game preview: Maryland

Date/Time: November 13, 3:30 PM

TV: ESPN3

History against the Terps: 31-41-2

Last matchup: UVA 20, Maryland 9; 10/17/09 - and there's video proof

Last week: Duke 55, UVA 48; Miami 26, Maryland 20

Line: Maryland by 1.5

Opposing blogs: Testudo Times

Maryland season preview

Uniform combo: I don't know anymore.

Injury report:

OUT
OT Landon Bradley
WR Tim Smith
TE Joe Torchia

DOUBTFUL - none

QUESTIONABLE - none

PROBABLE
LB Darnell Carter
RB Raynard Horne
CB Chase Minnifield
RB Keith Payne

Injury editorializing: No Ras-I?? I'll believe it when I see it. If it pans out and Ras-I plays, it's huge, Maryland's rather one-dimensional on offense and the presence of a pair of veteran starting cornerbacks could allow the run defense to get some desperately needed reinforcements from the rear. Horne was left off the depth chart early in the week in favor of Torrey Mack, but I'd guess this means he's still the third tailback. Landon Bradley's done for the year, meaning your O-line of Aboushi-Pasztor-Mihota-Cabbell-Moses stabilizes a bit. I never did have the injured body parts on here before (always removed them because it rarely matters) but the coaches got ideas after seeing Miami's injury reports (which called Jacory Harris's Dolce-induced concussion an "upper extremity" injury), and now everything says "upper extremity" or "lower extremity." Silly as hell.

*************************************

This is normally where I write some extemporanea on the meaning of the game, where it fits into the big picture of things, what have you. No point this week. Beat Maryland. That is all.

HOW WE CAN WIN

- Focus on Torrey Smith. It's hard to think of an ACC player who's done less with more hype than Torrey Smith. This is because he has no help. Adrian Cannon is strictly a possession receiver and he's been unproductive. Nobody else has more than ten catches. The quarterbacks are bleah. If Smith can be taken out of the equation - and most teams have generally been able to do this - Maryland's options on offense are significantly fewer.

- Keep the ball away from Alex Wujciak. Wujciak patrols the MLB position for Maryland, and he's got a way of making a mess of things. He's good in pass defense, good against the run, and can both stuff the middle and chase sideline-to-sideline. (Also, it'll be really annoying if Wujciak makes a lot of tackles or intercepts a pass or something because he'll get a lot of camera time and he has a tendency to wear his eye black all over his face like war paint, which is one of the douchiest trends ever.) The rest of Maryland's defense isn't half as talented. Keeping passes out of the middle of the field and finding ways to get Perry Jones around the corner before Wujciak gets there will help the offense tremendously; in any case, the game plan should find a way to minimize his impact.

- First-down stops. Maryland is second-worst only to Boston College in the ACC in long plays of 10+ yards. If they can get to 3rd and 3, they can probably find a way to get the conversion thanks to UVA's porous run defense. UVA needs to put Maryland in a position where they're forced to do something they don't do well: get a big gain.

HOW WE CAN LOSE

- Found a way to stop the wildcat yet? I don't want to run around looking for this kind of stat, but if it exists somewhere, UVA's probably at the bottom of the pile: QB rushing yards allowed. Whether it's Alex Gillett, Josh Nesbitt, or Brandon Connette, running quarterbacks have given UVA fits, whether or not there's an option pitch tagging along. Jamarr Robinson has effectively lost his job as Maryland's starting QB to Danny O'Brien, but Maryland's got a wildcat package for him and it's a stone-cold lock they'll deploy it frequently, until UVA proves they can stop it.

- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TACKLE HIM. Tackling is the new turnovers. I try to avoid saying "don't turn the ball over" in these game keys because duh. But tackling is a worse problem, I think, than Verica's interceptions. Might as well keep saying this till they prove that I don't have to, because there's nothing more frustrating than a third-down stop that turns into a first down that becomes a touchdown.

HOW THE GAME WILL GO

I should feel a lot less confident about the defense after the the Duke debacle, but....maybe it won't be so bad if Minnifield and Dowling are back in the lineup? Maybe. I don't buy that the run defense would have been better with them in there - the players up front ought to be good enough to stop the putrid running game that Duke brings to the table whether or not they had to adjust the game plan for the absence of the corners. But Maryland's passing game is actually worse than Duke's.

