season preview: Georgia Tech

So this makes two days in a row with non-UVA content. Actually, technically it's one day with no content at all and then one day bookended by season preview. Sorry about that, but you see it was trivia night at O'Brien's last night, and I dominate at trivia. I would bet most good college football bloggers would be formidable bar trivia opponents.

Anyway, I do have a couple things for you. Last week I promised you a second Q&A session as hosted by another blogger - this one is at The ACC & SEC Blog, and rather more extensive as well than last week's. As with before, think of this as some sneak peeks into my head while you wait ever so patiently for the UVA blog to actually season preview UVA. In this we touch on many of the standard topics: who's going to step up at various important offensive positions, how's Al Groh's seat these days, and sundry other items.

The second item is this: Sometimes I find out about Things On The Web because they link to me and then people click the link. Such is the case here. I don't know how long this site has been around, but whether it's two years or two months or it just showed up this morning (it didn't) I am thoroughly shamed for not having found it earlier. It is frapping fantastic, and it is called hoosfootball.com. You want media guides? They got 'em. You want the stats and the history? There they are. Picayune details about all the uniforms we've worn since 1990? Check. Pictures? For the love of all that is good, holy, and beautiful, there are pictures, pictures, pictures in sweet, full-color glory. Sometime this month I plan on refreshing the links on the side of the page - there are new blogs, blogs that have gone out of business, what have you. This will obviously be on the list, quite possibly eight different times.

OK, done gushing, and I've got a change of pants all lined up, so sit back and read up on Georgia Tech. You'll want to know all about them.

Schedule:

9/5: Jacksonville State
9/10: Clemson (Thu.)
9/17: @ Miami (Thu.)
9/26: North Carolina
10/3: @ Mississippi State
10/10: @ Florida State
10/17: Virginia Tech
10/24: @ Virginia
10/31: @ Vanderbilt
11/7: Wake Forest
11/14: @ Duke
11/21: BYE
11/28: Georgia

Skip: Maryland, NC State, Boston College

Projected starters:

QB: Josh Nesbitt (Jr.)
BB: Jonathan Dwyer (Jr.)
AB: Roddy Jones (rSo.)
AB: Anthony Allen (rJr.)
WR: Demaryius Thomas (rJr.)
WR: Tyler Melton (So.)
LT: Nick Claytor (rSo.)
LG: Joseph Gilbert (rSo.)
C: Dan Voss (5Sr.)
RG: Cord Howard (5Sr.)
RT: Austin Barrick (rJr.)

DE: Derrick Morgan (Jr.)
DT: Jason Peters (rSo.)
DT: Ben Anderson (rJr.)
DE: Robert Hall (rJr.)
ILB: Brad Jefferson (Jr.)
OLB: Sedric Griffin (Sr.)
R: Cooper Taylor (So.)
CB: Mario Butler (Jr.)
CB: Rashaad Reid (So.)
S: Morgan Burnett (Jr.)
S: Dominique Reese (rJr.)

K: Scott Blair (Jr.)
P: Scott Blair (Jr.)

(Italics indicate new starter.)

Coach: Paul Johnson (2nd season)

All-ACC:

2008 1st team: RB Jonathan Dwyer, OT Andrew Gardner, DE Michael Johnson, DT Vance Walker
2008 2nd team: OG Cord Howard, DT Darryl Richard, S Morgan Burnett
2008 HM: DE Derrick Morgan
2009 preseason: RB Jonathan Dwyer, WR Demaryius Thomas, S Morgan Burnett

Media prediction: 2nd, Coastal Division

Georgia Tech had about forty zillion questions coming out of the 2007 offseason, but they all boiled down to the same thing: Is this shizwack offense really a good idea? The answer was a resounding hell yes, and the reward was a win for the Jackets over hated rival Georgia in Athens and a bowl game in their own backyard. This year, the novelty is off and ACC defensive coordinators have all the tapes.

OFFENSE

Plenty of talent here, and if the ACC isn’t going to be caught off-guard by Paul Johnson’s offense, it’s offset by the return of most key players, who now have a year’s experience in the system. That’s especially important at quarterback, because this may be the one offense in the league where quarterback comfort and experience in the system is more important than any other. And GT’s got a good one in Josh Nesbitt. He’s a big guy at 220 pounds and he knows what he’s doing. But the real story is at B-back (despite the labels A and B used for the backs in this offense, B-back is actually the feature back) and at wide receiver. Jonathan Dwyer will carry the ball more times than he can stand, and it’s not too nutty to think a 1,500 yard season is in the works. Seven yards per carry and 200 carries in 2008 is astounding, and it’s why he’s the favorite for ACC POY, especially if he’s able to at the same time increase his receiving presence. When you have Demaryius Thomas, though, it’s hard to imagine throwing anywhere else. Thomas has 1,000 yard potential on any other team, and people wondered if he’d appreciate playing in an offense that throws the ball once every other ice age or so. Thomas took to it like Charlie Weis to the donut buffet** and ended up with a very respectable 627 receiving yards. Even more importantly, his blocking is absolutely essential to the success of this offense and he does it very well. Standing 6’3” is great for catching footballs and even better for ensuring the 5’10” cornerback goes nowhere near the ballcarrier.

We also shouldn’t forget Roddy Jones. The A-back is sort of a combination fullback/tight end/slot receiver/tailback and Jones is very good at it. By design, Tech has extraordinary depth at this position – Lucas Cox and Anthony Allen are going to be dangerous – but Jones is the trickiest of all. His eight point five yards per carry last season made life that much more miserable for defensive coordinators trying to figure out where to focus their efforts.

Rounding it off, there’s plenty of experience at O-line. The best, and sometimes only, way to stop this offense is to blow it up at the line, but guard Cord Howard was second-team all-conference last year, and most of these guys have starting experience either thanks to injury or because it was their job to begin with. Add all this up and it’s my opinion Georgia Tech has the scariest offense in the league this year.

DEFENSE

Every single one of Tech’s defensive linemen last year received all-conference votes, but only one returns. That in a nutshell is Tech’s biggest issue going into 2009. Derrick Morgan is going to draw double-teams all day until his new linemates prove they can make their own plays. This is a lot like our own linebacker situation: Tech’s linemen were so good last year that their backups rarely got in the game. Their “season highlights” in their official roster profiles have lines like “made a tackle for no gain against Boston College.” Yippee. Georgia Tech runs a 4-2-5 defense most of the time, so these guys really will have to step up to the plate if they don’t want teams to stuff the ball down their throat 40 times a game.

