Thweattness pays visit to Wade with eye on retribution

63-21.

Eight months later, Byron Thweatt still can't believe it.

It's not like Virginia had a bad season last year. After all, they won seven games, one of only four teams to do so for the past 13 seasons. They finished tied for second in the ACC. They had three All-Americans. And of course, they made it to a second straight bowl appearance at the MicronPC Bowl.

But it wasn't the trip, it was the arrival-a 63-21 loss to Illinois.

63-21.

Thweatt did not even perform badly. He recorded six tackles, recovered one fumble and still he doesn't even want to think about.

He won't even watch the video.

"My parents recorded it," Thweatt says, "but the tape just sits there with dust all over it."

But he still hasn't started the season as well as he wanted to.

In the Cavaliers' first game, their young defense, captained by the veteran Thweatt, allowed a mediocre Brigham Young team to erase a 21-point first half deficit and defeat the Cavs 38-35 in overtime.

Thweatt was not happy.

Fortunately, his defense did get back on track as the Wahoos pushed Richmond's offense around the field in a 34-6 squashfest. The Spiders didn't even cross the 50-yard line until late in the third quarter.

"So far the team has had a good start," Thweatt said. "We lost a heartbreaker to BYU, but now we've gotten back on track against Richmond and we're looking forward to playing Duke."

When the Cavaliers roll into town to face the Blue Devils in the first ACC matchup of the season for both teams, it will be the fourth straight year Thweatt has started against Duke. As a matter of fact, Thweatt, barring injury, will become only the fifth linebacker in school history to start in every single game he has played.

This year, however, Thweatt has seen his role on the team change dramatically, to the point that he's even started getting some recognition in the press. This summer, at a press conference in Hot Spring, Va. the university released lollipops with the number 32-Thweatt's number-on it. The candy is known affectionately as "Thweatt Pops."

Thweatt, however, insists that he won't let anything promotional like that go to his head.

"[Increased media coverage] hasn't really had any effect," he said. "The more tackles I make, the more people are going to recognize my ability. I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing and try to be the best linebacker possible."

However, with all his expanded coverage-he's the coverboy on the 2000 Wahoos media guide-has come the new, now highly likely, prospect of playing in the NFL.

And that's one thing Thweatt will definitely enjoy.

"It's something I've been trying to do for four years and I plan to do it," he says. "I think I'm coming into my own and will be able to play in the NFL. Its been my goal for years."

Before he goes to the NFL, Thweatt gets to finish off his campaign in college, a five-year tenure that included one red-shirt season as a true freshman. He enters this season competing in his final year of eligibility as a first-year graduate student.

"[This year] people look to me as more of a leader," he says. "I've been here five years and started all four that I played, so people look to me to be both a playing and emotional leader on and off the field."

As a leader, Thweatt would like to see far bigger things done than the obligatory seven-win season and a haunting loss in the MicronPC bowl. He is expecting big things in his final ACC campaign.

"We're looking to win the ACC and make it to a great bowl game-something we think we can do," Thweatt said.

"[In past years], I think the players looked at the coaches and thought they are content with seven wins a season," Thweatt says. "Everyone was so happy in the locker room [after the seventh win]. Sometimes it seemed the only thing the coaches cared about was getting to seven wins. But [now] we're tired of that. We want to do more."

This year, if Thweatt has anything to say about it, the Cavs will do a lot more, and he'll be able to forgot about the end of last season. Until then, he just has to look at the unwatched video tape that sits among his parents collection, and hope that he will be watching the one from this year over and over again.