Welp. Didn't take long. It hardly seems worth writing about the latest chapter in the Mike London story because it's so uncannily similar to most of the other ones. Talk up the latest new schemes, surprise with some swaggy hype-azz uniformz, lose by the book, chapter and verse. OK, sure, it lacked a little something in the clock-management dumbassery department, but London did burn at least two timeouts that I can remember just because of play-call confusion. So let's check that box.
Other boxes to check: annoying playcalling, offensive line depth biting us in the ass again, undisciplined penalties committed by seniors, crappy special teams, red zone ineptitude. The list goes on. A whole offseason and literally nothing has changed. I sound surprised here, which I guess I am a little, because this time I'm really gonna get to kick that football.
I really hated those helmets, by the way, which you can chalk mostly up to my reflexive get-off-my-lawnism about uniforms. UVA seems to be working on building a pretty solid brand identity. You can instantly recognize those gorgeous home whites the baseball team wears, and the school uses a uniform wordmark across most other teams, if not all of them.
Football? There's no brand identity anywhere. The navy blue helmets would work at least to anchor the zillion other looks they think are wonderful attention getters. Naw, let's ditch 'em and go with the marshmallow look. And the look on Saturday was a horrible mishmash. The pants are pure throwback - literally, because they come from the 1960s throwbacks they wore a while ago. The jerseys are a clean, unadorned, modern take on a classic look. And the helmets were $WAGGY HYPPPEEE, Oregon $tylez. Pick a look. (Preferably not swaggy hype.) There's absolutely no attempt at a brand, an identity, a foundation, it's just "hey this would be a cool idea," and they slap it up there and there's no reason to do it or even any connection with the rest of the athletic program.
I wouldn't usually spend two paragraphs on the uniforms, but if by now you can't get the connection to the actual state of the program then we'll just have to leave you here.
Notre Dame comes to town next weekend. Of the three difficult OOC games this is the one I expected to be toughest. They just got done steamtrucking Texas, so I think I'm still thinking that. If UVA is to steal an OOC win in one of those three games, Boise State is the place to look.
Some player-focused observations:
-- I was surprised Kelvin Rainey was credited with only five tackles. He seemed to be all over, making tackles in front of the secondary and generally being much more visible than you'd expect from a first-year starter. I liked it. And it looks clear too that Micah Kiser is the real deal.
-- I was much less pleased with the defensive ends. Mike Moore didn't look like a senior. Kwontie Moore was hardly visible. Trent Corney showed off his athleticism by actually juking his blocker, but then looked surprised that Josh Rosen actually moved away from the pressure. Fortunately, he kind of moved toward the rest of the defensive line, but Corney's tackle attempt on that particular play looked like he still hasn't picked up a lot of fundamentals.
-- Matt Johns reminds me of a youngish NASCAR driver who clearly can drive in the lower series but moves up to the big time and is stuck on an underfunded team with an uncompetitive car, which he can't crash because they can't afford replacements. He might compete for the winner's circle if he was allowed to drive aggressively into the corners, but he's just being asked to circle the track. That's Steve Fairchild's playbook in a nutshell. Johns can play quarterback, it's clear, but too often, he's not really allowed to. Sure, he threw a pick when he cut loose, just like the driver might find a wall or two the hard way. But in reading up about UCLA, one quote I saw was along the lines of Josh Rosen being handed the keys to a Ferrari, he just had to not crash it. Well, Rosen took a shot downfield the very first chance he got, and it's obvious he's not just driving the Ferrari around the block. Johns needs to be cut loose more too. He's capable of making it work.
Until then we'll just keep throwing screen passes on every third-and-long of the game which they totally won't be expecting this time.
-- One game in and the offensive line is already a smoking wreck. Eric Tetlow and Jake Fieler, out for the year. Ryan Doull and Sadiq Olanrewaju, no telling when they'll be back. Jay Whitmire, not ready to go full speed yet or he'd be out there at one of those positions somewhere. The interior line was absolutely owned; UCLA's DTs were exactly the problem I thought they'd be, and the "power running game" went exactly as far as I thought it would. I was openly skeptical of the power running thing; if I'd known we'd be missing four linemen going into the first game, I'd have been downright derisive.
That's OK, I'm sure we'll just recruit us a few more cornerbacks to make up for it.
It's pretty much official, I've skipped the optimistic, maybe-things-gonna-be-OK phase of the season and gone straight to snark. With any luck that'll last the next eleven (or twelve, if Lucy doesn't pull that football away again) games and we can minimize the burning apathy, which is all that's left at the end.
Showing posts with label rainey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rainey. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
the recruit: David Curry
Name: David Curry
Position: S
Hometown: Buford, GA
School: Buford
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 190
24/7: 83, three stars; #101 S, GA #132
ESPN: 73, three stars; #116 S, GA #147, SE #642
Rivals: 5.4, two stars
Scout: three stars; #142 S
Other offers: Iowa State, Arkansas State, Georgia State, Miami (OH)
Safeties come in a couple different varieties. Some are "athletes" who seem to pan out best as a safety - think Anthony Harris. Most of UVA's safeties are this kind. Some are born safeties based on their physical attributes - think Quin Blanding, but it doesn't have to be someone whose physical skills are perfectly suited for the position. Sometimes it's because they can't really play anything else.
That's David Curry - too small for linebacker and too slow for cornerback, but a successful high school safety all the same. Curry makes his name on instinct, feel for the game, and tackling skills. This is what earns him low ratings, not necessarily something that makes him a candidate for the back end of the bench for five years. I'm going to have to dip into the Michigan side of me here, but really the comparison that works best is Jordan Kovacs - a player who Division II schools lost interest in recruiting, tried out as a walk-on for Michigan, didn't even make it, tried out again, was given a jersey, and long story short made it to the NFL. (Undrafted, natch.) Kovacs was - is - essentially a savant on defense, who didn't have to run a fast 40 to get to the right spot quickly, and who didn't allow broken tackles.
That's what UVA is hoping for out of Curry. You can't play defensive end just by knowing how, but you can't play safety without knowing how. And the fewer physical gifts you have, the more you better know. Stars from the rating services are four-fifths physical - if you can bench press an ox but lose a battle of wits to it, you might just get five stars anyway, and you'll have at least seven SEC offers.
Since they don't really rate instincts other than to say whether or not a player has them, projecting Curry's future is harder than usual. If he's the kind of guy who picks up on everything immediately, he could leapfrog quite a few residents of the depth chart and play as a freshman. We're losing an all-ACC strong safety to graduation, after all. Curry is a definite strong safety type - in fact, his best fit on a defense is probably as what some defenses call a rover, or basically the third safety who's sort of a linebacker.
