the recruit: Richard Burney

Name: Richard Burney

Position: TE

Hometown: Chesapeake

School: Hickory

Height: 6'5"

Weight: 230

24/7: 83, three stars; #51 TE, VA #42

ESPN: 72, three stars; #31 TE-Y, VA #48, East #215

Rivals: 5.5, three stars; VA #37

Scout: two stars

Other offers: Cincinnati, Buffalo

Time to get back into the business of recruit profiles after a very basketball-related hiatus.  Richard Burney is a tight end prospect out of the 757, significant because he represents a commitment (perhaps a belated one, but a commitment all the same) to recruit the TE position.  "We need tight ends" is more or less exactly the pitch he was given, too.  He could be yoinked over to the defensive side, as he also pulls double duty as a DE, but if this coaching staff holds on, then I doubt it.

Burney has good prototypical size for a tight end; he's 6'4" or 6'5" depending on where you look, and 6'5" is probably the safer bet because he doesn't seem to have stopped growing yet.  He put on 20 pounds this year; Recruit757 was calling him 210 back in the spring.  Not that he's got NFL-level athleticism right now, but the way he looks in terms of size and usage reminds me of Brandon Pettigrew.

Because of this, he appears to complement nicely with our other TE recruit, Tanner Cowley.  He's actually bigger than Cowley, but looks like the better athlete; Cowley's blocking is better than his pass-catching.  Burney's the other way around.  Though not elite at all, he's got potential.  (On the other hand, ESPN's evaluation says "looks to give some effort as a blocker" which just set a new record for damnation with faintest praise.)

It's unfortunately difficult to get excited over Burney's credentials, though.  His ratings slightly outpace his offers, but not much; ESPN and Scout are really bearish, Rivals is lukewarm, and 24/7 is a notch above that.  There's no injury history or lack of camping to explain away his short offer list; he went to Wisconsin (he's a Badger legacy, actually, his dad played in Madison) and VT and came away empty.  Cincinnati offered, but neither party seemed too excited about the other.

Regardless, he's going to be needed.  We've already gone over that I don't think Mario Nixon is going to see the field, Rob Burns is a ghost, and Zach Swanson is graduating.  There's no reason to think Evan Butts isn't a legitimate option, but he's redshirting, so his skills remain a mystery.  And Cowley is well behind Burney in terms of field-ready size, though there's still nearly a year to go.  I think Burney comes in with a slight lead over Cowley for playing time, and could easily see him on the field next season.  Depends on how many TEs the coaches decide to use.  We're basically looking at four scholarship TEs next year, none of whom have any incumbency in the job.  If there were any four-star prospects coming in they'd probably be thought of as the likely starter, so there's no reason Burney can't at least compete, if not just surprise everyone and win the job.

the recruit: Tanner Cowley

Name: Tanner Cowley
Position: TE
Hometown: Manasquan, NJ
School: Manasquan
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 210

24/7: 84, three stars; #59 WDE, NJ #30
ESPN: 73, three stars; #105 OLB, NJ #38, East #187
Rivals: 5.4, two stars; NJ #35
Scout: three stars; #123 DE

Other offers: Rutgers, UConn, Buffalo

A bit of a big deal was made last year over UVA whiffing so badly in the so-named DMV area in 2014, and rightfully so as it's essentially our front yard.  But did you also know, the last prospects we pulled from New Jersey signed in 2012?  It'll be three years, which is also quite a long time for a state that by my unofficial guess sends the most out-of-staters to UVA other than Maryland.

Here's the streak-breaker.  Tanner Cowley is a somewhat lightly-recruited prospect from the Jersey Shore, who fits the mold of the type of player Mike London often aims for - that is, he doesn't fit any mold especially, being more of a generic athlete with ability on either side of the ball and a frame you can shape to your needs.  The recruiting services can't seem to agree whether he's a linebacker or defensive end (IMO he plays too much pass coverage to be a DE) and he's apparently going to be neither at UVA.  He's been slotted intially at tight end instead.

