rock fights

So to be completely frank, if this terrific win streak must come to an end at some point, I'd prefer just about anywhere but Blacksburg.  So it was with a little trepidation that I watched the Hokies take a ten-point lead in front of a Cassell Coliseum crowd that wasn't precisely packed to the gills, but was a lot fuller and louder than it's been for most of the season.

This is normally the point where you'd think "but that didn't last for long," but truth is it did.  Various reports of the game call it a rally.  Nothing of the sort happened.  A rally implies a flurry of activity, a swift change in fortunes.  The Hoos just stopped letting VT score, is all.  VT stopped hitting shots they'd been hitting, they went back to giving the ball away a few times (like they'd done in the first half) and a glacial eight minutes after VT was up ten, the lead finally disappeared completely.  There was no Cavalanche, just a big, 11-minute stop on defense and a fun play or two along the way.

It illustrates a philosophy of Tony's completely: you better play defense if you hope to come back from a deficit.  Offense will happen if you don't panic, but you sure as hell ain't closing that gap if the other guys keep scoring.

So the march continues.  One imagines it'll stop in the next couple weeks.  Four very difficult matchups present themselves: Duke and Louisville roll into town, and the Hoos make two trips to the Triangle for UNC and NC State.  KenPom says the UNC game is the toughest left on the schedule, being as it's on the road; I think it's the two home games that are the toughest matchups on paper, but the Hoos have been playing much better at home of late than on the road.  Georgia Tech was mercilessly ground into powder because UVA had a home crowd behind them and the Jackets are pitiful shooters from outside four feet.

No league has as many legitimate national title contenders as the ACC, and UVA's schedule is the streakiest of any of them, so it might be fair to say these next couple weeks will be the longest, toughest stretch faced by any of the country's best teams.  Even in the Big 12, which is looking a little like the ACC used to, 15 years ago.  ESPN's Dana O'Neil did a rather awkwardly-premised article that boils down to "ACC and Big 12 teams will beat each other up and most of the rest of the country will coast."**   If that goose egg comes out the other end unscathed, the hype machine is going all the way to 11.

**I thoroughly love the characterization of UVA as a "veteran team that actually likes games to be rock fights."  That's a good identity.  All we need now is a recruit who's been called "Psycho T Junior" and a Kiwi kid who thinks it's rugby.  Where can we find guys like that, I wonder.

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-- Malcolm Brogdon had a fantastic little layup against Georgia Tech where he decided on a change of plan midair.  It was a damn familiar-looking play:

Even more similar in motion, in fact.  Except for the finish.

(Yes, I'm gonna let you stew on it if you're drawing a blank on the bottom play.)

-- Buzz Williams is amusingly demonstrative, yes, but as much as he was on the case of the refs, I'm wondering if he realizes offensive fouls do exist in the rulebook.

-- Buzz is likely going to turn VT into a not-laughingstock, maybe even do what Seth Greenberg only ever did once, and get them to the tourney.  He might not even leave for so-called greener pastures; Whit Babcock appears to actually mind being a basketball backwater, and will give him an ACC contract with an ACC budget for assistants and upgrade his buildings to ACC-quality facilities.  Even seeing that is worth it, because of the gift of Marial Shayok, who looks like the future of UVA ball.  He's got the scoring versatility that sometimes takes years to develop.

-- Speaking of developed scoring ability, man it would've been cool if Darion Atkins hadn't had shin splints that set his development back light years.  The guy wearing #5 now for UVA is the guy that Tony Bennett and Mike Brey fought a pitched recruiting battle over, back in 2010.  There are some faint similarities to Mike Scott showing through, the way he likes to operate on offense in a range ring around the net, the way he sometimes says, "ok, you want me to shoot this, I'll shoot it," and knocks it right down.  Senior year has been incredibly good to Atkins, there's no doubt about it.

-- GameDay notwithstanding, I'd rather play Duke this Wednesday, all things considered.  Coming off an emotional win and heading on the road, from an intangibles perspective there are few riper upsets than Notre Dame over Duke this week.  I think they'll get a cold-water reality check in South Bend, and I'd rather be the team giving it to them than the team right after.

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-- North Carolina and Wake Forest are charter members of the ACC, and have shared a conference since 1936 when Wake joined the Southern Conference.  It's about an hour and a half drive between the two schools.  They first met in football in 1888 and have played 105 games against each other.  That meeting in 1888 was the first college football game in the state of North Carolina.  So it makes perfect sense that they'd want to play each other more than once every goddam seven years.  Nice college football world you've delivered us, O oligarchs of the sport.  Throw bread and circuses at the drooling masses in the form of a playoff thing, and meantime make sure you set everything else up to make the least sense possible.

Of course, I don't gripe without offering a solution (much) and I've already put forth a great idea to fix the problem.  The best idea.

-- It was interesting to read about WR transfer T.J. Thorpe in this Jeff White article; coming to UVA was already on his mind (and leaving UNC was already decided) even as he was catching the game-winning touchdown against in October.  That kind of thing is probably more common than is ever reported, especially in basketball, but it's rarely admitted.

-- Lacrosse season is here sooner than you think, so it's a good time to loosen up for it by starting with opinionz on the newest rule changes:

* Faceoff rule changes: They'll be just about transparent to the vast majority of everyone watching the game.  Former FOGO guys might get interviewed by Inside Lacrosse or something, and air their gripes or praises, but nobody else will see a difference.  Cleaning up faceoff play is generally always welcome, but most of the time when a faceoff violation is called, nobody ever sees what happened anyway.  This won't change anything.

* Timeout changes: If the ball is to be restarted from inside the field of play, such as on an offside call, only the team with the ball can call timeout.  Nobody really was complaining about that, but it's a small positive tweak nonetheless.

* Phase-in of a requirement to have a 30-second shot clock displayed for when stall warnings are given out; previously, the refs kept the time themselves and the players were left to guess.  I emphatically don't want a shot clock in lacrosse, but "some schools can't afford them" was always one of the lamest arguments against them.  Spend a couple hundred dollars, man.  Not having the clock on the field was like having basketball's block-charge arc in the rulebook but not on the court, and the same bullshit poverty reason was given for not painting them on.  This is both a positive step for the rules as they're written now, and a huge negative step in that it smells strongly of a precursor to having the full-time shot clock instituted for good.

* You can now land in the crease after scoring, provided you didn't leave your feet before you shot.  Fine, good, dandy, because invariably you'd see about three to five perfectly good goals a year called back for that, and they shouldn't be.  Good compromise between not letting people just launch themselves and not forcing them to make like the Flying Wallendas around the crease.

* Addition of an over-and-back rule.  Used to be they'd either require you to go through the clearing clock again, or put on a stall warning if you were just being stubborn about sitting on the ball.  Now you lose the ball right away, like in basketball, and this is suddenly a really dangerous thing to do because it's a quick restart and the ball is already in your defensive half with a wide-open field to play with.

* Last year for these jerseys, because in 2016 your numbers will have to contrast.  Never liked those.

-- With a big basketball game this Saturday and lacrosse and baseball fast approaching, I feel a few midweek posts coming on.

schedule for losers

We're back on the scheduling warpath, except this time I'm turning off my creative side and re-engaging the portion of my brain devoted to tearing down shitty ideas.

The trendy phrase du jour is "schedule for success."  I'll say it right up front so you don't have any illusions: I hate that dumbass euphemism and find it enormously offensive.  Euphemism: [yoo-fuh-miz-uhm] (noun); 1. the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.  The expression "thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt" in this case is probably "schedule like a pissy little weiner because we're lowering our standards."

The argument in favor of "schedule for success" (SFS from here on out, to save my typing fingers the effort) goes more or less like this:

"You need to win to build up your program, and it doesn't matter who you beat.  If you win, you go to bowl games, which gives you extra practice that is vital, perhaps even indispensible.  Recruits only care about the number of wins, and by going to bowl games again and again they will be convinced your program is on the upswing.  This is how programs like Virginia Tech, Duke, and Wake Forest have found success.  What we should be doing is scheduling as many easy games as possible so that all we have to do is win two ACC games and we'll be bowling; nobody will care whether the wins come against Idaho or Alabama." 

The goal is to never schedule a team with a pulse; one FCS team and three MAC-snacks, or some Sun Belt teams.  The more the program resembles Eastern Michigan, the better.