Kelvin Rainey and Malcolm Cook have a long, long head start, though, and the odds should be on them to hold onto it for a while. Forget projecting Curry's instincts - we really don't even know a hell of a lot about these two, either, but it's safe to assume they know a little something about Jon Tenuta's system. Curry's mental game is going to have to be well above average; if it's not, he'll just end up muddling along and possibly get recruited over. (Though, it's safe to bet that if he had average field smarts to go along with average athleticism, he'd be playing D-III ball.) He may also simply wait his turn like Cook has been doing so far, and arrive as a starter in his third or fourth season in the program. But in the best-case scenario, he could either surpass a few players or simply prove indispensible and become the fifth starting DB, and watch Tenuta tweak the defense to make that player a safety rather than a corner. In any case, Curry's career is even less projectable than the average recruit from here, for the same reason nobody wanted Jordan Kovacs until they actually put him through his paces on a practice field.
Position: S
Hometown: Buford, GA
School: Buford
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 190
24/7: 83, three stars; #101 S, GA #132
ESPN: 73, three stars; #116 S, GA #147, SE #642
Rivals: 5.4, two stars
Scout: three stars; #142 S
Other offers: Iowa State, Arkansas State, Georgia State, Miami (OH)
Safeties come in a couple different varieties. Some are "athletes" who seem to pan out best as a safety - think Anthony Harris. Most of UVA's safeties are this kind. Some are born safeties based on their physical attributes - think Quin Blanding, but it doesn't have to be someone whose physical skills are perfectly suited for the position. Sometimes it's because they can't really play anything else.
That's David Curry - too small for linebacker and too slow for cornerback, but a successful high school safety all the same. Curry makes his name on instinct, feel for the game, and tackling skills. This is what earns him low ratings, not necessarily something that makes him a candidate for the back end of the bench for five years. I'm going to have to dip into the Michigan side of me here, but really the comparison that works best is Jordan Kovacs - a player who Division II schools lost interest in recruiting, tried out as a walk-on for Michigan, didn't even make it, tried out again, was given a jersey, and long story short made it to the NFL. (Undrafted, natch.) Kovacs was - is - essentially a savant on defense, who didn't have to run a fast 40 to get to the right spot quickly, and who didn't allow broken tackles.
That's what UVA is hoping for out of Curry. You can't play defensive end just by knowing how, but you can't play safety without knowing how. And the fewer physical gifts you have, the more you better know. Stars from the rating services are four-fifths physical - if you can bench press an ox but lose a battle of wits to it, you might just get five stars anyway, and you'll have at least seven SEC offers.
Since they don't really rate instincts other than to say whether or not a player has them, projecting Curry's future is harder than usual. If he's the kind of guy who picks up on everything immediately, he could leapfrog quite a few residents of the depth chart and play as a freshman. We're losing an all-ACC strong safety to graduation, after all. Curry is a definite strong safety type - in fact, his best fit on a defense is probably as what some defenses call a rover, or basically the third safety who's sort of a linebacker.
Kelvin Rainey and Malcolm Cook have a long, long head start, though, and the odds should be on them to hold onto it for a while. Forget projecting Curry's instincts - we really don't even know a hell of a lot about these two, either, but it's safe to assume they know a little something about Jon Tenuta's system. Curry's mental game is going to have to be well above average; if it's not, he'll just end up muddling along and possibly get recruited over. (Though, it's safe to bet that if he had average field smarts to go along with average athleticism, he'd be playing D-III ball.) He may also simply wait his turn like Cook has been doing so far, and arrive as a starter in his third or fourth season in the program. But in the best-case scenario, he could either surpass a few players or simply prove indispensible and become the fifth starting DB, and watch Tenuta tweak the defense to make that player a safety rather than a corner. In any case, Curry's career is even less projectable than the average recruit from here, for the same reason nobody wanted Jordan Kovacs until they actually put him through his paces on a practice field.
Monday, June 30, 2014
the recruit: Juan Thornhill
Name: Juan Thornhill
Position: S
Hometown: Altavista
School: Altavista
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175
24/7: 88, three stars; #51 ATH, VA #21
ESPN: 73, three stars; #73 S, VA #30, East #152
Rivals: 5.7, three stars; #21 S, VA #15
Scout: three stars
Other offers: None
I guess it's the offseason now, and what that means is: football is up next. And that means it's time to get on with introducing the recruiting class of 2015. Might as well get one thing out of the way right off the bat: We can't say with any certainty at all that this crop will ever play for Mike London and staff. No projection I can make could ever take into account what happens if the ax falls - in fact, it's a near-certainty I'll profile an eventual decommit - so let's just keep that in mind every time there's a new recruit profile, and never speak of it again. At least in this context.
In this case at least, the commitment is likely to stick. Juan Thornhill is a self-professed UVa fan, an especially interesting tidbit in light of the fact that he hails from a part of the state that's widely considered VT country. It's very rare for UVa to find a recruit from any point in Virginia west of Charlottesville - you can count them on one hand going back to 2006, like so: Thornhill, Michael Biesemier, Mike Rocco, Alex Owah, B.J. Cabbell. And Owah didn't exactly stick so you can go back another year to find a few guys from that region in the '05 class, notably Chris Cook.
Thornhill and Altavista play in the VHSL's lowest division, 1A - small schools playing other small schools. He's easily the best athlete in that division, having been named not only the Defensive POY in football, but the basketball POY too. As such, he naturally plays quarterback as well as various defensive positions for his team, and piles up stats with ease. Thornhill led Altavista to state championships in both football and hoops this year; for schools of that size, he's a once in a generation player.
He didn't wait around for any other offers to come his way, though; he committed to UVa last November, the same day he got his offer from London. A guy who's the biggest fish in his pond who doesn't wait for any other offers is one committed player. That just leaves the question of - how good is he really?
Well, there's a bit of a range of opinions. Scout pretty much mailed in their evaluation, as they tend to do for UVa's early commits, but ESPN isn't high on him. They like his instincts as a defender but are real lukewarm on his athleticism and build. Actually even that's pretty encouraging, because safeties don't have to be wildly athletic to be effective. (It helps, but it's not essential.) Rivals and 24/7 have him in the top 20 players in the state, though, and while 24/7 is starting to show a pattern of being fairly generous with their stars, earning a high-three-star from Rivals is worth a look. We'll probably never know how other schools might have viewed him unless some of them start sniffing around in the event of a coaching change, but Thornhill doesn't seem like the type to entertain those efforts, and we'll likely never hear. I'd guess VT eventually would've offered, possibly Maryland and WVU as well, and some of the North Carolina schools.
It's still up in the air what position Thornhill would play, but safety has always seemed the most likely. At 175 pounds he'll definitely want to put on some weight, but it shouldn't surprise if he's more like 185-190 this time next year - that was measured in the middle of his junior year in high school, after all. And when the most critical ranker still likes your instincts and ability to see the field, it's another point in favor of a position that demands those skills. (Thornhill is a point guard on the hardwood, so.)