The problem is, I think - based of course on nothing more than any regular schmo has access to - he'd be a better linebacker than tight end, but UVA's linebacker class is beastly good.  Cowley's highlights don't show him doing great deeds at receiver, except for when he uses his size to outmuscle a defender for a jump ball.**  Certainly a useful thing as a tight end, although it's all muscle and not much jump.  His routes are extremely basic, even when he's split out wide as a true receiver.  I like him better as a linebacker because he hits people with a pretty fair amount of power (both on offense and defense) and because of this line from ESPN's evaluation: "This is an instinctive player with quick key and diagnosis reaction skills; isn't fooled by play action or misdirection run plays."

Coaches spend years trying to teach that.  It's difficult to replicate.  It's exactly what you want out of a linebacker.  It's what I like so much about Daquan Romero - the guy sniffs out screen plays like a bloodhound.  Cowley wouldn't need to spend a lot of time bulking up, either.  I think he'd make a very nice weak-side linebacker, given time to adjust to the speed of the college game and to learn the schemes and what all.

But with Cowley at linebacker we'd have 13 of them next year, which is too many - it's more than four deep and that's even assuming you run three most of the time, which we don't - a great deal of our time is spent in sort of a 4-2-5 setup.  So instead, they'll try and put 30-40 pounds on him and have him be a tight end, which makes a ton more sense from a depth chart perspective, considering the extremely uncertain availability of Mario Nixon (who will probably never play a down.)  The list of returning tight ends entirely consists of Rob Burns and Evan Butts, so the depth chart is very inviting in that regard, where Cowley will compete only with Richard Burney in his class.

Burns is a bit of a cautionary tale for Cowley, who will need to seize on the opportunity.  Burns, you'll recall, began as a DE but didn't stick, and has taken a while to get up to speed at TE.  Cowley needs to stake a claim to a position early, or we won't really ever see him until 2017 or 2018.  His blocking looks as though it'll be ahead of his pass-catching, so once he arrives, not noticing him shouldn't be confused with him not playing; still, he's not getting on the field as a 210- or 220-pound tight end, so the faster he adds good weight, the better his career will be for it.

**The Rivals highlight is hilariously worth watching just for the second play.  Cowley is split wide with a cornerback about ten yards off the line; the CB takes two steps back and then abandons his post with gusto, preferring instead to be the (completely unnecessary) third guy covering the slot receiver drifting toward the sideline.  Where the safety is, I dunno, but Cowley gets acres of open space all to his lonesome, and nobody else is seen on the screen until he's about at the goal line already.  It's How Not To Play Zone 101.

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I just remembered something about Tony Bennett's 2016 commitment, Ty Jerome - it's not that I forgot to write a profile, it's that I forgot to tell you why I'm not (yet).  We're going to wait til he plays his junior season, that's why.  Tony has the ability to get a nice early start on that class, so it wouldn't surprise me if I had two or even three of them sitting in the hopper waiting for a little more exposure before I commit myself to evaluating anything.

the recruit: Corwin Cutler

Name: Corwin "Turtle" Cutler
Position: QB
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Ocean Lakes
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 180

24/7: 87; three stars; #25 pro-style QB; VA #19
ESPN: 82; four stars; #19 pro-style QB; VA #14; Atlantic #40
Rivals: 5.7; three stars; #25 pro-style QB; VA #22
Scout: three stars; #54 QB

Other offers: Connecticut, East Carolina, Marshall

I officially give up when it comes to guessing how many quarterbacks Mike London wants in any given class.  Just when it looks absolutely ripe to take one and only one, and Brendan Marshall is in the fold, another one comes down the pipe.  Fortunately, there's a plethora of quality nicknames coming out of the Tidewater area lately (Turtle, Big Cat, Smoke) and we seem to be in on that action pretty strongly.

Still - too many quarterbacks?  Actually, London just might know what he's doing in this case.  Corwin Cutler got offers from not a whole lot of places, and it didn't take him long to follow through with a commitment to the UVA one.  Shortly after his commitment, though, ESPN gave a knowing nod in London's direction and said: well played, indeed.  Their scouting report begins thusly: "This is a prospect that for whatever reason has flown under the radar throughout the process, but we believe Cutler is going to start seeing a lot more attention after the spring evaluation period. ... This guy should have a lot more offers."

