Showing posts with label joseph. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joseph. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

the recruit: C.J. Moore

Name: C.J. Moore
Position: CB
Hometown: Buford, GA
School: Buford
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 165

24/7: 80; three stars
ESPN: 75; three stars; #68 CB; Southeast #512; GA #107
Rivals: 5.4; two stars
Scout: three stars; #87 CB

Other offers: Wake Forest, Air Force, Navy, Rice, Memphis

This is the third prospect named Moore that it's been my pleasure to profile this year, so get all the "all your Moores are belong to us" jokes out of your system before we move on.  Moore is the new Wallace, yes?  Actually let's hope not, because two of our three Wallaces washed out.

Anyway, C.J. Moore - he is fast.  Moore has a genetic advantage in the speed department, as he is a nephew to three-time Olympic gold-medal sprinter Gail Devers.  He's a talented cornerback on a powerhouse high school team; he had seven interceptions last year and I think he's got about five this year (but I'm nowhere near sure.)  Buford is mighty as hell.  (If I were them I'd change the school's name to Buford T. Justice High instead of just plain ol' Buford, but I don't get to make those decisions.)  In case you missed it in the weekend review, they are going for their fifth state championship in a row.  They've churned out over 50 college players in the last decade.  They only play in the 2A division in Georgia (which goes up to 5A), but I think it'd be a mistake to cast a skeptical eye at the competition they play.  Buford usually schedules up when they can.  Their league isn't the Beach District, but it's not terrible; remember, they finished the year with Greater Atlanta Christian, which is where we got Malcolm Brogdon.

Despite playing at a place that every school in the South knows about (Buford sends people everywhere in the SEC and beyond), Moore got a pretty weak set of scholarship offers.  Likely this is because of his size.  He doesn't project to grow much, either.  Demetrious Nicholson is skinny but with room to add on.  Moore doesn't look like he's got the ability to add a lot of weight and still keep his speed.  Despite that, he gets a reasonable consensus of lowish three star ratings from the services, except for Rivals which has him pretty far down the list.

The other three services agree, though, so we're going with that.  ESPN is very complimentary of his cornerback skills, largely on the mental side of the game - positioning, timing, etc.  They praise his zone coverage ability and have some questions about man-to-man.  Naturally, a guy Moore's size will have trouble sometimes with man-to-man coverage in college; bigger receivers will almost always be able to get the drop on him.

Run support is a little questionable too; ESPN points out his high tackling form, and that's backed up by his highlight tape.  He's not ready for the college run game; a 5'9", 160-165 pound kid trying to tackle high is gonna be someone's highlight-reel broken tackle.  It's happened to Nicholson a few times this season already and he doesn't even try to bear-hug.  But that's not a difficult habit to break - it might be broken by the time the bullets start flying next September.

Which raises the question; will Moore be on the field?  You know how it is with cornerbacks right now.  It's a bad situation depth-wise, covered up by the fact that we have an all-conference future NFLer manning the position for now.  Said star will be gone next year, as well as the top backup, Dom Joseph, leaving us with exactly three cornerbacks: Nicholson, Brandon Phelps, and track star walk-on Drequan Hoskey.  There are numbers in the incoming freshman class, but it's awfully thin on field-ready talent like Nicholson.  Maurice Canady is playing quarterback right now.  Wil Wahee is more of a two-way athlete right now than a cornerback who moonlights on offense, which is what C.J. Moore is.  I don't know whether Hoskey is ready to assume a nickel-back, in-the-rotation role like what Dom Joseph does now.  Even if so, cornerback is the one position almost certain to see some true freshmen on the field.

And I think Moore has as good a shot as anyone; only Kelvin Rainey in the class of 2012 is as much a natural cornerback as Moore is.  If all goes according to plan, Phelps and Nicholson will own the position for a while, and there's a decent chance the 2012 crop of cornerbacks gets recruited over in the following years.  So I don't see Moore ever really owning the starting job; if he does, it's a while down the road yet.  But his speed alone will get him on the field, and he brings a lot of tools with him; there may or may not ever be a starting position available for him, but there'll almost always be a role.

Monday, August 22, 2011

weekend review

Well, the big news of the weekend was the bad news of the weekend: James Robinson's decision to go to Pittsburgh instead of UVA.  Damn you Pittsburgh for stealing Cam Saddler and what was that other guy's name in football and now the one guy that would've fit like the last puzzle piece from our basketball team.  Right out of our backyard.  Tony Bennett is assembling a lot of talent for the coming years, and a point guard like Robinson would've fit like a glove.  Not least because Sammy Zeglinski leaves after this year and that means 2012 we have Jontel Evans and nobody else manning the point.  Malcolm Brogdon may get a look but that's not ideal.  What to do now?  The staff will go after L.J. Rose, probably with the fullest-court press imaginable, but that's not a likely proposition.  Chances are either they grit their teeth for 2012 and try to make the most of it with Evans and whoever else can handle a ball - or they take a fallback option and try to turn mid-major talent into an ACC player.  Either way, the 2013 PG crop (Nate Britt, Big Cat Barber, etc.) just became the most important recruiting challenge Tony Bennett's yet had in his UVA career.

