It's sort of a miniature holy grail of sportswriting to be able to call a turning point in a season right as it happens. Sportswriters give it a shot all the time. Cover a 162-game MLB season and you'll probably call eight different turning points as the season wears on. It's easy to do after the fact, but not so easy in the moment; you'd have looked like a lunatic if you'd woken up on New Year's Day 2014 and made UVA a 1-seed in your bracketology.
I'm willing to give it a shot right now, though: beating West Virginia in Madison Square Garden sure as hell looks like a launchpad for the season. To be honest, so far this hoops team has looked like they've had trouble getting out of third gear. Putting a nasty ol' hurt on Lehigh doesn't do it for anyone. Two struggles in two road games (and one loss) against decent but bubbly opponents doesn't scream Final Four - it says "seven seed."
MSG isn't a road venue, but it's a tournament-style venue. And West Virginia is more than a tournament-style team. They have really eye-popping efficiency numbers on both offense and defense. There are things they do better than everyone in the country. They play in what is probably the toughest top-to-bottom conference in the country (Boston College is doing the ACC no favors in this regard.) At worst, beating them by 16 in a neutral venue is going to be worth one full seed in the selection committee room.
I think it did more than just move UVA from a 3 seed to a 2, though. UVA took WVU's best shot, and it was a good one. The Hoos were reeling, thanks to the Mountaineers' pressure, unable to pass the ball or rebound on defense - two of the most fundamentally simple things in basketball. Then suddenly they punched back.
Tony told reporters that his halftime message wasn't elaborate: either you'll respond, or you won't. Is that trust or what? Up to you, guys. Whatever you want to do. Before halftime, it was a legitimate question to wonder if UVA's UVA-ness was taking a vacation this year. After halftime, the mojo returned from the beach and went back to work, and like most teams before them, WVU found the bucket a mile away and ten inches wide.
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UVA doesn't just have a football coach, it now has a whole staff. Most of that staff is still in Provo, but Bronco Mendenhall wisely brought on (or kept) a few East Coast connections. Marques Hagans (WRs) is the lone holdover. Shaun Nua (DL) actually comes from both worlds, having worked with Bronco at BYU in the past but coming more directly from Annapolis where he was on Ken Niumatalolo's staff. And best of all, UVA snapped up Ruffin McNeill, idiotically fired from East Carolina where his 5-7 record this year was used by their AD (which is no longer Terry Holland, in case you were wondering) as an excuse to win a political power struggle.
McNeill isn't likely to stay long. Two, three years is the most likely cap. Sooner or later, some AAC or CUSA team will find itself looking for a head coach. McNeill will be on short lists maybe even as soon as next year; he was absolutely a success at ECU and other southeastern schools would be stupid to keep him off their short lists. Western Kentucky isn't going to hang on to Jeff Brohm forever, FAU hasn't gained much traction, Charlotte just went 0-12....McNeill is going to look awfully good to some AD somewhere. He's 57, so the window is just beginning to close, but it's best to assume he's a short-term staffer.
Nevertheless, ECU's loss is UVA's gain. McNeill is said to be one of the most top-notch people in the industry, and, y'know, just look what he did at ECU. Four bowl seasons out of six, and a ten-win season. He can do some of his most important work right this week while the rest of the staff is preparing for the Las Vegas Bowl. He and Hagans can give the BYU boys the East Coast high school grand tour. And whatever he did to beat VT twice, maybe he can transfer some of that mojo too.
Speaking of which. I sort of hate to begin comparing Mendenhall to Justin Fuente and the Blacksburg crew, but it's inevitable - hired in the same year, the competition and measuring-up is impossible to avoid. Fuente retained a lot of Frank Beamer's staff and filled out the rest with Memphis coaches. Both schools are taking a prudent approach. UVA effected a near-complete overhaul, while VT held on to successful coaches (ol' Bud, Torrian Gray) and jettisoned ineffective ones - that is, most of the offensive side of the ball (li'l Shaney in particular), keeping only Zohn Burden, who produced some pretty good WRs this year. Fuente brings a badly needed fresh start on offense for VT; Mendenhall brings an even more badly-needed discipline hand to Charlottesville and a large cadre of unified, trusted staff to reinforce the message.
From here in December, though, not even a month from the introductions, I'm willing to predict Bronco outlasts Fuente. It's largely a question of expectations. VT fans were mad because Beamer kept going to crappy bowls and almost losing to UVA. If both programs go 8-5 for the next three years, just take a guess which fanbase will be happier about that. Fuente needs to put VT in the ACC CG repeatedly or it won't be enough - and if he does produce multiple ten-plus win seasons, rumors will swirl once jobs like Arkansas or Texas A&M open up. And he'd better not lose to UVA more than once in the next four years. I think VT fans could handle a loss (as long as it's not in 2016) but if he allows Bronco to put UVA on equal footing with the Hokies in the state, it won't sit well.
But forget the next couple years, just the next couple months will be interesting to watch. UVA football offseasons are fun again. I hardly paid attention to recruiting efforts this year, for example - why bother, when there's so little guarantee that a commitment in May will sign in February? As usual, finals break sucks for sports fans, but Saturday marks the end of boring times - UVA fans can watch one of the marquee basketball games of the year and then root for their coaching staff in a bowl game (which is liable to be a three-hour advertisement for UVA football) and then let the fun begin Sunday when Bronco and co. become full-time Hoos.
Showing posts with label assistant coaches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assistant coaches. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
assistant coaches: offense
Mike London is very decidedly a defensive coach, so if the offense is ever going to pull out of the awful doldrums it's in right now, the assistants on that side of the ball have to be absolutely on point from Day 1 of practice. There's a lot of work to be done there, but the glaring question is whether this group is experienced enough to make this happen.
Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks: Bill Lazor
Yes, it's just like "laser." Headline writers throughout the entire Commonwealth creamed their pants when they heard he was hired. But Lazor, by virtue of his inexperience and the high-profile job he now holds, is the biggest question mark of the bunch.
First, the positives. During his NFL career, he's worked for some of the best coaches the NFL has to offer. No, not Bill Parcells. But his bosses have included Dan Reeves, Mike Holmgren, and Joe Gibbs, all of whom gave their stamp of approval to the hire. London didn't know Lazor before a month or so ago, but while on the OC hunt, London came across some of these folks and they were all like, "you totally gotta hire this guy," so he did. Lazor, interestingly, has never been fired from any position he's held. When he left the University of Buffalo, it was by his own doing to pursue an NFL career, and though he worked for three separate teams in seven years, his departures were always because of a change at head coach.