All of these are actual arguments used in favor of SFS.  You'll have to trust me on that.  I've done my share of attempting to argue the opposite, so I know.

Now for why the argument sucks:

-- It's based on totally false premises.  It is claimed that VT and Frank Beamer SFSed, early on Beamer's tenure, which helped them take that step toward respectability.  They never did!  Here are the combined records of VT's opponents in Beamer's first eight years:

1987: 77-50
1988: 86-41
1989: 68-56
1990: 75-47
1991: 77-49
1992: 71-51
1993: 60-62
1994: 63-61

Only one combined losing record, and that just barely.  In 1987 they played two undefeated teams (Miami and Syracuse) and three with double-digit wins (also Clemson.)  In 1988, five teams with double-digit wins.  In fact, until 1993, they never played fewer than two such teams - and remember, they were independent until 1991, and entirely in charge of their own schedule.  Multiple times they would play Florida State, Clemson, Miami, South Carolina (a perfectly good team at the time), Syracuse (ditto), NC State (also ditto), and of course, a UVA team in George Welsh's prime.  In 1991 - five years into Beamer's tenure, mind you, with plenty of time to have scheduled these after his hiring - their OOC included Oklahoma, FSU, NC State, South Carolina, and UVA.  Scheduling for success?  You're kidding, right?

As for Wake Forest and Duke, they have largely SFSed, it's true; both have played the same junky schedules for over 20 years, with absolutely no correlation to success or failure.  In the last 25 years, Wake has played Navy 11 times, Vanderbilt 12 times, Army 8 times, and a I-AA team more often than not, and their win-loss record has gone up and down independently of their quite consistent OOC schedule.  Their recruiting, on the other hand, has stayed consistent, independent of that oscillating record; they have been a near-perfect fixture at the very basement of the conference.  That Orange Bowl trip didn't seem to help matters.  The same has been true for Duke, who did not schedule their way into the ACC CG last year because you can't get there based on playing Memphis.

I will admit that Wake Forest did somewhat schedule their way into winning seasons in Jim Grobe's early years - and failed to go bowling one year despite a qualifying 6-win season.  Back then there weren't enough bowls to go around, and Wake was passed up - perhaps because their crap schedule failed to convince any bowl organizers they'd be competitive.

-- There's no proof of any of the claims.  Admittedly it is hard to quantify the value of the extra bowl practices, and I'll stipulate to the idea that they certainly can't hurt.  That said, no evidence whatsoever exists for their efficacy, either.  If the 15 practices are so great, why did we go 4-8 after going to the Peach Bowl.  If Al Groh's program benefitted so greatly from 75 extra practices (by going bowling every year from 2002-2006) why did it crash and burn so spectacularly afterwards?  You could argue that, well, the coach matters, and extra practices only help if the coach is competent, to which I reply: exactly.

There's also certainly no proof of a recruiting boost for winning games regardless of opponent.  Wake never saw one.  Duke has not seen one.  Besides, the argument supposes that recruits are stupid and don't follow football on TV or know the schedules of the teams that are recruiting them.  If for some reason they don't, the coaches are always pleased to remind them as often as it takes.

-- It's a totally unworkable idea.  Keep in mind that games are usually scheduled anywhere from three to eight years in advance.  We have Illinois lined up for 2021 and 2022.  Doing a thing like putting Oregon on the schedule the way we did last year is extremely rare.

Most of the SFS arguments are made knowing this; the point of view is rather that we should SFS that far in advance.  This despite the fact that we know nothing about how the team will look in 2018 (incidentally, that is the first year we have an open slot on the schedule, therefore the first year we can SFS without mass cancellations.)  The only known players who'll be here in 2018 are the tiny handful of 2015 commits and whichever incoming freshmen will redshirt.  There's obviously no guarantee Mike London will still be here; there's really not even any guarantee his replacement will. 

In other words, SFSers are asking for us to schedule this way not so as to be timed with the early years of a new coach - which is plainly impossible - but to schedule this way all the time.  Arguing to SFS is to go one of two ways: either cancel existing games or don't.  To cancel existing games - well, it can be done, obviously, as it was done to find room for Oregon, but to cancel the whole slate?  And start fresh in 2015?  Not only is it next to impossible to find opponents on such short notice - and that is short notice - we would look like a bunch of freestanding assholes if we wiped out so many contracts unilaterally.  It is kind of important that when our AD goes and meets with other ADs, he has a reasonably trustworthy reputation.  Believe me, it's important.

The other route is not canceling and then simply filling in junk games as we go, which is an explicit admission that we will still suck five years from now and will continue to do so for years after that.  It's a white flag the size of a decade.  It says we can absolutely expect losing records in the conference for a very long time and will need the help of crappy opponents from elsewhere in order to look presentable.  For, like, ten years.  Now that's an attitude we can be proud of!

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Now, I'd be a pretty crappy writer if I spent all this time tearing down an idea and didn't offer an alternative.  Rather than "schedule for success", which is not successful and not workable and not useful, we should set a standard and try to meet it.  This doesn't mean I'm in favor of playing the Oregons and Alabamas.  That was not a good idea, last year, and getting blown off the field was probably just what we deserved - or more precisely, what Jon Oliver deserved to watch.  What the schedule should include is one in-state FCS team (if we play FCS teams, in-state ones are the only acceptable option), one MAC-snack or Sun Belt-cake, one respectable Power Five team, and then one of whatever in between.  I'm 100% in favor of scheduling teams like UCLA.  (A game which aggrieves SFSers to no end, forgetting that when we scheduled them, they weren't very good and it kind of was SFSing.  Thus illustrating in a nutshell much of the problem with SFS.  Ball State was supposed to be highly winnable.)  The 2016 schedule comes closest to what I want to see, if it had someone other than Oregon on it.  There's also Richmond, UConn, and Central Michigan.  Fine.  If UCLA was that year instead of Oregon, it'd be just exactly right.  

schedule soapbox again

OK, one last time, this time in detail.  As you're probably aware, the ACC is a 14-team football conference that voted to stick with eight games on the schedule.  (Incidentally, Craig Littlepage was one of the six ADs that prefers nine games.)  As currently constituted, that schedule really blows.  Divisions with a protected crossover was fine-ish for a 12-team conference, but now, we're admitting to our recruits that they'll never get to play Clemson or FSU.  You're not a conference if your players are never playing other teams that are ostensibly in the conference.  (A point I've been making long before David Teel did in the linked column above.)

If the NCAA allows it, and I think they will, the solution is simple: Get rid of these damn divisions, which were gerrymandered in the first place, and play out the season and let the top two teams fight it out in the championship game.

That naturally raises the question of how to set up the schedule rotation.  Again, an easy solution.  Protect three rivalries per team and rotate among the other ten.  That lets you play the same three teams each year and flip-flop the other five.  It couldn't be simpler.  Every recruit would play each other team at least twice and make a road trip to every ACC school, unless they left after three years.  So easy a caveman, or an ACC administrator, can do it.

Now, the weeds.  It brings up a slightly thorny issue, that of, how to arrange the protected rivalries.  The ones you absolutely have to keep are these:

UVA-VT
UVA-UNC
UNC-NC State
UNC-Duke
FSU-Miami
GT-Clemson

And not knowing a lot about the preferences of our Big East wing, I'd also add BC-Cuse and, maybe Cuse-Pitt?

I'm not sure whether the ACC sees them all that way, though.  Here's what I'm afraid of:

This makes sense on a ton of levels.  You box up the southern teams and have them be each other's protected games.  You box up Carolina-land and do the same.  And for the six "northern" teams, everyone in your row and your column is your protected rival.  So we get Pitt, VT, and Louisville.  VT gets UVA, Pitt, and BC.  And so on.  This is neat and tidy and it keeps together a lot of the already-existing rivalries - all seven current cross-division rivalries are maintained.  So is the All Carolina Conference moniker.

It's neat and easy and it's also a big fat middle finger aimed at Charlottesville.  Eight "traditional" ACC teams in the south (or seven, depending on how you feel about FSU) and one of them banished to the Big East.  The South's Oldest Rivalry is poised, in a few years, to become the second-longest-played college game in history.  We (and UNC) had been behind several others, but realignment killed a few ancient games - Texas-Texas A&M, Missouri-Kansas, and Kansas-Nebraska have all fallen victim to greed, and in 2016 UVA-UNC will pass the Border War for second place - tied with Miami of Ohio and Cincinnati and second to Minnesota and Wisconsin.  I don't know if the ACC or the respective ADs care, but I sure do.  So here's a better idea.

