Admit it, you were thinking it. Collapse: imminent. In fact, it's probably your own damn fault Joe Harris missed that free throw, forcing the Hoos to defend a 1-point lead. All that negative energy is what caused the brick. Maybe he needs to start thinking of brunette chicks on a beach or something, like Michigan's kicker. At any rate, it's pretty much official now that no lead against Miami is quite safe. I was going to say "to remedy this we should go up by 30 next time we play them" but I don't want to test the basketball gods.
Anyway, no complaining allowed about the close win, because Miami doesn't get another crack at us. We don't have to worry about "damn that was in our place, what's it gonna be like going to theirs?" (Not scary. Miami has no home court atmosphere whatsoever. But I digress.) Instead, UVA is now 1-0 in the tossup side of the schedule. I like 10-6 as an achievable goal for our ACC record, so UVA just needs to go 4-3 to achieve that - or else steal a win from Duke on Thursday.
The nutty thing is, people actually think we can do it. Blew-my-mind quote of the week: "On a neutral court, you might even take the Cavaliers to win." Against Duke, that is. UVA is a fashionable upset pick, as Duke is coming off a loss to Temple and a struggley win at Georgia Tech, and UVA is "(the only) non-UNC team in the ACC that has a chance to force Duke to play to its style." This is certainly true - you can't make a team shoot before it wants to, and the defense is good enough to possibly be able to force Duke to also use the whole shot clock.
Really, that's the question. Of course, there'll be a game preview on Thursday for this one, but what it boils down to is which version of the sometimes-inconsistent Hoos show up. UVA has done an uncanny job this year of playing just slightly above its level of competition no matter what the competition, except for TCU in which we played just slightly below it. I'm not worried about Cameron; the Hoos proved last year they could handle the place. I am worried about Ryan Kelly's shooting, Austin Rivers's athleticism, and the size of the Plumlees; and I'm worried about the men in stripes. Did you know the ACC doesn't even send refs to Durham? It's true. Fifteen minutes before every tip-off, they just ask for student volunteers, preferably ones who've reffed IM games but all you really have to do is be able to fit into the shirts.
At #16 in the AP poll and #17 in the coaches' poll, UVA is now at the point where it would take a couple bad weeks in a row to get knocked out of the rankings, and that's not likely any time soon. (Unless you literally shit on the floor, pollsters don't usually penalize you for losing at Cameron, and three of the next five games after Duke are win-column padders, plus VT at home.) I still think that's a touch high, but after the events of this week (we won, and so did most of our good wins) it's a hell of a lot harder to claim we don't belong in the top 25. I'd rank K-State ahead of us, for example, but I don't think I can pick up nine more teams and move them ahead, so here we are. Also, a dreaded five-seed in Lunardi's bracketology (which is to say, somewhere between 17th and 20th in his reckoning.) If his bracket were the real thing, we'd be playing Belmont, which has me screaming in terror because Belmont opened the season by losing to Duke by one, and it's the 5/12 matchup and that's an evil place to be. We either need to win a lot more or lose a little more, because I really and truly would rather be the 6 seed than the 5.
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Anyway, there needs to be more to this post than just basketball, or I can't justify calling it a weekend review. So how about a recruiting board update? We don't get many of these, these days, and in a little while here I'm gonna start putting together the 2013 model. It'll be a little earlier than in previous years, because the 2012 recruiting season is gonna finish with very little drama. There might be a late addition somewhere, and we'll be keeping an eye on Stefon Diggs, but otherwise, we're just kind of loping to the finish line here. You'll hate me for saying this if it does happen, but I don't even think we'll have any decommitments. That would be a first in quite a while. For housekeeping's sake, here's what's changed on the 2012 board:
-- Changed QB Greyson Lambert from "verbal" to "enrolled." Because he is.
-- Re-added RB Imani Cross to green. Cross decommitted from Tennessee a little while back, and there's just too much going on around his recruitment to ignore it. If there weren't a bunch of conflicting reports, I'd put him in blue. Cross would be a great pickup, because he's something we don't have, either in this class or on the roster: a really big bruiserback.
-- Moved S Mike Tyson from yellow to red.
-- Removed RB Wes Brown (Maryland), OT Kyle Fuller (Baylor), and ATH Cyrus Jones (Alabama.)