Besides, Maryland is one of the worst 6-3 teams in the country. Sagarin even says so, with only Northwestern and Syracuse checking in worse among BCS teams with that record or better. So their bowl eligibility scares me not.

So I see no reason to expect anything less than a competitive game. There's no should-win or shouldn't-win here - despite the two-game lead Maryland has, I think the teams are pretty evenly matched. Unlike the Duke game, I don't see it as "whoever has the ball last wins," - more like "whoever makes the last play."

REST OF THE ACC

Miami @ Georgia Tech, 12:00
Boston College @ Duke, 12:00
Wake Forest @ NC State, 2:00
Virginia Tech @ North Carolina, 3:30
Clemson @ Florida State, 8:00

weekend review

This didn't exactly happen last week, largely for airline-related reasons, but we are so back this week. Recruiting board, high schools, soccer, the works. Stay with me.

First is that recruiting board, and you won't notice much difference. There's only one change, and one notable not-change. Clifton Richardson "firmed up" his commitment, so I got off my high horse and moved him to committed orange.

The not-change is that Curtis Grant is still in the blue section. Before the weekend there was a blurb in the RTD that suggested UVA is out of the running for Grant. Shenanigans. I think you can safely ignore that quote - it's the writer talking, not anyone making the decisions here. Just brush it off as one of those things that makes recruiting such a maddening thing to follow. I'm no insider but really I think there's every reason to believe that UVA fans will have a vested interest in watching that particular press conference, when it happens. Not that Grant will necessarily choose UVA, but UVA will be in it all the way.

****************************************

I meant to update the depth chart before the USC game. But I didn't. So I'm doing it now. Your running backs are Keith Payne and Perry Jones - that's a change from before, because those two basically have a death grip on it whereas Raynard Horne used to be listed as one of the starters. Rodney McLeod's name in red signifies his injury.

****************************************

High school football: let's check in on the recruits:

St. Christopher's 27, St. S./St. A. 17 - Thompson Brown squares off against Darius Lee. Brown forced a turnover and caught a touchdown in his team's win over Lee's.

Hermitage 27, Lee-Davis 8 - The opener for Diamonte Bailey's squad. 15 tackles for prospect Curtis Grant.

Phoebus 45, Churchland 0 - Caleb Taylor's team dispatches a decently-ranked team with relative ease.

Landstown 12, Green Run 9 - David Dean helps limit the opponent to 12 points, but the offense can't get it done.

Woodrow Wilson 21, Menchville 19 - Clifton Richardson still winless. Rushed for 238 yards, scored a TD on an INT return and threw what would have been the game-tying touchdown had the two-point attempt succeede.

Bayside 21, Cox 9 - Ross Burbank's team now 1-2. Prospect Demetrious Nicholson had three receptions.

I.C. Norcom 52, Heritage 0 - Ouch. Kameron Mack's team on a roll.

Hampton 49, Gloucester 0 - David Watford rolls.

Damascus 27, Quince Orchard 23 - Big win for Brandon Phelps' squad, but mostly without him as Phelps misses the last three quarters with a strained hip flexor. May miss next week.

DeMatha 35, Friendship 32 - DeMatha escapes the big upset.

Stone Bridge 56, Leesburg Heritage 7 - Rob Burns' team is a juggernaut.

L.C. Bird 36, Matoaca 23 - Season-opening win for Anthony Harris.

H.D. Woodson 28, Fairmont Heights 12 - Darius Redman catches two passes in Woodson's first win of the year.

Boys' Latin 21, Archbishop Curley 7 - Another win for Marco Jones.

West Charlotte 48, Independence 33 - Adrian Gamble scores a touchdown, but Independence is off to a horrible 0-3 start. Tough schedule, but still: Independence is a (once-upon-a-time?) juggernaut.

Mt. Lebanon 43, Penn-Trafford 18 - Tim Cwalina is off to a 2-0 start.

****************************************

News and stuff happened on the weekend too. Some of it was even kind of important:

- The Pac-10 did what I told them to and suspended the refs from the USC game for blowing the fake punt call. Technically the wording they used was "removed from a future game assignment" but it's all the same thing. The conference did the right thing; that plus their halftime apology is the best we can ask for, so it's time to move on.

