tier ivies (size, historical tradition, liberal arts) including penn and brown which do not even have division 1 football. Good athletics makes alumni give to athletic programs i.e. expanded scott stadium and JPJ arena instead of new buildings. Money to improve sciences comes almost entirely from the government in research grants.</p>
<p>Matt Leinart already graduated so he's enrolled as a post grad. As to Uva football, which I follow closely, they can't seem to find an offensive identity. I'd look for a new OC.
Academic identity is more than the applicants. You need to have the top profs too-the National Academy level profs. Uva is way behind other state schools in this regard.</p>
<p>Elgordo, only 8-9% of donations to UVa are for athletics. The overwhelming majority already goes to academics. Also, UVa is in a capital campaign to raise $3 billion.</p>
<p>VirginiaAlum, UVa does have an initiative to improve the sciences/engineering. It's all part of Virginia 2020, and UVa has already begun to woo a number of top-notch science scholars to the University.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.virginia.edu/virginia2020/%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/virginia2020/</a></p>
<p>Jacl11905, youre right that UVAs competition for applicants is the lower Ivies rather than Berkeley and Michigan, but when it comes to sports, good athletics does help to sustain a strong bond with alumni a bond that entices alums to give back to UVa in many areas. For example, the Harrisons may have paid for the Harrison Field in Scott Stadium, but they also have made huge donations in other areas from undergraduate research to UVAs medical and law schools, etc. (over $150 million to UVa in fact):</p>
<p><a href="http://cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=5301&pid=610%5B/url%5D">http://cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=5301&pid=610</a>
<a href="http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=13329&pid909%5B/url%5D">http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=13329&pid909</a>
<a href="http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=9373&pid=755%5B/url%5D">http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=9373&pid=755</a></p>
<p>Plus, here are donations to UVa engineering/science by alums:</p>
<p>Sture G. Olsson: $1 million to UVa Engineering
<a href="http://www.cavalierdaily.com:2001/.Archives/1996/June/13/nscap.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.cavalierdaily.com:2001/.Archives/1996/June/13/nscap.asp</a></p>
<p>Greg Olsen: $15 million to UVa Material Science
<a href="http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=10401&pid796%5B/url%5D">http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle_print.asp?ID=10401&pid796</a></p>
<p>Many more anonymous donations have been made. Even non-alum Dave Matthews has donated to UVa Engineering.</p>
<p>Globalist,</p>
<p>It seems that you have some say as to where UVa spends its money. I agree with barrons, we need more National Academy Professors. Science and Engineering is our worst major department / school and to be internationally recognized, we need that program to be strong. Although I never attended either department / school, I do believe that it is probably not on the same level as the rest of the school. Can you push for more investment in those areas?</p>
<p>A top 15 engineering and sciences rank will do wonders for our reputation and rank - we should easily then be higher ranked than Michigan, Berkeley, etc. We would be on the level of Cornell, JHU, Chicago.</p>
<p>The largest problem with science and engineering is the high cost of the programs. Not only for profs but facilities like labs and equipment need to be new and state of the art. Very expensive compared to history and English where you only need a regular classroom and a good library. The payoff is the amount of outside research funding is huge and will pay for the needed items once you have a good reputation. A good science/engineering prof brings in 5X+ their salary in research funding.</p>
<p>Oh VirginiaAlum, you give me more credit than is due to me. I have no such power to influence UVA's expenditures. </p>
<p>UVa is pushing for more investment in Engineering & Sciences. (Though UVA's Engineering School isn't ranked up there w/ MIT, it's usually ranked - ugh, I hate to refer to US News - at the same level as U.Penn & Harvard.) Here are some links re. UVa Engineering/Science & UVA's push to bolster those areas.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/engineering_gift.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/engineering_gift.html</a>
<a href="http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/news/Archives04/bankole-johnson.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/news/Archives04/bankole-johnson.cfm</a>
