This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Not long after they defeated then-No. 21 Louisville 23-21 on Saturday afternoon in Charlottesville, Virginia football players called a players-only meeting and warned each other about the dangers of celebrating the win too long. Little did they know it at the time, but they've got another No. 21-ranked team to get ready for this week. "We still have a long ways to go, because we are getting ready to play another Top 25 team in BYU, at their place, our first road test," fifth-year Virginia coach Mike London said in his weekly news conference Monday. "Again, [BYU] is a really good football team." Although most of the questions London fielded Monday were about his own team's personnel, the players-only meeting, and the win over Louisville, he did talk about the difficulty of getting ready to cross the country to play BYU at elevation. Provo is 4,551 feet above sea level; Charlottesville is 594 feet above sea level. "There is no doubt that you have to, we talk about a simple thing like hydration. On the flight out there, you have to hydrate. We have to drink. We are going to have to play more players, because obviously they are more accustomed to their home and that environment, so we are going to have to play more players," London said. "But the big thing is to try to plan a schedule so we are playing on our time frame, not theirs. Our bodies are used to when we get up, when we eat. We will just try to stay as close to that as possible. I am sure they had to do similar when they flew out here last year. But there are some things that you have to be aware of and educate your players on in order to be ready." A few more comments from London: On whether fatigue could be an issue, especially defensive and offensive lines: "We will just continue to keep evaluating our guys and play the players that give us the best chance. This is one of those games , like we talked about, where we are going out and playing on someone else's home field. We have to be ready to play a lot of players anyway." On Taysom Hill last year vs. UVa and being completed different and whether he expects BYU to use revenge as motivation: "I would believe that coach Mendenhall would have his guys ready to play. Obviously, it is a home game for them. The results of the football game last year were the results of the game. We have to be able to weight them into it. There was a two-hour rain delay for a storm, if you recall. But it is football, and a lot of things happen during the course of a game. I don't know if they are as much worried about payback as they are trying to go 4-0, as they are trying to win a game at home, as we are trying to win a road game against a Top 25 team once again, a team that we played last year. So that's where we are coming from. I am not quite sure how coach Mendenhall is approaching it or how he is approaching it with their players. But for us it is the chance to go on the road, a chance to get better and play another Top 25 team and keep moving forward." On last year's game and how bizarre it was: "When you look at the film, there are no rain issues. You just look at play after play after play. And you are not really thinking about the situation or the circumstances at that time. What you do is you look at formations, you look at play tendencies, and then you add that with the teams they have played this year. Is there any carryover? So those are the biggest elements right there. Us traveling out there, and being ready to play from a physical and mental standpoint, is going to be important. But also being prepared to perform and execute is the biggest thing for us, and that's what we will work on this week. We will practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then we will head out Friday." On BYU's 3-4 defense being like Louisville's:"BYU has bigger down guys. Their front seven is pretty good, and there are always different elements of a 3-4 — slant angle, two-gap — but they are a very big and aggressive defense. I believe right now they are in the top 25 in the red zone. They are only giving up 14 points a game … So there are a lot of things that they do well, and a lot of things we are going to have to improve our game on to have an effect on the scoring and our opportunities to get in the red zone, things like that. But they are a very good, thick, heavy defense that plays well, runs to the ball."