- The RTD's Michael Phillips has an interesting take on that, by the way. The gist: it was like the phantom T on Tony Bennett against Maryland when the hoopsters were roaring back to try and take the the lead after trailing all game - there's no guarantee UVA would have won either game without referee interference, but it gives us an out to think so. Phillips calls it a gift to the fans, I say if you're going with that tack it's more of a gift to the coaches. That's like, the worst gift in history, but the coaches get just that little bit more leeway from the fans when we think Rule 2(b) has been activated, and you can never have too much job security in this gig.

- VT very literally got injury added to insult on Saturday with the loss of DT Kwamaine Battle for the season, but he might get a sixth year of eligibility. Battle's only a junior anyway, so he's back next year regardless, but in any case it probably won't affect the Hokies much. Battle was the starter, but his replacement Antoine Hopkins has more game experience. Depth rather than any irreplaceable talent is their loss here.

- Occasionally, I exhort UVA fans not to act like Michigan State fans, something we're at times in danger of doing because we have what might delicately be referred to as "not as good a football team" as VT. In other words, don't obsess over them and don't act like a Tech loss is the same thing as a UVA win. Because this is the sort of idiocy it leads to:

So as the ND game approaches this weekend wear your coolest kicks around campus with the shoelaces TIED (editor's note: Sparty boy is making a lame attempt at making fun of Michigan's Denard Robinson's preference for untied shoelaces) in honor of our great #8, Captain Kirk, and show the world, ESPECIALLY ANN ARBOR, that in East Lansing they TEACH US HOW TO TIE OUR SHOES.

So that's what 20 grand of tuition buys you at Michigan State. And after you learn how to tie your shoes, there's nap time and then cookies and juice! (I believe those are the honors classes.) One nice thing about going to college at Virginia is not having to spend four years with dumbasses. Don't be Sparty, boys and girls.

- The soccer boys remain undefeated after going on the road to Duke and pulling out a tie that could plausibly have been a better result for either team. Duke dominated on the stat sheet, taking eight corners to UVA's three and forcing Diego Restrepo to make eight saves (which is kind of a lot.) But Sean Hiller scored a go-ahead goal in the 86th minute - normally the kind of thing that stands up, except it didn't with Duke scoring less than two minutes later to force OT and the tie. Ominously, Will Bates was subbed out early with an injury that a Sabre observer suggested might be a hamstring.

Next week is one of the biggest matchups of the year: the first game against Wake Forest since Brian Ownby's golden goal dispatched the Deacs from the NCAA tournament.

****************************************

Finally, around the ACC for some of the more interesting blog reactions to this weekend's rather unfortunate results in the conference:

BC 26, Kent State 13: BC Interruption bemoans the O-line play, notable because I expected it to be one of the better O-lines in the conference.

Kansas 28, GT 25: Adding insult to insult, Winfield's soul appears bent over with the agony of defeat, and somebody called a penalty on it too.

Maryland 62, Morgan State 3: That's sixty-two (62) to three (3). With that score in mind, what kind of truly horrible-ass game must Maryland's quarterbacks have had to earn a measly B- grade from Testudo Times?

JMU 21, VT 16: Saved the best for last. F4H of Gobbler Country unsurprisingly has selected The Cure for a little post-game easy listening. Read for two reasons: one, F4H is the decent variety of Hokie fan that is given a bad name by the other 97%, and two, you'll find many reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic about the end-of-season tilt.

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.

****************************************

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?

****************************************

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.

****************************************

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.

questions and unanswers

Spring practice wrapped up with the spring scrimmage on Saturday, which means that super-obsessive football fans have nothing to do until August and everyone else stopped ignoring spring practice. As a baseball player way back in high school I had a coach who liked to say, "Everyone looks good in the cage." I think that's sage advice, and so I don't obsess over who looks good and who beat who in spring practice, because they all looked pretty damn good last year in the spring and then we went 3-9 and fired the coach.

That said, however, spring can answer a few questions for us. So today I'll put my best foot forward in seeing what spring ball might have settled, and what remains to be seen.

Questions we now have answers to:

- Who's going to start at quarterback against Richmond?

That would be Marc Verica. I wish I wish I wish I could find the Jeff White article that more or less let it slip, but I can't - something about how the coaches were having a pretty spirited backup battle between Ross Metheny and Michael Strauss. Verica didn't blow away the competition, but his experience gave him a major leg up and he'll have to implode in the August to lose the job.