<a href="http://www.cs.virginia.edu/csnews/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cs.virginia.edu/csnews/</a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/president/spch/05/letter_amspring05.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/president/spch/05/letter_amspring05.html</a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/president/report04/discoveries.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/president/report04/discoveries.html</a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/11_19_2004/metal.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/11_19_2004/metal.html</a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2000/33/psychology.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2000/33/psychology.html</a>
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2000/37/engineering.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/2000/37/engineering.html</a>
<a href="http://www.cs.virginia.edu/misc/news-vintlab3.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cs.virginia.edu/misc/news-vintlab3.html</a></p>
<p>Keep in mind that UVa was essentially a liberal arts college before 1970, where until pretty recently the liberal arts remained its strength and focus. (Before 1970, UVa was also all-male, and had barely over 5,000 undergrads.) Now, through Virginia 2020, UVa is also focusing on Fine & Performing Arts, International Activities, Public Service & Outreach, and Science & Techology.</p>
<p>Barrons, that's why there's a lot of construction on Grounds - to build new state-of-the-art facilities. The problem w/ research though is that it often takes precedence over undergraduate teaching which is already a big problem at many behemoth research universities. I hope that UVa will be able to continue striking a good balance between research and teaching.</p>
<p>even without top-notch programs in sciences and engineering, UVa is better ranked than Michigan and only slightly lower than Berkeley (according to US NEws). IF UVa had incredible programs in sciences and engineering (one day, i hope), damn, i can't imagine how awesome we would look on ranking.</p>
<p>Actually, I don't think Virginia can look to Michigan/Cal as models. Even though Mich/Cal have fairly high academic standards, but when it comes to athletes, the admission standard is pretty loose for them. One of the things Stanford loves bashing against Cal is the low admission standards Cal uses for its athletes. Keep in mind football needs to take a lot of athletes and you have to make quite a bit academic compromise to build a nice recruiting class. If Virginia wants to have football programs like Michigan, it would have to lower its admission standard for them. Schools like Northwestern and Stanford (thought Stanford has great teams in most other sports) don't consistently have good football teams. Duke has the worst D-1 team. I think its easier to build a good basketball team, however, for academic-oriented schools like UVA. Since you only need to recruit a few each year, it's easier to find good athletes (still not easy) without compromising admission standard too much. Not to mention UVA does have a pretty decent team already.</p>
<p>Yeah, after thinking about it...I think Sam Lee is right...we should focus on basketball. I think UVa's model should really be Stanford. If I had gotten in, I would have definitely gone. We are on the level of Stanford in liberal arts, a little lower in Law and Business, and a lot lower in Medicine. For Engineering and Sciences, Stanford is unquestionably the better program. I think if our engineering and sciences programs were better we would easily be top 15 and maybe even top 10.</p>
<p>I believe virginia has all the ingredients to be the best undergraduate experience whatever that entails. I believe the university should maintain its own model and identity. I agree UVa has many things to work on, but no school, (including Stanford where some professors lament the detrimental effect of the oversupply of athletes) has found perfection, and uva has integral parts that are incredibly unique and should not be lost. "Big time football" firing of a coach after --at worst-- a 6-5 season is not the answer. Anyway, I think the future is really bright. Go hoos...</p>
<p>"Even though Mich/Cal have fairly high academic standards, but when it comes to athletes, the admission standard is pretty loose for them."</p>
<p>You don't think UVa lowers it's academic standards for it's athletes? What world are you living in? I happen to know for a fact 2 football players in the class of '09 who had 76 gpas in high school, and 700 and 900 on their SATs. Don't think we're any better than Cal/Mich in that way. If UVa recruited players with crappy scores who were actually good, then I wouldn't see a problem with it - but to lower academic standards for people who don't bring any success to the team...I find that disgraceful. While you all talk about improving the football program to help increase our school stature, its ironic that when our football team sucked in the 80s, we were ranked about 6 spots higher than we are now.</p>
<p>"and 700 and 900 on their SATs."</p>
<p>damn, i dont think that's even enough to play football.</p>
<p>u have to be smart to play football......at least not a 700......</p>
<p>Sorry, I just sorta assumed UVA operates like Stanford/Northwestern when it comes to admission for recruited athletes. I guess I should have checked the facts first.</p>