He has, on his resume, exactly two years of offensive coordinator experience, which at least is more than Mike Groh had....but still. Those years were largely disastrous, but can't be held against him - Buffalo was in their third and fourth years of I-A membership and wasn't exactly even a competitive team in I-AA. They were horribly ill-equipped for the jump and Bear Bryant couldn't have led that team to three wins. Lazor therefore doesn't have to learn a whole lot about the day-to-day duties, but he is essentially starting fresh here without much, if any, past experience to draw meaningful lessons from. I expect Lazor will be a pretty good quarterbacks coach and a big asset to a very inexperienced squad, but his performance as OC is totally up in the air.
The pro-style offense Lazor will run should be a plus in the short-term, as it won't require much adjustment. It's what the players are used to, even despite the dabblings in the spread last year. It'll make the learning curve a lot shallower.
Wide receivers: Shawn Moore
I may be the only Virginia fan not doing cartwheels about this. Moore quarterbacked some of the most successful UVA teams in history, so he's at least one of the top three most recognizable program alums out there. On the recruiting trail it will be a boost - people know who he is, and when he talks about how awesome UVA is, it'll be instantly obvious he means it 100%.
But between the sidelines, Moore is just another coach, and unfortunately one with zero coaching experience above high school - and we have thrust him into an important offensive assistant position, important especially given that I don't think we got particularly good instruction in this realm from Latrell Scott last year. Moore is tasked with fixing one of the most underachieving position groups on the team, and his bio includes all of one sentence about his coaching experience.
Wide receivers coach is at least the proper position for Moore, if he's going to be somewhere. This may sound counterintuitive, but the best quarterbacks often make lousy coaches. There's a reason the best NFL quarterbacks tend to go into broadcasting instead of coaching. It came naturally to them, so they don't always know how to impart that to someone who needs to squeeze all his available potential out of limited resources. Someone like Marc Verica, for example. At receiver, Moore may not be 100% familiar with a lot of the footwork and blocking techniques, but he can impart what a quarterback wants a receiver to do, which is half the battle.
Running backs: Mike Faragalli
This is where London will supposedly be looking for offensive wisdom. Faragalli's been in the coaching business for three decades, running the gamut from assistant at every position to offensive coordinator (at Bowling Green, Lafayette, and Richmond) to head coach (in the CFL.) Dude's been around.
Faragalli was the backup plan as offensive coordinator if London couldn't find one, and originally I was of the opinion that if London was taking this damn long to find a coordinator, he really wasn't sold on Faragalli's abilities there. Change of opinion: it actually seems more likely London wanted Faragalli in a minor official role so he could take on a very large unofficial role.
Technically, therefore, Faragalli is the running backs coach, but the staff is so under-experienced that Faragalli probably carries the unofficial title of co-everything else. He'll have a hand in building the playbook, you can bet on that. He'll be showing the ropes to the newbie coaches. I know very little about Faragalli other than an overview of his career history, but I wish there were more like him on this staff.
Tight ends: Scott Wachenheim
London brought Wachenheim on board to coach the tight ends, yes, but he's also made it abundantly clear Wachenheim will be expected to lend a hand with the offensive line. Like Faragalli, Wachenheim has an official position and an unofficial one, and given Ron Mattes's woeful lack of experience, it seems to me Wachenheim's duties will be split as much as 50/50. I don't think that's especially healthy. As far as the tight ends go, if Wachenheim is able to focus the right amount of attention on them then I don't have any worries that they'll be productive, but given that he basically has to babysit a pair of rookie coaches, I have my worries about the arrangement.
Offensive line: Ron Mattes/Gordie Sammis
Neither are listed as assistant coaches, because the limit there is nine. Mattes and Sammis are technically graduate assistants, with a lot more responsibility than the usual graduate assistant is given. Both are UVA alums, bringing the alum count on the staff to four, six if you count video grad assistants Josh Zidenberg and Brennan Schmidt. Neither has a lick of coaching experience. Well, OK: Mattes spent four years at JMU after his rather successful NFL career was up - unfortunately that was over 12 years ago. He spent one of those years coaching the O-line.
And yes, this has "bad idea" written all over it. Mattes' extensive time in the NFL is a plus, but that's about the only thing on his resume that says this is a good idea. Sammis is really just apprenticing, but Mattes is going to be expected to pull his weight along with the rest of the coaches. This is a unit that badly underperformed last year because their heads were spinning from the new ideas being thrown at them: two-point stances, huge line splits, entirely new blocking schemes. To put them in the care of a guy who hasn't coached for 12 years and barely has any more experience coaching the line than you or I is not a low-risk move.
Overall, I can't offer up a big vote of confidence for this offensive staff. Taken individually, it seems fine: Lazor has a lot of impressive referrals, Moore is a UVA legend, Mattes is a highly accomplished NFL lineman and should know his trade pretty well, etc. etc. But the experience mix tilts way too heavily toward the inexperienced side of the ledger. This offense is sorely in need of some quality guidance. It needs people who can say, "look, this is how you do it because this is what has worked for the past thirty years." We just don't have enough of that here, and as a result the guys who do have the experience are going to be spending too much of their time babysitting the guys without. Worse, all that inexperience is in the most important positions. Coordinator. O-line coach. Wouldn't it make more sense, for example, to break in Mattes as the tight ends coach, where he would only have five or six players to worry about, than to give him the biggest unit on the team (twenty-plus players)? I have serious misgivings about the way this has been put together. You can only employ someone as a grad assistant for two years, so there will be a guaranteed shakeup after 2011. I don't know whether to add that to the pile of problems or consider it a blessing in disguise.
Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks: Bill Lazor
Yes, it's just like "laser." Headline writers throughout the entire Commonwealth creamed their pants when they heard he was hired. But Lazor, by virtue of his inexperience and the high-profile job he now holds, is the biggest question mark of the bunch.
First, the positives. During his NFL career, he's worked for some of the best coaches the NFL has to offer. No, not Bill Parcells. But his bosses have included Dan Reeves, Mike Holmgren, and Joe Gibbs, all of whom gave their stamp of approval to the hire. London didn't know Lazor before a month or so ago, but while on the OC hunt, London came across some of these folks and they were all like, "you totally gotta hire this guy," so he did. Lazor, interestingly, has never been fired from any position he's held. When he left the University of Buffalo, it was by his own doing to pursue an NFL career, and though he worked for three separate teams in seven years, his departures were always because of a change at head coach.