In that respect they’ll have help from the linebackers, both of whom were regulars on the field last year. The quasi-nickel look all the time means the linebackers are a little freer to help in run support, and Sedric Griffin was fourth on the team in tackles and added eight TFL last season. Brad Jefferson was hurt quite a bit last season, but enters this year healthy.

The secondary is the undisputed strength of the defense. S Morgan Burnett is another of the “big four” defensive players in the ACC, and the defense will get a big boost with him shouting orders. Burnett picked off seven passes last year, and fellow safety Dominique Reese added three more, as did cornerback Rashaad Reid. And then there’s Cooper Taylor. Taylor plays the position that turns a standard 4-3 into a 4-2-5: GT calls it the “wolf”, the standard word is “rover”, it’s basically a linebacker/safety hybrid, and from that position Taylor stopped 69 ballcarriers last season, second only to Burnett. The sum and gist here is that Tech will be miserable to try and pass the ball against, especially if the defensive line gets heat on the quarterback.

SPECIAL TEAMS

This is a little bit of a trouble spot. Scott Blair handles both the kicking and the punting, and neither especially well. Punting average last year was below 39 yards. Placekicking was uglier – Blair missed two extra points and was 0-for-6 from 40 yards or beyond. It’s a real handicap if your scoring from outside the 23-yard line is big play or bust.

OUTLOOK

I voted Georgia Tech for ACC champs in Gobbler Country’s poll. Unless I’m absolutely blown away by the talent when I embark on the season previews for UNC or VT, I’m sticking with it. GT looks scary on offense. Really scary. Even scarier for 2010 when you realize how few of these players are seniors. The only sticking point is that they play all the good teams and none of the sucky teams in the cross-divisional games. They got a really awful draw in that department. But if they’re the best team in the ACC like I think they are, it shouldn’t matter. Paul Johnson’s offense was crazy fun to watch when he was coaching Navy, and now that he’s got BCS talent in charge of it, it’ll be even more fun, except on October 24. Even if the defensive line is merely mediocre, the Yellow Jackets should represent the ACC in the Orange Bowl. If they’re actually good? Look out.



**Normally I like to keep my jokes ACC-centric, but Ralph Friedgen is no longer a valid target for fat jokes. On the plus side, Maryland fans will no longer brag about whose coach can eat whose, which was always sort of an inexplicable thing to boast about.

season preview: Florida State

Schedule:

9/7: Miami (Mon.)
9/12: Jacksonville State
9/19: @ Brigham Young
9/26: South Florida
10/3: @ Boston College
10/10: Georgia Tech
10/17: BYE
10/22: @ North Carolina (Thu.)
10/31: NC State
11/7: @ Clemson
11/14: @ Wake Forest
11/21: Maryland
11/28: @ Florida

Skip: Virginia, Duke, Virginia Tech

Projected starters:

QB: Christian Ponder (rJr.)
RB: Jermaine Thomas (So.)
FB: Seddrick Holloway (Sr.)
WR: Taiwan Easterling (rSo.)
WR: Bert Reed (rSo.)
TE: Caz Piurowski (Sr.)
LT: Andrew Datko (So.)
LG: Rodney Hudson (Jr.)
C: Ryan McMahon (rJr.)
RG: David Spurlock (So.)
RT: Zebrie Sanders (So.)

LDE: Kevin McNeil (Sr.)
DT: Justin Mincey (Sr.)
NT: Budd Thacker (Sr.)
RDE: Markus White (Sr.)
SLB: Dekoda Watson (Sr.)
MLB: Kendall Smith (Jr.)
WLB: Nigel Bradham (So.)
CB: Ochucko Jenije (rJr.)
CB: Patrick Robinson (Sr.)
FS: Jamie Robinson (5Sr.)
SS: Korey Mangum (5Sr.)

K: James Esco (So.)

P: Shawn Powell (So.)

(Italics indicate new starter.)

Coach: Bobby Bowden (289th season)

All-ACC:

2008 1st team: G Rodney Hudson, DE Everette Brown, K Graham Gano
2008 2nd team: CB Tony Carter, KR Michael Ray Garvin
2008 HM: RB Antone Smith, C Ryan McMahon
2009 preseason: G Rodney Hudson, LB Dekoda Watson

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Media prediction: 1st, Atlantic Division

Not many people who have any kind of strong feelings for Florida State are happy with the way the program is going right now. If you hate the Seminoles, you’re probably not pleased to see they’re the media lovelies once again for the division title. And their fans note they haven’t been to an ACC championship game for the last three seasons and would like to see a return to the glory days of the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Such is Florida State in the new expanded ACC under the helm of a famous coach who’s past his prime but still wily as ever.

OFFENSE

Forget the skill positions for a moment. Probably the biggest reason for FSU’s position atop the media rankings isn’t the flashy talent that was once their calling card, but the rock-solid offensive line. The whole left side of the line in tackle Andrew Datko and guard Rodney Hudson earned various freshman all-American honors – Datko last year, Hudson two years ago. Hudson is a returning all-ACC player and center Ryan McMahon picked up some votes in that respect as well. They will have the quarterback’s blind side extremely well protected and be a terror in the running game. Along with the right side of the line – tackle Zebrie Sanders and guard David Spurlock – the entire offensive line has copious starting experience, and to make matters worse for ACC defensive linemen, not one of them is a senior. They’ll be very, very good this year – they could be stellar next year.

The question mark is the passing game. The running game will be fine: Jermaine Thomas ran for seven yards a carry in an extensive backup role last year. He probably won’t repeat that this year as a starter, but it doesn’t matter: a turtle in peanut butter could manage 4.5 YPC behind that line. What remains to be seen is how well Christian Ponder will develop from year to year, and whether the Noles can replace their top two receivers from 2008. It’s not the kind of question mark label you slap bad teams with, as in: “oh god I wonder if we can get through the whole year without the freshman quarterback pissing himself at midfield?” Still, Ponder needs to develop some consistency and improve on his 55.7% completion rate from last year. Last year in the second-to-last game, he was 19-of-24 in a brutally efficient dismantling of Maryland, then was benched for reasons of playing like complete and total ass against Florida the following week. Ponder will have all the tools a successful quarterback needs: top-quality protection, a dependable running game, talented wide receivers and an experienced senior tight end to throw to. It says here FSU will have a grinding machine for an offense that defenses will find extraordinarily hard to stop, but if they don’t, the whole world will look under center to find out why.

DEFENSE

This could be a bit dicey. On the one hand, you might notice there’s just one player out of eleven among the projected starters that’s not an upperclassman. All the starting linemen are seniors, as well as both safeties. However, the story here is that while all these guys have plenty of experience in the rotation, many of them will be full-time starters for the first time. Florida State lost a lot of talent to graduation and there’s a lot more turnover than you’d expect with a depth chart so chock full of seniors.

