blogpoll ballot: week 3

I didn't mean to go MIA for so long, but I got into a project that took a little longer than it should have. The fruits of those labors will be up tomorrow; meantime, here's the ballot for Week 3. Very heavy on resumé now; only a few vestiges of preseason biases remain, such as allowing Texas to float as high as #3 despite a win that's only somewhat resumé-boosting, or allowing Miami to stay on the poll at all. Plenty of shuffling this week as things fall into place, and plenty more next week. So comments are still highly, highly encouraged, but not so much of the "why did so and so fall so low/rise so high for what they did this week?" type. Actually, that's old-fashioned thinking no matter what the week. Without further ado:

From Old Virginia Ballot - Week 4

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio St. Buckeyes	--
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
3	Texas Longhorns	6
4	Oklahoma Sooners	--
5	Florida Gators	--
6	Arizona Wildcats	13
7	Stanford Cardinal	3
8	South Carolina Gamecocks	-2
9	Arkansas Razorbacks	--
10	TCU Horned Frogs	-7
11	Nebraska Cornhuskers	9
12	LSU Tigers	2
13	Oregon Ducks	-1
14	Michigan Wolverines	-3
15	Auburn Tigers	2
16	Wisconsin Badgers	-9
17	Boise St. Broncos	-2
18	Iowa Hawkeyes	-10
19	Nevada Wolf Pack	--
20	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	--
21	Michigan St. Spartans	--
22	Utah Utes	--
23	Penn St. Nittany Lions	1
24	Air Force Falcons	-6
25	Miami Hurricanes	-3
Dropouts: California Golden Bears, Clemson Tigers, Boston College Eagles, Georgia Bulldogs, USC Trojans

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

the recruit: Darius Redman

Name: Darius Redman
Position: TE
Hometown: Washington, DC
School: H.D. Woodson
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 235

ESPN: 75; three stars; #65 TE
Rivals: 5.4; two stars
Scout: three stars; #66 TE

Other offers: None

Mike London looks even more tight-end happy than Al Groh did. We've seen three of them play roles this season, and 2010 recruiting turned up a pair of them. But you can't keep expecting 6'6" players from Texas to fall into your lap at the end of the year, and you can't turn all your QBs into TEs, so recruiting at least one was a priority this year. Enter Darius Redman.

Redman's recruitment was a slow one. When he committed to UVA it was without any other offers in hand, though a couple programs gave him the "verbal-but-if-you-camp/visit-we'll-put-it-in-writing" offer. By the end of June, none of those had materialized yet; Redman had his UVA offer and wasn't interested in playing out his senior season to see what would show up afterwards, and he was a Hoo long before July.

Even as a sophomore/rising junior Redman looked the part of a tight end, "passing the eye test" at the Under Armour camp in spring of 2009. Since then he's put on some weight, an encouraging sign because the biggest difference between the tight ends who are seeing the field right now and the ones who aren't is about 25 pounds. Had he played the recruiting game to its fullest and waited til the end of this season, other offers probably would have shown up. Last year he caught just 11 passes, two for touchdowns; he's got a pair of touchdowns already this year. As H.D. Woodson - defending champion of their conference - settles in to their regular schedule, his production should start getting a boost.

When it comes to evaluations, on the one side you've got Scout and ESPN calling him a pretty decent prospect, and ESPN says Redman is solid all aroud - "can block, catch, and run," though their evaluation likes him best as a blocker. On the other there's Rivals with a really fringe-type kind of evaluation and the total lack of offers. Having only about a catch a game in 2009 probably contributed to that. Coaches at every level, trying to find a tight end from the ranks below, look first for the guys that catch and have flashy stats, and then see if they can block. More clear evidence that Redman isn't "the guy" in the sense that guys like Tom Santi were do-it-all, all-the-time TEs is that London is still recruiting guys like Rory Anderson.

But there are also a lot of walk-on TEs on the roster and we've seen a lot of two-TE formations and plenty of PT for Joe Torchia, Colter Phillips, and Paul Freedman so far this year. There's no shortage of evidence that the offense plans, going forward, will lean heavily on the tight end. So there's room, to put it mildly. Redman is already pretty close to a college playing weight (contrast with the aforementioned Anderson, who is more highly rated but has barely cracked 200 pounds) and his ceiling is probably lower than most, but he's also closer to the field than most. The thing to expect here is a player who'll likely never be the focus of the offense, but who'll redshirt a year to give him some separation from the guys in front and then carve out a good long career as a second tight end.

