the recruit: ross metheny

Will he start? Poor quarterback recruits; it gets asked every time they align themselves with a particular school, and often before. Nobody bothers to ask it when a defensive back commits, because they have a tendency to sneak onto the field undetected as part of a nickel package or something. Defensive backs put that whole butterfly effect chaos theory to rest, because when a cornerback flaps his arms in the air waving futilely at a pass destined to add six more points, it does not change the weather anywhere. Start a new quarterback, however, and Hurricane Butterfly bears down on the coast and headline writers stock up on ink.

Name: Ross Metheny
Position: QB
Hometown: Stephens City
School: Sherando
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 185
40: 4.64 (if he needs to put this skill to use though we're in trouble.)

ESPN: 73
Rivals: 5.6, three stars, #24 pro-style QB
Scout: hasn't bothered

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCRNF4SI16s
(The video is not all Metheny, all the time, it's a compilation of the pretty respectably good season Sherando had, but rest assured, whenever someone is throwing the ball to someone in the same jersey color, it's Ross.)

When Metheny committed in March it made it semi-official: We had more in-state recruits in less than two months for the class of '09 than we signed for '08.

So what to make of it? The evaluation numbers are sort of mid-grade, and the offer list is even less impressive; UConn was the only school to offer before UVA did. That probably doesn't tell the whole story though; Metheny got his offer from UVA, did a backflip or two (I don't have a link for that though), took a quick look around at a bunch of other places that had been showing interest, and committed. UGA and BC were a couple of the destinations, which counts for something.

More telling, though, is this. Metheny has been the starter since his freshman year, and Sherando has rolled to a 33-5 record in that time. What happens when they don't have Metheny? This. The obvious joke is that Metheny doesn't play defense and what, would they have lost 56-42 instead har har har. The wheels came off of that offense in spectacular fashion when Metheny left, and with them the ability to keep the defense off the field. Sherando has zero D-IA talent outside of Metheny; a few of his teammates from that season have gone on to various instate I-AA schools but powerhouse, Sherando is not. Not without Ross Metheny, anyway.

So, the unfair question: future signal-caller, or clipboard stand? Of the current QBs on the roster, only Scott Deke will be gone when Metheny arrives on Grounds. Lalich and Verica will be juniors. Metheny, despite the lukewarm reviews, comes in much more highly rated than did Verica, and more so too than Riko Smalls, our '08 QB recruit. Smalls may be destined for elsewhere on the field, however. Metheny will be a junior (or a redshirt sophomore) when Lalich departs. Barring a miracle commit from Tate Forcier, Metheny is the only 2009 QB recruit and thus should be considered to have, for now, the inside track on the starting job in 2011.

swimming pools! movie stars!

UVA and West Virginia talking future football series. More on that in a bit; first, Sammy Zeglinski. This will probably be much bigger news in 2011, right now we'll have to settle for an "oh goody." The CDP reports that the NCAA has officially granted him his medical redshirt for last season, meaning Zeglinski has a full four years of eligibility. No word yet on Tunji Soroye.

So as I mentioned: West Virginia. From the Charleston Daily Mail, there is word that us and them are talking about a four game series. Sounds like fun. WVU was once a fairly common opponent; we played them each year between 1943 and 1950 and WVU must have gotten pretty sick of that because, 8 years, 8 UVA wins. Then from 1972 to 1981, six games, and WVU got their revenge in the fairly dismal just-before-Welsh years. Other than the 2002 C********l Tire Bowl* we haven't played them since 1985. And since the bowl game saw WVU get embarrassed both during the game and at halftime, their fans are not happy campers with UVA, which should make things interesting.

Of interest is the possibility that a neutral site, likely the Redskins' FedEx Field, may be chosen for the game:

Anyway, WVU and Virginia are talking a four-game series that could start as soon as 2010 or as late at 2012. If the teams can't make the home-and-home breakdown work out, they could start and end the four-game set with neutral site games at 91,700-seat FedEx Field in Landover, Md.