The stars and leaders are supposed to be LB Dekoda Watson and CB Patrick Robinson. Robinson had a big sophomore season in 2007 but struggled with injuries last year and only intercepted one pass, leading to his being overlooked for preseason all-ACC honors in a conference with a lot of tough competition for those where the secondary is concerned. He’ll need to be excellent because fellow starting cornerback Ochucko Jenije is moving to the defense full-time after being primarily a special-teams player in his first two seasons. Either one could be in jeopardy of losing playing time if true freshman Greg Reid looks ready to live up to the hype he generated as a class of ’09 recruit.

The linebackers should be solid or better. Watson was one of the “big four” ACC defensive players being mentioned for DPOY. Kendall Smith and Nigel Bradham look like the most inexperienced members of the starting defense if you only consider their class, but both got extensive playing time in the two-deep last year. Much of the attention will be on defensive ends Kevin McNeil and Markus White, finally getting their turn in the spotlight after backing up two extremely productive bookends last year, one of whom (Everette Brown) was a second-round pick in the draft last year. Big things are generally expected of White, who’s been productive in his own right despite playing second fiddle to Brown for a few years.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Graham Gano was both kicker and punter for the Seminoles, but he’s in the pros now, and while Shawn Powell has enough punting experience to make a more or less seamless transition, FSU has to jump back into the kicking pool with their eyes closed. James Esco or possibly Nathan O’Jibway (who I really just wanted to mention so I could type his name because it sounds like the punch line to a joke about crossing an Irishman and an Iroquois) will handle the kicking duties, and Noles fans will hold their breath as is always the case with a new kicker.

Edit: Mistake-point-out time - see comment #1, where NoleCC of Seminole blog Scalp 'Em has recalibrated me as to the kickers. Dustin Hopkins is your man. Hopkins was the more or less consensus #1 kicker in the '09 recruiting class, but the point stands about breath-holding. New kickers always give fans the jibblies. Muchas gracias for the fix.

OUTLOOK

Florida State will be in contention and be the likely favorite for the division title from start to finish, but there are still a fewhurdles to overcome to win it. Most of them have something to do with Christian Ponder. The end result last year was not bad overall, Ponder had his games, but he also had his debacles, and it helped sink Florida State’s ACC CG hopes. Worse, there’s no experienced backup – second-stringer E.J. Manuel is a redshirt freshman and had all the star ratings coming out of high school but has never taken a college snap. The defense will likely be fine, but even if it’s not, the onus will be on Ponder to take the next step. If he doesn’t, and FSU misses the ACC CG again, or if they lay another egg against Florida, fair or not Ponder will take the heat for it. FSU is going bowling, that much is a given, but a second-tier bowl won’t be good enough this time around.

baseball update in football season

Since it's almost football season, let's bring you up to speed on our baseball players in summer leagues, that makes sense. The summer leagues wrap up the season this week. We have players scattered around the country getting that crucial wood-bat experience, and here's what they've been up to this summer, roughly in order of lowest to highest quality of league:

In the New York Collegiate Baseball League, Justin Thompson pitched in a couple games for the Saratoga Phillies and did well - one of those games being a complete-game shutout. Only three appearances in 39 games, but two wins. Thompson's not as familiar a name because he only got in seven games this season for UVA, mostly in the midweek games like Stony Brook and Norfolk State, but he never gave up a run in any of them. Should definitely be one to watch out of the bullpen next season.

Tyler Biddix didn't go far - he played for the Waynesboro Generals of the Valley Baseball League which is entirely within the state of Virginia. Unfortunately, his hitting was brutal. In 56 at-bats over 28 games and 14 starts, he hit .143 and slugged .179.

Jared King fared about the same for Keene of the NECBL - he batted .156 in 25 games, 22 of them starts. Will Roberts was sparingly used by the Newport Gulls (who hopefully in another hour or so will be NECBL champs - see my hometown) but pitched brilliantly in his five regular season appearances (three earned runs in 27 innings, including two complete games - and the NECBL goes nine innings) and even better in his two playoff appearances: 1 complete game shutout and no runs in 16 innings. Chad O'Connor pitched fairly well for the Sanford Mainers, with a 2.73 ERA over 33 innings. (Low ERAs are to be expected: for a lot of these guys, it's their first real games with wooden bats. O'Connor is just slightly below his team's average of 2.89.)

And then there's the Cape Cod League, the big kahuna of summer leagues, where seven of our players represented - including, as you may recall, two on all-star teams:

- All-Star John Barr (nice ring to that) was a top hitter for a lousy-hitting Brewster team - his .288 batting average was second on the team. Teammate Jarrett Parker was Rob Deer: he struck out twice as often as he got a hit, and nearly had more extra-base hits than singles. His average was only .188 (ugh) but thanks to all those extra-base hits, tied for third on the team in RBI.

- Our other all-star, Dan Grovatt, also hit .288 and led the Harwich Mariners in OBP at .399. Phil Gosselin was another Harwich regular, hitting .262.

- Robert Morey pitched for the Bourne Braves and ended up with a 3-1 record, though batters hit .284 against him and his ERA was somewhere north of four, which is not good. Bourne, by the way, will play this week for the Cape Cod championship. Root for them - their opponent has no Cavaliers and one Hokie.

(Again, keep in mind with the stats, this is New England with wooden bats: .280 is wicked pissah. The best-hitting team in the league batted .261 and that's like twenty points above everyone else. The league average is like .234. Still doesn't excuse Brewster's team average of .217, though. But it means Barr and Grovatt hit really, really well, despite the near-.400 numbers you're used to.)

- Tyler Wilson, however, was dancin' in the streets of Hyannis with a 1.60 ERA and a .193 opponent's average. People stood in line and didn't seem to mind for his five starts and 3-1 record - he was getting pretty good at the game. OK, I'll stop that now.

- Matt Packer did pretty well, too, with an ERA of 1.90 for Orleans. Nice to see him working on dispelling the ghosts of the really awful ACC regular season he had.

Some other wrap-up items:

- Freshman OL Cody Wallace has left the team. That's about the most detail anyone ever went into in reporting that, which is fine: we probably don't want to know, and it's better than the way offensive linemen leave Michigan, which is mostly done while spewing idiocy on the way out the door. By my count we are now down to 86 scholarships. This summer we've lost the following players: Wallace, DE Kevin Crawford, TE/DE Andrew Devlin, OL Morgan Moses (yes, he counts, he was going to use a scholarship), and TE Rod Wheeler, as well as S Rico Bell, who transferred in late winter sometime. Patrick Slebonick remains on the roster, and my guess is that's with the understanding that his spot is dependent on nobody being ineligible coming out of summer school. If there are no academic casualties, he's probably going to have to leave.