If it offends you that VT gets Duke and Wake as forever-rivals, swap NC State and Duke.  There are a few different ways to do it, really.  I'm not picky along those lines.  Just so long as we play UNC and VT, and UNC plays NC State and Duke.  Duke should probably also play Wake, but whatev.  This is how you bring heated regionalism back to the scattered world of realignment, in which eastern teams join midwestern and southwestern conferences, northern teams join southern ones, a team can be a member of both the Southwestern and Southeastern Conferences during its history, and cats lie down with dogs if the dog has a better TV deal.

At any rate, I can't stress enough how important it is for UVA not to be labeled a northern school and sent to go play with the new kids.  Nothing against them.  We just have traditions to uphold, is all.

It turns out that creating a schedule rotation is just as much child's play as the rest of this exercise.  From the perspective of one of the four-team groups, say, what we'll call the Southern pod, they would play three teams from the Central pod and two from the Northern in a given year.  From the perspective of the six-team Central pod, we'd play two teams from each of the others and one of the remaining Central teams.  Our schedule might hypothetically look like so:

As with last time this was done, grayed-out helmets represent road games.  After 2018, go back to the first row again.  There's one problem: I'd really have liked the non-protected games to alternate, instead of being played in two-year chunks.  They can't, though: with an odd number in each "set" of games, it's not possible to alternate like that.  You have two of three home games and two of five, then one of three and three of five; if you alternated the unprotected games like I like to, you get two of three and three of five.  (Or you play one team on the road two years in a row and then at home two years in a row, an idea which clearly and rightfully would be DOA.)

It may be possible to do some scheduling calisthenics to make alternating games happen instead of two-year chunks, and if the ACC pulls that off I'll tip my hat and take back my "uncreative" potshots.  However, when we had 12 teams, we were doing the chunk thing.

(We also had a rotation like a conveyor belt - Team A on the road, Team B at home; Team B on the road, Team C at home; Team C on the road, Team D at home - you get the idea.  I didn't like the conveyor belt and it'd be a terrible idea here, too.)

All this would, of course, be independent of the Notre Dame rotation.  That doesn't need to be weaved into the conference schedule; it's a separate beast entirely. 

The beauty, or ugliness - I don't care which - of this idea is that a nine-game schedule ruins it.  Ruins the whole thing.  I guess you'd have just two protected games and rotate the other seven somehow, probably skipping teams in two-year chunks like the Big Ten used to do when it had 11 teams.  I'm not gonna bother.  Just thinking about it makes me realize - if the ACC goes with this format, I'd prefer to stick with eight games.  Nine games would be for if one day we hit the 16-team mark.

The really good thing here is, I think this actually has a chance of happening.  Quite probably the real thing would have its differences here and there, and I'm legitimately nervous that they'd adopt exactly this format and the protection boxes that stick us in the north.  It's up to Littlepage to make sure that doesn't happen.  But, in any case, I truly think that the ACC wants to ditch the current model, which is not popular, and I truly think they'll have the ability to do so fairly soon.  Here's the best idea they'll ever have.

weekend review

Welp.  That's that; another lacrosse season is in the books too early, after a mostly uninspiring performance on Sunday.  It looked so promising to start, with the Hoos giving up faceoff wins but then quickly making Hopkins look like a disjointed JV squad.  And then....

I mean, just... look, I've always considered that rationality is one of my writing strengths, and I know there was like 45+ minutes worth of reasons why we lost, but I just keep on going back to the bad clear that led to Hop's first goal, essentially an empty-netter.  UVA has a reputation as an outstanding clearing team and totally failed to live up to that this year; in some cases they've just completely lost sight of the 30-second time limit, and that's what killed them here.

Matt Barrett was the visible scapegoat because it was his pass that was intercepted, but, feeling compelled to go back to the Tivo for a closer look, I found out exactly how much time he had to clear the ball when he threw that pass: four seconds.  Even if he had channeled Adam Ghitelman and run it there himself, he'd never have made it.  26 seconds had elapsed already thanks mainly to sheer unadulterated laziness, and the real culprit on that clear is Scott McWilliams.  McWilliams floated around the field for nine seconds before tossing the ball (backwards) to Tanner Scales.  Scales returned the ball a few seconds later.... and "half-assed" would be far too generous a term for McWilliams's attempt at catching it.  That's why Barrett had the ball in the first place; he had to retrieve it as it rolled the wrong way.

If some people are saying there's a senior leadership problem on the team, well, that's why.  And this is by no means to pin the loss on McWilliams, whose play these four years has been unequivocally an asset.  You don't lose by six without everyone pitching in.  But there's still the irrational fan in me that wonders how that game might've gone if the Hoos hadn't offered a sportsmanlike hand back to the already punch-drunk Jays.

As a season, it certainly wasn't a total loss.  You expect Virginia lacrosse to accomplish certain things, and beating Syracuse, Hopkins, and UNC (1 outta 2 in the latter instances, anyway) do qualify.  However, after a stretch of four consecutive Final Fours, and missing only two from 2002 to 2011, the natives are rightfully getting restless now that we've missed three in a row.  Folks are talking succession plans.  If Dom Starsia weren't the winningest D-I coach ever, the words being used might be a little more forceful.

As it is, UVA stands in about the same delicate spot that Florida State football did in about 2008 or so.  (And that Penn State managed to botch pretty spectacularly.)  FSU succeeded in dislodging Bobby Bowden after the boosters got antsy and it became clear that 1) they weren't going to get much farther with him and 2) he had no plans to leave.  They had a couple factors helping that process: the academics scandal greased his skids out of town, and they didn't have his son on staff.  FSU is how you want the replacing-a-legend process to go; Penn State is not.  And Tennessee exists as the antithesis of Penn State - the fans managed to get Phil Fulmer replaced and the Vols promptly entered the crapper, from which they have yet to emerge.

I doubt there's any talk of succession in the UVA offices, but it's something that should be quietly going through the heads of the decision makers - not because immediate action is needed, but they still have to be working on a contingency plan.  And that plan can't just be Joe Starsia.  This is too much of a signature program to allow to go stale.  If we're playing for a national title next year - hey, cancel the war.  If we miss out on the quarters again, let alone Memorial Day, well.... it certainly won't stop people wondering how Mike Pressler or Charley Toomey might look on the Klockner sidelines.  Me, I'm nowhere near officially adding my voice to the (still quite small) chorus calling for a change.  I don't want to be Penn State but I definitely don't want to be Tennessee.**  Just considering it something to keep an eye on. 

**A statement made, with that particular emphasis, with consideration only for the on-field aspect of PSU's football succession.

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-- Lots of other UVA teams are still running around scooping up Director's Cup points, though:

* Men's and women's tennis are both in the round of 16, about to face Notre Dame and Baylor, respectively.

* Ladies' golf was top-8 at their regional, earning one of 24 spots at the national championship tournament in Tulsa.

* Women's lax faces 3-seeded UNC in the quarterfinals after knocking off Princeton.

This is to say nothing of crew, which still has an ACC title to earn before heading to nationals.

-- Maryland transfer Seth Allen was really digging on UVA, until he took a trip to Blacksburg and found playing time in abundance.  That Buzz Williams is apparently a hell of a recruiter.  Say what you will but he's definitely injected some talent into a moribund program.  Enough to be a real factor in the ACC race?  No, not yet, but they seem to be working hard at leaving the laughingstock label behind.

Williams probably made the case to Allen that UVA wanted him but VT needed him, which is pretty much exactly how things stood.  Allen would've been a luxury, albeit one that would've helped smooth out the roster makeup.  There are plenty of worthy backcourt options already on the roster, though.  Any addition this offseason who would hit the roster this fall is icing on the icing.

-- The ACC is having its annual junketeering trip serious meeting week on Fancy Tropical Resort Island, Florida, during which they usually produce something worth talking about.  This year it's the fact that they'll stick with an eight-game football schedule and follow the SEC's lead in requiring every team to play at least one OOC Power Five conference team, starting in 2017.  That should make the "schedule for success" crowd happy, by which I mean not happy.**  Cue the calls for an annual rivalry game with Indiana from now til forever.