That plan would put the FedEx games in 2010 and 2016, with games in Charlottesville and Morgantown, respectively, in 2014 and 2015.

That would shape up 2010 as a difficult season. Road games against USC and Tech and a neutral-site game against WVU would make for some tough games away from friendly Scott Stadium.

And anyway, I don't want to see a neutral-site game. Notwithstanding the notion that WVU fans are basically Maryland fans in blue and yellow (no, turtle boy, that's not a compliment) and trips to Morgantown should generally be avoided by the faint of heart or sensitive of ear, neutral-site games are kind of against the spirit of college football. Bowl games and championship games are different because something bigger's at stake, but the students shouldn't have to travel to see their team play on a fine September Saturday. May I remind Mr. Littlepage that first-year students aren't allowed cars during football season and thus would have to scramble to go see the game?

But that's a nitpick. It's a large nit, but it's a nitpick still, and it's not even guaranteed to be a neutral-site series. A few games against West Virginia are the kind of thing that's good to have so we can still lambaste the SEC for whoring themselves out to the Chattanooga Mocs for half a million and an easy win. (Pretend we're not playing Richmond this year for the purposes of this paragraph. That's a, uh, traditional rivalry.)

*Nobody pays me to mention sponsorship names.

following sun tzu: where have all the receivers gone?

Confucius say, Know thine enemy. Or maybe it was Sun Tzu. Or Lao Tzu. Or Shih Tzu. Whoever said it*, it was wise advice and it caused head coaches the world over to do their part to bring down unemployment by hiring fresh-outta-the-mortarboard kids with dreams of rising to head coach possibly as soon as next year to edit long hours of videotapes. It also brings us this blog post.

But first, a nice little bit of fluffy fluff from the CDP on freshman baller Assane Sene.

Now for the enemy-camp thing. Brandon Dillard, a walk-on wide receiver at Tech who the Hokies were counting on considerably to fill their void at WR, blew out his Achilles tendon and will miss the '08 season. Why is this important?

Tech was already staring down the loss of their 5 leading receivers from last year. Harper, Morgan, Royal, and Hyman made a dependable foursome and Brandon Ore, the fifth-leading receiver, stuck his tongue out at the coach one too many times and was sent packing. Ore's departure doesn't hurt so much at his actual position, where Tech has straight-blingin' Ryan Williams coming in. The shine coming off of Williams' star-rankings is rivaled only by the glare from the massive gemstones on his ears and heavy metal on his neck.

So they're set at RB. The problem is, just who does Sean Glennon throw the ball to? Hopefully Ras-I Dowling, early and often, but what about when they're not playing us? The aforementioned players caught 166 of Tech's 219 completed passes last year, which leaves not a lot for the rest. #'s 6 and 7 on the receptions list are Sam Wheeler and Greg Boone, and they're also tight ends. And they're also practically 300 pounds, so they're not going to run the fly pattern real soon.

The article above is from the Virginian-Pilot and has this to say:

So when camp starts in August, the Hokies will be looking at a new crew of talented freshmen. Smithfield's Dyrell Roberts and Ocean Lakes' Randall Dunn, along with Jarrett Boykin from North Carolina, seem to be the top candidates for
immediate playing time. All were top recruits.

Well, they're decent recruits, but Jarrett Boykin was the top recruit in the state of North Carolina if you ignore the 25 guys in front of him. Decent, yes. Future contributors, probably. Top recruits, no - they're run-of-the-mill class depth, not Lemming bait for recruiting rankers to slobber over.

What this adds up to is that Tech is going to be severely receiver-less next year. Now does that look familiar? Yes, and therein lies the problem: we saw our boys go 9-4 last year with a cadre of receivers that thought defensive backs were their buddies. Sam Wheeler is no Heath Miller (hell, he's no Jon Stupar either) so their TE's aren't really there to pick up the load. But Tech has this annoying habit of beating us year after year, and winning a lot of other games besides, which tends to happen with handy contributions from a great number of non-wide receivers. In short they are well-equipped to win quite a few games even assuming they won't have a particularly dependable WR corps.