He has, on his resume, exactly two years of offensive coordinator experience, which at least is more than Mike Groh had....but still. Those years were largely disastrous, but can't be held against him - Buffalo was in their third and fourth years of I-A membership and wasn't exactly even a competitive team in I-AA. They were horribly ill-equipped for the jump and Bear Bryant couldn't have led that team to three wins. Lazor therefore doesn't have to learn a whole lot about the day-to-day duties, but he is essentially starting fresh here without much, if any, past experience to draw meaningful lessons from. I expect Lazor will be a pretty good quarterbacks coach and a big asset to a very inexperienced squad, but his performance as OC is totally up in the air.
The pro-style offense Lazor will run should be a plus in the short-term, as it won't require much adjustment. It's what the players are used to, even despite the dabblings in the spread last year. It'll make the learning curve a lot shallower.
Wide receivers: Shawn Moore
I may be the only Virginia fan not doing cartwheels about this. Moore quarterbacked some of the most successful UVA teams in history, so he's at least one of the top three most recognizable program alums out there. On the recruiting trail it will be a boost - people know who he is, and when he talks about how awesome UVA is, it'll be instantly obvious he means it 100%.
But between the sidelines, Moore is just another coach, and unfortunately one with zero coaching experience above high school - and we have thrust him into an important offensive assistant position, important especially given that I don't think we got particularly good instruction in this realm from Latrell Scott last year. Moore is tasked with fixing one of the most underachieving position groups on the team, and his bio includes all of one sentence about his coaching experience.
Wide receivers coach is at least the proper position for Moore, if he's going to be somewhere. This may sound counterintuitive, but the best quarterbacks often make lousy coaches. There's a reason the best NFL quarterbacks tend to go into broadcasting instead of coaching. It came naturally to them, so they don't always know how to impart that to someone who needs to squeeze all his available potential out of limited resources. Someone like Marc Verica, for example. At receiver, Moore may not be 100% familiar with a lot of the footwork and blocking techniques, but he can impart what a quarterback wants a receiver to do, which is half the battle.
Running backs: Mike Faragalli
This is where London will supposedly be looking for offensive wisdom. Faragalli's been in the coaching business for three decades, running the gamut from assistant at every position to offensive coordinator (at Bowling Green, Lafayette, and Richmond) to head coach (in the CFL.) Dude's been around.
Faragalli was the backup plan as offensive coordinator if London couldn't find one, and originally I was of the opinion that if London was taking this damn long to find a coordinator, he really wasn't sold on Faragalli's abilities there. Change of opinion: it actually seems more likely London wanted Faragalli in a minor official role so he could take on a very large unofficial role.
Technically, therefore, Faragalli is the running backs coach, but the staff is so under-experienced that Faragalli probably carries the unofficial title of co-everything else. He'll have a hand in building the playbook, you can bet on that. He'll be showing the ropes to the newbie coaches. I know very little about Faragalli other than an overview of his career history, but I wish there were more like him on this staff.
Tight ends: Scott Wachenheim
London brought Wachenheim on board to coach the tight ends, yes, but he's also made it abundantly clear Wachenheim will be expected to lend a hand with the offensive line. Like Faragalli, Wachenheim has an official position and an unofficial one, and given Ron Mattes's woeful lack of experience, it seems to me Wachenheim's duties will be split as much as 50/50. I don't think that's especially healthy. As far as the tight ends go, if Wachenheim is able to focus the right amount of attention on them then I don't have any worries that they'll be productive, but given that he basically has to babysit a pair of rookie coaches, I have my worries about the arrangement.
Offensive line: Ron Mattes/Gordie Sammis
Neither are listed as assistant coaches, because the limit there is nine. Mattes and Sammis are technically graduate assistants, with a lot more responsibility than the usual graduate assistant is given. Both are UVA alums, bringing the alum count on the staff to four, six if you count video grad assistants Josh Zidenberg and Brennan Schmidt. Neither has a lick of coaching experience. Well, OK: Mattes spent four years at JMU after his rather successful NFL career was up - unfortunately that was over 12 years ago. He spent one of those years coaching the O-line.
And yes, this has "bad idea" written all over it. Mattes' extensive time in the NFL is a plus, but that's about the only thing on his resume that says this is a good idea. Sammis is really just apprenticing, but Mattes is going to be expected to pull his weight along with the rest of the coaches. This is a unit that badly underperformed last year because their heads were spinning from the new ideas being thrown at them: two-point stances, huge line splits, entirely new blocking schemes. To put them in the care of a guy who hasn't coached for 12 years and barely has any more experience coaching the line than you or I is not a low-risk move.
Overall, I can't offer up a big vote of confidence for this offensive staff. Taken individually, it seems fine: Lazor has a lot of impressive referrals, Moore is a UVA legend, Mattes is a highly accomplished NFL lineman and should know his trade pretty well, etc. etc. But the experience mix tilts way too heavily toward the inexperienced side of the ledger. This offense is sorely in need of some quality guidance. It needs people who can say, "look, this is how you do it because this is what has worked for the past thirty years." We just don't have enough of that here, and as a result the guys who do have the experience are going to be spending too much of their time babysitting the guys without. Worse, all that inexperience is in the most important positions. Coordinator. O-line coach. Wouldn't it make more sense, for example, to break in Mattes as the tight ends coach, where he would only have five or six players to worry about, than to give him the biggest unit on the team (twenty-plus players)? I have serious misgivings about the way this has been put together. You can only employ someone as a grad assistant for two years, so there will be a guaranteed shakeup after 2011. I don't know whether to add that to the pile of problems or consider it a blessing in disguise.
Friday, February 5, 2010
assistant coaches: defense
Way back, I said I'd offer up some kind of writeup on the coaching staff beneath Mike London once they were all officially in place. That time is now. Today, a quick study on each of the defensive coaches, and then sometime next week, the offensive side.
Defensive coordinator: Jim Reid
I have no idea what the difference is between an assistant head coach and an associate head coach - probably none at all - but Jim Reid, besides being the chief defense dude, is officially the latter. The guy's been around. He started his career by rising all the way from graduate assistant to head coach at UMass, and he coached Richmond and VMI as well.
His head coaching record appears spotty at first blush (he has a losing record), but there are mitigating circumstances, the biggest one being: it was friggin' VMI. That's a no-win situation there. Pun intended. At Richmond, he did very well until his last few years, but UVA fans can no doubt sympathize with the reasons: the meddling administration cut down the number of scholarships he had at his disposal.