Depth chart, therefore, will be updated. When I get around to it. Actually, I'm really just waiting for the last shoe to drop. I'll have it fixed up when we learn who the last attrite is. It's a little bit of a pain to do.

- The Richmond Times-Dispatch has been losing sports personnel left and right. You know about Jeff White, whose new space at the official website is pretty much must-read stuff. Former sports editor Mike Harris is trying his hand at the quasi-blogging world, and has launched a new website called Virginia Sports Now. Should be worth watching. The only problem is that their tag cluster seems to have Tech in huge letters and UVA in leeetle tiny ones. It's only a week old, though, give it time.

- Heather, I'm afraid, seems woefully out of touch with the fanbase and the way admin has handled things. She's still convinced Al Groh is not on the hot seat and would be safe even with a bad, non-bowl season. I beg to differ from her begging to differ. Groh's contract could have been extended this year, but wasn't. I've already gone over what I think about how the Peter Lalich and Mike Groh situations were handled, which was clearly not Groh making the calls. That's not a good sign for the stability of the head coach. Her point is that we are expected to be in a transition year having lost so many players (she has been harping on our lack of experience at linebacker and receiver all season) and Groh shouldn't be expected to produce. Most teams in a transition year did well the previous season. We, uh, obviously did not. Transitioning from bad to worse doesn't keep a coach's job.

Besides, she seems to think the wide receivers will be a sore spot. I'm here to say they won't. There is freaky depth there. I mean just insane depth, and plenty of speed and talent. I'm not worried about receiver. In fact it's too bad we can't move some of that depth at receiver to defensive end. I'll grant her the linebackers. But "the offensive coordinator is gone" is most emphatically NOT a weakness, Heather! The guy never took us to the top 100! That's like saying "oh crap, the Detroit Lions are screwed, they just lost their general manager and now he's doing television work."

new video and a mea culpa

New video time. The videos page on the right now includes the clinching win over Ole Miss that sent the baseball team to Omaha. That's the exciting part. The mea culpa is that I thought I also had Game 2 of that series - you know, the exciting one, in which we staged a brilliant late-inning comeback. They switched channels on me. I set it to record, flew out to my class reunion, and thus wasn't there to unfuck the system when ESPN decided to put that game on a different channel. So I got, like, TFSU-Arkansas instead, or something. I found that out when I went to go chop up the highlights.

Anyway, enjoy reliving the celebration. I'm planning on finishing the last video, in which we eliminate Cal State-Fullerton, before the football season ends. Videos thereafter should be much more responsive: I plan on having highlights of football wins up the Sunday night after they happen. Let's hope I stick to that plan.

season preview: Duke

Schedule:

9/5: Richmond
9/12: @ Army
9/19: @ Kansas
9/26: NC Central
10/3: Virginia Tech
10/10: @ NC State
10/17: BYE
10/24: Maryland
10/31: @ Virginia
11/7: @ North Carolina
11/14: Georgia Tech
11/21: @ Miami
11/28: Wake Forest

Skip: Boston College, Florida State, Clemson

Projected starters:

QB: Thaddeus Lewis (Sr.)
RB: Re’Quan Boyette (5Sr.)
WR: Johnny Williams (So.)
WR: Donovan Varner (So.)
WR: Austin Kelly (Jr.)
TE: Brett Huffman (rJr.)
LT: Kyle Hill (RSo.)
LG: Jarrod Holt (Sr.)
C: Bryan Morgan (Jr.)
RG: Brian Moore (rFr.)
RT: Pontus Bondeson (rJr.)

LDE: Patrick Egboh (rJr.)
NT: Charlie Hatcher (rSo.)
DT: Vince Oghobaase (5Sr.)
RDE: Ayanga Okpokowuruk (5Sr.)
SLB: Damian Thornton (Jr.)
MLB: Vincent Rey (Sr.)
WLB: Abraham Kromah (rJr.)
CB: Leon Wright (Sr.)
CB: Lee Butler (So.)
S: Catron Gainey (Sr.)
S: Matt Daniels (So.)

K: Nick Maggio (Jr.)
P: Kevin Jones (rJr.)

(Italics indicate new starter.)

Coach: David Cutcliffe (2nd season)

All-ACC:

2008 1st team: LB Michael Tauliili
2008 2nd team: QB Thaddeus Lewis, WR Eron Riley
2008 HM: DT Vince Oghobaase
2009 preseason: DT Vince Oghobaase

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Media prediction: 6th, Coastal Division

As was rudely pointed out to us last year in Wallace Wade Stadium, Duke is no longer an automatic conference win, thanks to having a coach in David Cutcliffe who’s an actual legitimate, y’know, coach, and isn’t Ted Roof. That’s not to say they’re suddenly a contender, though. Cutcliffe has to work his way through a lot of deadweight and non-talent before he can get this team up to the point where a bowl would be an expectation and not a bonus.

OFFENSE

If anyone is predicting Duke to break a very long bowl-less streak, it’s probably because of Thaddeus Lewis. It’s hard to get a grip on his true talent level, because he’s not surrounded by players of a similar caliber, but the answer is still somewhere far north of average. Lewis lost his favorite target to the NFL, though, and it remains to be seen whether a go-to receiver will emerge from the gaggle of remaining players. Johnny Williams is the only returning player to reach 30 catches last year, but he didn’t score a single touchdown, and it remains to be seen if Duke has anyone who can stretch the field. The top spring game performer at receiver was speedy Donovan Varner, but Varner is also the shortest receiver on the team at 5’9”.

RB Re’Quan Boyette missed all of last season and the running game took a major hit because of it. Boyette’s no superstar, but he’s clearly the most talented back on the roster, and Duke managed only three yards an attempt last year – their leading back and returning reserve, Jay Hollingsworth, couldn’t even scrape 400 yards. Boyette is a major wild card for the Duke offense. If he can be effective, the offense will have some life to it. If he can’t, Duke will be forced into passing mode, likely without having an established go-to receiver.

Of course, Boyette could be Barry Sanders and it wouldn’t matter if the offensive line can’t get it together, and this is an uphill battle. No matter how fall practice shakes out, there will be three new starters on the line. Continuity will likely be a struggle early on. The good news here is that the two most critical positions are manned by returning starters: Bryan Morgan at center and Kyle Hill at left tackle. Their leadership and knowledge of Cutcliffe’s schemes are going to be crucial if the Blue Devils are going to get consistent line play, which looks like a tall order right now.