ACC roundtable: ACCoholics anonymous

This week it's less of a roundtable and more of a support group, and your AA host this week is GT blog extraordinaire From The Rumble Seat. Me, I suppose you could say I have a problem, but who needs treatment? On with the questions.

1. Enough with the MVP's and the National Title Talk... What ACC teams are going to be bowl eligible by November? Who will be left out in the cold?

Well, despite the massive collective thud these teams produced on Saturday, I have a hard time believing Miami, GT, VT, and FSU aren't bowl-worthy. Clemson is good enough. BC is probably good enough.

On the flip side, forget about Duke, and despite 2-0 starts, I'm not sold on Wake, NC State, or Maryland yet. UNC - at this point, Lindsey Lohan on amphetamines would be more predictable than UNC's season. Forget it, I'm not making any calls on that one.

That leaves UVA, which needs six more wins to get there. VMI, EMU, and Duke should provide three. Now given the respectable performance and near-win in the Coliseum and the crippling flaws exposed in other conference teams on UVA's schedule, should it really be that far-fetched to claim that among FSU, GT, UNC, Miami, Maryland, BC, and VT, there are three wins in there somewhere? I don't think that's crazy. If you do, don't forget to give me my ups in November when UVA is bowl-eligible like I said they would be.

2. What team performance (or lack thereof) this weekend shocked you the most? What individual's performance impressed/depressed you the most?

VT is the obvious answer. I think that's a given. Second-most: definitely GT. Kansas did look like ass-and-a-half in losing to NDSU, but then again it's Kansas and Mangino isn't in Kansas anymore, and looking like ass-and-a-half has kind of been what Kansas football used to hang its hat on. FSU isn't the first team to get spanked into Sunday in Norman, OK, but when did Kansas become a house of horrors?

Most impressive performance: how about the motivational efforts of JMU coach Mickey Matthews, who reportedly asked his players before the game how many of them had been on a recruiting trip to Virginia Tech. Think those players aren't about ready to chuck a tank through a brick wall for that guy right now? After that speech, he could probably tell 'em they'd grow wings if they jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and they'd believe it. Sometimes there's a letdown effect after a big win, but I don't think I'd want to be JMU's next opponent.

Depressing: definitely Miami's Jacory Harris and his four INTs. That Harris, someone who's always impressed me as one of the ACC's more dangerous quarterbacks, would throw four INTs is surprising - that Ohio State would be on the other end of them depresses the Michigan fan in me.

3. The ACC is fifth out of the Big 6 conferences in terms of out of conference winning percentage. Is this a function of a difficult out of conference schedule or are we legitimately the 2nd worst conference in the BCS?

I don't buy the schedule thing. Neither Kansas nor JMU was supposed to contribute mightily to the strength of schedule. If there's a BCS conference without "East" in its name that the ACC could make a case to be better than, it's the Big 12, but let's wait til Kansas and Oklahoma are sufficiently deep in the conference's rearview mirror before we do that. Unless your definition of a better conference is one which isn't a threat to disintegrate.

4. James Madison's victory was the 13th I-AA victory over an ACC squad since 1984 (out of 160 total games). It was also the 5th I-AA victory over a I-A opponent in 2010. Is it really worth scheduling I-AA opponents to start the season particularly I-AA juggernauts like App. State, James Madison, or Villanova?

I've never liked the idea. Truth be told, I'd take App State or JMU against your average WAC or Sun Belt team any day. Easy. They're decent teams. But the I-AA label means everyone gets to point and laugh when you lose to them. Let me illustrate:

- Loss to Wyoming =

- Loss to JMU or William & Mary:

So you see.

The point of scheduling these supposed patsies in I-AA is to get a win. Get wins, fans get off your back, give you more money, etc. etc. The problem is that it's a high-risk, low-reward proposition. As we've seen with App State and JMU, you're playing with fire, especially if you're one of the big boys. If you're gonna schedule I-AA, you should find the worst band of schmucks you can find. Presbyterian was a good choice. You should also schedule a local team. If UVA must play a I-AA team each year (and I wish they wouldn't) at least they play Virginia schools. Drums up a bit more interest, though again that can backfire on your alums since there's no way there's a Hokie in the entire state that doesn't know a JMU alum somewhere.

