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No one will ever know what kind of impact Kevin Ogletree would have had for this year’s Virginia football team.

This much we do know: Virginia’s leading receiver after 11 games, Kris Burd, has 28 receptions for 383 yards.

In 2008, as a redshirt junior, Ogletree had 58 receptions for 723 yards.

It was the second season of 50 receptions or more for Ogletree, who had a team-high 52 receptions in 2006.

Ogletree never made first- or second-team All-ACC but he finished his career with 117 receptions, good for seventh on the Cavaliers’ career list.

He would not have passed all-time leader Billy McMullen, who had 210 receptions between 1999-2002, but Ogletree would have had a good shot at No. 2 Heath Miller (144 receptions).

Now that Ogletree has made the Dallas Cowboys and is being paid at least the NFL minimum of $350,000, it’s hard to second-guess his decision not to return to Virginia for a fifth year.

But consider Ogletree’s comments last January after he had sought the input of an NFL advisory panel:

“It was what I wanted to hear,” Ogletree said. “Obviously, it was a draftable grade. I’m not getting into specifics, but they didn’t say, ‘Hey, guy, you’ll be drafted in the seventh round.’ I would be back in school if they had.”

Along the same line of thinking, presumably Ogletree would have stayed in school if he had known he wouldn’t be drafted.

Would Ogletree have caught 50 passes for this Virginia team? Obviously, pass protection has been lacking. One of Ogletree’s fellow 2005 signees, first-round NFL Draft pick Eugene Monroe, played left offensive tackle on a 2008 Virginia team that allowed 16 sacks in 12 games.

This team has allowed 39 sacks in 11 games. But, some of that can be attributed to the receivers’ inability to create separation. In addition to Ogletree, Virginia lost wide receivers who had 33 and 30 receptions last year (Maurice Covington and Cary Koch).

In all fairness, I had not heard Groh mention Ogletree until I raised his name Wednesday in a teleconference.

I asked Groh, “How much of a blow has it been? Has it been more of a blow than you would have thought?”

“Obviously, Kevin’s playing on Sunday afternoons,” Groh said. “So, he’s got talent to that level and we certainly were the beneficiary of that talent on occasion during his time here, even though he missed a season due to injury.

“This probably would have been Kevin’s high-water mark for us. You’re exactly right [that it was a big loss]. But, look, he’s not on the team. He’s on somebody else’s team and to bemoan that fact right now is like dogs barking at the moon.

“It doesn’t do any good and it just sounds like an excuse. We can see what his talent level was on the practice level each day but I’m sure he’s a better player this year than he was last year. He did some very nice things for us and had some real nice plays, but, by the same token, he wasn’t a dominate-the-game player.

“It’s pretty apparent that he’s improved his game and really stepped up in the past year. Maybe he’s just getting a little better coaching. If we could have brought him along in the same way in his last year, I’m sure we would have had a similar-type player.

“When he didn’t get drafted, that was a bit of a setback for him. Fortunately, he was in an organization that had somebody on his side. John Garrett’s there and John was his coach here. John was instrumental in getting him there and I’m sure John’s been very helpful.

“His game has clearly grown and it’s worked out nicely for him.”

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