DEFENSE

Discussion of Duke’s defense always begins with DT Vince Oghobaase, widely considered the best defensive lineman in the league going into the season. Throw in Michael Rey as well, who moves to the middle linebacker slot after starting on the outside last season. Rey is the team’s returning leading tackler with 109, and he was all over the field last year making plays in both run defense and pass defense.

Unfortunately for Duke, that’s where the discussion usually ends, too. There’s a lot of linebacker talent that has to be replaced. The defensive line takes a hit too: DE Greg Akinbiyi had a way of sticking his nose into the backfield that will be difficult to replace unless Ayanga Okpokoworuk can step into his shoes. (He’s at least got the name department locked down. One thing Duke had going for it last year was better names on defense than anyone else, hands down. They lost a lot in that area, but between Okpokoworuk and Oghobaase, they have a good chance at keeping the title, especially if they’ll put Sydney Sarmiento on the field at some point.)

At least there’s experience up front, even if it’s not as a starter necessarily. Duke has one of the youngest, maybe the youngest, secondaries in the league. Only two seniors: Catron Gainey and Leon Wright, the only ones bringing much leadership and experience to the secondary. Wright missed part of last year with an injury, but he’s been a starter most of his career. Gainey is a workhorse and a familiar name for Duke fans. They’ll be the ones out there logging the most snaps, but behind them there are just a ton of true freshman, and there’s a pretty excellent chance that at least one or two of them will be thrown into action.

SPECIAL TEAMS

This is much more solid than it looked a year ago. Nick Maggio brought some stability and actual talent to the placekicking job, taking over from the inaccurate Joe Surgan mid-way through 2007 and claiming the starting job for himself. Maggio’s leg is not strong but he is accurate. Kevin Jones added more than two yards to his punting average to bump it north of 40 yards a kick.

OUTLOOK

Duke is no longer the yardstick by which really crappy BCS teams are measured. However, they’ve embarked on a long, slow slog back to respectability, and haven’t quite achieved it yet. Duke won’t be taken lightly by anyone in the ACC any more, and could start the season 3-1. And then they could easily lose all the rest of their games and finish 3-9. Thaddeus Lewis’s wheels and David Cutcliffe’s bright offensive mind are probably good enough to steal a game or two in the ACC, and it’ll no longer come as a surprise when they do beat someone in the conference. The surprise would be if they ended up bowl-eligible. In the end, Cutcliffe will have to do a lot of scheming to overcome the weakness on the offensive line, and Duke’s long road to contender status in the ACC is going to hit roadblocks this year, in large part due to all the turnover they have at so many key positions. Chances are they’re looking at another basement finish this season.

the recruit: K.T. Harrell

Name: K.T. Harrell
Position: SG
Hometown: Montgomery, AL
School: Brewbaker Tech Magnet
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 200

Rivals: four-stars, #17 SG, #67 overall
Scout: three-stars
ESPN: 91

This hasn't been an easy post to figure out. If there's a theme to K.T. Harrell's recruitment, it's "under the radar", a definition seemingly tailor-made for Harrell. He didn't play for his high school last year, having just transferred, so there's little recent stuff to go on but his AAU season this summer.

There's enough to go on to get the scouting services excited though. Don't get too comfortable with those rankings above. Scout's got a pretty generic three stars listed, but that's not going to last - he'll be in their top 100 in the end. Rivals calls him "super explosive." ESPN already gave him a nudge: the day he committed, he was rated a 90, and by the end of the day, he had that 91 instead. Something about going to an ACC school that makes you look a little better. I have a feeling they're not done upticking him.

Harrell makes the perfect complement to the talent we've brought in so far. Joe Harris is first and foremost a shooter, and Will Regan can shoot and post up some. Now we need a slasher, someone who can score off the dribble. Oh look: "[Harrell] is a deceptive athlete that gets into the paint at will." Also: "Harrell attacks the rim in transition as well as in the half court with great speed and quickness with the ball. He finishes through contact or with acrobatic athletic plays."

Harrell was getting all sorts of love from the SEC schools, being an Alabama native and all, but it was the ACC he really wanted. And he got it. By the time his senior year is over and the rankings get all finished up for 2010, the rest of the ACC is going to wish they'd been in on this one too.

So: the rest of the class. Harrell's commitment ends the Mychal Parker pursuit. Next up is the Trae Golden watch. If I had a basketball recruiting board, Golden would be at the top of the blue list with half a foot in the orange. The Scout article linked above says he's not going to commit anywhere any time soon, but the article also says K.T. Harrell isn't going to commit soon, either.

A couple other things you should see: first, since we're on the topic of basketball recruits, the ACC Sports Journal has a feature on Will Regan. Favorite part: “'By sixth and seventh grade, people were calling me left-handed,' Will said. 'But I was actually right-handed.'"

Second, I've been doing some Q&A's for fellow blog writers; one can be found at brand-spanking-new football-in-general blog Glory Days. You'll have to wait til all the other season previews are done to see much in the way of my extensive thoughts on our own season in this space, but these Q&A sessions are like a little sneak preview. There's another coming up next week at the ACC & SEC Blog.

season preview: Clemson

Schedule:

9/5: Middle Tennessee
9/10: @ Georgia Tech (Th.)
9/19: Boston College
9/26: TCU
10/3: @ Maryland
10/10: BYE
10/17: Wake Forest
10/24: @ Miami
10/31: Coastal Carolina
11/7: Florida State
11/14: @ NC State
11/21: Virginia
11/28: @ South Carolina

Skip: Duke, Virginia Tech, North Carolina

Projected starters:

QB: Willy Korn (RSo.)
RB: C.J. Spiller (Sr.)
FB: Rendrick Taylor (5Sr.)
WR: Jacoby Ford (Sr.)
WR: Xavier Dye (Jr.)
WR: Terrence Ashe (RJr.)
LT: Chris Hairston (RJr.)
LG: Thomas Austin (5Sr.)
C: Mason Cloy (RSo.)
RG: Antoine McClain (So.)
RT: Landon Walker (RSo.)

DE: Da’Quan Bowers (So.)
NG: Jarvis Jenkins (Jr.)
DT: Brandon Thompson (So.)
DE: Ricky Sapp (Sr.)
SLB: Scotty Cooper (Jr.)
MLB: Brandon Maye (RSo.)
WLB: Kavell Conner (5Sr.)
CB: Chris Chancellor (5Sr.)
CB: Crezdon Butler (Sr.)
FS: Sadat Chambers (5Sr.)
SS: DeAndre McDaniel (Jr.)

K: Spencer Benton (RFr.)
P: Dawson Zimmerman (So.)

Coach: Dabo Swinney (2nd year)

(Italics indicate new starter.)