If you're not gonna play someone local and/or crappy (preferably "and") then you're better off just calling to find out if New Mexico State or ULM have any open dates. Just as likely to get a win and way less stigma if you lose.

5. Have your expectations for the 2010 season or your team's place in the ACC changed after Week 2's round of games?

Oh, shit yeah. I mean, if you didn't figure that out by me calling for a bowl game for UVA earlier. Technically UVA is part of the ACC pantshitting show, having done their part to contribute to the conference's loss column in LA, but you wouldn't find a soul who actually thinks that. It was supposed to be 52-7 again, not 17-14. Meanwhile the rest of the conference is showing the world precisely how to beat them (or actively sabotaging their own season a la UNC) and the result is that I don't know exactly where UVA falls in the pecking order but it ain't last anymore.

6. What's a bigger mismatch: You vs. Ralph Friedgen in a competitive eating matchup or the Iron Dukes versus Nick Saban on Saturday?

I won a pie-eating contest one time. Got the trophy and everything. As long as it's a speed contest and not a volume contest, then I can take that ol' pretender. So we'll go with Duke, which will keep the game within 35 only if Alabama gets lazy.

weekend review

This didn't exactly happen last week, largely for airline-related reasons, but we are so back this week. Recruiting board, high schools, soccer, the works. Stay with me.

First is that recruiting board, and you won't notice much difference. There's only one change, and one notable not-change. Clifton Richardson "firmed up" his commitment, so I got off my high horse and moved him to committed orange.

The not-change is that Curtis Grant is still in the blue section. Before the weekend there was a blurb in the RTD that suggested UVA is out of the running for Grant. Shenanigans. I think you can safely ignore that quote - it's the writer talking, not anyone making the decisions here. Just brush it off as one of those things that makes recruiting such a maddening thing to follow. I'm no insider but really I think there's every reason to believe that UVA fans will have a vested interest in watching that particular press conference, when it happens. Not that Grant will necessarily choose UVA, but UVA will be in it all the way.

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I meant to update the depth chart before the USC game. But I didn't. So I'm doing it now. Your running backs are Keith Payne and Perry Jones - that's a change from before, because those two basically have a death grip on it whereas Raynard Horne used to be listed as one of the starters. Rodney McLeod's name in red signifies his injury.

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High school football: let's check in on the recruits:

St. Christopher's 27, St. S./St. A. 17 - Thompson Brown squares off against Darius Lee. Brown forced a turnover and caught a touchdown in his team's win over Lee's.

Hermitage 27, Lee-Davis 8 - The opener for Diamonte Bailey's squad. 15 tackles for prospect Curtis Grant.

Phoebus 45, Churchland 0 - Caleb Taylor's team dispatches a decently-ranked team with relative ease.

Landstown 12, Green Run 9 - David Dean helps limit the opponent to 12 points, but the offense can't get it done.

Woodrow Wilson 21, Menchville 19 - Clifton Richardson still winless. Rushed for 238 yards, scored a TD on an INT return and threw what would have been the game-tying touchdown had the two-point attempt succeede.

Bayside 21, Cox 9 - Ross Burbank's team now 1-2. Prospect Demetrious Nicholson had three receptions.

I.C. Norcom 52, Heritage 0 - Ouch. Kameron Mack's team on a roll.

Hampton 49, Gloucester 0 - David Watford rolls.

Damascus 27, Quince Orchard 23 - Big win for Brandon Phelps' squad, but mostly without him as Phelps misses the last three quarters with a strained hip flexor. May miss next week.

DeMatha 35, Friendship 32 - DeMatha escapes the big upset.

Stone Bridge 56, Leesburg Heritage 7 - Rob Burns' team is a juggernaut.

L.C. Bird 36, Matoaca 23 - Season-opening win for Anthony Harris.

H.D. Woodson 28, Fairmont Heights 12 - Darius Redman catches two passes in Woodson's first win of the year.

Boys' Latin 21, Archbishop Curley 7 - Another win for Marco Jones.

West Charlotte 48, Independence 33 - Adrian Gamble scores a touchdown, but Independence is off to a horrible 0-3 start. Tough schedule, but still: Independence is a (once-upon-a-time?) juggernaut.