The eight-game schedule vote was surprisingly close, with an 8-6 tally as the margin in favor of staying at eight games instead of nine.  This is acceptable if they also abolish divisions, as will reportedly be discussed.  (It's also reasonable in light of having Notre Dame sorta-kinda on the schedule all the time.)

It's this last point which should be making all the waves.  The fact that the ACC is even bothering to discuss this is a giant flag, pointing in the direction of the August autonomy conference.  (At which the NCAA is widely expected to hand over various powers to the ACC, SEC, B1G, Big 12, and Pac-12 that they didn't have before.)  John Swofford publically lobbied for more flexibility in scheduling; that is, not having to have two divisions in order to play a CCG.  If the ACC is discussing the abolition of divisions, it's likely they have the advance go-ahead from the NCAA to do so and will get it formally in August.  For this reason, they may not necessarily announce anything coming out of Amelia Island, but there's hope yet.

I've already put forth my preferred scheduling model for a 14-team, 8-game league: three protected games and five rotating ones.  You would play teams A, B, C, D, and E in year one and F, G, H, I, and J in year two.  The pitfall, which UVA would have to lobby heavily to avoid, would be the temptation to make all the NC teams each others' protected games - we have to have UNC every year.

**I can't remember whether I've ever expressly made my feelings known on these pages about the "schedule for success" theory, which I despise as both wimpy and totally unworkable, but I'm sure it's worth a full post somewhere along the line.

recruiting board update and other catch-up notes

Things have gotten a little slow around the production facilities lately.  I mean, it is close to Christmas after all, and plus I got free Red Wings tickets on Tuesday, so, shit happens.  Admittedly it makes my goal of having ten more season previews written by New Year's pretty ambitious, but regardless.

Let's start with the recruiting board, which is gonna look a lot different when I'm done.

-- Added OL Jacob Fieler to orange.  Fieler is a post-grad player at FUMA who'll join Andrew Brown as an early enrollee.  Adding any warm body at OL is a good sign; I'm more than fairly irritated at Mike London's desire to keep adding low-to-middling "athlete" types just because they play at a high school inside the Virginia borders while blowing off O-line recruiting.  There's far too much depth at defensive back and about two-thirds of what we need at O-line.  More on this in a bit.

-- Added DB Daniel Ezeagwu to green.

-- Removed OT Marcus Applefield (Rutgers) from green.

-- Removed OT Alex Bookser (Pitt) and DE Cory Jones (Toledo) from yellow.

-- Removed OT Brock Ruble (FSU) and DE Kentavius Street (NC State) from red.

It's time to go on one of those rants that us bloggers are famous for.  I don't have to answer to advertisers or subscribers or editors so I can do this.  Lemme start with a huge disclaimer: I fully get that recruiting is a touchy subject to be negative about.  These kids come in with all the confidence in the world and are thrilled to have the opportunity to play for a big-time college team at a fantastic school, even when that team is 2-10.  This is universal.  I remember how fired-up I was to get my acceptance letter to UVA - when someone commits to play football, it's no different, except maybe even better because there's really only one thing that can make your happiness better and that's when you're also making someone else's day, such as, say, a football coach.

Despite all this, it's long past time to take Mike London to task on recruiting.  Might sound like a funny thing to do, since recruiting is supposedly what London does best.  And while he has indeed been able to convince a lot of blue-chip players to consider and even commit to UVA, who might never have done so before, everything else has been a slapdash mess.

As it turns out on a depth chart, you start four defensive backs and five offensive linemen.  Therefore it would stand to reason that you'd want more of the latter than the former on your roster.  At the moment, however, we stand to have 19 scholarship DBs and 16 scholarship OLs for 2014.  And we're pursuing more DBs, without a single OL left on that recruiting board.  And Mike London wonders why his offense is so bad.

It gets worse: for one, it's really only 15 scholarship OLs, since Matt Fortin is the long-snapper and not going to play on the regular unit.  Reports say that George Adeosun's football career may actually be over.  Will Richardson is considering switching to NC State or Florida State.  Cody Wallace is a candidate for a non-invited fifth year.  If in fact we do manage to keep all 15 linemen around, it means we can go three full layers deep on the depth chart.  We can go five deep at cornerback and almost as much at safety, and we're still digging.  London is fighting tooth and nail against Wake Forest and East Carolina to add two-star CB DaiQuan Lawrence, is recruiting Daniel Ezeagwu hard, and the following line shows up in Jamie Oakes's report this morning: "While UVa is in the market for another offensive lineman, it’s not looked at as an absolute necessity in the 2014 class."

Such a direct quote is a no-no and I offer humble apologies, but the point needs to be made.  London has always made it a post-season priority to go find some moderately athletic player from inside the state and steal them out from under the nose of Old Dominion and James Madison.  Mason Thomas has managed to go absolutely nowhere in his career; Divante Walker played a few minutes here and there this year.  He's at it again in spades this year, and may add no fewer than three such players to this year's class (counting Donovan Dowling.)

Meantime, how are those trenches looking?  Alex Bookser was giving UVA just as much of a look as Ohio State, and for the past few months we've heard nothing about him; he committed to Pitt this week.  A guy from Pittsburgh who waits til December to commit to Pittsburgh is there for the taking if you make the effort, and now there goes a high-three-star or even four-star lineman to a division rival.  Brock Ruble just committed to Florida State; this is a guy not just from our own backyard, he's from DeMatha.  And hardly gave us a sniff.  That Mike London managed to screw up the DeMatha pipeline, of all things, is unbelievable.  Yes, there's been attrition on the O-line; that's no excuse for not replacing the lost players.

I haven't even started on the defensive line.  We'll have six defensive tackles next year if all goes well; again, three deep against five deep in the secondary.  One of those tackles is a converted O-lineman, so in moving Andre Miles-Redmond over all we've done is rob Peter to pay Paul, and AMR sat behind true freshman Donte Wilkins on the depth chart.  Tyrell Chavis is another; his conditioning was so bad he had no choice but to redshirt this year, and this after a FUMA-shirt season where he had every chance to get on top of that issue.  We're also depending on Chris Brathwaite to come right back after a missed season and get right back into the swing.

Defensive end is even worse.  This is a train wreck.  It's a junkyard tire fire.  It's a train crashing into a junkyard tire fire while carrying a load of kerosene and toxic waste.  Michael Moore has been a disappointment and absolutely should have redshirted; London has already screwed up his career, possibly beyond repair.  Trent Corney is a situational pass-rusher, as is Max Valles (who's technically a linebacker anyway) and Eli Harold is too light to hold up against the run.  Jack English is totally unknown (and may move to TE) and Stephen Lawe is almost certain to be non-invited.  Marco Jones might move over to help out at DT.  I just listed every DE on the roster.  And is the cavalry coming?  Not hardly; assuming we get Darrious Carter, our DE recruiting will consist of one two-star stolen from Temple and one no-star stolen from James Madison.

But fear not; London will no doubt find a way to add a couple cornerbacks before Signing Day.  Chances are pretty good that we could end up signing as many defensive backs as offensive and defensive linemen combined.  And it's some real big mystery why we're 2-10 and there's a countdown clock up there.

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-- The lacrosse schedule is finally out.  It shouldn't take anywhere near this long to release; nearly every school has it out weeks before UVA does, and the baseball one was out a month ago.  This happens every year.  But at least it's interesting.  There's one extra game - we'll play 14 games now instead of 13, which is basically to say that we added Notre Dame and didn't take away a nonconference game.  This makes sense since Maryland will disappear next year.

Besides Notre Dame, new teams on the sked include Loyola, Richmond, and Rutgers.  Out are Stony Brook (on the schedule since 2006), Vermont (since 2008) and Ohio State (since 2010.)  OSU was pretty much just a two-for-one deal that wasn't going to be permanent, so it's no surprise they're being replaced.  The school doesn't announce this stuff, but I'd guess Rutgers is a similar deal.

Further change: Drexel remains on the schedule, but they're no longer the season opener as they have been since 2002.  That's Loyola this year, in the earliest start ever (February 6; brrrr.)  UVA will also serve as Richmond's first-ever varsity game a couple days later.  I imagine Richmond, as the state's third program, is at least a semi-permanent addition.