*Sun Tzu, sort of.

don't fear the future

And why not? Because I'm going to tell you what will happen in it, that's why. Within the confines of these pages, anyway. Beyond that it's all Reply Hazy Try Again and all that.

Anyway, I owe you, the very intrepid reader who stuck with his or her Google search for probably about 25 pages, a little bit of What To Expect. It's now July, which means, technically, football season begins next month. Kinda scary, as it's not even the All-Star Break yet.

So on this page, I'll be working on a few things to bring to you. Before the season starts, I expect to have a little capsule something on each of the teams in the ACC and a reasonably in-depth look at our own, too. More than capsule-sized.....more like horse-pill sized. There will also be similar capsules on the non-conference teams on our schedule. The usual jazz of predictions and other sportswritery stuff will accompany. The recruit series will continue til every single one of them gets their own spot. There will be basketball coverage too, but it's likely to be sad and glum stuff because it's kind of a sad and glum season coming up with no #44 to save the day one-handed while falling over on his butt. So do stick around. It's a magical world, and we're going exploring.

the recruit: quintin hunter

Third in a series aiming to break down the future new guys into tiny little very readable capsules. I expect to do one of these for each of our verbals, and then February of course will bring Signing Day, and Signing Day will bring a larger uber-analysis, and the larger uber-analysis will bring you joy. So straight to it.

Quintin Hunter is one of those guys they call "athlete", even though no coach is going to turn to the bench and say, "Hunter! Get in there and play athlete for Pugelschmidt!" Hunter plays quarterback, wide receiver (no, silly Hokie, not on the same play), safety, and moonlights as a basketball player when there's no footballin' to be done. He committed in March about a month after Dominique Wallace.

Name: Quintin Hunter
Position: Athlete, but that's not a position. He appears destined for WR.
Hometown: Orange
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 180*
40: 4.5

ESPN: 150 Watch List; no number grade yet.
Rivals: 5.8, four stars, #25 athlete
Scout: three stars, #87 wide receiver

*Scout lists 195, but most other outlets say 180.

Hunter appears to be a well-thought of player who, more so than Wallace, recruiting sites can't agree about his position and therefore can't agree about his evaluation. Scout's three stars are almost assuredly based on his prowess as a wide receiver only; ESPN and Rivals are taking into account all his positions. Regardless, we're getting a good player. Hunter was also offered by Tech, WVU, Md., and Stanford, and Georgia was showing interest as well.

The highlight videos that Rivals offers up show exclusively quarterback footage. This is because Orange County, like 4 billion other high schools in the country, has a player that's 10 times the athlete of anyone else on the team and will therefore have the ball in his hands every play. That's Quintin. Wide receiver was more of a thing to get said athlete on the field as a sophomore with a senior quarterback already entrenched. Hunter throws a very nice spiral, but he has a major drawback in that he throws behind his receivers all the time. Scarcely a passing highlight went by without his target having to break stride to catch the ball, and these are the highlights, intended to show us the best. This may have a lot to do with why we want him as a receiver. (Rivals $)

Now, the above article was useful for telling us about Hunter's future position. It also has another useful nugget of info, backing up this earlier article: Rivals $. That one is entitled "Hunter lists Hokies as his favorite." Fear not, friends, those articles are from November and September of last year. Yes, Quintin Hunter grew up a Hokies fan. I don't even hold that against him; on the contrary, it's awesome. Another reason to say TTTTHHHBBBPPPPTTTT to Blacksburg. Come on, it's fun: TTTTTHHHHBBBPPPPTTTTTT. So what changed? For one thing, Hunter called it a "long trip" to Blacksburg when he visited. It's only 3 hours or so to Tech, but Orange is a mere 45 minutes from Scott Stadium where Hunter will be spending autumn Saturdays. Hunter wants to play QB, but like all recruits he wants to play, and with Tyrod Taylor behind center in Blacksburg for the foreseeable future and with our complete lack of a wide receiver who doesn't have cornerback glue on him, Hunter's chances of playing time are a lot better here than there. Plus, you know, he likes the place. Who wouldn't?

guess what?