Mt. Lebanon 43, Penn-Trafford 18 - Tim Cwalina is off to a 2-0 start.

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News and stuff happened on the weekend too. Some of it was even kind of important:

- The Pac-10 did what I told them to and suspended the refs from the USC game for blowing the fake punt call. Technically the wording they used was "removed from a future game assignment" but it's all the same thing. The conference did the right thing; that plus their halftime apology is the best we can ask for, so it's time to move on.

- The RTD's Michael Phillips has an interesting take on that, by the way. The gist: it was like the phantom T on Tony Bennett against Maryland when the hoopsters were roaring back to try and take the the lead after trailing all game - there's no guarantee UVA would have won either game without referee interference, but it gives us an out to think so. Phillips calls it a gift to the fans, I say if you're going with that tack it's more of a gift to the coaches. That's like, the worst gift in history, but the coaches get just that little bit more leeway from the fans when we think Rule 2(b) has been activated, and you can never have too much job security in this gig.

- VT very literally got injury added to insult on Saturday with the loss of DT Kwamaine Battle for the season, but he might get a sixth year of eligibility. Battle's only a junior anyway, so he's back next year regardless, but in any case it probably won't affect the Hokies much. Battle was the starter, but his replacement Antoine Hopkins has more game experience. Depth rather than any irreplaceable talent is their loss here.

- Occasionally, I exhort UVA fans not to act like Michigan State fans, something we're at times in danger of doing because we have what might delicately be referred to as "not as good a football team" as VT. In other words, don't obsess over them and don't act like a Tech loss is the same thing as a UVA win. Because this is the sort of idiocy it leads to:

So as the ND game approaches this weekend wear your coolest kicks around campus with the shoelaces TIED (editor's note: Sparty boy is making a lame attempt at making fun of Michigan's Denard Robinson's preference for untied shoelaces) in honor of our great #8, Captain Kirk, and show the world, ESPECIALLY ANN ARBOR, that in East Lansing they TEACH US HOW TO TIE OUR SHOES.

So that's what 20 grand of tuition buys you at Michigan State. And after you learn how to tie your shoes, there's nap time and then cookies and juice! (I believe those are the honors classes.) One nice thing about going to college at Virginia is not having to spend four years with dumbasses. Don't be Sparty, boys and girls.

- The soccer boys remain undefeated after going on the road to Duke and pulling out a tie that could plausibly have been a better result for either team. Duke dominated on the stat sheet, taking eight corners to UVA's three and forcing Diego Restrepo to make eight saves (which is kind of a lot.) But Sean Hiller scored a go-ahead goal in the 86th minute - normally the kind of thing that stands up, except it didn't with Duke scoring less than two minutes later to force OT and the tie. Ominously, Will Bates was subbed out early with an injury that a Sabre observer suggested might be a hamstring.

Next week is one of the biggest matchups of the year: the first game against Wake Forest since Brian Ownby's golden goal dispatched the Deacs from the NCAA tournament.

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Finally, around the ACC for some of the more interesting blog reactions to this weekend's rather unfortunate results in the conference:

BC 26, Kent State 13: BC Interruption bemoans the O-line play, notable because I expected it to be one of the better O-lines in the conference.

Kansas 28, GT 25: Adding insult to insult, Winfield's soul appears bent over with the agony of defeat, and somebody called a penalty on it too.

Maryland 62, Morgan State 3: That's sixty-two (62) to three (3). With that score in mind, what kind of truly horrible-ass game must Maryland's quarterbacks have had to earn a measly B- grade from Testudo Times?

JMU 21, VT 16: Saved the best for last. F4H of Gobbler Country unsurprisingly has selected The Cure for a little post-game easy listening. Read for two reasons: one, F4H is the decent variety of Hokie fan that is given a bad name by the other 97%, and two, you'll find many reasons to be (cautiously) optimistic about the end-of-season tilt.

best loss ever

Yeah, OK. If you believe all those commercials that want you to GET PUMPED and then buy Gatorade or Under Armour or whatever, and if you do you too can NEVER QUIT and protect this house and never under any circumstances accept losing, then this post isn't for you.