He did well enough at Richmond that he almost got himself hired here at UVA, and probably would have been if George Welsh hadn't retired. It makes for a nice little circle from when Reid was sent to shadow Welsh around some 20+ years ago to learn the coaching ropes. Welsh said Reid's defense gave him fits, which must have some ring of truth to it given that Al Groh's first UVA squad needed a missed extra point to beat Reid in 2001.
If nothing else, you have to appreciate what this hire says about the honesty of the coaching staff in place. It's an interesting dynamic because Reid was London's boss once upon a time. London has proclaimed his willingness to depart from the Groh tradition of heavy-handed micromanaging, and Reid for his part believes that the coaches he hired worked "with him, not for him." London's willingness to hire an old boss whose pinky finger has more head coaching experience than London will have in five years, and Reid's willingness to leave a cushy NFL job and work under someone he once directed, speak to the truth of these statements.
Fun fact: Welsh wasn't the only opposing coach to praise Reid's defenses. His counterpart at Villanova called games against Reid's Richmond defenses "bloodlettings."
Defensive line/recruiting coordinator - Jeff Hanson
Hanson is one of the cadre brought over from Richmond along with London, and it's not the first time London has hired the man. Though Hanson spent 28 years at Richmond, it was London that brought him in for his third stint in 2008. Hanson's never been a head coach or even a coordinator, and has also never coached in the I-A ranks before. However, Hanson was London's assistant head coach for two years at Richmond and would have been the acting head coach if for whatever reason London wasn't available.
It's just a little bothersome that Hanson has never coached at the highest levels before despite bumming around the I-AA ranks for a full 38 years. What Hanson does bring to the table is a high degree of familiarity with his bosses - he's already worked for both London and defensive coordinator Jim Reid in the past, at Richmond, and the (caution: annoying corporate buzzword follows) synergy that that brings is comforting. The job of recruiting coordinator is largely administrative and carried out in the offices, not on the recruiting trail, and the major difference between his old job and this one is that I-A recruiting has a much more national scope than I-AA recruiting does. Other than that, his skills should translate over seamlessly.
Fun fact: Does not actually put on the foil before every game.
Linebackers - Vincent Brown
And just when you think you've gotten rid of the Bill Parcells coaching tree at UVA. Back in the day, Brown was a top-notch linebacker for the Patriots for - yup - Bill Parcells for a couple years. He got his feet wet coaching for - yup - Parcells again, this time with the Dallas Cowboys, first as an intern, and then, he must have made some kind of impression, because he was brought back for a year as the Cowboys' inside linebackers coach. No doubt due to the well-known Groh-Parcells connection, Brown spent 2007 as a grad assistant right here at UVA, and then was brought to Richmond when London left to coach there.
Brown appears to have the makings of a real up-and-comer in the coaching ranks. Just one internship in Dallas and no less a personality than Bill Parcells gave him an actual NFL coaching job - probably under some supervision, but still. Just one year working with Mike London at UVA and he was promptly offered the linebacker job when London got his chance at Richmond. Occasionally, people voice some concern that London has turned our coaching staff into Richmond, version 2, but Brown can't really be lumped into that - he's a London guy more than a Richmond guy, and his NFL experience is a major asset. He's inexperienced, but he's made all the right impressions so far.
Fun fact: When Brown took the ballsy step of asking Bill Parcells for a coaching job, Parcells made him chill out for a year to make sure he actually wanted to coach.
Cornerbacks - Chip West
Like Hanson, West is in his first I-A job (unless you count having been a grad assistant at WVU.) Being a Hampton native, he fills the role here of the resident celebrity recruiter in the crucial 757 area, and London makes no secret of his having been hired in part to do just that. West also has the distinction of being on the first coaching staff of the reconstituted ODU football team, where he just happened to have been assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator. Quality coaching credentials, although as always there's a smidge of doubt about taking those skills to the next level. Still, personality is personality, and West is here to recruit and the fact that he's only being given half a position to coach (a typical coaching staff has one coach for the DBs, not two) underscores that.
Fun fact: Being a black guy named Chip puts him into automatic consideration for the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.
Safeties/special teams: Anthony Poindexter
Oh come on, look, if you don't know about Dex, I'm afraid we're going to have to put the training wheels back on your UVA fandom.
What you really need to know about this is that I am not at all convinced London would have brought back Dex given his druthers. Along with Bob Price, Poindexter was one of the holdovers from Groh's staff tasked by the administration to keep the program from falling totally to pieces while they conducted the coaching search. The reason I'm not really convinced London actually made the call to keep him is because 1) he wasn't the first choice for special teams coach and 2) he had half his positional responsibilities shifted to Chip West. It seems odd you'd do that latter move to someone you fully intended to keep around. I could be completely, 100% wrong on this, it's just speculation.
Fun fact: Poindexter once played football for the University of Virginia Cavaliers.
Overall
Mike London has worked in some capacity with each and every one of these coaches, including West, with whom he's never been on a staff but did work a few recruiting camps. Al Groh was an outstanding defensive mind, but thanks to a little continuity with Poindexter and a lot of familiarity between these coaches, there shouldn't be much of a step down, if any, from previous years. There's an extremely heavy state-of-Virginia slant - all of them have spent huge portions of their careers in the state, and experience at half the D-I football programs in the state is represented on the defense alone. Jim Reid should prove to be an excellent choice as defensive coordinator in all facets: he's got the certificates on the wall, he's got the seal of approval from no less an authority than George Welsh, and he's not likely to seek out another job for quite a while. There's a nice mix of experience and up-and-coming energy on this defensive staff, and it won't hurt that London is a defensive guy himself. The defense is in good hands for the coming seasons.
Defensive coordinator: Jim Reid
I have no idea what the difference is between an assistant head coach and an associate head coach - probably none at all - but Jim Reid, besides being the chief defense dude, is officially the latter. The guy's been around. He started his career by rising all the way from graduate assistant to head coach at UMass, and he coached Richmond and VMI as well.
His head coaching record appears spotty at first blush (he has a losing record), but there are mitigating circumstances, the biggest one being: it was friggin' VMI. That's a no-win situation there. Pun intended. At Richmond, he did very well until his last few years, but UVA fans can no doubt sympathize with the reasons: the meddling administration cut down the number of scholarships he had at his disposal.