ESPN is known for being more than occasionally divergent from the consensus opinion on a recruit, but that's an unusually blunt assessment.  They were confident enough in Cutler's abilities to rate him our best commitment until this Tuesday, when Taquan Mizzell jumped on board - above bonafide players like Tim Harris, Kirk Garner, and Micah Kiser.  And they might be onto something: Rivals' latest re-rank bumped Cutler upwards to high-three-star level, and 24/7's assessment of Cutler's performance at the New Level Athletics 7-on-7 tournament in New York, two months ago, was consistently higher than that of Mizzell.  High praise, given Smoke's own ratings.

This makes the upcoming high school season an interesting one.  Cutler definitely hit up the camp scene - his dad is involved in that in his own way, more on that in a bit.  He plays in the high-visibility 757, and Ocean Lakes was among the top teams in the district last year.  Even a middling three-star quarterback ought to have had offers, and now that the services have got a load of Turtle over the summer, they certainly like him better than "middling three star."  (Except Scout, which is so damn lazy and useless that they're listing Tech commit Parker Osterloh under our section.  Their lack of enthusiasm can be easily dismissed.)  Possibly all the quarterback attention in Virginia was being given to the "big three" of Hackenberg, Hodges, and Burns.  Regardless, now that Cutler's a UVA commit, folks will be watching this season, myself included.  And I'm very interested to see if Cutler will live up to the rankings.

Cutler could prove to be one of UVA's most important recruits in a while, though, and not just for what happens on the field.  All that rubbish from Hokies fans about a shadowy "Godfather" that steers players to UVA, and the supposed shadiness of the 757 Sports Academy (where Hampton Roads players train in the summer) really got the goat of a certain Carson Cutler - Corwin's father and a coach at the academy.  How can I put this delicately.... Carson was really, really pissed about that shit.  The PG version of his feelings was: "The rumors going around about being an AAU team and coaches being street agents are ridiculous and very unfortunate."  The not-so-PG version, as posted on the Wahoos247 board:

I feel its absolutely disgusting how people are taking shots at men they don't even know. ... I followed VT football because of past relationship[s] I had with past and present players. I used to have a lot of respect for what they have done with talent have gotten over the years but now I have lost all of respect for them and their fans .... Now you can take my words and twist it all you want to, I can and will be a HUGE supporter of Coach Mike London and his staff because of the man that he is and the word that he keeps with the parents and players, the only thing he promised me is that my son will get his degree. So all [you] ignorant ASS S.O.B that have been calling him "BLACK SANTA" (giving gifts to us funding our trips etc) is fucking crazzzy but you showed your true colors!!!!! And its not BLACK OR WHITE thing, it's just your arrogance in thinking that every kid should go to VT....

It goes on in that vein.  I did a little cleaning up for readability but that's basically the direct quote from the elder Cutler.  UVA's recruitment of the younger Cutler is the kind of thing that's giving Mike London powerful allies in the best recruiting grounds in the state, and the way Hokie fans react to it doesn't help the cause in Blacksburg.  Pissing off a group of people who see it as their mission to help football players find exposure for themselves, and ultimately, find homes in college somewhere, is How Not To Recruit 101, and the best part is, it's not like the VT coaches have much control over it.

Anyway.  The part where we discuss the future.  Turtle, obviously, finds a crowded depth chart.  London has all but declared Greyson Lambert and Matt Johns will redshirt, which means that the QB pipeline is being established and Cutler and Marshall will certainly get the same treatment.  Cutler won't play in 2014 either; Phillip Sims and David Watford will be seniors.  That sets up a battle in 2015, when Cutler is a redshirt sophomore and Lambert and Johns are redshirt juniors.  If the services are right about Cutler, he'll fend off Marshall, but it'll still be a major fight.  There's sure to be some twists between now and then, but it's still very likely to be several years before Turtle is truly on the radar for the starting job.  I don't pretend to know just what'll happen in a QB competition three months from now, let alone three years, but if Cutler is going to be the starting QB at UVA eventually, the window for that is 2015 to 2017 - the depth chart ahead of him may work out such that it's his fifth year before the job is truly his.

