Cavalier view of talent

At first glance, the Boston College and Virginia football programs appear mirror images. But Eagles coach Tom O'Brien, who served as an assistant to former coach George Welsh at Virginia from 1982-96, doesn't necessarily view BC's Atlantic Coast Conference matchup against the Cavaliers Saturday that way.

''I don't think so," said O'Brien, whose Eagles climbed from No. 21 to No. 18 in the Associated Press Top 25 after a 38-0 shellacking of Ball State in their final nonconference game of the season. ''In doing our preseason work in talking to a lot of people, all they talked about was what a great job [Virginia] has done in recruiting the last four years. I think they've been one of the top-ranked recruiting teams in the ACC the last 3-4 years. They have tremendous talent.

''They're very physical up front on defense and they've got big linebackers and their offensive line looks almost as big as ours, or bigger. They've got good speed at wideout [Deyon Williams] and a great quarterback [Marques Hagans]. This will be the toughest quarterback we've faced since the Vick Brothers at Virginia Tech, so it'll be a big challenge."

The Cavaliers were without some of their talented personnel in Saturday's 45-33 conference setback at Maryland. Virginia (3-1 overall, 1-1 ACC) absorbed its first loss playing without standout left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, left guard Brian Barthelmes, and outside linebacker Jermaine Dias.

Virginia was bolstered by the return of senior linebacker Ahmad Brooks, who sat out the first three games after offseason knee surgery. Brooks did not factor in the outcome, however, as Virginia's defense allowed the Terrapins 570 yards total offense (320 passing, 250 rushing; both season highs), the most the Cavaliers have surrendered since Al Groh succeeded Welsh in 2001.

The loss snapped a bit of an odd streak for Virginia, which had won four consecutive road games against unranked opponents, the longest stretch since a nine-game road winning streak from 1988-90. Groh's record dropped to 8-8 against unranked teams away from Scott Stadium after the 19th-ranked Cavaliers dropped out of the AP Top 25 following the loss to the unranked Terps at College Park, Md.

''It's hard for me to explain, I really don't know," said Groh, referring to the road loss. ''I think part of it, perhaps, is a competitive maturity. I don't think it should be that way. It really shouldn't make any difference. If you do a good job of preparing for the issues that are at hand and you play better, you win -- home or away."

Said O'Brien, ''I think we'll get a fanatical effort out of Virginia here on Saturday, and if we play with anything less we won't have a chance to win."

A better gesture

Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick didn't intend to add insult to injury but that's what he did in leading the third-ranked Hokies (5-0) to a 34-17 victory over West Virginia in Morgantown. Vick, who enjoyed his best day as a Hokie in completing 15 of 17 passes for 177 yards and a pair of touchdowns and rushing for a career-high 74 yards and another score, gave several Mountaineer fans an obscene gesture after he ran out of bounds with 11 minutes left in the third quarter. TV cameras caught Vick's gesture as he returned to the field. Virginia Tech's coaching staff spoke with Vick about the incident but did not discipline the player. ''I apologize for letting my emotions get the best of me Saturday," Vick said in a school-issued release. ''What I did was wrong and I am sorry. My goal is to be a leader of this team and do things the right way." . . . Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, whose team (3-2) travels to Temple this week, gave his players added incentive in Saturday's win over Virginia when he surprised them with black game jerseys, which the Terps have not worn since 1998. The wardrobe change came with one condition: ''He quickly told us when he called us up, 'The jersey's not going to win this game, we have to win this game,' " senior linebacker D'Qwell Jackson said. ''He also said if we lost with those black jerseys, that would be the last of that." . . . North Carolina State coach Chuck Amato, the target of much griping among Wolfpack fans after a 31-24 loss to North Carolina two weeks ago, put himself through an ''up/down" drill during Tuesday's practice. Players doing that drill have to run in place, hit the ground, then bounce up to run in place again as punishment for mistakes on game day. How many did he do? ''730," Amato said. ''And I did them the right way." . . . Freshman Zack Asack, the former Xaverian High standout from Newton, earned his first start at quarterback for Duke in Saturday's 28-21 setback to Navy. Asack completed 12 of 16 passes for 111 yards and a touchdown