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Fall camp chugs on, and so do position switches, and this means we need a depth chart update.  Last week we covered Ryan Cobb's departure and Zach Swanson's move to fullback (the latter may have happened before the former, and if so might well have precipitated it) and this week, the dominos keep falling into place:

- Demetrious Nicholson won himself the starting cornerback job opposite Chase Minnifield.  That puts Rijo Walker in a bit of a playing time bind, as the coaches think highly of Dom Joseph.  Joseph could play safety, if necessary, but that wouldn't be ideal because there's a crying need to develop playable depth at safety for 2012 and beyond.  Right now the backups are LoVante' Battle and Pablo Alvarez, neither of whom have anything resembling decent game experience at safety.

- Vincent Croce, to nobody's surprise, moves to DT from DE.  Redshirt year is a lock barring an epic DT disaster, because he needs to pack on the pounds.

- The same article is primarily about Ausar Walcott's move back to linebacker.  The stay at defensive end?  More a wake-up call to Walcott than anything else.  Get him out of his comfort zone, remind him that his position on the team is not to be taken for granted.  Though he's been running with the third-team defense, it wouldn't surprise to see him make a leapfrog move or two up the depth chart as the season goes on.

- A few other changes have been made, most notably listing Landon Bradley as injured, and shuffling the quarterbacks.  London hasn't come out and said it, but for all purposes now, Mike Rocco is your starter.  The backup hasn't been really decided yet, I don't think, but for now it's David Watford since that's where the reps are going.

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Another sign that football season approaches: for some, it's already started.  It's weird that seasons start earlier in the South and later as you go north, which I guess a Southerner would say that's because they give a shit down there.  Me, if I were being recruited for college football, not doing my conditioning drills in 500 percent humidity would be a real attraction, and I'd feel awful weird about being done with the regular season before Halloween.  But Georgia is Georgia (or Jawjuh depending on your perspective), and that's where we go for the first edition of Senior Seasons this year.

In case you're wondering, this is the part of the every-Monday weekend review where I check in on how our commitments did in their game that weekend.  Only one this week....

Buford 42, Blessed Trinity 0: This is C.J. Moore, who had a nice game with an interception and a 33-yard touchdown catch.  Buford has won four straight state championships at the AA level in Georgia, which goes from A to 5A.

Despite also living in Georgia, Greyson Lambert waits til next week to start his season, but in a scrimmage a week ago he threw for 192 yards and three touchdowns in one half, before the scrimmage was called for weather.

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I leave you til tomorrow with the most unintentionally ironic thing that has ever or will ever emerge from an ESPN the Magazine article, in this case primarily about Ohio State president Gordon Gee:


At Miami, president Donna Shalala personally hires each coach.  She studies the NCAA rulebook and weekly compliance reports.  During football games, she scours the sidelines for suspicious guests.  "I'm on alert all the time," she says.


You could not have timed this quote better with a stopwatch.  How's that 24/7 alert status working out?

Friday, July 29, 2011

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*

Sunday, October 3, 2010

illusions

Reminiscing on upsets past and joyous times of yore has a way of clouding the in-between. With Florida State in town, talk was of 1995 and 2005, and that was fun. In between those two big wins, of course, I graduated junior high, high school, and college, and FSU visited Charlottesville four other times and handed our ass to us with parsley and tartar sauce. Hooray, another one for the pile.

Any illusion that the offense can be consistently functional againt a bowl-worthy defense should be shattered about now, and abandoned in the way that one day you realize you're not growing up to play baseball in the majors. In two games against defenses worth a damn, the offense has scored exactly two touchdowns when those defenses were actually trying, only one of which was the result of an actual drive. Florida State brainfarted on defense, and Marc Verica and Kris Burd smartly took advantage. After that, Verica's inner Interception Man appeared and finished what FSU started.

UVA did, by the way, almost nothing I thought they should do in the preview. Never to say that that stuff would have worked, but their way didn't, either. To wit:

- John-Kevin Dolce, all 250 pounds of him, was consistently on the field on running downs and consistently ended up 5 yards downfield before the running back was at the line of scrimmage. The man is at his best when given a step of space where he can use his athleticism, like on the pass rush - he doesn't otherwise have the beef for DT and the FSU running game took full advantage.

- Rather than punt at the sidelines, or rugby kick, or do something different than a straight up boom at the sky, UVA allowed Greg Reid to field everything he could get near. And FSU's field position benefitted beautifully from it.