About Brown: he was swayed to Maryland pretty rapidly by the newly hired Mike Locksley, Maryland's new offensive coordinator. Maryland is making no bones about what Locksley was hired to do: his bonuses for performing on the recruiting trail are larger than those for his offense's on-field performance.
This raises some pretty interesting questions about what's a good idea for coaching contracts. ESPN has pointed out that this is par for the course in the SEC; also par for the course in the SEC is oversigning and then kicking nonperformers out of the program under the guise of "medical scholarships." LSU famously told a kid he was not going to have the scholarship he'd signed up for after he'd already enrolled and moved into the dorm. Obviously, if oversigning is happening because the coaches have their eyes on their bonuses, it only makes a shitty procedure even shittier, so even the appearance of such a thing is probably not a good idea.
Neither is putting a guy in charge of your offense when his real job is recruiting. Locksley's record at UNM speaks for itself (on the plus side for Maryland, it probably means he'll never be hired for a head coaching job ever again), and his only other coordinator experience was at Illinois working for Ron Zook. Locksley's prime recruiting catch from his DC stomping grounds was wide receiver Arrelious Benn, which was quite a grab. And Illinois's offense did improve in each of Locksley's four years, but whether that was because of the appearance of Juice Williams or Locksley's coaching is up for debate. At any rate, though Locksley might be a recruiting challenge for UVA in the next couple years, I don't feel threatened by his presence in the coach's box on Saturdays.
Lastly, both the basketball and lacrosse depth charts are getting updates; a long-needed one in the case of the hoops chart. Bad news already appears on the lacrosse one with Nick O'Reilly's season-long suspension and Blake Riley's season-killing injury; both were set to see a lot of playing time, and both had really picked up their play toward the end of last season. You might remember that it was Riley who checked the ball free of a Bucknell middie's stick in overtime to set up UVA's eventual game-winner. Also please note that the lacrosse one isn't gonna be perfect; positions are a little fluid and I don't think all the information that's out there is necessarily correct, not even the officially listed ones on the roster.
And yes, I'm doing all of this stuff for you in the middle of the BCS championship game. It's not much of a sacrifice; it's difficult to watch a game when you know for a fact that both coaches are perfectly willing to screw a player's career in the name of winning and you suspect that the reason Mom got pissed at that one player's decision to pick Bama over LSU was that the LSU boosters offered her a better deal. I wouldn't be surprised if this game had a Subway Series effect; the TV ratings for the 2000 Yankees/Mets World Series plummeted because if something's a big deal only in your slice of the country, the rest of the country tends to be much less interested. ESPN and their ilk do not get this, but whatever.
Showing posts with label depth chart by class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depth chart by class. Show all posts
Monday, January 9, 2012
Monday, June 21, 2010
useful stuff update: getting thin edition
Another big wave of commitments means it's time to fix what needs fixing. And what goes up must come down: Jeff White also breaks the news of a number of departures for the year - some permanent, others not - that also necessitates an update to the depth chart as well as the recruiting board. Let's have at it:
- Surprising amount of attrition sees five players leave the team: WR Quintin Hunter, WR Javaris Brown, OT Lamar Milstead, DE Tory Allen-Ford, and CB Javanti Sparrow. The explanation for Sparrow involves privacy laws and the possibility of return for 2011, which decrypts as "academic issues." So Sparrow may end up returning as did, for example, Chris Cook and Jameel Sewell. And he has a redshirt year to use, courtesy of Al Groh's "slashing and burning of our future," as some like to call it. The rest are out.
- On the flip side, scholarships are given to WR Matt Snyder and K Robert Randolph.
- I've also updated, by the way, the spaces for the '11 commits. The latest, Kevin Green, probably isn't going to a quarterback at all, but what the hell, he goes there for now. I don't think he's on board for his quarterbacking so much as for his overall athleticism.
Impact? First, by my count, 82 scholarships spoken for; we'll be a few shy this year. Second, a little extra space, but not a lot, opens up in the recruiting class of 2011. Sparrow's scholarship hopefully won't be open, but the shuffling basically adds two free spaces. There's a bare, absolute minimum now of 16 members of the class; 14 are spoken for, 15 if you count Clifton Richardson as a commit, which I don't, yet. 20 was the old target; I'm thinking 22 now. This is the silver lining, and it's a big one, because spaces are quickly coming off the board and there are some primo targets left.