Media prediction: 2nd, Atlantic Division

All-ACC:

2008 1st team: S Michael Hamlin, KR C.J. Spiller
2008 2nd team: RB C.J. Spiller, WR Aaron Kelly, C Thomas Austin
2008 HM: none
2009 preseason: RB C.J. Spiller, WR Jacoby Ford

(Italics indicate departed player.)

Last year around this time, the ACC coverage was Clemson and then everyone else. Finally, the media had found someone to pick for the ACC championship other than Florida State or Virginia Tech, and jumped on the chance good and hard. Poor Clemson never had a chance after that. The season imploded spectacularly in the first half of the first game, when the Tigers failed to prevent Alabama from scoring on every single drive save one – a missed Tide field goal. Between a 34-10 drubbing at the hands of Alabama and a bowl game choke job against Nebraska, a coach was fired, a quarterback went from the Heisman short list to the NFL scrap heap, and a fanbase got thoroughly riled up. It was not a good season. There’s much to improve on, but Clemson has a good shot at it this year.

OFFENSE

The offense last year was routinely cited as the reason Clemson was a cert for the Orange Bowl. More precisely, the experience and dazzle of the skill players. Few paid any attention to the offensive line, the inexperience of which torpedoed the season. They couldn’t pass-protect – few teams’ quarterbacks ended up on their keisters more than Clemson’s.

This year, there’s a reversal of the situation, and Clemson fans have good reason to hope it’ll lead to a reversal of fortune too. The offensive line is where the experience can be found, with four returning starters. Yes, there’s the old saw about having a bunch of returning players being no good if they’re returning sucky players. Offensive line demands experience, however; Clemson’s having none last year was a huge cause of their problems. And that line is still blocking for C.J. Spiller, and frankly the run-blocking was not as bad as it appeared last year. Spiller managed 5.4 yards a carry – an excellent number – and Clemson’s lousy rushing stats were in large part the product of all the sacks they gave up. Spiller is an outside Heisman candidate and should have a very successful season.

Quarterback and the passing is where Clemson will have their question marks. Jacoby Ford returns as a target, but his fellow receivers are largely untested; Clemson graduated most of their catches last year. And Clemson’s in danger of falling victim to another old saw: If you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have any. Willy Korn appears (to my eyes, anyway) the front-runner for the job – he’s the most experienced anyway. But he wasn’t impressive in his cameos last year, averaging just 5.7 yards per attempt. He was only a freshman, but it’s another freshman, Kyle Parker, angling for the job against him. Either way, Clemson will have to overcome inexperience under center. At least this year they’ll have the foundation up front to build on.

DEFENSE

Despite not placing a single player on the preseason all-conference team, Clemson’s defense shouldn’t be taken lightly. There’s talent and experience here. Especially at cornerback, where Crezdon Butler and Chris Chancellor picked off four passes each last year; Butler in fact is the ACC’s active interceptions leader, tied with Morgan Burnett of GT. Clemson will be extraordinarily difficult to pass against with just a ton of experience in the secondary, and to make matters worse for league quarterbacks, Da’Quan Bowers is set to be unleashed on a regular basis. A consensus five-star recruit and ESPN’s #1 in the class of 2008, Bowers was third on the team in tackles for loss last year despite not starting on a regular basis. The starting DE spot is all his now, and Clemson’s pass rush will be that much better for it.

The linebackers are anchored by Kavell Conner on the weak side, who led the team with 125 tackles last year. Six were for loss. Scotty Cooper is the lone new starter at linebacker, and that’s kind of a misnomer because he started four games. In fact, all four “new starters” were regulars last season, and most started at least one game. I’m starting to sound like a broken record to myself, but there’s a pretty constant theme here: this defense has been around the block a few times and knows the score.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Both kicking positions are filled by new starters and mostly unknown quantities. That’s always a down-check as far as placekicking is concerned. Spiller made first team all-ACC as a returner last year, but as he’s not sharing the running back duties this year, he probably will share the returning duties with someone more expendable.

OUTLOOK

The buzz around Clemson this year is much quieter. That’s because it’s way more exciting to media wags to have your returning starters at the skill positions, especially if one is a senior quarterback and Heisman candidate. They’re not garnering the attention, but I like their chances much better than I did last year anyway. But they’ll need solid quarterback play to reach their full potential. I’m not sold on Korn and Parker right away, which is why I voted for Tajh Boyd as the ACC freshman of the year in Gobbler Country’s poll – if Clemson is to finish second in the division, they may need a surprise candidate to step up and take the snaps. Still, with a defense as experienced as theirs and an offensive line that’s much more prepared for the lumps of a full season, Clemson’s a fair bet for that second place finish the media pegged them for, and if they can get quality quarterback play, they’ll be a serious challenger for first in the division and the title game.

long overdue update

OK, so as you probably know, Tony Bennett is en fuego this week, and the basketball team has its third commitment in K.T. Harrell from Alabama. I will do the usual for him later. For the short term, know that this is more or less the end of the line with Mychal Parker, who will probably end up a Twerp now. Not that I'm complaining - Harrell sounds beastly talented by all accounts. Today, though, we need to get to the recruiting board, which is in dire need of an update, and this looks like the best chance to get around to it. Tomorrow is almost certainly going to be the next season preview with Clemson in the hopper, and Harrell is probably Friday. The bonus to all this extra content that needs to get out there, for you anyway, is that weekend posting is probably in the cards. Plus, doing this recruiting board update gives me an excuse to throw in a few tidbits I want to touch on that don't really merit their own post.

First, we've been snubbed - twice. You probably saw ESPN's silly mock draft of 40 college teams yesterday, which is snub #1. You also probably don't need me to point out the idiocy of claiming to be selecting a "modern meritocracy" and then including Texas A&M and Michigan State. Actually, the whole exercise being what it is (a way to better crown a national champion) strikes me as having the lesson that the more "perfect" a system you create for deciding a national champ, the more you destroy the traditional underpinnings of college football. Snub #2: Gobbler Country's list of 10 ACC games he's looking forward to this season. Apparently Baylor vs. Wake Forest is more interesting to a diehard Hokie than a certain Thanksgiving matchup? We need to beat these people more often.

I've also been meaning to register my disappointment about the changes to the NFL draft. This was a much better event when you could kick it off at like noon on Saturday or whenever and commence knocking back beers until the shindig was over Sunday evening. It's officially no longer fun when spread over three days and in prime time. The better for cramming obnoxious "analysis" down your throat and having to watch more ads.

Finally, Jeff White offers a list of freshmen that might see playing time this year, and, surprise surprise, the list is full of defensive linemen.

OK, let's bother ourselves with this recruiting board, it needs a little polishing.