He did well enough at Richmond that he almost got himself hired here at UVA, and probably would have been if George Welsh hadn't retired. It makes for a nice little circle from when Reid was sent to shadow Welsh around some 20+ years ago to learn the coaching ropes. Welsh said Reid's defense gave him fits, which must have some ring of truth to it given that Al Groh's first UVA squad needed a missed extra point to beat Reid in 2001.
If nothing else, you have to appreciate what this hire says about the honesty of the coaching staff in place. It's an interesting dynamic because Reid was London's boss once upon a time. London has proclaimed his willingness to depart from the Groh tradition of heavy-handed micromanaging, and Reid for his part believes that the coaches he hired worked "with him, not for him." London's willingness to hire an old boss whose pinky finger has more head coaching experience than London will have in five years, and Reid's willingness to leave a cushy NFL job and work under someone he once directed, speak to the truth of these statements.
Fun fact: Welsh wasn't the only opposing coach to praise Reid's defenses. His counterpart at Villanova called games against Reid's Richmond defenses "bloodlettings."
Defensive line/recruiting coordinator - Jeff Hanson
Hanson is one of the cadre brought over from Richmond along with London, and it's not the first time London has hired the man. Though Hanson spent 28 years at Richmond, it was London that brought him in for his third stint in 2008. Hanson's never been a head coach or even a coordinator, and has also never coached in the I-A ranks before. However, Hanson was London's assistant head coach for two years at Richmond and would have been the acting head coach if for whatever reason London wasn't available.
It's just a little bothersome that Hanson has never coached at the highest levels before despite bumming around the I-AA ranks for a full 38 years. What Hanson does bring to the table is a high degree of familiarity with his bosses - he's already worked for both London and defensive coordinator Jim Reid in the past, at Richmond, and the (caution: annoying corporate buzzword follows) synergy that that brings is comforting. The job of recruiting coordinator is largely administrative and carried out in the offices, not on the recruiting trail, and the major difference between his old job and this one is that I-A recruiting has a much more national scope than I-AA recruiting does. Other than that, his skills should translate over seamlessly.
Fun fact: Does not actually put on the foil before every game.
Linebackers - Vincent Brown
And just when you think you've gotten rid of the Bill Parcells coaching tree at UVA. Back in the day, Brown was a top-notch linebacker for the Patriots for - yup - Bill Parcells for a couple years. He got his feet wet coaching for - yup - Parcells again, this time with the Dallas Cowboys, first as an intern, and then, he must have made some kind of impression, because he was brought back for a year as the Cowboys' inside linebackers coach. No doubt due to the well-known Groh-Parcells connection, Brown spent 2007 as a grad assistant right here at UVA, and then was brought to Richmond when London left to coach there.
Brown appears to have the makings of a real up-and-comer in the coaching ranks. Just one internship in Dallas and no less a personality than Bill Parcells gave him an actual NFL coaching job - probably under some supervision, but still. Just one year working with Mike London at UVA and he was promptly offered the linebacker job when London got his chance at Richmond. Occasionally, people voice some concern that London has turned our coaching staff into Richmond, version 2, but Brown can't really be lumped into that - he's a London guy more than a Richmond guy, and his NFL experience is a major asset. He's inexperienced, but he's made all the right impressions so far.
Fun fact: When Brown took the ballsy step of asking Bill Parcells for a coaching job, Parcells made him chill out for a year to make sure he actually wanted to coach.
Cornerbacks - Chip West
Like Hanson, West is in his first I-A job (unless you count having been a grad assistant at WVU.) Being a Hampton native, he fills the role here of the resident celebrity recruiter in the crucial 757 area, and London makes no secret of his having been hired in part to do just that. West also has the distinction of being on the first coaching staff of the reconstituted ODU football team, where he just happened to have been assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator. Quality coaching credentials, although as always there's a smidge of doubt about taking those skills to the next level. Still, personality is personality, and West is here to recruit and the fact that he's only being given half a position to coach (a typical coaching staff has one coach for the DBs, not two) underscores that.
Fun fact: Being a black guy named Chip puts him into automatic consideration for the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars.
Safeties/special teams: Anthony Poindexter
Oh come on, look, if you don't know about Dex, I'm afraid we're going to have to put the training wheels back on your UVA fandom.
What you really need to know about this is that I am not at all convinced London would have brought back Dex given his druthers. Along with Bob Price, Poindexter was one of the holdovers from Groh's staff tasked by the administration to keep the program from falling totally to pieces while they conducted the coaching search. The reason I'm not really convinced London actually made the call to keep him is because 1) he wasn't the first choice for special teams coach and 2) he had half his positional responsibilities shifted to Chip West. It seems odd you'd do that latter move to someone you fully intended to keep around. I could be completely, 100% wrong on this, it's just speculation.
Fun fact: Poindexter once played football for the University of Virginia Cavaliers.
Overall
Mike London has worked in some capacity with each and every one of these coaches, including West, with whom he's never been on a staff but did work a few recruiting camps. Al Groh was an outstanding defensive mind, but thanks to a little continuity with Poindexter and a lot of familiarity between these coaches, there shouldn't be much of a step down, if any, from previous years. There's an extremely heavy state-of-Virginia slant - all of them have spent huge portions of their careers in the state, and experience at half the D-I football programs in the state is represented on the defense alone. Jim Reid should prove to be an excellent choice as defensive coordinator in all facets: he's got the certificates on the wall, he's got the seal of approval from no less an authority than George Welsh, and he's not likely to seek out another job for quite a while. There's a nice mix of experience and up-and-coming energy on this defensive staff, and it won't hurt that London is a defensive guy himself. The defense is in good hands for the coming seasons.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
musings
Just bullets today, and some linkage:
- As soon as we ever figure out who the offensive coordinator is going to be, I want to try and do up a little something something for him and DC Jim Reid, but man is this OC hire taking forever. Doug Doughty tosses out two names: Craig Johnson and Kevin Rogers, quarterback coaches for the Titans and Vikings, respectively. I don't know who this is going to end up being, but I think I know who I'd rather it not be: the already-on-staff Mike Faragalli. Nothing against Faragalli specifically, it's just that if Mike London is willing to drag this OC search on forever and ever with Faragalli waiting in the wings as backup, Faragalli must not be that attractive an option.
- You might have noticed yesterday that the new university president has been identified as one Dr. Teresa Sullivan, currently the provost at Michigan. If you're like me, you never heard of her til yesterday. So I asked for a little input from those who might know better. It's just message board chatter, so take it for what it's worth to you, but it is at least a step in the right direction.