Second, depth at cornerback just went from a big issue to a big big issue. I know Mike London wants speed at linebacker but can we really be carrying 11 linebackers and five cornerbacks? Five scholarship players is not a cornerback depth chart, it's a cornerback kiddie pool. Depth is suddenly a problem at receiver too, with just seven scholarship players there. Wide receiver just became a priority for this class.
Speaking of this class, let's have a look at the new, updated recruiting board:
- Moved TE Darius Redman, LB Caleb Taylor, and S Kameron Mack to orange, and added ATH Kevin Green there too.
- Removed a few players with whom our chances have fallen from near zero to actually zero: ATH Lafonte Thourogood, WR Quinta Funderburk, and OT Cyrus Kouandjio.
- Removed a couple more players who it doesn't look like we'll get involved with: LB Myles Jackson and WR Melvin Robinson.
- Removed ATH Chris Hall, who's now a Hokie.
- Moved DE Norkeithus Otis from yellow to red.
- Moved QB Kevin Hogan and OT Jay Whitmire from yellow to blue.
- Also, notably, moved LB Curtis Grant from yellow to blue. This isn't because Grant has narrowed down his list or anything. D-I schools can still be divided into two groups: those who've offered Grant, and those who figure they wouldn't have a chance. But the fact is, Grant has been to UVA a lot this spring. Charlottesville is something of a weekend hangout. This is a recruitment UVA fans will be glued to the same way we were for Morgan Moses. Might as well act like it.
- Surprising amount of attrition sees five players leave the team: WR Quintin Hunter, WR Javaris Brown, OT Lamar Milstead, DE Tory Allen-Ford, and CB Javanti Sparrow. The explanation for Sparrow involves privacy laws and the possibility of return for 2011, which decrypts as "academic issues." So Sparrow may end up returning as did, for example, Chris Cook and Jameel Sewell. And he has a redshirt year to use, courtesy of Al Groh's "slashing and burning of our future," as some like to call it. The rest are out.
- On the flip side, scholarships are given to WR Matt Snyder and K Robert Randolph.
- I've also updated, by the way, the spaces for the '11 commits. The latest, Kevin Green, probably isn't going to a quarterback at all, but what the hell, he goes there for now. I don't think he's on board for his quarterbacking so much as for his overall athleticism.
Impact? First, by my count, 82 scholarships spoken for; we'll be a few shy this year. Second, a little extra space, but not a lot, opens up in the recruiting class of 2011. Sparrow's scholarship hopefully won't be open, but the shuffling basically adds two free spaces. There's a bare, absolute minimum now of 16 members of the class; 14 are spoken for, 15 if you count Clifton Richardson as a commit, which I don't, yet. 20 was the old target; I'm thinking 22 now. This is the silver lining, and it's a big one, because spaces are quickly coming off the board and there are some primo targets left.
Second, depth at cornerback just went from a big issue to a big big issue. I know Mike London wants speed at linebacker but can we really be carrying 11 linebackers and five cornerbacks? Five scholarship players is not a cornerback depth chart, it's a cornerback kiddie pool. Depth is suddenly a problem at receiver too, with just seven scholarship players there. Wide receiver just became a priority for this class.
Speaking of this class, let's have a look at the new, updated recruiting board:
- Moved TE Darius Redman, LB Caleb Taylor, and S Kameron Mack to orange, and added ATH Kevin Green there too.
- Removed a few players with whom our chances have fallen from near zero to actually zero: ATH Lafonte Thourogood, WR Quinta Funderburk, and OT Cyrus Kouandjio.
- Removed a couple more players who it doesn't look like we'll get involved with: LB Myles Jackson and WR Melvin Robinson.
- Removed ATH Chris Hall, who's now a Hokie.
- Moved DE Norkeithus Otis from yellow to red.
- Moved QB Kevin Hogan and OT Jay Whitmire from yellow to blue.
- Also, notably, moved LB Curtis Grant from yellow to blue. This isn't because Grant has narrowed down his list or anything. D-I schools can still be divided into two groups: those who've offered Grant, and those who figure they wouldn't have a chance. But the fact is, Grant has been to UVA a lot this spring. Charlottesville is something of a weekend hangout. This is a recruitment UVA fans will be glued to the same way we were for Morgan Moses. Might as well act like it.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
depth chart update
Sorry, no original stuff today. Insert sad face here. I've taken this slow-news-day opportunity to reconstitute the depth chart, the original file for which was lost in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2009. Fortunately I didn't have to reinvent the wheel - I mean, it's right here on the blog for me to copy, so it looks basically the same.