- Gone are QB Stephen Morris (Miami), DE Marcus Rush (Michigan State - dammit now I look foolish for calling him a future Hoo and even worse he's gonna be a Spartan), and LB Holmes Onwukaife (Florida State.)

- Added DE Ethan Farmer to yellow. We offered a while ago but I didn't bother because he's listed as a tight end. Should have known we'd be recruiting him for defense.

- Re-added CB Urell Johnson to red. For whatever reason I still don't have any sense of confidence he'll end up here, but he decommitted from Southern Miss so whatever, he's back on the market and therefore back on the board.

- Also re-added S Nick Dew to yellow. If he was anything but the huge Tech fan he's rumored to be, he'd probably be in the blue (and obviously wouldn't have been dropped in the first place) but still. We'll just have to see what happens after he visits. By the way there is like this huge screaming discrepancy between ESPN's evaluation of Dew and the other two. He's very much middle-of-the-road to Scout and Rivals: Scout says, 71st-best safety in the country. ESPN thinks he's the #48 player overall and the #6 safety. This is what happens when a recruit chooses the Under Armour game over the Army All-American one.

- Lastly, added DT Johnathan Hankins to yellow. If I didn't think he's sort of got one foot already in Columbus I'd put him in the blue, but this is a guy that the Michigan fan in me has been following for a little while. Michigan didn't offer, by the way. They told him he needs to get in better shape. Seems like a little bit of a red flag, but there are a lot of other high-profile offers on his kitchen table and he's huge and just the sort of space-eating defensive tackle the 3-4 needs.

So many projects, so little time. Clemson tomorrow, K.T. Harrell Friday, and probably something over the weekend, like Duke maybe. Plus I want to finish the videos sometime this month so I don't have them hanging over my head come football time, plus the depth chart needs an update already. Gee, I sure hope someone doesn't commit to the football team soon so I have even more to do here. That would suck, right?

season preview: Boston College

Note: Today, we kick off the season previews throughout the ACC, in alphabetical order. As promised earlier, there will be one for each ACC team, plus one for each team on our non-conference schedule. Busy month. Kick back and enjoy.

Schedule:

9/5: Northeastern
9/12: Kent State
9/19: @ Clemson
9/26: Wake Forest
10/3: Florida State
10/10: @ Virginia Tech
10/17: NC State
10/24: @ Notre Dame
10/31: Central Michigan
11/7: BYE
11/14: @ Virginia
11/21: North Carolina
11/28: @ Maryland

Skip: Duke, Miami, Georgia Tech

Projected starters:

QB: Justin Tuggle (rFr.)
RB: Montel Harris (So.)
FB: James McCluskey (rJr.)
WR: Rich Gunnell (5Sr.)
WR: Justin Jarvis (Sr.)
TE: Lars Anderson (rSo.)
LT: Anthony Castonzo (Jr.)
LG: Emmett Cleary (rFr.)
C: Matt Tennant (5Sr.)
RG: Thomas Claiborne(rJr.)
RT: Rich Lapham (rJr.)

LDE: Alex Albright (Sr.)
LDT: Kaleb Ramsey (So.)
RDT: Damik Scaife (rJr.)
RDE: Jim Ramella (5Sr.)
SLB: Dominick LeGrande (So.)
MLB: Mike McLaughlin (5Sr.)
WLB: Nick Clancy (rFr.)
CB: DeLeon Gause (Jr.)
CB: Roderick Rollins (Sr.)
SS: Marcellus Bowman (5Sr.)
FS: Wes Davis (rJr.)

K: Steve Aponavicius (Sr.)
P: Ryan Quigley (So.)

Coach: Frank Spaziani (1st year)

(Italics indicate new starter.)

Media prediction: 6th, Atlantic Division

All-ACC:

2008 1st team: OG Cliff Ramsey, DT B.J. Raji, LB Mark Herzlich
2008 2nd team: TE Ryan Purvis, OT Anthony Castonzo, DT Ron Brace
2008 HM: OG Thomas Claiborne, C Matt Tennant, S Paul Anderson
2009 preseason: OT Anthony Castonzo, C Matt Tennant

(Italics indicate departed player.)

The good Jesuit priests at Boston College must have been saying the rosary all wrong in 2008, because the offseason could not have been more eventful in all the wrong ways. A fired coach, a disciplined-then-transferred quarterback, and then the team’s marquee player is diagnosed with, of all things, bone cancer. BC lost a ton of talent when the eligibility clock ran out and then spent much of the offseason losing much of the talent it could least afford to lose, leaving them trying to patch up holes everywhere.

OFFENSE

Eagles fans were looking forward to the Dominique Davis reign under center, but academic responsibilities, or the failure to complete such, put an end to it before it really started. That left a quarterback competition between a bunch of guys whose collective college experience under center wouldn’t fill a thimble. Codi Boek is the oldest, but he spent last season playing fullback. Justin Tuggle and ex-minor league baseball player David Shinskie are also vying for the job. You and I have seen this story before; it reminds me of 2006 when a competition between Christian Olsen and Kevin McCabe resulted in Jameel Sewell being named the starter. It’s probably not going to come up roses for BC.

It’s not all bad for BC on this side of the ball though. Actually, quarterback is the only really rough spot. They return two excellent sophomores at running back, where Montel Harris made the bigger name for himself last year and was accompanied by Josh Haden. The two make a dynamic pair at running back. However, it’s the trenches where BC really gets it done. The offensive line may be the best in the conference. Anthony Castonzo and Matt Tennant are preseason all-conference selections, and they’re joined by Tom Claiborne, who, like the other two, earned all-ACC votes at the end of the season. Boston College has only to replace one starter, and that’s at left guard where redshirt freshman Emmett Cleary looks to take over from another departed all-conference player.

DEFENSE

The strength of this unit is going to be the secondary, where three out of four starters return, and the fourth spot should be filled by fifth-year senior Marcellus Bowman, who leads returning players back there with three 2008 picks. None of these guys have eye-popping talent, but the whole unit is very experienced.

That’s the good news. The bad news is the front seven. LB Mark Herzlich was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma in the offseason, ripping the heart and soul out of Boston College’s defense, not to mention their best player. Herzlich’s absence isn’t the only hurdle to overcome: LB Mike McLaughlin is projected as the starter, but that’s if a torn Achilles doesn’t keep him off the field all year. Will Thompson will take his place until he’s ready, which means BC will have new starters at all three linebacker spots. They also lost a stellar pair of run-stuffing, quarterback-terrorizing tackles to the NFL in the offseason and will have to replace first- and second-round talent in the middle. It’s not all bad news on the line: Alex Albright and Jim Ramella are manning the ends, and both are seniors who will provide the only badly-needed experience in the front seven. BC’s pass defense should be acceptable but the tattered state of the rest of the defense could make it hard for them to control games by stopping the run.