New commit, that's what. Cody Wallace, that's who. (Rivals $) The sneaky devil actually committed last week. And here we all were, blogging and talking away and not having the slightest notion.

Wallace is the 18th commit and the 2nd Wallace to commit to Groh & Co. before July 1 this year. We are cornering the market on Wallaces. There are six of them in the Rivals database and the only ones with a commit are coming to Charlottesville. When the Wallace Rankings come out, guess who's gonna be on top? Oh yeah.

Anyway, Wallace C. is a slightly undersized offensive lineman, but he is a tackle where that's OK. He is not interesting to stargazers, because he has none - yet. This is where we remember what Groh says about walk-ons (under-evaluated, not under-talented) and remind ourselves that it often applies to actual schollie guys too. Wallace's only offer as yet besides UVA was UCF, but there were some larger names - Da U among them - that had been showing interest.

the recruit: dominique wallace

Second in a series. So right to it. Dominique Wallace committed in February (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star) just a couple short weeks after the class of '08 was official. Since then he's taken this whole recruiting thing very seriously (Rivals $):

Reports from other recruits of Wallace's recruiting prowess have been rampant, including those from eventual commitments Quintin Hunter and Corey Lillard.

"I love talking to people about Virginia and why I made my decision to go there. I want this class and the entire program to be strong. If I can help out, I will gladly do so."

Needless to say we are talking about a solid commitment. Here are the vitals:

Name: Dominique Wallace
Position: RB/FB
Hometown: Fredericksburg
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 231
40: 4.48 - 4.55

ESPN grade: 76
Rivals grade: 5.9, four stars, #1 fullback
Scout grade: three stars, #83 RB

Wallace can also be seen on YouTube here. He is the player wearing #48 and not being tackled. His highlight videos show a player who has decent but not great speed; however, the fact that defensive backs sometimes catch up to him does not necessarily mean they can tackle him.

The obvious comparison is to Keith Payne; Wallace already weighs roughly the same. The above Rivals article compares him to Cedric Peerman, but Peerman already gives up nearly 15 pounds and Wallace hasn't even begun his senior year.

What to make of the mixed rankings handed out to Wallace? I'm not sure. Scout and ESPN are consistent in ranking him a mid-grade running back; Rivals gives him a 5.9, which is one decimal point shy of drooling, places him on the Rivals 250 at #137 (our only commit on said list) and calls him the #1 fullback in the country, ahead of hyped-up OSU pledge Carlos Hyde. You could chalk up Rivals' high ranking to calling him a fullback and not rating him up against most other running backs; Wallace's offer list says otherwise. Wallace had offers in hand from NC State, Penn State, Fattypants the Turtle, and impressively, LSU. Tech, naturally, was also interested, as was Notre Dame.

Offer list being, to me, the most reliable measure of a recruit's worth, I think we should expect Wallace at the very least to challenge for a starting role, and sooner rather than later.

playing catch-up

Spent a couple of days away, so right to it - the news you already know and the opinions you didn't know you needed.

First, the recruiting trail, which Groh & Co. are blazing at a furious pace. The latest commit is Justin Renfrow, and the CDP has the story here. The salient points are thus: Renfrow is out of William Penn Charter in Philly, which you know as the school that sent us Sean Singletary. So I love me some William Penn Charter. And Justin Renfrow loves him some UVA in return:

“Virginia had been my No. 1 school since my freshman year,” Renfrow said.

Besides the above quote, the CDP apparently can also be counted on for Baghdad Bob-ian exaggerations:

With numerous eye-popping offers coming almost daily, Justin Renfrow elected to follow in the footsteps of Sean Singletary.

And where are these "eye-popping" offers coming from?

Renfrow, a three-star recruit, boasted offers from Stanford, West Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut, Duke and Temple, and discussed playing tight end with coaches from Miami and Louisville.

