Q&A with former Jefferson Forest and Hokie center Jake Grove

Things have worked out well for Jake Grove and Lane Kiffin since they left the Oakland Raiders. Grove, a Jefferson Forest and Virginia Tech grad, is the starting center for the Miami Dolphins, who are in the thick of the AFC Wild Card playoff hunt as we speak. Kiffin has his Tennessee Volunteers back in a bowl game in his first year as head coach.

The Vols take on the Hokies in the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Thursday, so I thought it’d be nice to give Grove a call and find out what he thought of the bowl matchup, his time with Kiffin and his current excitement of finally being on a playoff-caliber team.

I talked to him last week, as he was working on getting back on the field after missing some time with an ankle injury. He said he was on “Daddy Duty” that day, but he found some time to talk once he popped in a “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” DVD for his daughter Emma to watch.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation.

WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING IN AN NFL PLAYOFF HUNT IN MIAMI AFTER EXPERIENCING YEARS OF FUTILITY IN OAKLAND?
It’s a been a long time coming. It’s exciting to be playing games that mean something in a big picture in December. I’ve never done that before, so we’re going out each week and fighting for our playoff lives, so it’s really exciting.

HOW DID THE DOLPHINS GET THINGS TURNED AROUND AFTER YOUR 0-3 START?
I can’t really put my finger on it. We’ve had a lot of guys get banged up, including myself. I got a little banged up there. I think guys are just playing together well. I think our quarterback, Chad Henne, is playing at an extremely high level right now. I think that’s one thing I’ve learned down here. This is a quarterback-driven league, and if your quarterback is not playing well, it’s tough to win. As he’s really matured over the last two months and our running game has stayed at a high level, even with losing Ronnie Brown (to injury) ... Ricky Williams has really come on strong. For a guy that’s played as long as he has, he’s out there running around like he’s 22 years old. He’s an exciting player to watch. I would say just the combination of Chad Henne getting experience as well as the running game, and then the defense has played really well as well.

IS THIS WHAT YOU ANTICIPATED WHEN YOU SIGNED WITH THE DOLPHINS IN THE OFFSEASON?
Things have gone really well for me down here. This is the most wins I’ve ever had in a season, right now, and we’ve still got (two) to go. We can add to those wins. Yeah, when we first got started and we were 0-3, I didn’t see the panic that sometimes you would see in Oakland when things weren’t going well early. Guys just kind of tightened down and worked on their craft and just focused on the little things to get better and pull ourselves out of the hole. I think the record since that 0-3 start kind of speaks for itself.

YOU PLAY IN A PRETTY VERSATILE OFFENSE. HOW FUN IS THAT?
We change things up a lot on offense to keep defenses on their toes. I think (Dolphins offensive coordinator) Dan Henning does a great job of that. He’s a guy that’s been in the league for 30-something years. It’s a real privilege to work with him every day and learn some of the things that he’s picked up on over the 30 years he’s coached. Everybody wants to talk about the Wildcat when you talk about the Dolphins. That was a little bit of an adjustment coming in here. Having to snap the ball and run it out of the shotgun, which is something that you just don’t do a lot of in the NFL. Every team does a little bit. We did a little bit in Oakland, but that’s more of a college thing that they’ve adapted here to get Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams in the game at the same time.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT BLOCKING IN THE WILDCAT?
I’m really not doing anything different, I’m just having to do the same thing but shotgun snap it, which is a big adjustment. Usually when you’re in shotgun, you’re throwing the ball in most offenses, and that’s what I’ve been used to. Having to learn to snap the ball and fire out of my stance, that was a pretty big adjustment. You can’t miss with a shotgun snap trying to get a jump on the ball. It’s something I’ve executed well up to this point, and hopefully that continues.

HOW FUN IS THE WILDCAT TO RUN? IS IT FUN FOR AN O-LINEMAN?
It was real exciting at first, but then it just got to be part of our normal offense. … I just snap the ball and go get the play done now. It’s just not that big of a deal, but it certainly has been very productive for us over the course of the season.

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU FOUND OUT VIRGINIA TECH WOULD PLAY TENNESSEE AND YOUR FORMER RAIDERS COACH LANE KIFFIN IN THE CHICK-FIL-A BOWL?
I’m excited for Virginia Tech. Coach (Frank) Beamer is back in another bowl game. It’s maybe not what they wanted at the beginning of the year, but it’s still a bowl game nonetheless. It’ll be a little extra incentive. I’d like to see them beat up on Tennessee.

DO YOU KNOW ANYBODY WHO WENT TO TENNESSEE?
When I was at Virginia Tech, we had a wide receiver named Shawn Witten, and his brother Jason Witten, who I’m sure you know, plays for the Cowboys. He went to Tennessee. But nobody from back home who I know (went to Tennessee). I never played Tennessee, but it was kind of a school that I always wanted to play, just because it was close and you see people with Tennessee hats on back home. I always wanted to get a shot at them, but I never did. We’ve got a couple of guys on the team down here who played at Tennessee, so we really need to get those guys, or else I’m not going to hear the end of it.