Me, I ask only a few things of our school president. One is to uphold the principles of student self-governance. I can only hope Sullivan can match Casteen here - this was one of Casteen's strongest points. Another would be to understand that a world-class university needs to be world-class in everything it does - and that includes athletics. Pointy-headed academicians - the type that will scream at you if you park at 4:58 in a parking lot that's reserved until 5:00 - do not get this. Sullivan spent decades at the University of Texas and several years at the University of Michigan, and has this to say about athletics:
- Aaron Corp is going to Richmond, which is just great because now we get to play against him right off the bat. But speaking of next year's opponents....
- .....is the house coming down at USC or what? The timeline here looks very roughly and not to scale like this:
The question is this: Will the coming sanctions be heavy enough that the NCAA opens up the transfer door and allows players to leave without sitting out a year, as they did at Alabama earlier this decade? I think there's a strong possibility of that, and in that case it'll be interesting to see who jumps ship. It could be a very, very different Coliseum that our own team walks into in September. Will Mike London have us in the right shape to take advantage of a USC team that might be in a state of terrible disarray? It'll be interesting to find out.
- And speaking of disarray, did this offseason turn into an earthquake in the coaching circles or what? It sure looked like a quiet one back in November: UVA, Louisville, maybe Colorado (didn't happen.) Yawn. Sure, Al Groh looked like a goner after the first week of November, but who could have predicted back then that Notre Dame, Florida, USC, Cincinnati, Texas Tech, Kansas, and South Florida would all coached by someone different in 2010? That's half a ton of coaches at two of those schools alone, and if Maryland had any money in their athletic budget, it'd have been the trifecta of fired fattys. Three coaches dismissed for being dicks to their players, even with the exact magnitude of said dickery in question. One resignation because of an impending NCAA doomhammer and another that may or may not be a resignation or a sabbatical or even an extended weekend for all we know. That's a long list of schools in need of a coach, and rather surprisingly, only one of those fired their coach for losing football games.
- Seriously, there is a lot of VT love going on among the pundits. Kirk Herbstreit had them in his early top five for 2010. Rivals has them 11th (not totally out of whack) and the early favorite for the division title next year (also not totally out of whack) but also has this to say: "The presence of RBs Ryan Williams and Darren Evans and QB Tyrod Taylor in the backfield should give the Hokies one of the nation's most fearsome rushing attacks." Rivals' Steve Megargee notes: "Virginia Tech returns most of its skill-position players on offense and should boast the nation's best running-back tandem next season in Ryan Williams and Darren Evans."
Fortunately for delicious irony, that last phrase is right next to a large, full-color picture of C.J. Spiller. I'm reminded strongly of 2008, when Clemson was anointed The Team To Beat on account of their deadly running tandem of Spiller and James Davis as well as their array of skill players. This is something the media loves to do, because it's easy and requires only a quick look at a stat sheet and a roster: whichever team has the best returning skill players is the team to beat.
The media, of course, glossed over the fact that Clemson had a young and terrible offensive line and not a whole lot going on for them on defense. A 12-7 loss to Wake Forest later, Clemson had a new coach to go along with the rest of that inexperience. I'm obviously not going to suggest that Frank Beamer will follow Tommy Bowden into forced retirement, but, consider their defense. By my count, eight regular or semi-regular starters on Poly's defense will have to be replaced: Jason Worilds, Nekos Brown, Kam Chancellor, Cordarrow Thompson, Cody Grimm, Dorian Porch, Stephan Virgil, and Demetrius Taylor all graduate, or in the case of Worilds, leave early for the NFL. And don't forget three of their best blockers: Greg Boone, Ed Wang, and Sergio Render.
That is a lot of defensive talent that has to be replaced somehow. You can't just gloss that over. You especially can't claim Georgia Tech is out of the running just for losing two top juniors and gloss over the seven regular starters Poly is losing, as Megargee did. If you're despairing because we're in a rebuilding year in 2010 and everyone thinks VT is going to roll the conference, don't. I'll tell you right now, Poly will fall short of these expectations.
- Tomorrow is the GT game, and the game preview will, at least in part, take the form of a Q&A session with esteemed GT blog From The Rumble Seat. These are always a lot of fun to do and FTRS knows their GT stuff, so there's much to look forward to.
- As soon as we ever figure out who the offensive coordinator is going to be, I want to try and do up a little something something for him and DC Jim Reid, but man is this OC hire taking forever. Doug Doughty tosses out two names: Craig Johnson and Kevin Rogers, quarterback coaches for the Titans and Vikings, respectively. I don't know who this is going to end up being, but I think I know who I'd rather it not be: the already-on-staff Mike Faragalli. Nothing against Faragalli specifically, it's just that if Mike London is willing to drag this OC search on forever and ever with Faragalli waiting in the wings as backup, Faragalli must not be that attractive an option.
- You might have noticed yesterday that the new university president has been identified as one Dr. Teresa Sullivan, currently the provost at Michigan. If you're like me, you never heard of her til yesterday. So I asked for a little input from those who might know better. It's just message board chatter, so take it for what it's worth to you, but it is at least a step in the right direction.
Me, I ask only a few things of our school president. One is to uphold the principles of student self-governance. I can only hope Sullivan can match Casteen here - this was one of Casteen's strongest points. Another would be to understand that a world-class university needs to be world-class in everything it does - and that includes athletics. Pointy-headed academicians - the type that will scream at you if you park at 4:58 in a parking lot that's reserved until 5:00 - do not get this. Sullivan spent decades at the University of Texas and several years at the University of Michigan, and has this to say about athletics:
Her long-held belief that athletics are an important component of university life should do the same, she said, with the athletic community, as well as with students, faculty and alumni. "There are great advantages to having athletics on college campuses," she said. "Games are a wonderful opportunity to bring the community together and to connect in special ways, particularly with alumni, parents and friends of the University."I don't have the slightest clue about how respected she is in her chosen field of sociology, nor how good a job she's done as an administrative underling, though I expect the answer is "very" if she's been selected as the president of a university such as ours. I have to say I'm at least mildly encouraged here at the beginning, though. She is talking the talk, at least.
- Aaron Corp is going to Richmond, which is just great because now we get to play against him right off the bat. But speaking of next year's opponents....
- .....is the house coming down at USC or what? The timeline here looks very roughly and not to scale like this:
- Basketball coach resigns because hammer is coming, claims it has nothing to do with said hammer.
- School self-hammers basketball program. Hard.