Sure, if we were Virginia Tech this week, that'd be the right attitude. When you're ranked and you looked like ass in losing to James Madison (and I will not tire of this for a while given that William & Mary was still a favorite topic of conversation in Hokie circles up til Saturday afternoon) there's no point in pretending to look for positives. Everybody is running gassers for an hour, and it's only a question of who gets yelled at more in the meetings. But reality bites with this hard notion: we have a crappy football team on our hands that needs a major-league rebuilding in nearly all facets of the game, and losses come in all different shapes and sizes, and this one yesterday night is the best kind there is. Because that crappy football team is a giant leap along the path to non-crappiness.

I said before the game it would take a mistake-free game to pull off the win, and damn if that didn't bear itself out in painful fashion. If there was a mistake to be made, the Hoos did it. A laundry list, and this just off the top of my head:

- Red-zone interception.
- Missed field goals.
- Stupid late-hit penalty facilitating a USC touchdown.**
- Running into the punter.
- Dropped passes. (When your quarterback is that inaccurate, you have got to catch the ball on the rare occasions it hits you between the numbers.)
- Triple-digit penalty yardage.

**By a fifth-year senior! Trey Womack's numbnuts play was a carbon copy of one committed by a freshman Michigan cornerback that put them at real risk of blowing the feel-good win over Notre Dame. But that guy was a freshman. Womack has no excuse whatsoever for not knowing better.

And I didn't even get to the apparent mistake by the refs, with the bogus penalty on the fake punt. They apologized at halftime. Whoops, sorry for screwing you with our incomplete knowledge of the rulebook. This calls for a suspension. Bogus pass interference calls and holding penalties and such are one thing. Happen all the time. Cuss at the refs, move on. Even something like missing a ballcarrier stepping out of bounds are at some small level understandable because the fast pace of the game doesn't let you see everything. That's why they have instant replay and the saying that holding occurs on every play, it's just the really blatant ones that get called. But failure of an entire crew to have a correct knowledge of the rule book? Suspension-worthy. They should spend the next Saturday or two in an unpaid rules review seminar. It's unfortunate because the crew was otherwise mostly on top of things, but there's no excuse for a crew of officials not knowing the rule book. I sure didn't take that kind of mistake into account in the game preview.

At any rate, the 2008 game was a 52-7 loss of the ugliest kind, and if you'd told me in advance about all those screw-ups listed above, I'd've expected the same kind of score. Heck, a lot of Hoos were expecting that kind of score anyway, and I'd be lying if I said I'd've been surprised to see it. That we were so close anyway says at least as much about USC as it does about UVA, frankly: for example, if I were them, I wouldn't be too excited about that front seven.

Still, USC is a talented bunch. And even if the passing game was totally dysfunctional until the last drive, you have to love how the running game is shaking out. Two games in and the running back question has been very definitively answered, and the O-line looks like they know what they're doing. That's my favorite part of these first two games: the 1-2 punch of Perry Jones and Keith Payne looking like a really legit threat.

Second-favorite part: that UVA just walked into the Los Angeles Coliseum not even remotely intimidated and stayed that way all night. If there's any USC mystique left, Mike London didn't let it get to his team. If they can show that kind of poise in the Coliseum, could it be that the Jekyll-and-Hyde act of flopping miserably in road games is also a thing of the past?

The ACC took a major, major beating on Saturday, but what Hoo fan really cares? We never were looking at a BCS berth and still aren't, really, but between almost winning at USC and watching VT (they lost to James Madison) and the rest of the conference shit the bed (particularly VT, who lost to James Madison), that ACC schedule looks a lot easier to negotiate than it did on Friday. At this point there's nary a game on the docket that looks unwinnable anymore, not even VT, which just lost to James Madison. Lose this battle against USC and still the war looks a lot easier? I'll take it.

blogpoll ballot, week 2: the "we never have to hear about W&M again" edition

This generally is the toughest ballot of the whole season to fill out. Some teams have accomplished Worthwhile Things and others have just been playing out the string for a bit until they get to the real competition. Preconceived notions have to play a big role, but by this time there are quality resumes which can't be ignored. In two weeks, preconceived notions will largely disappear, but for now, in some cases that's all we have unless you think it's a good idea to reward teams for stomping a pair of I-AA opponents. (Helpful hint: it's not.)

Fortunately, there are a couple teams that make it really, really easy. Guess who's dropping off the ballot this week?