ANY FRIENDLY WAGERS ON THE GAME?
I’m sure I’ll have to wear somebody’s jersey or something. I don’t know … I’ve been talking with Jason Allen, one of our cornerbacks, about it. We’ll have some type of friendly bet for the game.

WHAT WAS YOUR IMPRESSION OF TECH THIS YEAR, ESPECIALLY ON OFFENSE?
I’ve gotten to see them quite a bit. I’ve been very impressed by that rookie running back (Ryan Williams) that they have. He really came on strong there when the other guy (Darren Evans) went down. It seems like coach (Billy) Hite and coach Beamer and coach (Bryan) Stinespring, they always find a couple of guys who can run the ball. No matter what the situation is, they’re going to find someone that’s going to step up and carry the load for them, and they did it again this year. I think they really came on strong on offense. I was glad to see them run the ball the way they did and I was really impressed with coach Stinespring and the job he did with all those guys.

IS RYAN WILLIAMS A GUY YOU EXPECT TO SEE IN THE NFL SOON?
I would think so. He’s putting up those kind of numbers against good football teams in college. To me, there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t translate. It looks like he has good vision, good speed. I think that will translate well to the NFL.

WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT LANE KIFFIN AND THE TIME YOU WERE IN OAKLAND TOGETHER?
I got to know him a little bit. He was the head coach for a year. He was very young. He was learning. He kind of got put in a situation that I don’t know if he was ready for it. For whatever reason, it didn’t work out. My second year, the year he got fired, him and Tom Cable, the offensive line coach and now the head coach, they gave me a chance to start, and it really kind of turned my career around. I was coming off of pretty major knee surgery, and I was able to get back and play at a high level and things worked out with Miami. I will always have to thank him for giving me an opportunity to play last year. It turned my career around.

WHAT TYPE OF COACH WAS HE? WAS HE A CONTROVERSIAL GUY, OR IS THAT JUST AN ACT?
I think that’s all an act. I think he does the same thing, as far as coaching goes, as Pete Carroll does at USC. He was there with him (as an assistant at Southern Cal). I think that’s where he learned a lot of what he does. Pete Carroll is a great coach. He learned from a good guy.

I GUESS IT’S NO SURPRISE THEN THAT HE’S BEEN ABLE TO STEP IN THERE AT UT AND HAVE SOME SUCCESS RIGHT OFF THE BAT?
Yeah, he’s a smart guy. His dad (Monte Kiffin) was in the NFL coaching forever, and now he’s on his staff. I think he’s got a great staff there that he’s put together. I’m not surprised. Like I said, he’s a smart guy. He knows the game, and he was able to put together a good staff there. It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the course of the next few years.

DOES HE HAVE SOME OF THAT LAID BACK CALIFORNIA TO HIM LIKE PETE CARROLL?
I don’t know about that. Mainly, pretty much all the guys that played at USC under Pete Carroll that were in Oakland, they said this is just the same thing Pete Carroll did at USC, you know, as far as his coaching methods and his sayings and stuff like that, it’s very similar to what happened at USC.

HOW DOES THAT IT AFFECT THE DYNAMIC OF A FOOTBALL TEAM WHEN A LOT OF THE PLAYERS ARE OLDER THAN THE COACH?
It was kind of a weird mix. You had guys who were four, five years older than him. It was weird. He was a very different coach than (Miami coach Tony) Sparano. Coach Sparano is very in your face, very in charge, knows what’s going on everywhere, just very involved with every aspect, whereas I think Lane, he didn’t get as involved and definitely wasn’t as vocal as what coach Sparano is.

DO YOU HAVE A MEMORY OR FUNNY STORY ABOUT YOUR TIME WITH KIFFIN?
I say just the press conference when he got fired. I think that kind of shocked everybody. That was something.

HOW BIZARRE WAS THAT TO BE A PLAYER ON THAT TEAM AND WATCH THAT HAPPEN?
Yeah, it was wild, but I was glad they gave Tom Cable a chance. Cable is a guy that I have the utmost respect for. He taught me a lot about how to block and how to get things done in the NFL and really turned my career around. A bad thing for Lane was really a great opportunity for Cable. That really worked out well for me and for Cable getting the opportunity when Lane got fired.

HOW’S YOUR FAMILY DOING?
Doing good … good.

HAS YOUR FAMILY BACK HOME BEEN ABLE TO GET DOWN TO SEE YOU MUCH IN MIAMI?
My family has actually been down a good bit more. Now that we’re down here in Miami, we’re so much closer than where we were in California. They’re going to come down, I think, after Christmas. They’ll probably come down for the Super Bowl. Hopefully we’re playing in it this year. The Super Bowl is right here in Miami. They’ve been down four or five times this year, so it’s really been good for all of us. I’ve got a little girl, and they’ve been down to see her a bunch. It’s really been a great move for everybody.

MIAMI’S A LOT DIFFERENT FROM BEDFORD COUNTY, ISN’T IT?
A lot different. A lot different. I was out on South Beach last night with a bunch of the guys. We had supper down there. It’s quite a ways from Forest.