- NCAA rejects self-hammer, says "we'll take care of this thank you very much." Self-hammer apparently not hammery enough.
- Football coach resigns because hammer is coming, claims it has nothing to do with said hammer.
- Investigation wraps up.
- ????
The question is this: Will the coming sanctions be heavy enough that the NCAA opens up the transfer door and allows players to leave without sitting out a year, as they did at Alabama earlier this decade? I think there's a strong possibility of that, and in that case it'll be interesting to see who jumps ship. It could be a very, very different Coliseum that our own team walks into in September. Will Mike London have us in the right shape to take advantage of a USC team that might be in a state of terrible disarray? It'll be interesting to find out.
- And speaking of disarray, did this offseason turn into an earthquake in the coaching circles or what? It sure looked like a quiet one back in November: UVA, Louisville, maybe Colorado (didn't happen.) Yawn. Sure, Al Groh looked like a goner after the first week of November, but who could have predicted back then that Notre Dame, Florida, USC, Cincinnati, Texas Tech, Kansas, and South Florida would all coached by someone different in 2010? That's half a ton of coaches at two of those schools alone, and if Maryland had any money in their athletic budget, it'd have been the trifecta of fired fattys. Three coaches dismissed for being dicks to their players, even with the exact magnitude of said dickery in question. One resignation because of an impending NCAA doomhammer and another that may or may not be a resignation or a sabbatical or even an extended weekend for all we know. That's a long list of schools in need of a coach, and rather surprisingly, only one of those fired their coach for losing football games.
- Seriously, there is a lot of VT love going on among the pundits. Kirk Herbstreit had them in his early top five for 2010. Rivals has them 11th (not totally out of whack) and the early favorite for the division title next year (also not totally out of whack) but also has this to say: "The presence of RBs Ryan Williams and Darren Evans and QB Tyrod Taylor in the backfield should give the Hokies one of the nation's most fearsome rushing attacks." Rivals' Steve Megargee notes: "Virginia Tech returns most of its skill-position players on offense and should boast the nation's best running-back tandem next season in Ryan Williams and Darren Evans."
Fortunately for delicious irony, that last phrase is right next to a large, full-color picture of C.J. Spiller. I'm reminded strongly of 2008, when Clemson was anointed The Team To Beat on account of their deadly running tandem of Spiller and James Davis as well as their array of skill players. This is something the media loves to do, because it's easy and requires only a quick look at a stat sheet and a roster: whichever team has the best returning skill players is the team to beat.
The media, of course, glossed over the fact that Clemson had a young and terrible offensive line and not a whole lot going on for them on defense. A 12-7 loss to Wake Forest later, Clemson had a new coach to go along with the rest of that inexperience. I'm obviously not going to suggest that Frank Beamer will follow Tommy Bowden into forced retirement, but, consider their defense. By my count, eight regular or semi-regular starters on Poly's defense will have to be replaced: Jason Worilds, Nekos Brown, Kam Chancellor, Cordarrow Thompson, Cody Grimm, Dorian Porch, Stephan Virgil, and Demetrius Taylor all graduate, or in the case of Worilds, leave early for the NFL. And don't forget three of their best blockers: Greg Boone, Ed Wang, and Sergio Render.
That is a lot of defensive talent that has to be replaced somehow. You can't just gloss that over. You especially can't claim Georgia Tech is out of the running just for losing two top juniors and gloss over the seven regular starters Poly is losing, as Megargee did. If you're despairing because we're in a rebuilding year in 2010 and everyone thinks VT is going to roll the conference, don't. I'll tell you right now, Poly will fall short of these expectations.
- Tomorrow is the GT game, and the game preview will, at least in part, take the form of a Q&A session with esteemed GT blog From The Rumble Seat. These are always a lot of fun to do and FTRS knows their GT stuff, so there's much to look forward to.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
assistant coaches
Hopefully this is the coaching search wrap-up and in the future I can talk about Tony Bennett exclusively as the head coach actual and not as some guy we just hired who's going to be the head coach.
First, check out the coaching search cliff notes at the ACC Sports Journal, where they give you the rundown of about four weeks' worth of insanity in one easy page.
Next, have a look at the apparent list of assistant coaches. "Apparent" because Ritchie McKay is the only one named officially by the University, but there's no reason not to believe Jeff White here.
There are three names to take a look at. I'm not going to worry about Brad Soucie here because as director of basketball operations, he's really more of a Man Friday to Coach Bennett and literally not allowed to get involved with actual coaching. Besides Bennett, the three guys that will be doing the coaching and recruiting and all that are Ritchie McKay, Ron Sanchez, and Jason Williford. One by one, here's what I think:
Ritchie McKay
McKay hasn't been an assistant coach since 1995 - his extensive head coaching experience is the main asset he brings to this job. Also anyone who can recruit a talent like Seth Curry to come to a school where there's a curfew and a ban on R-rated movies is a plus recruiter in my book. Also he's probably one of the top five reasons Dave Leitao was fired, since at UVA you're not supposed to lose to Liberty. The least he could do to make up for that blemish on our record was to come here to coach, right? Anyway, aside from that, McKay's coaching career is a depressing pyramid of undistinguished tenures at lousy programs. There's a certain symmetry to it, actually, if you look. And none of it's even remotely impressive, to be honest. The one season he had any real success at all - his New Mexico team earning a 12 seed to the tournament - he had Danny Granger, a future first-round pick of the Indiana Pacers, leading the way. Still, McKay's not the head coach. He's the associate head coach. And I figure the man knows a little something about recruiting if he can bring Seth Curry onboard, and the experience of having been a head coach will be a big plus for Bennett.
Ron Sanchez
Sanchez comes to Charlottesville as a package deal with Bennett. His WSU bio is here, for however long it manages to stay before it's taken down, and no, I'm not getting excited over his ties to New York, going to school there and coaching D-III ball doesn't qualify. Eight years ago, Sanchez was an associate head coach at a JUCO; he is now a highly paid ACC assistant. That qualifies as a meteoric rise through the coaching ranks, and that suggests either a highly motivated, Type-A go-getter or a shameless self-promoter, depending on whether or not you were the guy he stepped on to get what he wants. Either way, Bennett has been leaning on Sanchez for some time now in the recruiting domain, and it's going to be that way here too, and that kind of personality is a plus - almost a requirement - in the world of basketball recruiting. Also, according to his bio, he is a killer scheduler of schedules. For what that's worth.