I did take the liberty of making a couple updates; the latest verbals are on the list, for starters. I also moved all the true freshmen that played up above the dashed line in that column, as that's the group they'll now join for eligibility purposes and move up next year into the sophomore column. There's another useful little addition. The orange numbers next to the years at the top of the columns tell you how many scholarship players are in that eligibility class. (They also tell me, so I don't have to keep counting one-by-one every time I want to know.)
As with last year, I left the seniors on for a while, and they'll stay there at least through spring practice, the idea being that way we can see what we have to replace. Also, the "freshman" or "2012" column can be a little bit misleading if you let it - those who redshirted technically are now 2013. But you're smart people and I think you'll get the picture.
You'll note that at this time we have 84 scholarships on the team, graduate 12, and will replace them with 13 next year, putting us precisely at the limit. The depth chart assumes that all candidates for a fifth year will be asked back; you should assume otherwise. My guess is three or four players won't get asked back, but in order to strike a balance between simplicity and information here, the chart isn't going to reflect that.
(Furthermore I think Robert Randolph ought to be a candidate to receive a scholarship, if he's going to be the starting kicker from here on out, which by the way he is. So this number-juggling is always up in the air this time of year.)
Tomorrow I'll get back to posting actual content stuff. There are no more weekly Blogpoll ballots this year, so we now depart from the football season schedule and go back to Fridays being a posting day and Sundays being on an if-I-feel-like-it basis.
I did take the liberty of making a couple updates; the latest verbals are on the list, for starters. I also moved all the true freshmen that played up above the dashed line in that column, as that's the group they'll now join for eligibility purposes and move up next year into the sophomore column. There's another useful little addition. The orange numbers next to the years at the top of the columns tell you how many scholarship players are in that eligibility class. (They also tell me, so I don't have to keep counting one-by-one every time I want to know.)
As with last year, I left the seniors on for a while, and they'll stay there at least through spring practice, the idea being that way we can see what we have to replace. Also, the "freshman" or "2012" column can be a little bit misleading if you let it - those who redshirted technically are now 2013. But you're smart people and I think you'll get the picture.
You'll note that at this time we have 84 scholarships on the team, graduate 12, and will replace them with 13 next year, putting us precisely at the limit. The depth chart assumes that all candidates for a fifth year will be asked back; you should assume otherwise. My guess is three or four players won't get asked back, but in order to strike a balance between simplicity and information here, the chart isn't going to reflect that.
(Furthermore I think Robert Randolph ought to be a candidate to receive a scholarship, if he's going to be the starting kicker from here on out, which by the way he is. So this number-juggling is always up in the air this time of year.)
Tomorrow I'll get back to posting actual content stuff. There are no more weekly Blogpoll ballots this year, so we now depart from the football season schedule and go back to Fridays being a posting day and Sundays being on an if-I-feel-like-it basis.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
the replacements: Brian Kelly
A couple quick links before I get started on coach #3....
- A tie against Liberty? The soccer team is suckin'. They have forgotten how to score goals. They're outshooting most everyone they play but clearly that's not getting them anywhere.
- A little fluff on Chris Cook and Jameel Sewell.
- Doug Doughty writes on the emotional about-face the team has done. The emotional difference between the Hoos and Indiana was so obvious that the 360 commentators were harping on it all game. This is a fired-up team right now - let's hope they're just as jacked up to face Maryland. Hell, it's Maryland - if you're not fired up to kick their ass something fierce, you're probably Duke.
- Heather's power rankings are interesting this week. Especially at the bottom. That's got to be a first.
- And in the shameless self-linkage department, the depth chart is updated, based on the latest out of the official website. Changes:
Brian Kelly
Main qualification: Has led three programs to the pinnacle of their successes.