- What will the uniforms look like?

"Oregon of the East" caused a lot of consternation among tradition-minded fans (like me) who didn't really like the idea of diamond-plate patterns, random striping all over the place, or dressing like the Oakland Raiders when your school colors are those of the Green Bay Packers. Basically, those of us who don't want a clown show to take the field where the football team is supposed to. Fortunately, there's a much simpler, classier approach in place and we can step back from the ledge now.

- Will the offense still suck?

I think most folks are optimistically willing to keep this in the "unanswered" category, but in good conscience, I can't. The spring game generated two articles about the lousy offense on display - Verica was 8 for 23 and the entire running game stunk. And this was against a defense learning a totally brand-new playbook, featuring many players in entirely brand-new positions. This offense is going to need stability before it turns into something that coaches have to bother game-planning against, and that means a lot more than half a year figuring it out.

- How will the change to the 4-3 affect the defensive positioning?

You already knew some people were getting shuffled around, but moving Ausar Walcott and LoVante' Battle from safety to linebacker (which thanks to the alignment change already had a glut) necessitated even more movement. Mostly we know how that goes now:

* Walcott and Battle are outside linebackers.
* Terrence Fells-Danzer is a fullback, and Cam Johnson, Jeremiah Mathis, and Billy Schautz - all former linebackers - are defensive ends.
* Matt Conrath and Brent Urban are defensive tackles.

I'm still not sure I'm big on moving Walcott and Battle, by the way. Speed on defense is a good thing, but so is a depth chart in the secondary, where we're awfully thin. And we're even thinner at DT - I count four, which means there's no two-deep if even one goes down - so I expect at least one more move there. Wouldn't surprise me if incoming freshman Stephen Lawe finds himself on defense come fall camp.

Alright, but it wouldn't be any fun if we knew everything. Here's what remains to be seen:

- Who's going to start at quarterback in mid-October?

Verica has likely established himself as the first option, but not as the kind of guy who puts a deathgrip on a job. If we're an uncompetitive 2-3 (or, horrors, 1-4, meaning a Richmond loss) coming out of what'll probably be a total catastrophe of an Atlanta trip in October, you know it'll start to be time for a quarterback switch. Barring Richmond becoming the new William & Mary, Verica will probably keep the job throughout September because the competition isn't good enough (or is way too damn good) to properly gauge how the season is going. FSU and GT as the first two October games will be a much better yardstick as to whether we should start looking at the future.

- What will the running back depth chart look like?

Pure chaos right now, that's what. There are seven options here: Raynard Horne, Keith Payne, Torrey Mack, Perry Jones, Dominique Wallace, K.P. Parks, and Khalek Shepherd, and only four of them participated fully in spring practice and none of those four really grabbed hold of the job. Why don't we know anything?

* Horne has never really been much more than a change-up back, in to spell the starters.
* We really kind of know what Payne is capable of, and honestly it's not stardom.
* Mack flashed a lot of talent in spring ball last year but couldn't pass-block to save his life (and definitely not his quarterback's), thus whenever he was in the game, defenses keyed on the run.
* Jones is the size of the period at the end of this sentence, and not going to be an every-down guy, ever.
* Wallace might have the best size/speed combination but is still recovering from last season's injury.
* Parks and Shepherd ain't even here yet.

I don't see Horne, Payne, or Jones being #1 options. Any one of them might make a great change-of-pace type but they're not toting the load. There's a great chance here for Parks - who just might be the most talented of the bunch - to step in and make his name. Shepherd, too.

- Is the defense that awesome or is the offense that bad?

Such is the nature of spring practice that you can never really tell, unless you have a coach's eye, whether good results are really good results, or just bad news for the other side of the ball. The defense does remain highly talented, however, and I think they'll still look about as good as they did last year. But with the alignment switch, you never know.

- Who's the placekicker?

London said he'd pick one that would be the starter going into fall camp, but he hasn't told us who.

So with all that, I've updated the depth chart for ya, and today's addition of Ross Burbank to the commitment list (less than a week after his offer - this is a guy who definitely wanted to be a Hoo) merits a recruiting board update too. The depth chart, by the way, has one tiny format change: no more walk-ons, for the most part. It got to be annoying to track the comings and goings. If they've got a real shot to actually participate (Matt Snyder, for example, or the kickers) then they're still on there, but the ones who aren't a threat to see the field aren't there any more. Should be easier to track that way.