Jason Williford
Did you know Williford played for Jeff Jones at UVA? OK, you probably did. Did you know he played professional ball too? Yup. Not being quite the caliber player the NBA is looking for, Williford headed overseas and played professionally in Iceland(!!) and Korea. Now, let's be honest: Williford's US coaching career, aside from volunteer work and high school, is five years at Boston U. and four at American. Williford was able to use his UVA connections first to land the American job (it being under the coach he played for here) and then to land this one. And that's not a bad thing. First off it's nice to have someone who's got recent connections in a place where UVA absolutely must recruit in order to be viable: the DC area. Second, we finally have someone involved with the program who knows what the program was like when it produced Sweet Sixteen-caliber teams. And third, speaking of the NCAA tournament, Williford has more tournament experience than the whole rest of the staff combined. His three appearances as a player and three appearances as an assistant coach, including a total of 12 games, have got everyone else beat, including Bennett. You can't beat tournament experience.
Lastly, a little bit of a late Easter egg for you. It's not the big big news we've been waiting for but it's close. You won't be able to read this if you're not a Rivals subscriber, but the news will be out sooner rather than later anyway so I don't feel bad about posting it: Jontel Evans reaffirmed his commitment tonight. Evans' reputation as a tough, tough defender makes him something of a more talented version of the players Bennett liked to work with at WSU, so that combined with the fact that he'll be one of only two true PGs on the roster make him a big keep and likely to see time off the bench right away next year. One down, one to go.
EDIT of a happy nature: Easter egg, part two - if you believe Facebook statuses, Spurlock is also staying put, and the '09 class remains intact. Hopefully there'll be confirmation of a more official nature tomorrow, but Spurlock's Facebook postings have actually been reasonably reliable, and he has never come across as the type to mess with people on a mass scale. So: YAY! Tony Bennett has now achieved pretty much everything UVA fans could reasonably demand from him. He's put all the checks in all the right boxes, and no, he can't go back in time and also give himself a national title at Kentucky, so stop it. Focus can now turn 100% to the '09-'10 season and all it entails.
First, check out the coaching search cliff notes at the ACC Sports Journal, where they give you the rundown of about four weeks' worth of insanity in one easy page.
Next, have a look at the apparent list of assistant coaches. "Apparent" because Ritchie McKay is the only one named officially by the University, but there's no reason not to believe Jeff White here.
There are three names to take a look at. I'm not going to worry about Brad Soucie here because as director of basketball operations, he's really more of a Man Friday to Coach Bennett and literally not allowed to get involved with actual coaching. Besides Bennett, the three guys that will be doing the coaching and recruiting and all that are Ritchie McKay, Ron Sanchez, and Jason Williford. One by one, here's what I think:
Ritchie McKay
McKay hasn't been an assistant coach since 1995 - his extensive head coaching experience is the main asset he brings to this job. Also anyone who can recruit a talent like Seth Curry to come to a school where there's a curfew and a ban on R-rated movies is a plus recruiter in my book. Also he's probably one of the top five reasons Dave Leitao was fired, since at UVA you're not supposed to lose to Liberty. The least he could do to make up for that blemish on our record was to come here to coach, right? Anyway, aside from that, McKay's coaching career is a depressing pyramid of undistinguished tenures at lousy programs. There's a certain symmetry to it, actually, if you look. And none of it's even remotely impressive, to be honest. The one season he had any real success at all - his New Mexico team earning a 12 seed to the tournament - he had Danny Granger, a future first-round pick of the Indiana Pacers, leading the way. Still, McKay's not the head coach. He's the associate head coach. And I figure the man knows a little something about recruiting if he can bring Seth Curry onboard, and the experience of having been a head coach will be a big plus for Bennett.
Ron Sanchez
Sanchez comes to Charlottesville as a package deal with Bennett. His WSU bio is here, for however long it manages to stay before it's taken down, and no, I'm not getting excited over his ties to New York, going to school there and coaching D-III ball doesn't qualify. Eight years ago, Sanchez was an associate head coach at a JUCO; he is now a highly paid ACC assistant. That qualifies as a meteoric rise through the coaching ranks, and that suggests either a highly motivated, Type-A go-getter or a shameless self-promoter, depending on whether or not you were the guy he stepped on to get what he wants. Either way, Bennett has been leaning on Sanchez for some time now in the recruiting domain, and it's going to be that way here too, and that kind of personality is a plus - almost a requirement - in the world of basketball recruiting. Also, according to his bio, he is a killer scheduler of schedules. For what that's worth.
Jason Williford
Did you know Williford played for Jeff Jones at UVA? OK, you probably did. Did you know he played professional ball too? Yup. Not being quite the caliber player the NBA is looking for, Williford headed overseas and played professionally in Iceland(!!) and Korea. Now, let's be honest: Williford's US coaching career, aside from volunteer work and high school, is five years at Boston U. and four at American. Williford was able to use his UVA connections first to land the American job (it being under the coach he played for here) and then to land this one. And that's not a bad thing. First off it's nice to have someone who's got recent connections in a place where UVA absolutely must recruit in order to be viable: the DC area. Second, we finally have someone involved with the program who knows what the program was like when it produced Sweet Sixteen-caliber teams. And third, speaking of the NCAA tournament, Williford has more tournament experience than the whole rest of the staff combined. His three appearances as a player and three appearances as an assistant coach, including a total of 12 games, have got everyone else beat, including Bennett. You can't beat tournament experience.
Lastly, a little bit of a late Easter egg for you. It's not the big big news we've been waiting for but it's close. You won't be able to read this if you're not a Rivals subscriber, but the news will be out sooner rather than later anyway so I don't feel bad about posting it: Jontel Evans reaffirmed his commitment tonight. Evans' reputation as a tough, tough defender makes him something of a more talented version of the players Bennett liked to work with at WSU, so that combined with the fact that he'll be one of only two true PGs on the roster make him a big keep and likely to see time off the bench right away next year. One down, one to go.
EDIT of a happy nature: Easter egg, part two - if you believe Facebook statuses, Spurlock is also staying put, and the '09 class remains intact. Hopefully there'll be confirmation of a more official nature tomorrow, but Spurlock's Facebook postings have actually been reasonably reliable, and he has never come across as the type to mess with people on a mass scale. So: YAY! Tony Bennett has now achieved pretty much everything UVA fans could reasonably demand from him. He's put all the checks in all the right boxes, and no, he can't go back in time and also give himself a national title at Kentucky, so stop it. Focus can now turn 100% to the '09-'10 season and all it entails.
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