1987-1988: Grand Valley State (DB)
1989-1990: Grand Valley State (DC, recruiting)
1991-2003: Grand Valley State (HC)
2004-2006: Central Michigan (HC)
2007-present: Cincinnati (HC)
Let me diverge a bit here and tell you a little something about Grand Valley State. It is a Division II school in the exurban farmlands of Michigan just west of Grand Rapids, and it is bigger than UVA. It might be the biggest school you never heard of. Their football team (the Lakers) is quite young by college football standards, even for a D-II school, but it has always been a winning one. Winning, but not always successful, if you follow me, at least not til the 1990's. Brian Kelly cut his coaching teeth there, being named head coach before his 30th birthday. His first season as defensive coordinator, 1989, was GVSU's first undefeated season. Throughout the '90s, they won all sorts of conference championships under Kelly, but could never break through in the D-II playoffs - not until 2001, when something clicked, the Lakers rolled up 13 straight wins and didn't lose until they reached the national title game. Since then they've been an ESPN postseason fixture and more successful than any USC, Oklahoma, or Florida you care to throw at me: four of the next five seasons would result in Grand Valley walking off with the title.
Kelly was coach for just two of them. Those titles caught the attention of the folks not too far up the road at Central Michigan, who hired Kelly to fix the mess left by previous disastrous regimes. With the degree of difficulty up, Kelly didn't produce immediate results, but he did do that one thing that will forgive all sorts of mistakes: He broke a losing streak to hated rival Western Michigan, which had embarrassed Central the past two times out. Two years later, CMU was MAC champs and bowling for the first time since 1994.
Kelly didn't coach that bowl game either. Instead, he was at Cincinnati, which was so enamored of Kelly they had him coach the Bearcats in their '06 bowl game, which allowed him to earn the distinction of being the only NCAA coach ever to beat the same team twice in one season. In two full seasons with Kelly, the Bearcats have not yet failed to reach double-digit wins, a mark they reached only one other time in their 120+ year history (in 1951.) They made the Orange Bowl last year, another first, and they don't look likely to be denied another 10-win season.
The point here is that every stop in Kelly's career has been the same chapter of the same book, over and over. Every team he's coached has never been more successful than under Kelly. Every team he's left, he left it better than he found it, and they've managed to maintain that success. Though Kelly never actually coached in a Motor City Bowl, his Chippewas got there on the strength of his regular season, and they've been a regular participant since. Hey, they're a MAC team - that's as good as it gets. And Grand Valley State? They lost this past week to Hillsdale - their first conference loss in something like 44 games. CMU is enroute to yet another MAC CG. Brian Kelly builds teams, somehow. For whatever reason, in three coaching stops he's had the Midas touch of gold, and he's left his past teams with the foundation they need to stay on top.
Downside? Rumor has it he's a bit of an asshole. Actually, some of the rumor has it he's a major-league asshole. Nothing in an actual news article, mind you. Message-board thread type stuff. An example is linked. Some telling quotes:
So given the sterling track record, why is Kelly #2 on my list after Tuberville? Well, for one, Tuberville strutted his stuff in the SEC. Second, Kelly is likely to be upward-looking, even if he's wearing our blue and orange. For some reason he is always mentioned in connection with the Notre Dame job; it's thought he has his eye on that. I have no more official proof of that than I do of his rumored arrogance and assholery; nevertheless, "wanting to coach at Notre Dame" is probably almost as prevalent among football coaches as profanity anyways.
If hired at Virginia, Kelly would probably bring immediate improvement without any precipitous drop any time soon. Profanity and arrogance are easily overlooked in a winning coach: Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler were two of the most profane, arrogant, violent, sonuvabitch slave drivers ever to stalk the sidelines of a college stadium, and who, I ask you, are the most beloved coaches in their respective programs' histories? Bo's players spent four years hating his guts and the rest of their lives hero-worshipping him. If successful, Kelly will engender those same feelings in the UVA fanbase; unfortunately, he also wouldn't be likely to stick around much longer than, say, four years. It's of small concern: CMU and GVSU are still doing just fine, and we're a big enough name that four years of Cincy-like success would attract a pretty damn good coach next time around. If unsuccessful, those same qualities would make Kelly one of the most unpopular coaches in all of UVA history, and I don't just mean in football. Given his previous successes, it's a risk I'd love to take.
- A tie against Liberty? The soccer team is suckin'. They have forgotten how to score goals. They're outshooting most everyone they play but clearly that's not getting them anywhere.
- A little fluff on Chris Cook and Jameel Sewell.
- Doug Doughty writes on the emotional about-face the team has done. The emotional difference between the Hoos and Indiana was so obvious that the 360 commentators were harping on it all game. This is a fired-up team right now - let's hope they're just as jacked up to face Maryland. Hell, it's Maryland - if you're not fired up to kick their ass something fierce, you're probably Duke.