Huh. Well, since we're talking about football, and not, say, law degrees (or even basketball), Duke and Temple are the kind of offers that pretty much don't even cause your eye to lift from the newspaper it's reading let alone go BOING out of the skull. But that's neither here nor there. Renfrow is commit #17, and that number ties us for 5th with Auburn and Texas A&M in the country at the moment for number of recruits. Right now nobody can touch Ohio State, which is taking all the drama out of January for their fans by rolling in 24 commits before July. But damn - stack up the class of '09 against the class of '08 and you'll start to wonder what magical Recruitin' Elixir did Al Groh snarf up sometime in March?

And speaking of eye-popping offers, it's also nice to snag yet another one away from West Virginia. Having run out of eggs to throw at Rich Rodriguez's house, they've broken out a fresh batch of moonshine. MGoBlog used to tag posts "West Virginia is a post-apocalyptic den of insanity", and Brian didn't stop doing that because he ran out of material, he stopped because there's only so much gold you can carry back from the mine. I'm picking up for a little bit where he left off with this thread from their Scout board: Morgan Moses.

Moses is an offensive lineman that we're right in the hunt for; some WVU fans think there is no hunt because he's already silent-verbaled to Groh. This is of course the Scout board, where the polite way to describe most members is "hope springs eternal" and the truth is closer to "blindfolded psychos playing in traffic." Some gems:

he will be surrounded by inferrior talent at UVa, in the WVU spread he will be blocking for the best run game in college football, he will be on TV every january and on featured ESPN games multiple times a year, UVA he might get one national game a year, two IF they would make a bowl, BIG IF though!

Taking a quick look at our TV schedule so far - yup, "ESPN" is still attached to the first set of games - apparently 1 = 3 in WVU Math. Which bodes ill for this next statement:

Once you get 500 miles outside either school everyone thinks WVU education is just as good.

Uh, yeah.

Moving on.

The NBA draft was yesterday night. Sean Singletary, who would not let his 6'0"-on-stilts body stop him from knocking over a rhinoceros if it was between him and an offensive rebound, and who needs something named after him at UVA the sooner the better, became the first Hoo drafted to the League since Roger Mason. Mason, you may remember, was drafted by the Bulls, didn't stick, bounced around Europe for a little while, and is now a respectable if not well-known bench contributor for the Wizards. Singletary is in a decent spot - about as decent as a second-round pick can be in, anyway. The Kings (for that is his new team) have Beno Udrih as their starting point guard, which is in large part why they suck; Udrih was 44th in APG this year. The Kings also have Anthony Johnson and Quincy Douby - both are, technically, schmos. It may be a bit much to expect Singletary to be the Kings' starting point guard coming out of camp next October, but there is a real opportunity for him to make himself part of the rotation.

tate forcier and his top ten

Scout has a premium article, but why bother with that? The man himself has a website and (pretty generously) lists his top ten in screaming bold letters for all to see. Virginia fans beware - it is bad news. Virginia fans, rejoice! It is also good.

Tate Forcier's top ten schools

As you can see, UVA is not in the top ten....but all is not totally lost. "Schools of interest?" Mr. Forcier must be trying to set world records for speculation created. Good....bad....who knows? I suspect that UVA would replace somebody in the top ten if Groh sent a written offer, given that he's created space for us and seems to want that offer in hand. So I think this should be considered slightly good. Better than bad, certainly - we could be Iowa and out of the picture entirely.

So what's the bottom line? Send a letter, Coach!

speaking of speaking

I'm a blogger, so according to the MSM I can do this. So, lucky me, and lucky you: A poster at TheSabre reports that the new voice of Virginia has been chosen and it is Dave Koehn, who comes to us from Vermont.

You are denied my opinion on this, as I have none, having never heard of the guy let alone heard the guy. Some are already disappointed, having also never heard of the guy. It might come as a surprise to those people that Brent Musberger didn't fall all over himself trying to get to Charlottesville, but this was not going to be a big-name hire despite the insistences of the athletic department.

Edit: To make it MSM-acceptable, here is the CDP on the hire.