Assuming safety is the path, the depth chart looks kind of jammed at first blush (you know how I harp on that) but there's still opportunity. Quin Blanding will not be redshirting, so if Thornhill does, there won't be any players in the class in between them. Two starters will be seniors this year, and other than Blanding (who'll be given every opportunity) and Kelvin Rainey (who started showing some promise in 2013 as a redshirt freshman) the rest of the depth chart is full of unknown quantities and some guys whose chance has largely passed them by. Rainey and Wil Wahee will graduate after Thornhill's redshirt freshman season (or sophomore season, but I hope not that) and so the path should be clear for Thornhill to be a three-year contributor, if managed properly.
Position: S
Hometown: Altavista
School: Altavista
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175
24/7: 88, three stars; #51 ATH, VA #21
ESPN: 73, three stars; #73 S, VA #30, East #152
Rivals: 5.7, three stars; #21 S, VA #15
Scout: three stars
Other offers: None
I guess it's the offseason now, and what that means is: football is up next. And that means it's time to get on with introducing the recruiting class of 2015. Might as well get one thing out of the way right off the bat: We can't say with any certainty at all that this crop will ever play for Mike London and staff. No projection I can make could ever take into account what happens if the ax falls - in fact, it's a near-certainty I'll profile an eventual decommit - so let's just keep that in mind every time there's a new recruit profile, and never speak of it again. At least in this context.
In this case at least, the commitment is likely to stick. Juan Thornhill is a self-professed UVa fan, an especially interesting tidbit in light of the fact that he hails from a part of the state that's widely considered VT country. It's very rare for UVa to find a recruit from any point in Virginia west of Charlottesville - you can count them on one hand going back to 2006, like so: Thornhill, Michael Biesemier, Mike Rocco, Alex Owah, B.J. Cabbell. And Owah didn't exactly stick so you can go back another year to find a few guys from that region in the '05 class, notably Chris Cook.
Thornhill and Altavista play in the VHSL's lowest division, 1A - small schools playing other small schools. He's easily the best athlete in that division, having been named not only the Defensive POY in football, but the basketball POY too. As such, he naturally plays quarterback as well as various defensive positions for his team, and piles up stats with ease. Thornhill led Altavista to state championships in both football and hoops this year; for schools of that size, he's a once in a generation player.
He didn't wait around for any other offers to come his way, though; he committed to UVa last November, the same day he got his offer from London. A guy who's the biggest fish in his pond who doesn't wait for any other offers is one committed player. That just leaves the question of - how good is he really?
Well, there's a bit of a range of opinions. Scout pretty much mailed in their evaluation, as they tend to do for UVa's early commits, but ESPN isn't high on him. They like his instincts as a defender but are real lukewarm on his athleticism and build. Actually even that's pretty encouraging, because safeties don't have to be wildly athletic to be effective. (It helps, but it's not essential.) Rivals and 24/7 have him in the top 20 players in the state, though, and while 24/7 is starting to show a pattern of being fairly generous with their stars, earning a high-three-star from Rivals is worth a look. We'll probably never know how other schools might have viewed him unless some of them start sniffing around in the event of a coaching change, but Thornhill doesn't seem like the type to entertain those efforts, and we'll likely never hear. I'd guess VT eventually would've offered, possibly Maryland and WVU as well, and some of the North Carolina schools.
It's still up in the air what position Thornhill would play, but safety has always seemed the most likely. At 175 pounds he'll definitely want to put on some weight, but it shouldn't surprise if he's more like 185-190 this time next year - that was measured in the middle of his junior year in high school, after all. And when the most critical ranker still likes your instincts and ability to see the field, it's another point in favor of a position that demands those skills. (Thornhill is a point guard on the hardwood, so.)
Assuming safety is the path, the depth chart looks kind of jammed at first blush (you know how I harp on that) but there's still opportunity. Quin Blanding will not be redshirting, so if Thornhill does, there won't be any players in the class in between them. Two starters will be seniors this year, and other than Blanding (who'll be given every opportunity) and Kelvin Rainey (who started showing some promise in 2013 as a redshirt freshman) the rest of the depth chart is full of unknown quantities and some guys whose chance has largely passed them by. Rainey and Wil Wahee will graduate after Thornhill's redshirt freshman season (or sophomore season, but I hope not that) and so the path should be clear for Thornhill to be a three-year contributor, if managed properly.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
game preview: Miami
Date/Time: Saturday, November 23; 12:00
TV: ESPNUVA
Line: Miami by 20
Record against the Canes: 5-5
Last meeting: UVA 41, Miami 40; 11/10/12, Charlottesville
Last weekend: UVA bye; Duke 48, Miami 30
Injury report:
Virginia:
OUT - OL George Adeosun, CB Demetrious Nicholson, TE Mario Nixon, WR Canaan Severin, S Wil Wahee
DOUBTFUL - None
QUESTIONABLE - None
PROBABLE - CB Maurice Canady, CB Kelvin Rainey, DT Brent Urban
Miami:
OUT - DB Artie Burns, WR Philip Dorsett, LB Alex Figueroa, RB Duke Johnson, OL Hunter Knighton
DOUBTFUL - None
QUESTIONABLE - None
PROBABLE - None
(As with Georgia Tech, I'm quite sure that Miami is perfectly healthy aside from the players who can't go at all. No bumps, bruises, or sprains to be found.)
So I guess I have to go write about football some more. I was sort of enjoying the little hiatus. That's only half a joke. This has been the kind of season that really makes you question your involvement in the team and wondering if your Saturdays wouldn't be better spent doing almost anything else. You'll forget about all that next August, of course, but for now, sanity and happiness dictate that you spend the time putting up the Christmas lights or something.
-- UVA run offense vs. Miami run defense
Top backs:
Kevin Parks: 184 carries, 796 yards, 4.3 ypc, 10 TDs
Khalek Shepherd: 47 carries, 267 yards, 5.7 ypc, 1 TD
UVA offense:
152.7 yards/game, 3.67 yards/attempt
98th of 125 (national), 10th of 14 (ACC)
Miami defense:
172.5 yards/game, 4.19 yards/attempt
67th of 125 (national), 11th of 14 (ACC)
I suppose if there's any drama remaining in this season, Kevin Parks's quest for 1,000 yards might provide some. He's 204 yards away with two games left, so it's not totally out of reach. It's going to be hard, though; VT's defense is VT's defense, and Miami's isn't too shabby either. It's a fairly remarkable stat that the 11th-best run defense in the conference is just a shade outside the top half nationally. (And the conference's 10th-best is well inside it.)
Miami hadn't allowed a game of over 200 rushing yards to a non-Georgia Tech team until just last week, when Duke shredded them. Even if Duke is 8-2, nobody wants to allow that kind of performance against them, so this might have the makings of a classic motivated rebound game.
Leading the defense is linebacker Denzel Perryman, with 91 tackles this season; another linebacker, Jimmy Gaines, is second with 64. But the guy who probably presents the most threat to UVA's porous offensive line is defensive end Shayon Green, who has 7.5 run-game TFLs. He'll likely present a particular threat to David Watford's running attempts.