From Old Virginia Ballot - Week 3

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio St. Buckeyes	1
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	-1
3	TCU Horned Frogs	3
4	Oklahoma Sooners	3
5	Florida Gators	5
6	South Carolina Gamecocks	16
7	Wisconsin Badgers	-4
8	Iowa Hawkeyes	3
9	Texas Longhorns	3
10	Stanford Cardinal	5
11	Michigan Wolverines	14
12	Oregon Ducks	8
13	California Golden Bears	--
14	LSU Tigers	9
15	Boise St. Broncos	-6
16	Clemson Tigers	-3
17	Auburn Tigers	--
18	Air Force Falcons	--
19	Arizona Wildcats	5
20	Nebraska Cornhuskers	-1
21	Boston College Eagles	-3
22	Miami Hurricanes	-17
23	Georgia Bulldogs	-19
24	Penn St. Nittany Lions	--
25	USC Trojans	-17
Dropouts: Virginia Tech Hokies, Oregon St. Beavers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Florida St. Seminoles

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

The mash-up of Preconceived Notions and Strict Resume Voting that you see here means a few weird things:

- I have little doubt, for example, that Oregon State will eventually return to the ballot. But this isn't supposed to be predictive. It's reactive. So there are teams like Oregon State and UNC that look like they're being punished for doing nothing (except for a loss to a ranked team, the sort of thing that wouldn't hurt too bad later on) and in a way, they are.

- You see teams like Clemson and Boston College sliding down the rankings - those are actually teams that have done little but are benefitting from their earlier ranking. Are you technically supposed to do that? Not really, but otherwise you're stuck comparing teams like Eastern Washington to McNeese State and seeing whether a 49-28 whupping of one is better than a 50-6 whupping of the other, and - really now, would you take a ballot seriously that ranked Nevada in the top five? because that's what that leads to. There are some strict "resume voters" that vote in this poll, but they are weird.

- I am not allowed to vote for James Madison. Can't even write them in. This makes me a sad panda.

- Comments highly encouraged on this one. Highly.

- Edit: Second edition - Boise State gets somewhat less harsh treatment. Realistically they should still have been in front of teams like Auburn and Clemson, and now they are. They still got a first-place vote in the AP poll, however, and that is stupid. Pete DiPrimio of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, you are stupid this week.

game preview: USC

Date/Time: Saturday, September 11; 10:30 PM

TV: FSN


History against the Trojans: 0-1

Last matchup: USC 52, UVA 7; 8-30-2008

Last week: UVA 34, Richmond 13; USC 49, Hawaii 36

Line: USC by 19.5

Opposing blogs: Conquest Chronicles

Injury report: none, but Rodney McLeod isn't on the depth chart

This week's uniform: white jersey, orange pants

USC season preview

Ever wonder what it's like to be a MAC school in the early season? Now's your chance. Saturday's game will played in a stadium called the Coliseum - fitting, because last week, against Richmond, we were the lions; this week, it's our turn to be the Christians.

HOW WE CAN WIN

- Near-perfection. That's basically what it boils down to. USC is "down" these days, which basically means they're at risk of having a season as poor as UVA's best of the decade. The horror. USC has its weaknesses, but everything in this section assumes that everything UVA does on Saturday is executed to the absolute pinnacle of their ability.

- Healthy Ras-I Dowling. It's a safe bet that UVA has a better defense than Hawaii, which fell outside the top 80 in just about everything last year. So if Ras-I is on the field, I won't sit up nights worrying about USC's receivers not named Ronald Johnson. Johnson is, essentially, a terrific possession receiver who can also stretch the field a bit (though if there's a play missing from the USC arsenal, it's probably the deep bomb) and it'll take a big, athletic corner like Dowling to keep him silent. Chase Minnifield is good but probably not good enough to shut down Johnson. But he and the rest of the secondary can handle the rest of the USC passing attack reasonably well if Dowling is on the field.

- Have a field day through the air. Establishing the ground game against Richmond was a lot of fun, but it won't consistently work here. This isn't I-AA anymore and USC's linebackers are too good to let UVA control the clock with Keith Payne and Perry Jones. The weak point of USC's defense is the secondary, which couldn't come up with a single turnover against Hawaii and let the Warriors sling the ball all over the field. The Warrior receivers had big, big days. Run the ball just enough to make USC respect the play-fake, and throw plenty of fade and curl routes to isolate USC's corners against UVA's receivers. If UVA wins, mark my words the receivers will have a lot of fancy stats to their credit.

