In his first collegiate game, Virginia third-string quarterback Jameel Sewell threw one pass, an incompletion.
Three weeks later, the Cavaliers are experiencing something familiar to Duke-attempting to complete the rest of their season with the freshman signal-caller leading the way.
While the Blue Devils found their starting quarterback in Thaddeus Lewis after he threw for 305 yards in week two against Wake Forest, the Cavaliers have had a harder time fixing their problems at quarterback. They began the season with senior captain Christian Olsen under center. After totaling just 222 yards on 55 pass attempts in the first two games, Virginia head coach Al Groh began auditioning junior backup Kevin McCabe.
In week three, McCabe had just one of his 16 passes hit the ground, but two of his attempts were intercepted by Western Michigan-including one which Desman Stephen returned for the game-winning touchdown.
The shuffling of quarterbacks was beginning to take a toll on the Cavaliers, as the huddle was missing a solid figure at the helm.
"I think pretty much every team would agree it's more beneficial to know who's back there," Virginia tight end Tom Santi said. "You want to know his mannerisms, his snap count and his personality in the huddle."
Enough was enough for Groh, who made last week's game against Georgia Tech the first of the season in which his offense featured just one quarterback. Sewell, who had attempted only 11 of the team's 104 total passes, was named the starter against the Yellow Jackets. Virginia lost 24-7, but Sewell played well enough to earn his second career start this weekend against Duke.
"We've had some shakeups at the quarterback position so far this season," Santi said. "But Jameel did an admiral job in his first game, I think. We're looking for him to just get better from here on out."
Groh said he hopes his freshman quarterback will overcome his growing pains by learning from his early mistakes. For Virginia, the pain of a possible losing season may be soothed by the consistent face it sees leading the huddle.
"It's very important," Santi said "The first third of the season is over. The excuse of 'we're inexperienced or we're young' is getting old. Now we find out who we are as team, and what we're capable of this season and in the future."
The situation Virginia finds itself closely mirrors the one at Duke. Both teams have struggled on offense and have lost three games. True freshman Lewis and redshirt freshman Sewell were both listed as backups when the season began, but both have been handed the reigns from their respective head coaches.
"You spend a lot of time talking to them," Duke head coach Ted Roof said about mentoring a young quarterback. "[You are] preparing them for when they're really on, and also for the days when they're really off, because both of those things are going to happen."
And both teams hope their 18-year-old starting quarterbacks are on more often than not Saturday as they search for their first ACC wins of the season.
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