So I don't expect to see much room. Consider the Duke game a blip; that game alone caused the Canes to drop, like, 30-odd places in the national run-defense rankings. (Thus illustrating the dangers of relying too heavily on them, even this late in the season.) The UVA run game is a little better than it appears, because Watford is often sacked and has poor running instincts. Handing it off has always been a more productive play. Still, I'd be surprised to see Parks top 70 yards.
-- UVA pass offense vs. Miami pass defense
Quarterback:
David Watford: 221/379, 58.3%; 1,974 yards, 7 TDs, 12 INTs; 5.21 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Jake McGee: 36 rec., 305 yards, 2 TDs
Kevin Parks: 34 rec., 305 yards, 1 TD
UVA offense:
212.6 yards/game, 5.0 yards/attempt
125th of 125 (national), 14th of 14 (ACC)
Miami defense:
228.0 yards/game, 7.4 yards/attempt
84th of 125 (national), 12th of 14 (ACC)
Baghdad Bob got ahold of the UVA Football tweetster account this week and built an infographic that used some stats (almost exclusively his 221 completions) to try to make David Watford look like the Next Coming. Naturally it was met with mockery and disdain, and that was just from the UVA fans. Who kindly pointed out the little issue of having won only two games.
Watford is likely to rack up a whole bunch more completions this week, which will lead mainly to another five-touchdown loss and an updated infographic. But Miami has been complicit lately in pass defense. You might expect Jameis Winston and perhaps even Bryn Renner to have terrific games; you wouldn't ever peg Logan Thomas for 25-of-31 for 366 yards. That's a surprise and a half.
From a playmaking standpoint, Miami actually does well against the pass. Safety Rayshawn Jenkins and CB Tracy Howard have three picks each, although nobody has more than five break-ups. Nobody has more than 3.5 sacks, either, but overall the Canes have 26, which is good enough for 25th in the country.
But they sure do allow completions. So Watford will probably rack them up. They might all be screens, swing passes, and a heavy dependence on Jake McGee, but the completions will probably be there. At this point, though, that yards-per-attempt is what it is. I had hopes that might creep up to the mid-sixes range by the end of the season, but no. I also had hopes Greyson Lambert might start in order to give him a small head-start on the inevitable repeat competition next year, but also no. Mike London is hopelessly tied to making the exact opposite mistake from previous seasons.
-- Miami run offense vs. UVA run defense
Top backs:
Dallas Crawford: 96 carries, 446 yards, 10 TDs
Gus Edwards: 40 carries, 220 yards, 3 TDs
Miami run offense:
180.0 yards/game, 5.16 yards/attempt
24th of 125 (national), 4th of 14 (ACC)
UVA run defense:
183.2 yards/game, 4.55 yards/attempt
84th of 125 (national), 13th of 14 (ACC)
Brent Urban is back! Duke Johnson is out! That alone ought to tilt the matchup in UVA's favor.... or might have, if we'd been writing this five or six weeks ago. Miami still has a stable of solid backs; Dallas Crawford has done a good job this season when playing in relief of Johnson, and Gus Edwards is an absolute load at 6'2", 225, and will probably see his field time increase as time goes on; particularly when Miami is not playing from behind. Which they're not likely to do on Saturday.
Still - this game might be a little petri dish of sorts. UVA's slide from mediocre but still reasonably hopeful to pitiful oblivion coincided neatly with Urban's injury, sustained against Maryland. Losing Demetrious Nicholson had something to do with that too, but defensive line play hasn't been even close to the same without Urban. It'll be interesting to see if his presence in the lineup will help prevent those six-consecutive-touchdown runs our opponents like to go on.
I'm not really that hopeful, of course; when Urban was playing, the team was much more fully invested in the outcome of the game. He'll be fired up and ready to go, but have his teammates checked out some? Probably. And I doubt we're looking at the 100% real deal here; the fact that Urban can play doesn't mean he's in preseason shape. I expect this game to still be fairly ugly in this department.
-- Miami pass offense vs. UVA pass defense
Quarterback:
Stephen Morris: 156/263, 59.3%; 2,358 yards, 16 TDs, 11 INTs; 8.97 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Allen Hurns: 45 rec., 839 yards, 5 TDs
Herb Waters: 28 rec., 405 yards, 5 TDs
Miami offense:
278.2 yards/game, 9.2 yards/attempt
8th of 125 (national), 2nd of 14 (ACC)
UVA defense:
234.3 yards/game, 7.1 yards/attempt
69th of 125 (national), 9th of 14 (ACC)
Another key returner for UVA's defense: Maurice Canady, coming back from a medical issue that Doug Doughty reported to be kidney bleeding. Yeah, OK, I guess it's alright if you sit out for that. Can't really say all is well with his likely return, though; UVA faces one of the more potent passing offenses they've faced all year.
UVA's challenge starts with a senior quarterback, who's occasionally prone to throwing interceptions, but outweighs them with real production. Stephen Morris's favorite target by far is Allen Hurns, a deadly big-play threat; he averages 18.6 yards a catch and has a pair of 80-yard TDs this season. Herb Waters and Stacy Coley both command attention as well and keep the field open for Hurns. And Clive Walford is a very good tight end, rounding out Morris's ammo supply.
If Canady weren't coming back I'd look at Drequan Hoskey and Tim Harris trying to cover this gang and mark down about 60 points for Miami. UVA can more effectively use a nickel package now - Kelvin Rainey was doing an OK job as the nickel corner, but the added depth will be much appreciated. Still, this bodes ill. I mean, we're kind of jaded to the idea anymore, but Miami does a really nice job of protecting Morris and for every good play our guys make, Miami will probably turn it around with a 25-yarder. I suspect Morris will find a way to deliver the ball to Anthony Harris's hands once at some point, but it's not like that'll be a huge obstacle.
-- Favorability ratings
UVA run offense: 3
UVA pass offense: 2
UVA run defense: 4
UVA pass defense: 1.5
Average: 2.63
-- Outlook
A commenter this week called Miami a team in "free-fall." While the optimism about our opponent is admirable, if a three-game losing streak is a free-fall I don't want to know what a seven-game losing streak is. Speaking of streaks, UVA actually happens to be on a three-game streak of the winning variety against the Canes. We're 5-2 against them since 2006, and 2-1 on the road; Miami seems to be the exception to the rule that UVA teams blow chunks on the road. But you don't have a historically bullshit season like this one without breaking every pattern of success you once had. If our opponent is in free-fall, we're the downy-soft pillowy cushion at the bottom.
-- Prediction summary
-- David Watford has between 29 and 43 completions, giving him his second-most in a game this year. I reserve the right to prorate this out in case of early Greyson Lambert showing.
-- Lambert attempts 10+ passes.
-- Dallas Crawford rushes for over 100 yards in Duke Johnson's absence.