HOW WE CAN LOSE

- Pretty much by not doing everything exactly right. Coming within two touchdowns would be a moral victory, but not an actual one.

- Same ol', same ol' on special teams. Last week was a special teams disaster: lousy punt coverage, two missed field goals because one kicker doesn't have the leg and the other doesn't have the accuracy, and a blown blocking assignment leading to a failed 2PC that was supposed to be a simple PAT. Ronald Johnson ran a punt back for a touchdown against Hawaii and he'll do so again if things don't shape up here. UVA simply can't afford to take points off the board or give up a lightning-strike touchdown.

- Lousy pass-blocking. I take it as a given that the running game won't be as productive as it was last week, and I do think Marc Verica has the ability to connect with his receivers for the necessary yardage. But not if the USC pass rush is in his grill all game. The Trojans will get their points, no doubt about it, so the one thing that can turn an upset into a loss or a loss into a blowout is poor pass-blocking. USC knows how to take advantage of crappy offensive lines and I'm still not convinced ours can hold up for a full 60 minutes.

HOW THE GAME WILL GO

Probably badly. The WhatIf simulator gives UVA less than a 20% chance of a win, which is actually better than I thought. (Two notes: the preseason simulator gave UVA a 5-7, 2-6 record, which is pretty fair. And WhatIf boasts of an 85% success rate in week 1, which is of debatable impressiveness when everyone was playing the closest patsy they could find.) Anyway, that 20% is a lot better than you might expect, but it's still in shocking upset territory. Which we all knew. Like I said, it would take near-perfect execution from start to finish to pull this one off. More likely is a three-touchdown blowout.

REST OF THE ACC

Duke @ Wake Forest, 12:00
Georgia Tech @ Kansas, 12:00
Virginia Tech vs. James Madison, 1:30
Florida State @ Oklahoma, 3:30
Clemson vs. Presbyterian, 3:30
Boston College vs. Kent State, 3:30
Miami @ Ohio State, 3:30
Maryland vs. Morgan State, 6:00
NC State at Central Florida, 7:30

i'm late to the party

Like, really late. Right, normally the blogpoll ballot and game impressions go up on Sunday, not Tuesday and Wednesday, but Delta Airlines doesn't have any planes that fly and every spare part in the world is in Boston, and never the airport I'm trying to fly out of, so there you go. Kids, here's a nickel's worth of free advice: if you like seven-hour delays without being offered so much as a meal voucher, fly Delta!

Anyway, the Richmond game. This is why I don't like playing I-AA opponents. If you schedule a patsy like, say, Akron, or San Jose State, you have a pretty good idea of the level of impressiveness that your win generates. I-AA is less predictable. So UVA beats Richmond 34-13 - is that like beating, say, Middle Tennessee 34-13? Or maybe someone even a little better like a crappy C-USA team? Or is that like letting the Sisters of the Poor score 13 on you?

In a vacuum, though, it was still a lot better than I expected. No, you probably shouldn't be up by just four at the half and then let them engineer a field-goal drive on the opening sequence of the second half. The football team that we want Mike London to build for us, the one that contends for ACC titles, would never let that happen. But this isn't that team. This is the one that just went 3-9 and lost to a worse I-AA team than Richmond is. So, for starters, not bad. Journey of a thousand miles and all that.

The big stars of the game, of course, are running backs Keith Payne and Perry Jones. If they kept a yards-after-contact-per-pound stat, Jones would lead the nation when we're done. If it turns out we have a whole stable of tailbacks who can break tackles like that, the running game will be productive no matter the opponent. Payne had nobody to blame but himself for his disappointing Groh-era career: for some reason he thought he was 175 pounds and should be tiptoeing through holes and moving east-west to find them. This is the Keith Payne that finally uses p=m*v to his advantage.

But you know what my favorite part of the game was? Payne dragging a cadre of Richmond defenders ranks, as does "Richmond: o-for-2 on 4th down," but lemme tell you about something we haven't had since Bill Musgrave was the OC: playcalling. Bill Lazor is an assassin. Richmond's only worth-a-damn defensive lineman (Martin Parker) goes down with a really bad-looking knee or something, and what does Lazor do? He breaks out the heavy guns and sends his 250-pound cannonball directly at the space left behind by Parker. Attacks the newly-opened weak spot in the defensive line with the biggest weapon he's got. That's cutthroat, man. I believe we finally have an OC that knows how to call plays. This guy is not from the Ron Prince school of playcalling where a draw play on 3rd-and-4 into the teeth of a run blitz is the signature move.