- The FSU linebackers were allowed the luxury of keying on the run game, and they made every stop. There was very little play-action and tight end involvement to keep the linebackers busy and very few draw plays, too. Result: 2.9 yards per carry for the tailbacks.

Fact is, Florida State has more talent everywhere you look, at every single position on the field except for possibly cornerback, and this last is also hard to defend given the play of those backups. (More on that later.) That is probably one of the only really complete teams in the ACC.

On that note, the optimism: that is probably one of the only really complete teams in the ACC. Except for those that expected to hoist the crystal in January, there isn't a 2-2 team anywhere that thinks their season is over. Two more losses like that might change my perspective a little, but take a look at what Georgia Tech and UNC have accomplished this season and see if you don't think they're beatable. Watch that Duke-Maryland game again and see if you don't really like what you see. There's still plenty to look forward to this season, which is all you can ask for, really.

Stuff that didn't fit:

- My God, Devin Wallace had a really bad day. At least three, if not all four, of FSU's touchdowns can be more or less directly attributed to something he didn't do very well, be it tackle or cover. Wallace and Dom Joseph have been fairly solid in their careers, but neither of them would ever want to repeat their Saturday performances.

- It absolutely is not time to replace Marc Verica. I've always said his performance on the season shouldn't be judged until halfway through, and I'm sticking with that even if he throws five picks against GT. One, there are still bowl hopes, and not gumdrop rainbow ones either. Two, Metheny looked pretty good but FSU had their second string out and was hardly trying. And three, the people ready to throw Verica under the bus will probably be the same people ready to do the same to Metheny or Rocco in 2012 and '13. There's a certain breed of fan that just is never satisfied with what they're getting. They're rooting for the laundry, frankly. I happen to think that rooting for the team also means rooting for the players, and it's hard not to root for a guy who worked hard, gained the starting job, lost it, worked some more, got it back, and is looked to for leadership by the whole team.

I said it long before the season, repeatedly, and I'll say it again: that's a discussion we should have after the FSU-GT-UNC stretch, and only if we really look well out of bowl contention and Verica has been totally ineffective. If UVA wins just one of the next two, they'll be 3-3 going on 4-3. That'd be no time for a change at the helm.

- On the other hand, there are some depth chart changes that I'd either really like to see or wouldn't be surprised to. Like I said earlier, JKD should revert to his pass-rush role; he's getting blown up against the run. GT will exploit that mercilessly. And the O-line is hopefully still an evaluation in progress. I'd also like to replace the blank spots on the depth chart behind the two-deep at defensive back with actual scholarship players, but we can't have everything.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

the recruit: Kevin Green

Name: Kevin Green
Position: ???
Hometown: Petersburg
School: Petersburg
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 195

ESPN: none
Rivals: none
Scout: two stars, #76 QB

Other offers: none

Talk about your mystery recruits. Here we have a guy with no other offers, no evaluations, and no future position. Green didn't really even have a recruiting story, at least not a public one - he's a legacy since his father, Kevin Morgan, played at UVA, and Green wanted to follow in his footsteps. Offer, commitment - done.

Green plays quarterback and linebacker for Petersburg, and on offense he really racks up the yards as a dual-threat guy. Almost 5,000 of them last season, and 39 touchdowns, both passing (24) and running (15.) Six more touchdowns this season in just two games. Suffice it to say, Green is the kind of quarterback, operating in a quarterback's offense, that will be putting up gaudy stats basically every week.

The thing is that Green almost certainly won't be playing quarterback at UVA. With David Watford onboard for that job and plenty of freshmen on the roster, Green would be buried. He was offered "as a football player" and I doubt the coaches even know where he'll end up just yet, or even which side of the ball.

For reasons of both program depth and Green's size, the likeliest candidates are WR, LB, or safety. He'd be tall for a safety, which kind of rules out cornerback. He's light for a linebacker, and the coaches will have to decide whether he's going to bulk up to at least 225 or not. ESPN lists him at 205, so who knows? He's about the perfect size for a receiver, and clearly has the athleticism, but wide receiver is where the coaches are recruiting quite a few players at the moment so I don't think they see Green as one.

So defense is where he'll probably be, and LB or S depending on whether he bulks up or not. Me, I'd prefer safety. Assuming he redshirts, his redshirt freshman year will be a year after Rodney McLeod, Corey Mosley, and Dom Joseph all graduate, leaving zilch at their position except for Green's classmates, and we have absolutely no idea whether or not Kyrrel Latimer will even make it in or Javanti Sparrow will make it back. I have absolutely no way of projecting how well Green will do, given that literally the only data on him is at a position he'll never play. But if indeed he's a future safety, early playing time seems like a rock-solid guarantee.