AL GROH FIRES HIS SON

After Virginia finished its season 5-7, head coach Al Groh had to fire some assistants if he wanted to save his own job.One of the assistants who got chopped is his own son, offensive coordinator Mike Groh.Although it will no doubt make things a little awkward around the holidays in the Groh household, the truth is that Al Groh never should have made his son the offensive coordinator in the first place. Mike Groh was a good quarterback at Virginia in the 1990s, but he’s never had a coaching job that wasn’t for his father. He was a quality control coach for the New York Jets in 2000, when Al Groh was the Jets’ head coach, and he followed his dad to Virginia in 2001 and has been there since. That’s the extent of his coaching experience.But despite that thin resume, Mike Groh was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2006, and since then Virginia has never even been in the Top 100 in Division I-A in total offense. This season the Cavaliers were 104th in the nation in total offense, averaging 299.8 yards per game. Last year the Cavaliers were 101st in total offense and in 2006 they were 113th. In addition to firing his son, Al Groh also fired defensive line coach Levern Belin and secondary coach Steve Bernstein.