-- Ant Harris gets another interception.
-- Stephen Morris tops 300 passing yards.
-- Miami scores at least one touchdown of 65 yards or greater, through the air.
Final score: Miami 45, UVA 13
-- Rest of the ACC
North Carolina vs. Old Dominion - 12:00 - ODU seems bound and determined to play as many of our recruiting rivals as they can.
Duke @ Wake Forest - 12:00 - Duke needs this one to stay in contention for the ACC CG, unless they think counting on UVA to beat VT next week is a viable strategy.
Clemson vs. The Citadel - 12:00 - As you'll see in a few lines here, the ACC is starting to pick up on the SEC strategy of waiting til the end of the season to play the cupcake games.
NC State vs. East Carolina - 12:30 - The Pack are likely to finish this season 5th out of 5 I-A teams in the state.
Pittsburgh @ Syracuse - 12:30 - The Newcomer Bowl. Winner goes actual bowling; loser probably won't.
Georgia Tech vs. Alabama A&M - 1:30 - You see what I mean about the cupcakes.
Florida State vs. Idaho - 3:30 - You still see what I mean about the cupcakes.
Boston College @ Maryland - 3:30 - Jockeying for position on the bowl selection pecking order.
Bye: Virginia Tech
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
weekend review
So it's been kind of a crap spring so far, relatively speaking. It's much colder than last year's, I've had all this damn work to do, and worst of all from the actual perspective of the blog, the lacrosse team has stunk up the joint. We've been spoiled, man - I've gotten used to spring being the season when being a UVA fan is at its peak. Weekend reviews speak of glorious triumphs on two fields at once.
So this weekend was pretty refreshing. Even if the lacrosse game ultimately meant very little in the grand scheme, hey, at least it was a Senior Day win, and it was nice to watch the ball go in the net for once. Nobody's scored 12 goals on Bellarmine all year, not even likely #1 seed Denver. A few bullets on that game:
-- Mark Cockerton scored four goals, but the game's MVP is Tyler German, who won two out of every three of his faceoffs. Mick Parks was absent for personal (not disciplinary) reasons, and might find his seat taken when he gets back. German was only 5-for-14 coming in, but certainly deserves a few shots against Maryland next weekend.
-- Also, while we're on the subject of faceoffs, anyone who didn't enjoy watching Thompson Brown truck his opponent on the garbage-time faceoff he took must not actually like lacrosse.
-- I'll touch on this more when the season's over and I write a seasonal postmortem, but one thing I've gotten tired of is watching our shooters try the same shot over and over with the same result, which is usually a save. I lost track of how many times our guys were on the doorstep and tried to lob the ball into the net as if there were no goalie, which was a failed strategy every time.
-- I was incredibly surprised to see UVA credited with 23-of-24 on clearing attempts. We had to be worse than that. Had to be.
-- Maybe the best thing of all was scoring a goal with three seconds left in the third quarter after watching every team all year do that to us.
*************************************************
Baseball brought the brooms to Davenport this weekend and knocked Florida State off their top-5 perch. Before the series I wrote a Sabre post that said something to the effect of: if the team could simply go .500 in the rest of their ACC games and win all the nonconference ones, they'd be in the conversation for a top-8 national seed in the tournament and a near-certain regional host. That'd have put them at 41-14 plus whatever happened in the ACC tourney. Now they've swept a team that they could've easily dropped two games to. It's not a stretch to say they could win their next ten in a row and be 45-6 going into the Carolina series.
That said, finals break is before the Duke series. At the moment, Duke is in the 9th slot overall in the ACC, with VT in the 8th slot, a mere one game ahead. Duke has Maryland this coming weekend, so the odds are decent that they'll pull ahead of the Hokies. So just to be dicks I think we should sweep VT and then activate our secret powers of post-finals suckery to get swept by Duke. Just for a laugh at the Hokies' expense. And as a public service - to spare ACC tournament viewers the agony of the eyes.
Yet more bullets from the weekend:
-- It's pretty amazing how we're 36-5 and we don't even have any good players. The ACC media has not yet seen fit to award even one single player of the week honor (or pitcher) to a Cavalier.
-- It's time to put some padding on the wall next to the right-field bullpen. Past time, really. Joe McCarthy jammed his finger (that's not, like, Kevin Ware-gruesome, but you click on that link, you'll see a finger going a direction it weren't ever meant to) catching a foul ball, and slammed his elbow on the cement top in the process. And later, FSU's right fielder Jameis Winston nearly broke his kneecap sliding into it in another foul ball attempt. Winston happens to be FSU's selection for starting quarterback in the fall - we'd have looked like a bunch of assholes if he missed the year because of our brick wall. I seem to recall an Irvine player taking a hard run at that wall as well, and coming out rather the worse for the encounter. Let's get some padding there before someone breaks their skull open.
-- Winston, by the way, is one of the least comfortable-looking players I've ever seen patrol an outfield. When Derek Fisher hit his three-run triple, I swear Winston ran right past the spot where the ball eventually landed.
-- Pretty much every pitcher we ran out to the mound had themselves a really nice weekend. Scott Silverstein pitched seven innings of shutout ball and FSU was held to one hit in a game for the first time since 1998. Nick Howard was wild for two innings and then got himself together - and that's the kind of thing pitching coaches love. They know you'll be off your game sometimes. If you can get back on, mid-contest, that's the mental makeup they're looking for. I'm awfully surprised at the impotence of FSU's bats, though. Much credit goes to our pitchers, but you have to cast an eye at the FSU bats as well, who might've hit two or three balls hard all weekend. So many of their hits were Texas Leaguers or choppers that slithered just past the infielders.
-- Kyle Crockett's instructions for his trip to the plate on Sunday (necessitated by the lineup shifts following McCarthy's injury removal) basically boiled down to this: Just keep the bat on your shoulder unless they're all fastballs, in which case I guess sure why not try a swing just for giggles. He will probably never let his teammates forget the resulting base hit.
-- The following batter was Brandon Downes, and the strategy looked awfully odd. Downes was still bunting with two strikes. My guess: The coaches decided that even a foul-bunt strikeout or allowing the out at third was preferable to the possibility of Crockett having to try and slide to break up a double play. As it turned out, the out at third is what happened, and at that point, Crockett was moved up a base and he wasn't going to be caught up in any double plays. Good thing he didn't have to slide into home, though.
*************************************************
I'll do a recruiting board update later, but yes, J.J. Jackson committed to basically take Chris Nelson's spot - which, assuming we can land Andrew Brown, is a good positional tradeoff because Jackson plays a position of much greater need. The coaches were dead serious about trying to land Jackson even though his offer list sucks, so they must like something.
Even more interesting, really, are these two Monday developments: the post-spring depth chart and the ACC's media rights thingy. The depth chart doesn't change too many of my post-spring impressions, but does leave a few surprises. The list of position switches that I can see:
-- Pablo Alvarez from the bottom of the secondary depth chart to the bottom of the WR depth chart. This is a likely indication that Alvarez isn't to be counted on for contributions. Injuries played a major role in that.
