weekend review

The end of the football season means the end of this post as a regular thing, but it'll still go up every now and again when needed. To do things differently just for the sake of it, we'll start with the recruits and their playoff exploits:

Hermitage 17, L.C. Bird 14: Anthony Harris got Bird in front, 14-10, with a touchdown run, but Curtis Grant recovered a fumble in the end zone for Hermitage to advance them past Bird and give them the Central Region championship.

Phoebus 12, Hampton 7: Daquan Romero starred in Phoebus's region-clinching win over David Watford and Hampton. Romero, playing TE, caught Phoebus's only touchdown, and sacked Watford to set up a safety for Phoebus on the next play.

H.D. Woodson 44, Dunbar 12: Darius Redman caught a late touchdown to help Woodson to the DCIAA Turkey Bowl title.

Stone Bridge 35, Hayfield 7 (Rob Burns)
Wilde Lake 21, Damascus 14 (Brandon Phelps)

Phelps's season ends just shy of the state finals. Three teams of interest remain: Stone Bridge plays Osbourn next week, Phoebus plays Dinwiddie, and the winners of those two games will meet at Scott Stadium for the Division 5 title. Hermitage goes against Bayside (where hopefully-future Hoo Demetrious Nicholson plays) in the Division 6 semis; the final is also in Charlottesville.

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News you can't really use, but you can still read and maybe even enjoy it:

- David Watford hopes to enroll in the spring. The 25-yearly scholarship limit is almost as big a concern as the 85-total limit at this point. In fact, we're already to the point where every new commit means another attrite from the current team, so the 25 limit might even be a bigger concern. If Admissions lets Watford in for the spring semester, one extra player can be squeezed into the class. Not to mention the extra practice time would be a huge help blah blah blah. This is where the influence of new president Teresa Sullivan could be a big help, no?

- Speaking of Sullivan, the latest UVA alumni magazine has a nice profile spread on her, with this relevant quote:

Sullivan is a strong supporter of collegiate athletics and is an avid football fan, telling one alumni gathering that she hopes the University will one day host ESPN College Gameday.

When Sullivan was hired I theorized that her experience at Texas and Michigan could only be beneficial to the athletic department. Sullivan has spent the last two decades plus at two of the best schools in the country at using athletics - football especially - to maximize and enhance the school's overall brand. Football is one of the best ways of doing this: when you think University of Miami, do you think of their highly underestimated academics, or do you think of swagger and Da U? (Yeah, I know: major sampling bias here.) Sullivan, I think, understands this as well as any college president can. There's good reason to believe she'll be a stronger supporter of football and athletics than Casteen was. Casteen was a good president, but I think he saw athletics as something that schools don't get a lot of return on investment from. I think Sullivan, unlike Casteen, sees the important distinction between compromising for athletics and sacrificing for athletics.

- The all-ACC teams are out, and Chase Minnifield made 1st team and Keith Payne made 2nd. This is entirely fair. It's good especially to see Payne get recognition for the bounceback year.

- Bill Lazor back to the NFL? Lazor says no, the rumortubes say yes. The rumors are that Lazor is looking for a job in the NFL (and will try and get one when the NFL season ends) and Lazor's refutation says (in essence) that he hasn't been contacted for one. Unfortunately a coach's word in the media must always be parsed for loopholes, and it's not hard to find them here. But Lazor is awfully stringent in his denial. Despite what I've read, I don't think there's any concrete reason to believe Lazor won't be back next year. Yet. I do know what the offense looked like last year and what it looked like this year and who's largely to thank for it, and it's gonna be awfully hard to get this rebuilding project off the ground without some continuity at a critical position. That's why London asked for a two-year commitment from his staff. You can never keep a successful coordinator around forever (the Riker-esque refusal to seek a head job of his own on Bud Foster's part notwithstanding) so three, four years down the line, yeah, I think we'd need to look for another OC. But by then there'd be something to build on. There isn't yet.

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Part of the reason this post comes a little late is because of basketball awesomeness, but partly it's because I was waiting for good news on the recruiting front. People keep hinting at it. Crossing my fingers for Jay Whitmire myself, the way the hints have been going, although nobody's mentioned any names. Alas, we'll have to wait. Not many changes to the recruiting board then:

- Removed WR Daniel Adams from green (New Mexico commit.)

- Removed QB Lafonte Thourogood from red (VT commit.) Almost a fait accompli after we picked up Watford.

- Moved CB Jeremiah Hendy from yellow to red, since Maryland's been winning and we haven't.

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Much more extensive hoopstravaganza tomorrow, but ESPN's always good for some amusement and this seems like an appropriate finish:

Speaking of Virginia, just how bad are the Cavaliers in Tony Bennett's second year? The Cavaliers already have three losses .... Virginia hasn't looked competitive any time it's faced a major-conference team not named Oklahoma. (The Sooners don't count. That might be the worst BCS conference team in the country.) Now UVA travels to the barn to face a quality Minnesota team. In the words of Scooby Doo: Ruh roh.

UVA 87, Minny 79, as Craig Littlepage spends the rest of the evening amusing himself by digging up old message board threads and, uh, blog posts expressing our fondest hopes of hiring Tubby Smith. I mean, I thought we'd lose to Minnesota too, but I don't get a paycheck to say that.

Oh....for those hoping to see the weekly AP poll study results, I crave your indulgence. The work was a casualty of the holiday weekend. Publishing will be tomorrow.