weekend review: game face

It was 91 degrees outside in my neck of the woods this weekend and not remotely football weather, but that doesn't stop it from being a game week. And that means it's time to get the blog's game face on. So first: recruiting board. Monday thing during the season. Couple of additions this week as Mike London stretches his recruiting arm to Georgia:

- Added LB Troy Gray to blue.

- Added TE Max Mason and WR Demetri Knowles to yellow.

No, still not much going on in the recruiting world. Wait til this weekend when official visits can start.

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I don't know how often we'll see the depth chart updated on the official site, but they did so this week, which is kind of exciting. So there's a depth chart update here too. Among the highlights:

- I was a dum-dum and forgot to take the decommitted Matt Bailey off last time. So that's done.

- My hunch was correct: Ross Metheny and Mike Rocco are the backup QBs, but in no real order as yet. Odd man out in the rotation is Michael Strauss.

- The top two RBs are Perry Jones and Raynard Horne.

- Tim Smith is listed as a backup WR, with Dontrelle Inman a starter. These last two positions are probably going to be almighty interchangeable though.

- Jake Snyder breaks through as a backup DE.

- John-Kevin Dolce is officially the starter at DT over Matt Conrath, which is, ah, surprising. Dolce is hopefully as strong as advertised, because he's also going to be giving up 50+ pounds to his opponents. DT is always a platoony kind of position anyway - even Groh rotated people pretty frequently here - so it's not like Conrath is suddenly going to go ghost on us.

- Lot of "ORs" at linebacker, as in "Steve Greer OR Aaron Taliaferro", but I still think Greer, if he doesn't start off taking a majority of the snaps, will be doing so eventually. Some are surprised to see Laroy Reynolds sharing the starting job with anyone, but what do you expect from a converted safety who spent most of last year on special teams?

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And college football season means it's also high school football season. It's early yet and not every team started their season this past weekend, but some have. So here's how our recruits have been doing:

- Bayside 21, Green Run 10 in Virginia Beach. David Dean's team lost to Demetrious Nicholson's Bayside, but it was a sluggish affair for the much higher-ranked Bayside. Nicholson, who hasn't committed anywhere but will probably take an official to UVA, played both sides of the ball and caught four passes for 76 yards.

- Cox 30, Kellam 17 in Virginia Beach. Opening season win for Ross Burbank.

- I.C. Norcom 26, Northeastern (NC) 6 in Portsmouth. Kameron Mack's team gets a win over a not-great out-of-state team.

- Petersburg 43, Halifax County 20. Kevin Green will likely be a linebacker or a tight end or something at UVA, but he's Petersburg's quarterback.

- Good Counsel 21, St. Xavier (OH) 6. Big time matchup of two of the nation's power programs. Vincent Croce was in on at least one turnover. The game wasn't as close as it looked; Good Counsel broke it open in the fourth after trailing 6-0 most of the game. Potential recruit Sean Duggan, who has UVA in a smallish list of leaders, is a St. X linebacker.

- Glen Oak 42, H.D. Woodson 2. Darius Redman's team gets squashed.

- Mallard Creek 26, Independence 6. This actually happened two weeks ago. Two of North Carolina's best; Adrian Gamble's team comes out on the wrong end. South Pointe is next week for Independence, home of maybe the top recruit in the country in Jadeveon Clowney.

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Lastly, it's not only football season, it's football season! European football, that is. The Virginia Classic is next weekend with games against UAB and St. John's - both are eminently beatable. Virginia Tech is also in town, but UVA's game with them will wait til the ACC season. They're not good either. Picked 9th of 9 in the ACC preseason coaches' poll.

Speaking of which, weird. UVA is #2 in the preseason national poll, but picked 3rd in the ACC by the coaches. You'd have to figure the coaches know a little better, and are asking questions like where's the offense going to come from without guys like Tony Tchani, who went pro after his sophomore season? But most of the main operators of last season's record-setting defense are back, so let's watch and see if goalie extraordinaire Diego Restrepo can duplicate his incredible two-month shutout streak of last year.