As for Verica, he was Verica. Very good game overall, but his lack of interceptions is more the product of Richmond being unable to take advantage of his bad throws rather than the lack of them. He did what Verica does: make some really hideous, what-are-you-thinking throws, and mixed them up with some really gorgeous passes with a touch that'd make Peyton Manning applaud. The bomb to Burd was a thing of beauty. (The deep threat is still basically missing from the arsenal, though. If Burd was a true deep threat he wouldn't have been bagged by the safety. That play was set up by the run game and Verica's excellent pump-fake.) The hope going forward is that, like on Saturday, the good throws will greatly outnumber the bad ones.

On defense, the obvious star of the game is Laroy Reynolds. Three full years of that at linebacker? Yes please. Reynolds was all over. Wish I could say the same about the other linebackers. Ausar Walcott might have had the kind of game that only coaches notice, but his name wasn't called even once during the broadcast, and he wasn't around the ball much. Aaron Taliaferro was more visible than Steve Greer, but not by a lot. I wonder if this is indicative of a more populous D-line that's being asked to make more plays and is doing so, or if it's because we've got a bunch of guys playing linebacker that haven't played a lot of linebacker.

Chase Minnifield also had a terrific game, with that INT and one picture-perfect tackle and generally being in the right place at the right time. That's about it for stars on the defensive side. But that's also about it for bad things to say. About the worst you can say about anyone in that game was that they weren't visible much, but not everyone can be. And though I waffle between calling the 70-yard touchdown run by Kendall Gaskins either unlucky or inexcusable, I lean toward the former. I mean srsly wut? How does that happen? Gaskins proved difficult to tackle most of the game, but I mean, the whole defense was at the ball, which is where you want them.

All in all, very satisfying. And a relief. The final lesson to be learned? This year doesn't have to be a painful 13-week struggle.

blogpoll ballot, week 1

Every year, this is basically my least favorite week to fill out a ballot. I damn near decided just to mail it in and submit the exact same one as last week: if the teams are gonna mail in week 1 of their schedule and just kind of ease into things, why can't I? But a couple of my ranked teams from the preseason bit it but good, so it's not like I could just leave UConn in there and still live with myself. Here's the ballot:

From Old Virginia Ballot - Week 2

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
2	Ohio St. Buckeyes	--
3	Wisconsin Badgers	1
4	Georgia Bulldogs	1
5	Miami Hurricanes	1
6	TCU Horned Frogs	1
7	Oklahoma Sooners	-4
8	USC Trojans	--
9	Boise St. Broncos	3
10	Florida Gators	-1
11	Iowa Hawkeyes	-1
12	Texas Longhorns	-1
13	Clemson Tigers	--
14	Virginia Tech Hokies	--
15	Stanford Cardinal	1
16	Oregon St. Beavers	1
17	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	1
18	Boston College Eagles	1
19	Nebraska Cornhuskers	1
20	Oregon Ducks	2
21	Florida St. Seminoles	3
22	South Carolina Gamecocks	3
23	LSU Tigers	--
24	Arizona Wildcats	--
25	Michigan Wolverines	--
Dropouts: North Carolina Tar Heels, Connecticut Huskies, Pittsburgh Panthers

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

I still mostly threw up my hands and said WTF, mate. I mean, at this point anyone who's nitpicking and overanalyzing wins against Samford and Youngstown State and the like is just asking for a heart attack at age 36. But a few changes ensued from this week, mostly in the form of punishment:

- I dinged Oklahoma for a lackluster effort against Utah State.

- Boise State gets a boost for practically the only worthwhile win of the week, though I very strongly considered a permanent banishment from my top 25 for both those teams for those uniforms.

- UNC's ranking last week was sort of dependent on them having a lineup. They still managed to look OK, but UNC's second stringers aren't, in the long run, rankable.

- Pitt gets dumped for looking really, really sloppy and Utah gets not put in the lineup either, for looking almost as sloppy. If that'd been a good 27-24 game I'd have kept Pitt and added Utah - as it is, once again the big Thursday night season opener is a knife to the eyes, and as with last year, both perpetrators are suitably punished.