-- Luke Bowanko to LG and walk-on Jackson Matteo to center. That's the top surprise right there, and somewhat related is Sean Cascarano sticking at RG while Conner Davis moves to the second string and Jay Whitmire has the RT job. (And Cody Wallace now backs up Whitmire instead of a guard.) This Matteo thing could either be really good or really bad. A walk-on freshman beats out a senior for one of the most important positions on the line. I could see that turning out very badly, as Matteo hasn't played a single down of college football. It's just as possible that Matteo is a minor prodigy with a talent for the nuances of the center position that Bowanko never had; center is a tricky thing to master. This brings us the potential to have four years of the same center, which is the kind of continuity that coaches salivate over.
-- Kelvin Rainey at safety is also interesting. As is Wil Wahee at second string corner. After Matteo, the next thing people are talking about - in this case putting up a whiny fuss about, more than anything else - is Maurice Canady backing up Drequan Hoskey. Even if the crowd that thinks he's the second coming are correct, being the third cornerback is like being the third wide receiver. He'll have plenty of time on the field.
Part two of the weekend review runs tomorrow, as the brave new ACC - which includes the first wave of Notre Dame games - deserves its own post.
So this weekend was pretty refreshing. Even if the lacrosse game ultimately meant very little in the grand scheme, hey, at least it was a Senior Day win, and it was nice to watch the ball go in the net for once. Nobody's scored 12 goals on Bellarmine all year, not even likely #1 seed Denver. A few bullets on that game:
-- Mark Cockerton scored four goals, but the game's MVP is Tyler German, who won two out of every three of his faceoffs. Mick Parks was absent for personal (not disciplinary) reasons, and might find his seat taken when he gets back. German was only 5-for-14 coming in, but certainly deserves a few shots against Maryland next weekend.
-- Also, while we're on the subject of faceoffs, anyone who didn't enjoy watching Thompson Brown truck his opponent on the garbage-time faceoff he took must not actually like lacrosse.
-- I'll touch on this more when the season's over and I write a seasonal postmortem, but one thing I've gotten tired of is watching our shooters try the same shot over and over with the same result, which is usually a save. I lost track of how many times our guys were on the doorstep and tried to lob the ball into the net as if there were no goalie, which was a failed strategy every time.
-- I was incredibly surprised to see UVA credited with 23-of-24 on clearing attempts. We had to be worse than that. Had to be.
-- Maybe the best thing of all was scoring a goal with three seconds left in the third quarter after watching every team all year do that to us.
*************************************************
Baseball brought the brooms to Davenport this weekend and knocked Florida State off their top-5 perch. Before the series I wrote a Sabre post that said something to the effect of: if the team could simply go .500 in the rest of their ACC games and win all the nonconference ones, they'd be in the conversation for a top-8 national seed in the tournament and a near-certain regional host. That'd have put them at 41-14 plus whatever happened in the ACC tourney. Now they've swept a team that they could've easily dropped two games to. It's not a stretch to say they could win their next ten in a row and be 45-6 going into the Carolina series.
That said, finals break is before the Duke series. At the moment, Duke is in the 9th slot overall in the ACC, with VT in the 8th slot, a mere one game ahead. Duke has Maryland this coming weekend, so the odds are decent that they'll pull ahead of the Hokies. So just to be dicks I think we should sweep VT and then activate our secret powers of post-finals suckery to get swept by Duke. Just for a laugh at the Hokies' expense. And as a public service - to spare ACC tournament viewers the agony of the eyes.
Yet more bullets from the weekend:
-- It's pretty amazing how we're 36-5 and we don't even have any good players. The ACC media has not yet seen fit to award even one single player of the week honor (or pitcher) to a Cavalier.
-- It's time to put some padding on the wall next to the right-field bullpen. Past time, really. Joe McCarthy jammed his finger (that's not, like, Kevin Ware-gruesome, but you click on that link, you'll see a finger going a direction it weren't ever meant to) catching a foul ball, and slammed his elbow on the cement top in the process. And later, FSU's right fielder Jameis Winston nearly broke his kneecap sliding into it in another foul ball attempt. Winston happens to be FSU's selection for starting quarterback in the fall - we'd have looked like a bunch of assholes if he missed the year because of our brick wall. I seem to recall an Irvine player taking a hard run at that wall as well, and coming out rather the worse for the encounter. Let's get some padding there before someone breaks their skull open.
-- Winston, by the way, is one of the least comfortable-looking players I've ever seen patrol an outfield. When Derek Fisher hit his three-run triple, I swear Winston ran right past the spot where the ball eventually landed.
-- Pretty much every pitcher we ran out to the mound had themselves a really nice weekend. Scott Silverstein pitched seven innings of shutout ball and FSU was held to one hit in a game for the first time since 1998. Nick Howard was wild for two innings and then got himself together - and that's the kind of thing pitching coaches love. They know you'll be off your game sometimes. If you can get back on, mid-contest, that's the mental makeup they're looking for. I'm awfully surprised at the impotence of FSU's bats, though. Much credit goes to our pitchers, but you have to cast an eye at the FSU bats as well, who might've hit two or three balls hard all weekend. So many of their hits were Texas Leaguers or choppers that slithered just past the infielders.
-- Kyle Crockett's instructions for his trip to the plate on Sunday (necessitated by the lineup shifts following McCarthy's injury removal) basically boiled down to this: Just keep the bat on your shoulder unless they're all fastballs, in which case I guess sure why not try a swing just for giggles. He will probably never let his teammates forget the resulting base hit.
-- The following batter was Brandon Downes, and the strategy looked awfully odd. Downes was still bunting with two strikes. My guess: The coaches decided that even a foul-bunt strikeout or allowing the out at third was preferable to the possibility of Crockett having to try and slide to break up a double play. As it turned out, the out at third is what happened, and at that point, Crockett was moved up a base and he wasn't going to be caught up in any double plays. Good thing he didn't have to slide into home, though.
*************************************************
I'll do a recruiting board update later, but yes, J.J. Jackson committed to basically take Chris Nelson's spot - which, assuming we can land Andrew Brown, is a good positional tradeoff because Jackson plays a position of much greater need. The coaches were dead serious about trying to land Jackson even though his offer list sucks, so they must like something.
Even more interesting, really, are these two Monday developments: the post-spring depth chart and the ACC's media rights thingy. The depth chart doesn't change too many of my post-spring impressions, but does leave a few surprises. The list of position switches that I can see:
-- Pablo Alvarez from the bottom of the secondary depth chart to the bottom of the WR depth chart. This is a likely indication that Alvarez isn't to be counted on for contributions. Injuries played a major role in that.