Finally, the ACC championship won't be hosted at a school; it'll be at the MLS stadium in (well, near) Philadelphia.  I'm sure it's entirely coincidence that it would've been Maryland's turn to host.  It's also worth mentioning that, where in years past the ACC schedule was always the last three games minus a possible NCAA tuneup after the ACC tourney, now the ACC games are spread out a bit.  Sort of.  Syracuse is still where Syracuse always was, and ND fits into March between Cornell and Hopkins as if they were a non-conference opponent.  Also, that tune-up game isn't a tune-up this year; Bellarmine is before the ACC tourney.

The schedule doesn't turn over much; major changes like this one happen only every few years, so it's interesting when it does happen.  I will use my predictive powers to suggest that next year's changes will only involve losing Maryland and replacing Bellarmine, since Penn only had a two-year run in the spot where Bellarmine is now.

-- The football people are again going to discuss a nine-game schedule.  I guess I'd put the chances of them actually following through at about 10%, but it's nice to see this remains on the plate.  Once again: the fact that 2027 is the next time we'll see Clemson at Scott Stadium is stupid.  And with Louisville and not Maryland as our crossover opponent, I'm a hell of a lot less attached to the idea of keeping that preserved crossover.  Nothing against Louisville, but that instantly gives us (and Louisville) the least foundational and traditional crossover in the league.

Syracuse's AD's idea is to play nine games and guarantee that you play the five opponents this year that you didn't play last year, but that won't fly as is since the NCAA mandates that you play everyone in your division.  Swapping out five opponents leaves only four from the previous year, and you have six division games.  There's no real way to divide 14 teams other than seven and seven, so the best we can do with nine games is to maybe eliminate the crossover (touchy since that would eliminate the yearly FSU-Miami game) and just play three new teams every year.  Or realign so that all the rivalries are in one division (but realignment is dangerous since if they roll north-south, we're suddenly north.)

At any rate, a nine-game schedule in nearly any form is preferable to visiting certain locations once every fourteen years.  Check out the future schedules on the official page; we'll visit Provo, Utah twice before we ever visit Boston or Syracuse.  Are they sure we're in the same conference as BC and Cuse?

weekend review

GGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This week I am a walking, talking, and especially, writing, illustration of the duality of man.  I love to preach sanity, patience, and measured responses.  It's how I am.  This weekend that part of me is in a raging deathmatch with the irrational raving lunatic that lives inside of every college football fan.  (Sometimes not very deep inside.)  I'm fighting back the urge to say the things that we all think after games like that, such as:

1. UNACCEPTABLE
2. what the hell do these guys even care?!?!
3. FIRE EVERYONE
4. never been so embarrassed in my life
5. SHIT DAMN FUCK DAMN FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT
6. FUCK

It's a losing battle.  As you might have guessed.

The heck with it, man.  Bad language is highly excusable when you've lost four of five to Duke.  That's a sorry situation right there.  The worst part is, the only viable comeback left us is "wait til baseball season."  There's no getting around it: expectations for the season have dropped all the way from "I wonder who our bowl opponent will be!" to "well maybe if we can beat Maryland this season won't be a total loss."  (Seriously, let's not lose to Maryland.)

It's hard to imagine any other outcome of a game, though.  Some unpleasant truths are starting to sink in, like, the offensive line will never convert a 4th and 1, the defensive line will never get pressure on a quarterback unless he takes too long with the ball, the entire secondary is a walking blown assignment, and the receivers all have hands of glass.  For ITA this week I wrote that it's now plainly obvious what the problem wasn't.

How bad was it?  It spurred the creation of a Fire Mike London twitspace account.  Yes, this is insane.  Yes, it's absurd.  Yes, it's way too early.  Yes, the guy comes off like a massive dick.  No, it's not surprising in the least.  Al Groh cannot be blamed for this in any way.  (Some people are trying, but they're dead-ass wrong.)  Even Groh's lowest-ranked recruiting classes - 2008 and the lame-duck year of 2010 - were ranked above Duke's.  Groh might not have left us with the world's most well-stocked cupboard (what fired coach ever does?) but what he left us should have been enough to beat Duke, FFS.  David Cutcliffe coached circles around London and his staff yesterday, and it's legitimate to at least ask why player development has led us to the point where we're losing by four touchdowns to Duke.

Further reactions in brief:

-- I'm not sure which is more maddening: an endless stream of three-yard checkdowns on third and nine, or an endless stream of Hail Mary attempts and potential arm punts on third and two.  Phillip Sims is clearly conditioned to go deep as his default fallback option.  This drives me crazy when he could just take three more steps and cross the sticks.  Let's hope we can rewire that sooner rather than later.  Going deep is a fun thing - when appropriate.

-- Using Perry Jones as the short-yardage hammer is like bringing a Yugo to a demolition derby.  Stop it.

-- I suppose it's hard to be mad when the offensive line opens up enough holes for our backs to average 5.7 yards, but they still can't get one when it's really needed, and when fullbacks (looking at Billy Skrobacz, here) run straight past the guy in the backfield that their job is to block, it doesn't help.

-- Sims did not have a completely terrible day, but it was a few steps shy of mediocre, and "it's his first collegiate start" doesn't work as an excuse when it was also Anthony Boone's.

-- The safeties were an absolute disaster.  Like a tornado hit a train wreck and spawned a volcano.  Anthony Harris bit so hard on the play-fake that led to Duke's touchdown, he left teeth marks on the field.

-- CATCH THE DAMN BALL

-- AND STOP BRINGING IT OUT OF THE END ZONE.  Khalek Shepherd averaged an absolutely miserable 13.3 yards per return.  When your average return pins us inside the 15, TAKE A DAMN KNEE.

Argh argh argh.  Sofa king bad.  Let's see about the predictions:

-- Sims throws at least one pick, probably early.  Giving myself two for the price of one here.  Well, OK, two for two.  Sims's first pick came on the second drive of the game, and was the result of exactly what I said in the preview: "he's a lot more likely than Rocco to try and make the first read work even if it looks kinda covered."  It was more than kinda covered.

-- Sims averages 14 yards a completion.  Dammit, he got 12.7 and came pretty close.  Might have gotten there with a few less drops.

-- Jela Duncan gets a plurality (if not a majority) of Duke's carries.  Bingo: Duncan got ten, three more than any other Dookie.  He didn't have the most yards, but that wasn't what I said.  Even though Juwan Thompson had quite a few more yards than Duncan, Duncan clearly looked like the best running back, earning a lot of his yards post-contact.

-- Whoever quarterbacks Duke completes 2/3 of his passes.  Watching the game, I really thought I was going to get this one.  But 18-for-31 is only 58%.

So, yay for 3-for-5, giving me 11 of 30 all year.  Boo for making the wrong picks and dropping my records to 4-2 straight up and 0-4-2 ATS.  Picking us to fail to cover would probably be a much more lucrative outcome.

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Let's hear it for the GP South Blue Devils, who kicked a game-winning field goal with under 40 seconds to play to earn their third straight win over the hated Norsemen of GP North - the first time in the history of the rivalry that South has won three straight.  That moves South to 6-1 on the season and clinches a state playoff berth.  Let's also get to the stuff you care about:

Good Counsel 13, DeMatha 10: Kirk Garner had an interception and stopped DeMatha on a fake field goal attempt to seal the win in the annual rivalry matchup of DC-area powerhouses. OLGC is 5-1.

Damascus 56, Walter Johnson 27: One of these days teams will stop kicking to Zach Bradshaw.  He returned yet another kick for a TD in Damascus's rout.  Damascus is 6-0.

South Iredell 22, Draughn 0: Great news as LaChaston Smith is back on the field, recovered (mostly) from his broken leg.  South Iredell has outscored its opponents 171-17 this year, and is 7-1.

Bayside 62, Kellam 42: Smoke needed a big day and got one, with two rushing touchdowns and one receiving.  He also scored three last week in a Monday night makeup game against Landstown.  Mizzell now has 13 rushing touchdowns and 17 total, including two receiving and two returns.  Bayside is 5-2.

Ocean Lakes 42, Green Run 0: Corwin Cutler had 287 yards passing and two touchdowns.... but also threw his first two picks of the season.  You know what, cut him.  Ocean Lakes is 7-0.

Fork Union 27, St. Christopher's 14: The only reason any of our recruits' teams lost this week is because one of them had to.  Malcolm Cook starred; he had seven tackles, forced a fumble, and returned a pickoff 100 yards for one of Fork Union's scores.  FUMA is 6-1; St. Chris is 3-3.