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-- You know we finally got Smoke Mizzell, right?  You heard about that already.  I don't need to repeat incessantly that Mizzell committed to UVA this week.  Mizzell's commitment to UVA, in which he committed to UVA, was the first five-star commitment for the Hoos since Eugene Monroe.  Mizzell's commitment to UVA is bound to be a recruiting chip for the future as well, so I'm really glad Taquan Mizzell committed to UVA.

-- London and the coaches were surprisingly open about the depth chart this week - it was like bizzarro week in that respect, and certainly nice to hear something beyond the usual denials of ever even having heard of a "depth chart."  London promised the official real preseason depth chart would be out Monday, which got a lot of people assuming we'll know who the starting quarterback is.  Well, I'm pretty sure it'll be Rocco, but I still also think the Monday depth chart is gonna have a lot of "OR" in the QB section.

-- Besides that, some position changes were discussed: DE to TE for Rob Burns, WR to DB for Anthony Cooper, FB to DE for Trent Corney.  When that happens, if a true freshman is involved, it's code for "this guy's redshirting" although Corney could be a special teams guy.  Corney's getting something of an annoying legend built up around him, which Jeff White fed yesterday - annoying because this is the same kind of thing that happened with Keith Payne, who UVA fans were, in hindsight, wildly overrating and heaping just stupid expectations on.  That, and you just know that some of the folks who want to see him "blowing people up" this year are gonna be some of the same moaning about redshirting in a few years.  Truth is, he's just raw as all hell and probably needs that redshirt year.

questions at camp for the defense

Continuation of Wednesday's post in which we asked similar questions about the offense.  Here we'll look at the defense and what questions need to be answered in the coming weeks.

1. Can Rijo Walker seize the starting cornerback job opposite Chase Minnifield?

This is probably his big chance.  He's done some impressive work for the coaches in the past year, enough to be currently listed as the starter, but now he'll have to fend off two freshman phenoms, and compete with senior Dom Joseph besides.  Joseph is solid but limited, and freshmen, no matter how talented, end up torched by a wily senior receiver sooner or later.  Now that Walker's been around the block once, having him ready to get the bulk of the starters' minutes is probably the best-case scenario for the defense.  If he can't jump on the job this year, Demetrious Nicholson and Brandon Phelps may ensure he never gets another chance.

2. Is Cam Johnson a holy terror?

Every year with Johnson has been the same: we're pleased with what he's done this year and expect more next year.  Unless Jake Snyder has a few surprises in his hat, Johnson is the defense's only real shot at having a QB-terrorizing pass rusher on the end.  He's easily the best athlete on the line.  Chris Long almost singlehandedly dragged his 2007 team to a New Year's bowl game, so if Cam Johnson lives up to his best potential, he could be worth a win or two.  Truthfully, this question won't be properly answered until a few games into the season, but if Morgan Moses can't handle Johnson in camp, not many opposing tackles will, either.

3. Where will the freshmen get slotted?

There are a ton of DEs and DBs on the roster in the freshman section.  Camp will be the first step in figuring out where the best position for some of these guys are - guys like Kameron Mack, Anthony Harris, Marco Jones, and Rob Burns, among others.

4. Have we found a workable linebacker combo?

The switch to the 4-3 still hasn't seen much settling down in the middle, as the coaches have done some experimenting with the lineup over the past year.  Laroy Reynolds was switched to the weak side, Aaron Taliaferro moved to the outside from the middle, and Steve Greer still seems to be stuck in a platoon, the latter being much to the chagrin of many fans - including myself - who think Greer is good enough to be an every-down player.  Meanwhile, former starter Ausar Walcott is now a DE and LoVante' Battle was moved back to the secondary.  Certain other players are breathing down the necks of the nominal starters.  There's not a fluxier unit on the roster outside of the quarterbacks.

5. Can we run any semblance of a secondary at all if a ton of freshmen are involved?  Because it still looks awfully thin behind the starters.