-- Luke Bowanko to LG and walk-on Jackson Matteo to center. That's the top surprise right there, and somewhat related is Sean Cascarano sticking at RG while Conner Davis moves to the second string and Jay Whitmire has the RT job. (And Cody Wallace now backs up Whitmire instead of a guard.) This Matteo thing could either be really good or really bad. A walk-on freshman beats out a senior for one of the most important positions on the line. I could see that turning out very badly, as Matteo hasn't played a single down of college football. It's just as possible that Matteo is a minor prodigy with a talent for the nuances of the center position that Bowanko never had; center is a tricky thing to master. This brings us the potential to have four years of the same center, which is the kind of continuity that coaches salivate over.
-- Kelvin Rainey at safety is also interesting. As is Wil Wahee at second string corner. After Matteo, the next thing people are talking about - in this case putting up a whiny fuss about, more than anything else - is Maurice Canady backing up Drequan Hoskey. Even if the crowd that thinks he's the second coming are correct, being the third cornerback is like being the third wide receiver. He'll have plenty of time on the field.
Part two of the weekend review runs tomorrow, as the brave new ACC - which includes the first wave of Notre Dame games - deserves its own post.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
the recruit: Divante Walker
Name: Divante Walker
Position: CB
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Salem
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160
24/7: 83; three stars; #89 ATH; VA #32
ESPN: 71; two stars; #186 RB; Atlantic #284; VA #61
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: N/R
Other offers: instate I-AAs only
Almost a year ago to the day since Divante Walker committed on Sunday, UVA took Mason Thomas's commitment, a surprise since Thomas's entire profile (what there was of it) screamed I-AA and nobody had ever heard his name and UVA's in the same sentence. The more things change. Like Thomas, Walker was an uncommitted recruit (this year, he was the only one) at UVA's Verbally Committed Recruit Extravaganza and All-Weekend Party, so he was surrounded by a bunch of guys saying "you're coming too, right?"
Walker is a little bit different though, which means a little bit more optimism. For one thing, he was first-team all-region as selected by the coaches, and made the Virginian-Pilot's first-team all-Tidewater as well. (Thomas was only second-team in the district.) Walker got these honors on the strength of his work at running back, where he totaled nearly 1,400 yards rushing. One recruiting site offers a really high rating for a guy who had no other I-A offers; in fact, 24/7 has him higher-rated than guys like Sean Karl (BC and Syracuse offers), Kye Morgan (Illinois, Cincy, BC), and Demeitre Brim, who Wisconsin and Miami tried to pull away from a UVA commitment. To them he's the #32 prospect in the state, and that's still not as optimistic as it gets; Doug Doughty ranks him 28th, ahead of four UVA commits and three Tech ones.
The other sites, though, are way down on him, dropping mid-to-low two-star ratings. Why the huge discrepancy? I'm willing to bet it's not a coincidence that the optimistic assessments are the ones that think he's 175 pounds (as Doughty does) and the pessimistic ones list him at 157. Somebody, somewhere, made a typo, and it spread, and I don't know which it's supposed to be.
Truthfully, I don't believe either. It's probably in the middle. He doesn't look like 175 pounds in his pictures at all. On the other hand, I'm 5'7" and can't get down to 157 to save my life. Walker is 5'10" or 11", if he weighs 157 pounds he's got no muscle and is strong like mosquito, which would explain all the low ratings.
The problem with those accolades, of course, is that Walker won't be playing RB for us. At this point there's no need for yet another small back. There is a need for athletic bodies with cornerback experience, so toss Walker into that very large mix of incoming freshmen. Walker will redshirt because he's not 175 pounds, and after that.....well, the cornerback shuffle in this class will sort itself out somehow. Walker has a little bit of a disadvantage because he's not as fast as C.J. Moore, not a pure corner who played the position every day like Kelvin Rainey, probably not quite as athletic as Maurice Canady, and not as big as Wil Wahee. Yes, the deck is stacked a little bit against him, but it'll be interesting to see who comes out of that big spin cycle on top.
Position: CB
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Salem
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160
24/7: 83; three stars; #89 ATH; VA #32
ESPN: 71; two stars; #186 RB; Atlantic #284; VA #61
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: N/R
Other offers: instate I-AAs only
Almost a year ago to the day since Divante Walker committed on Sunday, UVA took Mason Thomas's commitment, a surprise since Thomas's entire profile (what there was of it) screamed I-AA and nobody had ever heard his name and UVA's in the same sentence. The more things change. Like Thomas, Walker was an uncommitted recruit (this year, he was the only one) at UVA's Verbally Committed Recruit Extravaganza and All-Weekend Party, so he was surrounded by a bunch of guys saying "you're coming too, right?"
Walker is a little bit different though, which means a little bit more optimism. For one thing, he was first-team all-region as selected by the coaches, and made the Virginian-Pilot's first-team all-Tidewater as well. (Thomas was only second-team in the district.) Walker got these honors on the strength of his work at running back, where he totaled nearly 1,400 yards rushing. One recruiting site offers a really high rating for a guy who had no other I-A offers; in fact, 24/7 has him higher-rated than guys like Sean Karl (BC and Syracuse offers), Kye Morgan (Illinois, Cincy, BC), and Demeitre Brim, who Wisconsin and Miami tried to pull away from a UVA commitment. To them he's the #32 prospect in the state, and that's still not as optimistic as it gets; Doug Doughty ranks him 28th, ahead of four UVA commits and three Tech ones.
The other sites, though, are way down on him, dropping mid-to-low two-star ratings. Why the huge discrepancy? I'm willing to bet it's not a coincidence that the optimistic assessments are the ones that think he's 175 pounds (as Doughty does) and the pessimistic ones list him at 157. Somebody, somewhere, made a typo, and it spread, and I don't know which it's supposed to be.
Truthfully, I don't believe either. It's probably in the middle. He doesn't look like 175 pounds in his pictures at all. On the other hand, I'm 5'7" and can't get down to 157 to save my life. Walker is 5'10" or 11", if he weighs 157 pounds he's got no muscle and is strong like mosquito, which would explain all the low ratings.
The problem with those accolades, of course, is that Walker won't be playing RB for us. At this point there's no need for yet another small back. There is a need for athletic bodies with cornerback experience, so toss Walker into that very large mix of incoming freshmen. Walker will redshirt because he's not 175 pounds, and after that.....well, the cornerback shuffle in this class will sort itself out somehow. Walker has a little bit of a disadvantage because he's not as fast as C.J. Moore, not a pure corner who played the position every day like Kelvin Rainey, probably not quite as athletic as Maurice Canady, and not as big as Wil Wahee. Yes, the deck is stacked a little bit against him, but it'll be interesting to see who comes out of that big spin cycle on top.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
the recruit: Kelvin Rainey
Name: Kelvin Rainey
Position: CB
Hometown: Houston, TX
School: Houston Stratford
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175
24/7: 81; three stars; #91 CB; TX #206
ESPN: NR
Rivals: 5.5; three stars
Scout: three stars; #115 CB
Other offers: Rice, local I-AAs
It seems evident that Mike London and staff have decided to make a concerted effort to recruit the state of Texas. I can't think of any other good reason to give UTSA a home game against us. Rainey is London's first success in this regard (Zach Swanson doesn't really count, as it was really Swanson that sought out the Hoos after Stanford kind of decommitted him.) In the last ten recruiting classes, exactly three players before Rainey have come from Texas: Swanson, Riko Smalls, and Ian-Yates Cunningham. That last name ought to give you an idea of how frequently we do this.