Salisbury 41, Cushing 27 (Sadiq Olanrewaju) - Salisbury is 3-0.
Gilman 49, Archbishop Spalding 2 (Micah Kiser) - Gilman is 4-2.
Potomac 18, Woodbridge 6 (Donta Wilkins) - Potomac is 3-3.
Monsignor Donovan 28, Point Pleasant 14 (Brad Henson) - Donovan is 3-1.
A.L. Brown 49, Mt. Pleasant 14 (Keeon Johnson) - Brown is 7-1.
Houston Westside 38, Houston Westbury 26 (Hipolito Corporan) - Westside is 4-2.
Oscar Smith 48, Hickory 10 (Zack Jones) - Oscar Smith is 4-2.
Varina 46, Armstrong 6 (Tim Harris) - Varina is 4-1.

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Wrap-up tidbits:

-- Not a good day at all for former UVA football coaches.  The roof on the future George Welsh Practicin' Building caught fire.... and so did Al Groh.  The latter is a bummer.  I had been really hoping it would work out there and that Groh would find some success, except for when we played GT, and, in typical bullshit fashion, it was exactly the other way round.

-- I've told you what I think of the ACC going back to the eight-game format** but what about the baseball and basketball announcements that came with it?

If I remember right, and I might not, the ACC had previously announced that the basketball schedule would feature only one protected rivalry.  Now it has two (or it stayed at two, I dunno) and naturally, ours are Maryland and VT, which is correct.  (Maryland's other rival is Pitt.  Haha it's not Duke like you think it is.)

However, the truly underrated decision from that big scheduling announcement concerned the conference tournament.  They didn't show the bracket, but it's easy to figure what it looks like based on what they did say:

That's excellent.  The best thing the Big East had going for it was a bracket that looked exactly like that for their conference tournament, except with a 9-16 game since they had, you know, 16 teams.  I love that we absorb the Big East and then gank their bracket too.  When we add a 16th, we can just add that extra game.  That's a way more interesting bracket than just the basic 16-team elimination bracket, and adds appropriate rewards for high seeds.  If we must ever see a 16-team football playoff, that's the bracket I want.

The baseball tournament, on the other hand, I can't fathom too well.  (Maybe I could if it weren't currently an hour where normal people are asleep.)  10 teams, double-elimination from Tuesday through Friday, leaving four teams alive for a Saturday semifinal and Sunday championship....I don't get it.  When the NCAA does double-elimination it leaves one team alive, but you can't split 10 four ways.  Coaches aren't gonna like it, either.  The main appeal of the previous format was that it only meant four games, which wasn't a major tax on a pitching staff.  This one is like, what, six or seven games, if you want to win?  Better bring a deep bullpen.

**This, by the way, leaves us - and the rest of the ACC - scrambling to find a fourth nonconference opponent next year.  We already dropped UTSA and they're not coming back - they needed the opening too, so they could fit into their new CUSA schedule.  In all likelihood it means a second I-AA team, which sucks.  A better choice: call up Idaho or New Mexico State, which have been left out in the cold independent wasteland following the dissolution of WAC football.  At least then if we beat them (yes, if - no guarantees allowed following a loss to Duke) it'll count toward bowl eligibility, whereas a second I-AA team would not.

a civil conversation with Duke Sports Blog

It's the Duke game this week (duh), and in keeping with the finest of blogger traditions, it's time to go back to the well for a Q&A session.  Mike of the Duke Sports Blog approached me with questions, and I never turn down an opportunity for a post I barely even have to write.  His questions and my answers are over there, so without further ado:

1. Duke is 4-1, their best record at this point since 1994. What's been the biggest key to getting there? Is that success sustainable or will Duke struggle to find the two wins they need to make a bowl game?

-- If they're to get those two wins, where are they most likely to find them? The biggest factor in Duke getting to 4-1 has been a combination of a manageable schedule and a team filled with more talent and depth than the program has had in years. I do believe that the success is sustainable at this point thanks to David Cutcliffe. He has improved every aspect of the program starting with recruiting more talent, improving facilities and getting the backing of the administration, something Duke has not had since the 1960 and before. I think that the program has been like a critically ill person who has been on life support and improved from critical to stable condition under Cutcliffe. They aren't completely out of the woods but they are well on the way to recovery I think. I do believe that they will get two more win, but it won't be easy. I think the best shots they have at winning two would be Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech. But they have to get/stay healthy and continue to play well.

2. What's the status of Sean Renfree? If he doesn't play, what would be the plan, and can Duke win without him?

-- Cutcliffe is keeping his status for Saturday under wraps until Thursday, according to his Tuesday press conference. He did say he was back on the practice field but didn't elaborate on how much he did physically. He said in his Sunday teleconference though that he felt Renfree cold play even if he doesn't get a lot of reps because he is such a cerebral player. If I were a betting man I'd say he would play, but if he can't I'm confident that Anthony Boone can lead the offense, but not as confident that Duke will win. He offers a running dimension that is a change from what Renfree does so it could be harder to prepare for that, but I think Duke has handled injuries well this year and would expect them to do well enough

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Duke's defense?

-- I think the strength of this defense has been corner Ross Cockrell who has been one of the top defensive back's statistically in the conference. Getting safety Jordon Byas was critical and it showed with him winning the ACC DB of the week. The defensive line has also stepped up big time and defensive end Kenny Anunike and Jordan Dewalt-Ondijo have been big time play makers and have helped the Duke defensive line get pressure in the back field for the first time in I don't even know when. This defense is just so much better than they have been in any time in recent history. They aren't perfect and they have given up too many big plays but they are just significantly better in all areas.

4. Jela Duncan has looked pretty impressive this year, at least from afar. Besides ripping his helmet off, what's the best way to stop him?

-- I believe Duncan is their best running back and has the ability to run in between the tackles or outside. He is strong, can break tackles and facemask penalties in one bound. To stop him or any Duke back, you have to beat the offensive line off the ball and force them back. Duke hasn't featured a back in the traditional sense, and Virginia can expect to see all three primary back in Duncan, Josh Snead and Juwan Thompson. If Duke can't get some kind of line surge then it could be a long day for the Duke running game.

5. Conner Vernon's next catch will give him sole possession of first place on the ACC's all-time receptions list, and he needs about 400 yards or so to earn the yardage record too. Is he the best football player in Duke's history?

-- I wouldn't say he was the very best, but he is up there. Duke has had some great players in the distant past. Sonny Jurgenson, Mike McGee, Leo Hart the list goes on, but recent history has been void of truly great players and I think Vernon is in that group. He is certainly the best receiver since College Football Hall-of-Famer Clarkston Hines.

6. What is the prediction for Saturday?

-- I like Duke to win this game because of the momentum and how well they've been playing. A confident team is a dangerous team and I think Duke can continue to win. With that being said I wouldn't be shocked if Virginia came out and won by double digits but I expect a reasonably high scoring game with Duke winning a close one. Duke-32 UVA-28.

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Lots of news from the ACC meetings this week, most of which we'll digest on Monday as part of the weekend review.  What I don't have civil words for is the decision to go back to an eight-game schedule.  Let me get this straight.  Until Notre Dame joins, we have two divisions of seven, so you'll play six division games, one protected crossover, and one rotating game.  That means you'll go six years between games against half the rest of the conference.  To put this in perspective, if you have a baby born the day of a UVA-Clemson game, that child will be in first grade the next time we play them.

And if they work the rotation just right (it's gonna be weird) you will go TWELVE YEARS between Clemson (or any other ACC team) appearances in Scott Stadium.  We have gone from a setup where any student would see every conference foe twice at home, to where every student will miss out on half of the conference.

We will play Wake Forest this year.  The last time we played Wake Forest:

-- Al Groh was our coach, and he would be coach the next year too
-- Marc Verica was the quarterback, and the leading receivers were Kevin Ogletree and Cary Koch.
-- Our leading rusher was Cedric Peerman.

Not one single player on our team now played in that game.  That's how things are with the rotation we have set up.  Why we would want to make this worse is a mystery to end all mysteries.  (Well, not really.  Contrary to popular belief, it's probably not to lure Notre Dame.  It's a concession to schools like Clemson and Florida State who are locked into OOC rivalries and want the flexibility to continue to schedule sweet little cupcakes.)  At any rate, any arrangement in which a player can join a team and never, ever be a part of a game against any one conference opponent is officially over the Line of Extreme Dumbassery.