*shudder*

the recruit: Rob Burns

Name: Rob Burns
Position: DE
Hometown: Ashburn
School: Stone Bridge
Height: 6'7"
Weight: 230

ESPN: 77; three stars; #79 DE
Rivals: 5.6; three stars; VA #15
Scout: three stars; #56 DE

Other offers: Penn State, Stanford, Boston College, Michigan State, Maryland, Syracuse, Rutgers, Duke, Wake Forest

Rob Burns was one of the first guys Mike London offered upon being named head coach, and his name was at the top of the board for most UVA fans. UVA was his first offer (and remained so for a few months), his classroom work is strong, and he hails from one of the state's top teams. Priority recruit. So it might have worried people who read the CavsCorner article about Thompson Brown when Brown referred to London telling him something about "closing out the defensive line class."

Burns was obviously a touch worried too, because he scooted his decision timeframe up and was committed to UVA within a few days of Brown, making sure to get in ahead of a visit day that he wasn't going to attend.

One of the few UVA commits still in the hunt for a state title, Burns anchors one of the state's top defenses. Stone Bridge held regular season opponents to 56 points all season (and often scored about that many in one game), shut out four teams, and held one hapless opponent to 13 yards of total offense all game long. He plays tight end, too (and lacrosse); a natural fit for a guy who's as tall as a power forward and described by his coach as fast. But he's defense all the way in college.

And he'll almost certainly stick at end, too. Despite his height - 6'7, 6'8 is tall for a lineman; you need leverage, after all - ESPN and his coach both credit him with good ability to get down and keep his pad level low. That said, he's probably too tall and definitely too thin for a move to tackle unless he adds another 50 pounds, minimum. (This is the same coaching staff that thinks 240-pound John-Kevin Dolce should be used as a run-stopping tackle, but still.) Five defensive ends are listed on the incoming section of the depth chart, but Burns is one of the most likely to stick there.

All four of UVA's two-deep defensive ends return in 2011, plus DE number five, Billy Schautz. (I expect Jeremiah Mathis to return to the defense next year.) Even if the somewhat underwhelming Zane Parr loses his starting job, Jake Snyder is a third-year sophomore next year, and field-ready. Chances are not good for a true freshman DE to see the field. After that, though, it's open season on the two-deep, with Parr and Cam Johnson graduating next year. Just by virtue of being so damn tall (and plenty athletic), Burns is one of the freakier physical specimens in the incoming class. With his speed, height, and reasonably impressive array of college offers, he should be a quality pass-rusher as well as able to close off the edge to outside running plays. Barring any five-star superfreaks in the upcoming recruiting classes, there's no reason to believe Burns shouldn't develop into at least a two-year starter on the D-line.

the recruit: Thompson Brown

Name: Thompson Brown
Position: DE
Hometown: Richmond
School: St. Christopher's
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 221

ESPN: 77; three stars; #65 DE
Rivals: 5.5; three stars; VA #23
Scout: three stars; #98 DE

Other offers: Boston College, Maryland, Duke, Ohio

Thompson Brown wasn't even on the recruiting board. There's a reason for this: he didn't have a UVA offer, and it took him maybe five minutes between getting it and committing. Brown committed at a time when D-line spots were thought to be just about full and the whole fanbase was on Rob Burns commitment watch. Brown came in out of nowhere, shortly after Brandon Phelps, and his commitment probably had something to do with Burns being the very next shoe to drop. Whoops, the bus is getting full and I don't know when the next one comes around; better get in before the doors close.

The reason for Brown's lightning-quick reflexes upon receiving the offer is simply that he's a UVA fan from way back. So that's good. Brown plays on the private-school circuit where the competition isn't great (and the injury-riddled junior season didn't help); he didn't have much but some I-AA offers until it came time to camp. Then he picked one up at every camp he went to: BC, Maryland, UVA.