Tomorrow: uniforms!

weekend review

Further thoughts from Saturday's game follow. I was still so pissed on Sunday evening about that 3rd-and-2 rollout that I forgot to write down quite a few of my other thoughts about the game.

- What sacrifice would the football gods require of us in order for them to confuddle Randy Shannon into continuing to believe that Robert Marve is the better Miami quarterback? Before the game I felt that Jacory Harris's stats showed that he was playing better all around - now that I've seen them both for a full game, I believe it. Miami can be beat at least once the rest of the year, but that'll be harder if Harris is the quarterback.

- Marc Verica: Looked decent, but definitely not the Verica we saw against UNC and GT. Part of this was because Mikey kept having him wing it downfield at obviously blanketed receivers, but he missed a couple throws that he made earlier. Still, Verica's one game shy of tying a Matt Schaub record. We got a keeper in Verica. Big time. (Oh yeah....and see? Doug Doughty agrees that the 3rd-and-2 sack was pretty much the turning point in the game.)

- Cornerback play was also pretty ugly for the most part. Harris had some open receivers to hit on the sidelines. Miami picked up just tons of yardage in 12 and 15 yard chunks like that.

- I take some hope from this: The media coverage today, and the team attitude, and their quotes to the media, and all that, all seem to imply one thing. We lost a game against a team we should have beaten. Nobody's saying it because that would be bulletin board material and we can't have that, but this isn't the same we-just-got-our-asses-kicked-by-a-way-better-team vibe that we saw after the first three losses, and I like that. It's the kind of thing you can turn into positive energy for next week. Mark my words: Wake Forest is beatable, and Winston-Salem is no Tallahassee. A win next week, especially if coupled with a VT loss in Thursday's Meteor Game, would give us just a ton of positive momentum going into the bye, and two weeks to prep for Clemson and VT.

In the newsroom, it looks like Mikell Simpson is done for the year. Eeeeessshh. This should come as no surprise to anyone who saw Simpson trussed up in that shoulder contraption on screen during the game. Next Man Up is Raynard Horne, who's been having a very good year on special teams.

The Wake game will be at 3:30 and on ESPNUVA.

Recruiting board, updated, is here. Recruiting update goes thusly:

- Removed QB Tajh Boyd (Tennessee commit) and CB Travis Hawkins (Maryland commit). These guys were always long longshots anyway.

- Bumped RB De'Antwan Williams from Fair to Low after he listed four favorites which weren't us. ($) He stays because it's a "favorite" four, not a "final" four, but anyone highlighted in red on that list is someone you shouldn't really expect to see in orange and blue.

- Logan Thomas trimmed his list ($) and we're on it, yay.

High schools....

DOMINIQUE WALLACE: 27 carries, 139 yards and 2 TDs in 21-17 win over James Monroe. Dude's a hoss. Here's an article that basically says Dominique Wallace is totally sweet at football and it's helped turn Chancellor into a totally sweet football team.

THE OSCAR SMITH BOYS: Another Friday, another 40+ point win over another hapless opponent. Smith beat Lakeland 44-0; Perry Jones scored twice and Tim Smith once.

TUCKER WINDLE: 6 receptions for 89 yards and a TD on offense, and on defense, 7 tackles including one TFL as Charlotte Catholic stomped West Mecklenburg 42-14.

ALEX OWAH: 25 carries for 164 yards and 2 TDs; Harrisonburg beats Waynesboro 28-6.

Last feature of the weekend review: the trip around the ACC. Let's see what these other cats have to say about their own teams' performances.

Georgia Tech knocked off Florida State, 31-28. FSU is no longer the hegemonic powerhouse they were, but thanks to that really annoying decade or so in which they were the automatic loss on the schedule, it is always special fun beating them. The LegacyX4 agrees.

Wake over Duke in OT, 33-30. Dudespin, while disappointed, reminds you that Duke needs to go 2-2 to go to a bowl, and seems pretty happy to be able to say that.

Clemson beat BC, 27-21. Eagle in Atlanta grades harshly. And, dude, Dabo Swinney is totally flipping off Willy Korn. OK, probably not actually, but that's a damn funny picture anyway.