This is stupid as fuck.  We will no longer have a conference.  We have two conferences with a loose scheduling arrangement and an agreement to play an early-December bowl game.  If and when we go to 16 teams, a nine-game schedule can return a major semblance of sanity to scheduling, but if nothing else the ACC knows how to turn a good thing into something really idiotic, so I'm not holding my breath they'll ever get it right.

the recruit: Micah Kiser

Name: Micah Kiser
Position: LB
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
School: Gilman
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 215

24/7: 90; four stars; #22 OLB; MD #8
ESPN: 82; four stars; #20 OLB; MD #6; Atlantic #42
Rivals: 5.7; three stars; #20 ILB; MD #13
Scout: three stars; #61 OLB

Other offers: Florida, Oklahoma, Stanford, Penn State, Virginia Tech, NC State, Boston College, West Virginia, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Wake Forest

With three linebackers, including two starters, graduating after this year, it's an important year for recruiting the position.  So it was a big deal when UVA kicked off the linebacker acquisition with one of the top prospects on its board.

Offers from Florida, Oklahoma, and Stanford, as well as most of the regional powers, confirm Micah Kiser's big-time status.  Despite the big names on his personal board, Kiser's choice came down to home-state Maryland and UVA, and he didn't waste any time with frivolities once he made up his mind; Kiser dropped a pleasant Monday night surprise in the middle of a UVA baseball game, without waiting for a particular moment.

Kiser is the kind of well-rounded linebacker prospect that, other than maybe Kwontie Moore, UVA hasn't picked up in ages.  He's athletic enough to already be a state champion as of his sophomore year - not in football, but in lacrosse.  Scouting reports from both Rivals and ESPN tout his first-step quickness and ability to change direction, skills that come in handy in pass coverage.  They're equally big on his football IQ: MDHigh says, "Kiser is a high IQ linebacker who is perpetually one step ahead of the opposing offense. This is the kind of linebacker who can get in a quarterback's head because he reads so well."  His coach adds this: "[UVA really likes] the way he plays the position, how he’s physical and how he knows not only where he’s supposed to be but where everyone else is supposed to be."

Those skills have him playing inside linebacker and quarterbacking the defense at Gilman, but his physical skills lead most sites to project him as an outside linebacker.  Of the five positive traits ESPN gives linebackers in their ratings, Kiser gets four - the only one missing is "inside run support."  The general consensus in that regard goes something like "he'd do fine inside, but would excel on the outside."

So does that mean that's where Kiser is headed?  Probably....maybe.  Though his pass coverage skills and ability to play in space better than most lead scouts to believe he's an outside linebacker, never underestimate a college coach's propensity to reward a high football IQ and put it where it's most useful.  When 2013 rolls around, the only MLB on the roster will be Moore, and right now even he's listed at OLB - we're all just assuming he'll be a Mike because he's so big.  I wouldn't put it past the coaches to put Kiser at any one of the three linebacker positions.

I also wouldn't put it past them to not even think about redshirting Kiser.  Football smarts implies extreme coachability, and that implies the fast track to the field.  As does the depth chart.  Barring an injury to a current starter, Kiser will enter fall camp and find the depth chart very thin on starting experience, and I expect he'll put pressure on the veterans from day one.  Kiser had suitors from all over the country, and offers don't lie: he's got the ability, and a head on his shoulders.  In an ideal - and very plausible - world, Kwontie Moore has just as much defense-quarterbacking ability as Kiser, allowing them to form a pretty formidable tandem in the years ahead.  Either way, I don't expect Kiser to redshirt, and I do expect him to be a top-end starter relatively soon.

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Smallish notes:

-- The UVA athletic department felt compelled to put out a statement basically denying the idea that Auburn is on the schedule in 2015 in Atlanta.  Folks got that idea because it was printed on the season tickets they got this week.  They'd probably like you to just forget that happened, and are using the future nine-game conference schedule as the PR version of "these aren't the droids you're looking for," but there's still no good reason to think the idea of another Auburn game is dead.  For one, the bowl folks seemed to really like that matchup since it filled the stadium up awfully quickly.  For another, even with a nine-game conference schedule (which everyone knew was coming in 2015 anyway, regardless of the timing of the Pitt/Cuse announcement, because no matter what, 2014 was their absolute last year in the Biggish Eastish) the 2015 schedule isn't full.  The rumored UConn series doesn't start til 2016, and the definite Stanford series doesn't start til 2017.  My guess: the game is lined up, or at least tentatively so, and it's too soon for the official pronouncement and the game organizers like to be the ones making said pronouncement.

-- Did anyone else notice, by the way, that when the UVA website directed you to the future schedules page, the home-and-home UTSA series is no longer on the docket?  Good riddance; there was no good reason to give a bottom-feeding program a home game like that.  "Recruiting in Texas" doesn't fly as a reason - you don't raise your profile by playing UTSA.  You probably lower it.  And no matter how many games we play in the state of Texas and how hard we recruit that state, we'll still be behind most of the instate schools, most of the SEC, most of the Big 12, and half of the Pac-12 in the pecking order there.  Recruiting-wise, we'd be much better off playing games against, oh, I dunno, Auburn, in closer recruiting grounds, like, oh, say, Atlanta, Georgia.

-- What the hell, France?

game preview: Florida State; PLUS we got Pitt

Date/Time: Saturday, February 4; 1:00

TV: ACC Net., ESPN3

Record against the Noles: 17-19

Last matchup: FSU 63, UVA 56; 2/12/11; Tallahassee

Last game: UVA 65, Clemson 61 (1/31); FSU 68, GT 54 (2/1)

Opposing blogs: Tomahawk Nation

KenPom breakdown:

Tempo:
UVA: 59.9 (#341)
FSU: 68.1 (#99)

Offense:
UVA: 106.1 (#82)
FSU: 106.0 (#83)

Defense:
UVA: 86.5 (#8)
FSU: 85.5 (#5)

Pythag:
UVA: .8897 (#22)
FSU: .9009 (#18)

Common opponents:

Clemson: UVA won 65-61; FSU lost 79-59
Virginia Tech: UVA lost 47-45; FSU won 63-59
Duke: UVA lost 61-58; FSU won 76-73
Georgia Tech: UVA won 70-38; FSU won 68-54

Projected starting lineups:

Virginia:

PG: Jontel Evans (6.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 3.6 apg)
SG: Sammy Zeglinski (8.9 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 2.7 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (12.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.6 apg)
PF: Mike Scott (17.0 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.5 apg)
F: Akil Mitchell (4.0 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 0.8 apg)

Florida State:

PG: Luke Loucks (7.2 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 4.1 apg)
SG: Michael Snaer (14.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 1.8 apg)
G: Deividas Dulkys (7.7 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 1.2 apg)
PF: Bernard James (10.5 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 0.5 apg)
C: Xavier Gibson (7.7 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 0.4 apg)

The ACC made it's long-awaited announcement about future divisional alignments and scheduling and so forth, and that's big enough news I thought about skipping the game preview and rambling about that instead.  But this is as big a bastaball game as there is in the remainder of this season, so it'd be wrong to skip it.  So you get both.  Stupid blogger thoughts on the 14-team ACC are appended to the end of this preview.

As for the game itself, it's kinda big.  FSU and UVA are extremely similar in some respects (nearly identical KenPom numbers, heavy emphasis on defense) and polar opposites in others (tempo, defensive style) and are the two odds-on contenders for the right to be named Best Team In The ACC Other Than You-Know-Who.  Except that FSU has already beaten both You-Know-Whos.

Shameless plug before the fun stuff begins: since I'll be watching this game on ESPN3 and not on the tube, I'll be tweetering like a wild man all game; follow @MaizeNBlueWahoo for stupid blogger mini-thoughts.

-- UVA on offense

You know how UVA's defense works: don't let anybody inside, especially don't let anyone drive inside, and sag off on the perimeter.  FSU is more or less the opposite: they will hound and harass you on the perimeter and dare you to take advantage of their aggressiveness by driving.  Then they position a couple of athletic trees near the basket and get swatty.