If you're really into this recruiting thing, Rainey's high school might ring a bell for you; it's where Stanford got Andrew Luck. Stratford is a biggish school that holds its own in the tough Texas high school environment. UVA also recruited, but didn't end up offering, Rainey's teammate A.J. Justice.
Rainey didn't really put up "stats" this year because opponents refused to "throw at him." He came into the season with a good reputation, having earned Newcomer of the Year honors in his district last year, playing safety. He's got bloodlines, too: two older brothers playing football at New Mexico (eldest Johnathan) and Arizona (next eldest Derrick.) You might be thinking, though, that it's pretty rare that a Division I talent is a "newcomer" to varsity football as a junior; the explanation is that he transferred schools and had to sit a year. (The source for that is just a random message board dude, but his brothers both have Northbrook listed on their bios as their high school, so it checks out OK.)
So with a little bit of history on the guy, and ratings that are all pretty consistent at the low three-star level, why was hometown Rice the only other school to offer? You'd think he'd have at least a handful of CUSA deals. TheSabre mentions an SMU offer - possible, since that's where his teammate Justice is going - but that's the only place I've seen that. 24/7 also says North Texas offered. It'd warm my heart a little if those were both true, because it's hard to get too excited over winning a battle with just Rice.
Still, the relatively consistent guru ratings say something. High school football in Texas is a little bit more psycho than the rest of the country, and talents are identified early; the fact that Rainey didn't even step onto a varsity field until his junior year probably delayed his evaluation by the college coaches. And no offense to Rainey, but he's the #206 guy in the state according to 24/7; in other words, there's enough talent to fill the rosters of pretty much all the colleges in the region, so you might slip through a crack or two if you get a late start. Normally I prefer to go by offers over evaluation, but if I did that here I'd view Rainey as a Sun Belt-level guy, and the consistency of the ratings are good enough to sway me.
There's no telling whether Rainey will redshirt or not; he joins a biggish cornerback group that enters in 2012 and probably includes Maurice Canady, C.J. Moore, and Wil Wahee. Demetrious Nicholson has one side of the field to himself, but what happens after that is anyone's guess. You'd think it might be Brandon Phelps with the first shot to replace Chase Minnifield, but Drequan Hoskey was the guy they sent out there on Florida State's almost-game-winning drive, and look what he done did. That group of four all comes in on the same level playing field, and the best of the bunch out of that competition probably does not redshirt. Could be Rainey as much as anyone; could be anyone as much as Rainey. I usually like to offer predictions that are more specific than this, but the best I can say is that his ceiling could be anything from eventual starter to scout teamer, the same as anyone else in this cornerback muddle right now. Perhaps the one thing that separates Rainey from, say, Canady or Wahee, is that Rainey is one of the more unlikely candidates for a position switch. That's as specific as you're getting right now.
Position: CB
Hometown: Houston, TX
School: Houston Stratford
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 175
24/7: 81; three stars; #91 CB; TX #206
ESPN: NR
Rivals: 5.5; three stars
Scout: three stars; #115 CB
Other offers: Rice, local I-AAs
It seems evident that Mike London and staff have decided to make a concerted effort to recruit the state of Texas. I can't think of any other good reason to give UTSA a home game against us. Rainey is London's first success in this regard (Zach Swanson doesn't really count, as it was really Swanson that sought out the Hoos after Stanford kind of decommitted him.) In the last ten recruiting classes, exactly three players before Rainey have come from Texas: Swanson, Riko Smalls, and Ian-Yates Cunningham. That last name ought to give you an idea of how frequently we do this.
If you're really into this recruiting thing, Rainey's high school might ring a bell for you; it's where Stanford got Andrew Luck. Stratford is a biggish school that holds its own in the tough Texas high school environment. UVA also recruited, but didn't end up offering, Rainey's teammate A.J. Justice.
Rainey didn't really put up "stats" this year because opponents refused to "throw at him." He came into the season with a good reputation, having earned Newcomer of the Year honors in his district last year, playing safety. He's got bloodlines, too: two older brothers playing football at New Mexico (eldest Johnathan) and Arizona (next eldest Derrick.) You might be thinking, though, that it's pretty rare that a Division I talent is a "newcomer" to varsity football as a junior; the explanation is that he transferred schools and had to sit a year. (The source for that is just a random message board dude, but his brothers both have Northbrook listed on their bios as their high school, so it checks out OK.)
So with a little bit of history on the guy, and ratings that are all pretty consistent at the low three-star level, why was hometown Rice the only other school to offer? You'd think he'd have at least a handful of CUSA deals. TheSabre mentions an SMU offer - possible, since that's where his teammate Justice is going - but that's the only place I've seen that. 24/7 also says North Texas offered. It'd warm my heart a little if those were both true, because it's hard to get too excited over winning a battle with just Rice.
Still, the relatively consistent guru ratings say something. High school football in Texas is a little bit more psycho than the rest of the country, and talents are identified early; the fact that Rainey didn't even step onto a varsity field until his junior year probably delayed his evaluation by the college coaches. And no offense to Rainey, but he's the #206 guy in the state according to 24/7; in other words, there's enough talent to fill the rosters of pretty much all the colleges in the region, so you might slip through a crack or two if you get a late start. Normally I prefer to go by offers over evaluation, but if I did that here I'd view Rainey as a Sun Belt-level guy, and the consistency of the ratings are good enough to sway me.
There's no telling whether Rainey will redshirt or not; he joins a biggish cornerback group that enters in 2012 and probably includes Maurice Canady, C.J. Moore, and Wil Wahee. Demetrious Nicholson has one side of the field to himself, but what happens after that is anyone's guess. You'd think it might be Brandon Phelps with the first shot to replace Chase Minnifield, but Drequan Hoskey was the guy they sent out there on Florida State's almost-game-winning drive, and look what he done did. That group of four all comes in on the same level playing field, and the best of the bunch out of that competition probably does not redshirt. Could be Rainey as much as anyone; could be anyone as much as Rainey. I usually like to offer predictions that are more specific than this, but the best I can say is that his ceiling could be anything from eventual starter to scout teamer, the same as anyone else in this cornerback muddle right now. Perhaps the one thing that separates Rainey from, say, Canady or Wahee, is that Rainey is one of the more unlikely candidates for a position switch. That's as specific as you're getting right now.
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