recruiting board update

Eventful times, with good news and bad news afoot.  I'm also updating the depth chart, so stay tuned at the end for that.  Recruiting board here, map here.  Updates:

- Removed RB J.C. Coleman, WR Desmond Frye, and ATH Der'Woun Greene, all of whom committed to VT at or following their spring game.  Frye and Greene are replaceable - top-30 types in the state.  But that sucks about Coleman.  We need a couple running backs and Coleman was a major target who was thinking UVA not that long ago.  Options here have become limited and kind of longshotty for now.

- Moved DE Eli Harold from green to blue.  Now for the good news, as the #2 and maybe eventual #1 prospect in Virginia names UVA his favorite.  Score one for Mike London, and score another if and when he can close on Harold.

- Moved ATH Cyrus Jones from yellow to red.

- Added S Demeitre Brim to orange.  Brim needed less than a week to commit to UVA after getting his offer, and is from Florida and has never been to Charlottesville.  That kind of verbal can go either way; either other schools start getting in his ear and he starts to think he might be missing out, or he gets to Grounds and it's everything he thought it was from the Internet.  Right now I see no reason to assume he won't stick, though.

- Added WR Stefon Diggs to yellow.  Diggs visited and seemed to be at least mildly interested.  He's a huge, huge-time prospect with offers from all corners of the land, so yellow is probably overly optimistic, but whatever.

- Added RB Imani Cross to red.  Cross is a Tennessee commit but calls himself a "soft" commitment and frankly the word "commitment" should be taken with a grain of salt.  It's nice to be on the right end of a decommitment.  Cross will move out of red should he ever actually "decommit", but the way things go in recruiting, he more or less already has and is only calling himself committed to Tennessee as a placeholder.

We also need another look at the depth chart.  Now that it's the offseason, injuries don't really apply, so that part of the depth chart is offline for now - red will be used to denote the two suspended knuckleheads.  They're not listed on the post-spring depth chart so I can't really have them as part of the two-deep, but they're not officially off the team either so I can't just make them disappear.  Yes, that post-spring depth chart is the reason for this latest update, plus I have to add Brim.

There's enough interesting stuff here that it's worth going over this position-by-position:

Quarterback - I've seen it said that this shouldn't be construed to mean that there's been any decisions in the QB race, but this plus some of London's earlier comments makes me disagree.  He wanted a 1A and 1B coming out of spring and I think we very obviously have that in Rocco and Metheny, and Rocco probably has the slight edge.

Running back - No surprises here.

Fullback - Kind of a surprise to see TFD running a clear third behind Ryan Cobb and Max Milien.  Well, not Milien, but seeing Cobb leapfrog him is interesting.  There are still too many scholarships promised out so this could mean TFD is a clear candidate to not return in the fall, since he's a fifth-year.

Wide receiver - This was a disaster zone in spring camp, injury-wise, with most of the best players sitting out all or some of the practices.  Looks like Bobby Smith had the best spring of those who did get to play.

Tight end - Nothing too surprising.

Offensive line - As I've been suspecting, Landon Bradley is in danger of getting Wally Pipped.  I think Morgan Moses would make a better guard than tackle, but this O-line depth chart appears to lean toward getting your best five on the field rather than sorting players out too precisely by position.  And Moses and Oday Aboushi are clearly the best tackles.  Interesting that Cody Wallace is not a center, but guard is wicked thin if Moses is a tackle.

Defensive end - No big surprises, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Brent Urban can do.

Defensive tackle - This should probably be read as a three-man rotation rather than two starters and one backup.  DT kind of requires it.  Chris Brathwaite isn't on the two-deep but he's probably the actual backup, and I can't wait for his emergence because he's going to tear some fools up eventually.

Linebacker - Nothing too surprising except the "or" next to Steve Greer and Henry Coley.  The coaches just do not seem to want to give Greer the job outright.

Cornerback - Drequan Hoskey is fast as shit, but his listing is evidence of how badly this program needs Demetrious Nicholson and Brandon Phelps.  I think Hoskey could do fine in a pinch but when walk-ons start showing up in the two-deep, you have depth issues.  Good job, Devin Wallace, getting yourself suspended.  I do have high hopes for Rijo Walker.

Safety - The two-deep is literally the entire roster of scholarship safeties.  The freshman class is bringing some help but nothing like a Nicholson.  Let's just offer burnt sacrifices for the health of McLeod and Mosley and hope for the best.