No health problems this year, though. Brown is a two-way player: DE on the defense, and RB and a little TE on offense. He's been remarkably productive all season, with a knack for getting to the ball on defense whether it's in the hands of a ballcarrier or turned loose for the taking. And when in need of touchdowns, St. Chris's usually turns to him there, too. It's not unusual to see Brown get a turnover and a touchdown in the same game, as he did against fellow verbal Darius Lee's St. S/St. A squad.

Brown joins a very deep 2011 DE class that could get even deeper if UVA takes a commitment from Horace Arkadie. The likelihood of all four or five of them sticking at DE is slim; you've got to have some flexibility, and Brown could be among the more flexible players. Marco Jones is a big guy and isn't going anywhere unless he goes inside to DT; Rob Burns is freakishly tall, probably too much so to be a blocker.

Additionally, there isn't much playing time available for defensive ends at the moment. There's a need for depth, but not at the higher levels of the depth chart, as Cam Johnson and Zane Parr are both juniors and there are some capable-looking players behind them in Jake Snyder and Jeremiah Mathis (who I fully expect to see back at DE next year.) Mathis is a bit of a wild card though - it's not crazy to think the coaches might leave him at TE. This is what I mean by a need for flexibility. And Thompson Brown appears to be one of the more flexible players in the class, so his redshirt year will probably be spent seeing what kind of attrition we have and who fits where ahead of him. He'll likely start out working at DE, but I'm not willing to bet on where he'll be two years later. Brown's productivity in high school suggests he'll be a contributor somewhere, maybe a big one. But I think the - ahem - circumstances of the roster ahead of him will ultimately determine where.

the recruit: Diamonte Bailey

Name: Diamonte Bailey
Position: DE
Hometown: Richmond
School: Hermitage
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 220

ESPN: 77; three stars; #65 DE
Rivals: 5.4; two stars; VA #27
Scout: two stars

Other offers: Marshall

Easiest pickup the UVA coaching staff - new or old - has had in years. For Diamonte Bailey the only question in his recruitment was whether or not he'd get an offer from UVA; he did, and committed on the spot. If you were to stake your life on one recruit to not decommit this year, here's your guy. And frankly, it's always neat when a kid is a UVA fan and gets the letter he's been hoping for.

Bailey's offer list is pretty much commensurate with his ratings, which for the most part are weak, but at least some of that can be attributed to his committing early and then shutting it down. Coaches get the message when a guy commits the moment he's offered. It raised at least one eyebrow, though. To me, the unstated implication in that article was that the staff could have waited to see if they could land any of their top targets and still reeled in Bailey with a later offer if they missed out on, say, the Rob Burns's of the world.

But it's not like Bailey is some kind of reach. As with any legitimate D-I recruit, he's brought in his honors: in this case, second-team all-region, alongside the much higher-rated Corey Marshall. (All-region is a step above all-district, by the way, in case you were wondering.)

And if the lack of offers can be partly explained away by the early commitment, you can do likewise with the low ratings by looking at his size. At 220 pounds, Bailey is undersized for a linebacker let alone a lineman. College-sized, he is not. Nearly all our DE's are this way, it's a London thing. Groh would bring them in at 250, 260 pounds, easy. It's the difference in the defenses again.

In the ratings department, this time it's ESPN that decides to be different. Scout and Rivals have Bailey as a two-star; ESPN ranks him on the DE list higher than a few of our higher-profile targets, notably Burns and Daquan Romero. I enjoy using these profiles to highlight the occasional silliness of the whole recruiting business: this time it's in the scouting reports. The RTD says Bailey "moves well for his size" (as opposed to those 250-pounders?) and VirginiaPreps says he "probably hasn't reached his apex as a football player." God I hope not. If London ever recruits a player who's peaked as a junior in high school I will drive to Charlottesville and slap him in the face myself unless the guy's already 6'6", 300 and runs a 4.1 40. I don't expect it'll ever come to that.

Anyway, Bailey comes into a logjam in 2011. Groh might have unwisely used a few true freshmen in his time but one position where he did just about none of that is DE. (Except for Will Hill, who's a DT now.) Four DE's in this class and four more are true or redshirt freshmen this year. Expect redshirts for everyone here, Bailey included, and then a dogfight for playing time that has no clear favorite at all.