Said trees are named Bernard James and Xavier Gibson.  It's not uncommon for teams to not have a real center, so they station a four there and hope it works out.  Florida State is the opposite; both these guys could legitimately be fives.  They have block percentages of 9.0 and 8.8 respectively, which means that when they're both on the court at the same time, the chances are better than 1-in-6 that your shot will meet an immovable object on the way to the net.  FSU is also excellent at defending the three-point shot, allowing just 28.3% shooting from there.  Just to up the degree of difficulty a little more, FSU is one of the biggest teams in the country, 9th in "effective height."  The guy who spells James and Gibson is seven-footer Jon Kreft, and their starting guards all stand 6'5".  And sixth man Okaro White comes off the bench at 6'8".

How do you score on a team like this?  I expect that, for starters, Mike Scott will have to deploy his 14-17 foot jump shot more often than usual.  James and Gibson will probably double him when he gets the ball in the post, and they're athletic guys but whether or not they're effective in chasing Scott to the perimeter (and no big guy this year has been, so far) it'll at least spread the floor a little.

I also think UVA will go into maximum slow-down mode.  I mean, even more so than usual.  FSU is a team that thrives on generating turnovers, and their size makes them really good at it.  The first twenty seconds of the shot clock will feature a little bit of jogging around, setting screens and playing catch on the perimeter, in full Tony Bennett war crime style.  Jontel and Sammy aren't big guys, and FSU has the athleticism advantage.  If Sammy or Joe Harris finds themselves with a nice open shot, fine, but I think we'll be content with taking our one shot late in the shot clock using one of our main scorers, instead of trying to force-create openings.

Deividas Dulkys is a better defender than Michael Snaer, so I think he'll draw Joe Harris; Dulkys has sneaky-good hands and is one of the Noles' top ball thieves.  But he's skinny and nowhere near as quick as Snaer.  If Harris is allowed to go one-on-one with his back to the basket, Dulkys may need help.  Harris typically is a perimeter player, of course, but if he gets the ball closer to the bucket, the Hoos might be able to work some inside-out magic, or else find Mike Scott a little bit more open than he should be.  At the point, Luke Loucks has a big size advantage on Evans - how many 6'5" point guards are there? - but he's got no quicks and Evans ought to win the matchup more often than not.

There may be a few second-chance points to be found as well; despite having such a big team, FSU is surprisingly average at defensive rebounding.  James is a bright spot for them here, but Gibson, for his size, isn't that great.

Any way you slice it, though, points will be hard to find.  This is a team that held UNC to 57 points, and in the Noles' second-fastest-paced game of the season, too.  (Somehow, Clemson scored 79 on them.  That is a mystery of the highest order and the Hoos' ray of hope.)  UVA will have to work for every point, and must stay disciplined; against a pressure defense like FSU's, it's easy to fall into the trap of rushing one's shot.

-- UVA on defense

How might this game be won?  Turnovers on this end.  A TO% of 24.1 makes FSU the #323 team in the country - turning it over one out of every four possessions.  Backup point guard Jeff Peterson is shockingly terrible with a whopping 37%.  Yes, if Peterson is on the court for eight possessions, he'll turn the ball over on three of them.  Five Seminoles average more than two turnovers per game.

And even playing at a much, much faster pace, FSU as a team averages fewer assists per game (12) than UVA (13.)  Why so few?  It has a lot to do with the number of transition baskets they get, off of all those turnovers they create on the other end.  It's also a function of having so many bigs - James, Gibson, White - involved in the offense.  But it's also a function of having black holes for offensive players.  Just about every Virginia player is better in the assist department than his Florida State counterpart, except for the point guards who are about even.  Once the ball hits the hands of a Seminole, it's likely to go toward the basket.  Or end up in enemy hands.

Despite the fact that James is the second-leading scorer, the truth is that the halfcourt offense runs through the guards mostly.  Or at least it should, as Gibson is actually the highest-usage player on the team, but one of the least efficient.  James is mostly a putback and transition guy.  Point guard Loucks doesn't look for his shot much, instead looking to feed Snaer and Dulkys, both of whom have very good shots.

When FSU's starters are in, that's when they'll have the advantage.  When they're not turning the ball over, they're pretty tough to stop.  UVA will have the upper hand when any of them are off the floor - Ian Miller has been a terrible shooter this year, and Peterson's turnover habit is already well-documented.  Jon Kreft is a nonfactor.  UVA's pack-line defense should be a good matchup against such a turnover-prone team, as it's something of a novelty and designed to let you make your own mistakes.  But FSU's size will be tough to defend and there'll be times there's nothing we can do.

-- Outlook

No doubt, FSU is a tournament team, and they have a terrific chance to earn the #1 seed in the ACC tourney.  Both of these teams are built in such a way as to give each other fits.  But unfortunately, FSU more so.  In order to win, UVA must force the Seminoles into a thousand turnovers and limit their own, because this defense will be maybe the toughest we see all year.  Including Carolina.  On the road, this is easier said than done.  It should be close, but the win will be just out of reach.

-- Final score: FSU 54, UVA 50

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

So, now the big-picture stuff.  ACC expansion and scheduling, as announced today.  Everybody say hi to Pittsburgh (HI PITTSBURGH!) as the Panthers will be the newest members of the Coastal Division when they eventually leave the Big East for better pastures.

There'll also be nine conference games on the football schedule, and the permanent crossover remains, so no changes there.  Pitt and Cuse are simply each other's buddies.  But the rest of the statement reads like this:

The format will consist of each team playing all six in its division each year, plus its primary crossover partner each year and two rotating opponents from the opposite division. This six-year cycle allows each team to play each divisional opponent and its primary crossover partner six times (three home and three away) while also playing each rotating crossover opponent two times (one home and one away).

I parse and parse and parse this statement and I can't for the life of me tell whether they're doing this right or not.  What do I mean?

- Wrong: The way they're doing it now.
- Right: The format proposed at the bottom of this post.

Just replace the Pitt helmet with a Syracuse one.  Both ways would fulfill "playing each rotating crossover opponent two times in six years" but my way means three calendar years between games against a particular opponent.  The current way - a home game directly followed by an away game directly followed by a huge gap - would mean five calendar years.  Let me make this perfectly clear: if a normal student attends UVA, and during his time there, there are teams in the conference that we never play, then we have ceased to be a conference and are instead a little mini-NFL.

I don't have much faith that they got this right.

The choice of divisions for the newcomers, however, seems obvious in retrospect.  BC can play Syracuse, and we have a little mini-region here in the mid-Atlantic now with us, Tech, Maryland, and Pitt.  It will help our recruiting a little bit, as Pittsburgh is an area we like to have a presence in.  (The reverse will also be true, of course.)  And for once, I can see myself at a UVA football game in the future - Pittsburgh is only five hours from me.  Bloomington was six and I made it a point to get my ass down there, so Pittsburgh has its appeal.  Only problem: they don't have their own stadium and borrow that of the Steelers.  Lame.

As for basketball, I don't have a complaint about 18 games at all but I do have a beef with not playing Maryland twice every year.  Come on, man.  Screw that.  I suppose the upside is a more even spread of games against the conference in general, and the symmetry of the three-year cycle has a certain appeal.  The other upside: a slight advantage in the year-to-year schedule, assuming Tech's downward spiral is a long-term thing, as they're obviously our one scheduling buddy.

One final disappointment, but not a permanent one: no announcement about how they're gonna work the baseball schedule with an odd number of teams.  Here's a hint for the decision makers: get rid of divisions.  Pittsburgh is the school with a baseball team, so it would be kind of bullshit to merely drop them into an already ridiculously stacked Coastal.

Finally, I don't get into politics here for a reason, but I'd like you to know that the Canadian pipeline is alive and well, regardless of what the President says.  This one sends big football players to Charlottesville instead of oil to Texas, though.  The Sabre's Good Ol' Blog is reporting (via the Ottawa Citizen) that Trent Corney is UVA's first 2013 commitment.  Technically, Corney is a grayshirt, meaning he'll graduate high school this year, spend a semester at FUMA, and show up in the spring of 2013.  For recruiting board purposes that makes him an early-enrolling 2013 guy.  My thoughts on grayshirting are not happy thoughts, but the difference between this and the way Nick Saban and Les Miles do it - which is to spring it on a kid at literally the last possible minute so he doesn't have a chance to look elsewhere - is the difference between tapping another bumper parallel parking, and plowing your car into a kindergarten classroom.