SPECIAL TEAMS

The Eagles bring back both their kicker and punter. K Steve Aponavicius hit on just 2/3 of his field goal attempts last year, though he was perfect on PATs. P Ryan Quigley is solid with an average just shy of 40 yards.

OUTLOOK

You wouldn’t really want your offseasons much more tumultuous than this. About the best BC fans can say for it was that nobody went on a raging alcohol bender and earned massive amounts of Fulmer Cup points. There were plenty of headlines without that stuff, though. It probably was not the time for the BC administration to play hardball with their coach as he peeked around at other job openings; new head coach Frank Spaziani is generally well-respected but inherits a mess at quarterback and a team in sore need of some talent to step to the plate. Some continuity would have been nice here. As it is, BC has several decent pieces in place, and it’s very hard for me to totally count out a team with a near-dominant offensive line such as theirs, but the quarterback issue probably won’t go away all season. They should handily win their first two games, but beyond that it’s hard to see where the wins are going to come from to earn a bowl bid. It would not surprise at all if the Eagles found themselves coming out of their bye week in early November needing to win all three of the remaining games – two of which are on the road – in order to achieve bowl eligibility. I don’t think they’ll reach that mark, and a basement finish in the entire ACC is not out of the question here.

***

Please note the following about the projected starters: These are put together using last season's depth charts where available, last season's statistics where applicable, preview articles where findable (in this case, from USA Today and from Heather), and finally, cross-checked against theACC.com's highly useful "12 Days of ACC Football" series. Sometimes they just come down to an unscientific guess on my part. I'm not always right.

the recruit: Joe Harris

Back from vacation. Back and ready to attack. And I was going to kick off the season previews around the ACC right away, but I figured it'd be better to do some actual Virginia stuff first since that's what we do here, and today's news - Tony Bennett's second verbal commitment in SG Joe Harris - is the perfect excuse.

Name: Joe Harris
Position: SG
Hometown: Chelan, WA
School: Chelan High School
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 200

Rivals: 3-star
Scout: 3-star
ESPN: 91, #40 SG

Let's go back a couple months. Back when all the talk around Virginia basketball was which glamorous, millionaire coach was going to beat down our doors for the chance to coach here. Suppose someone came to you from the future and told you all about it: Your coach will not be anyone on that star-studded list. He will come from a basketball backwater in the hills of the state of Washington, and his first two recruits will be two white guys named Will and Joe, one of which is a holdover recruit from Washington that the coach had already been recruiting to his old Washington school and whose offer list included the in-state schools (and not even Gonzaga), Portland, and San Diego. This doesn't sound too appealing, does it?

Fortunately, you and I know better. Will Regan is, of course, excellent to say the least, and here's what I figure about Harris: Tony Bennett clearly knows what he's doing on the recruiting trail. He's going after all the right players. He's almost got Mychal Parker back to where he was before Leitao was fired, and he's even got us in the race for five-star point guard Kyrie Irving. There are plenty of targets with very stiff competition here out east that we need to be recruiting, and Bennett's doing a fine job of it so far. So the fact that he's got this target-rich environment on the East Coast to work with and still thinks Harris is worth bringing in all the way from BFE, Washington (and believe me Chelan is not part of anything remotely resembling a major - or minor - metropolitan area) says something to me.

Now, the other part of the truth in the first paragraph is that Harris isn't just a complete unknown except to the West Coast Conference. Georgetown, Gonzaga, and Notre Dame, among others, were in touch, so speaketh Rivals, and they tend to know. ESPN, besides being a little more generous in their ranking than the other two (91 roughly means a low four star or high three) thinks he should be a "high-major recruit," which he pretty much is, now. And Scout notes that he was the 1A player of the year in Washington, 1A being the fourth-highest of six divisions. Scout also points out he was earning first-team accolades as a sophomore, but it doesn't stop there: look, there he is as a li'l freshy, grabbing all-district honors. Didn't take him very long to become Chelan's big fish.

I also happen to like that very bottom bullet on that last link there: "Team Sportsmanship: Chelan High School." You might know that Chelan is coached by the elder Joe Harris, and he's been doing it for a long time, unless it takes no time at all to rack up 400 wins. So the Harrises know a little something about sportsmanship which I mean there's absolutely nothing not to like about that.

Now, as for Harris' projection to college. Hard to tell, to be honest. It doesn't take a very extensive Googlesearch to find all sorts of game recaps where Harris was the leading scorer, dropped 30+ points, whatever. He's basically the 800-pound gorilla of 1A basketball in Washington, at which I have no idea what kind of competition he's facing, but it probably doesn't include too many other D-I talents. He plays quarterback on the football team, which I think isn't actually all that telling because Chelan has like 3,000 residents and it's not hard to figure what you'd have the most athletic one of those residents between the ages of 15 and 18 doing during the fall. He did go down to the Rose City Showcase in Portland and earn all-tournament honors, FWIW. There's some quality talent on that list; that Terrence Jones is the same one with five stars and offers from Oklahoma and Florida and Indiana and everyone. Aaron Bright is going to Stanford. It's not a schmo tournament.

Fact is though, all this stuff is par for the course for any ACC recruit. It means you can get past the velvet rope and in the door; it doesn't get you all the ladies once you're inside. Harris' development floor should probably be labeled "Keith Friel" - you remember him, came off the bench and shot three-pointers for his bread, did it very well, and had few other marketable basketball skills, and it still made him one of the more popular players of his day. Damn could we have used Keith Friel last year, we had nobody who could shoot. Well, Harris can shoot, and if he doesn't lose his touch, he will be an asset to the team, there's no doubt about it. But I don't think the competition he's faced is enough to tell us (or me, anyway) how the rest of his skill set will translate to the ACC. The good news there is I'm just the blogger banging away at a keyboard, and Tony Bennett is the guy who's seen him play and thinks differently.

So three slots left. Why three? Earlier I was thinking it might be wise to hold one back for 2011 - five is a big class, and I think you want to spread things out some and not have to have a year where you have a little tiny class because your other ones were huge. You know, like this year's with just Spurlock and Evans. But then I bothered to look at the roster and realized if we hold over a scholarship, we'll still have five slots in 2011 anyway, and you never know what Sylven Landesberg is gonna do. So I think Bennett fully intends to sign five and only leave it at four if all his targets go elsewhere. We're sitting pretty right now, too. We have two recruits we like a lot, and enough open spots to still be very aggressive with quite a number of other targets we also like a lot - in many cases, much more - and what's more, we're well-positioned with several of them. It's a great place to be in, recruiting-wise.