- Heather's power rankings are interesting this week. Especially at the bottom. That's got to be a first.
- And in the shameless self-linkage department, the depth chart is updated, based on the latest out of the official website. Changes:
- Tyler Brosius is gone.
- Major wide receiver shuffle: Matt Snyder has gone from starter to off the two deep, and Javaris Brown is no longer on the two-deep either; Jared Green replaces him, and Vic Hall is now listed as a starting receiver. Hall is officially the third-string QB, but I'm not gonna bother listing him there any more unless something happens to one of the top two.
- Last week, Brandon Woods took over for Corey Mosley as a starting safety; Mosley still gets plenty of time on the field, however.
- Terrence Fells-Danzer in for Aaron Taliaferro as backup linebacker.
Brian Kelly
Main qualification: Has led three programs to the pinnacle of their successes.
1987-1988: Grand Valley State (DB)
1989-1990: Grand Valley State (DC, recruiting)
1991-2003: Grand Valley State (HC)
2004-2006: Central Michigan (HC)
2007-present: Cincinnati (HC)
Let me diverge a bit here and tell you a little something about Grand Valley State. It is a Division II school in the exurban farmlands of Michigan just west of Grand Rapids, and it is bigger than UVA. It might be the biggest school you never heard of. Their football team (the Lakers) is quite young by college football standards, even for a D-II school, but it has always been a winning one. Winning, but not always successful, if you follow me, at least not til the 1990's. Brian Kelly cut his coaching teeth there, being named head coach before his 30th birthday. His first season as defensive coordinator, 1989, was GVSU's first undefeated season. Throughout the '90s, they won all sorts of conference championships under Kelly, but could never break through in the D-II playoffs - not until 2001, when something clicked, the Lakers rolled up 13 straight wins and didn't lose until they reached the national title game. Since then they've been an ESPN postseason fixture and more successful than any USC, Oklahoma, or Florida you care to throw at me: four of the next five seasons would result in Grand Valley walking off with the title.
Kelly was coach for just two of them. Those titles caught the attention of the folks not too far up the road at Central Michigan, who hired Kelly to fix the mess left by previous disastrous regimes. With the degree of difficulty up, Kelly didn't produce immediate results, but he did do that one thing that will forgive all sorts of mistakes: He broke a losing streak to hated rival Western Michigan, which had embarrassed Central the past two times out. Two years later, CMU was MAC champs and bowling for the first time since 1994.
Kelly didn't coach that bowl game either. Instead, he was at Cincinnati, which was so enamored of Kelly they had him coach the Bearcats in their '06 bowl game, which allowed him to earn the distinction of being the only NCAA coach ever to beat the same team twice in one season. In two full seasons with Kelly, the Bearcats have not yet failed to reach double-digit wins, a mark they reached only one other time in their 120+ year history (in 1951.) They made the Orange Bowl last year, another first, and they don't look likely to be denied another 10-win season.
The point here is that every stop in Kelly's career has been the same chapter of the same book, over and over. Every team he's coached has never been more successful than under Kelly. Every team he's left, he left it better than he found it, and they've managed to maintain that success. Though Kelly never actually coached in a Motor City Bowl, his Chippewas got there on the strength of his regular season, and they've been a regular participant since. Hey, they're a MAC team - that's as good as it gets. And Grand Valley State? They lost this past week to Hillsdale - their first conference loss in something like 44 games. CMU is enroute to yet another MAC CG. Brian Kelly builds teams, somehow. For whatever reason, in three coaching stops he's had the Midas touch of gold, and he's left his past teams with the foundation they need to stay on top.
Downside? Rumor has it he's a bit of an asshole. Actually, some of the rumor has it he's a major-league asshole. Nothing in an actual news article, mind you. Message-board thread type stuff. An example is linked. Some telling quotes:
Also A GVSU alum, I worked in the athletic building when Coach Kelly took over for Coach Beck. (incidentally, Coach Beck left to be the DC at Notre Dame) At first impressions, Coach Kelly was an arrogant, young, egomaniac. He offended a lot of people with his attitude. That being said, he didn't have overwhelming talent when he began, but he won. His teams responded. Moreover, I worked the football games on the sideline. He was hot-headed and foul-mouthed. Of all the coaches I was around, including the opposition, he was the worst!Also...
I'm a student at Central right now. I was here when he left. It wasn't pretty. I've worked for the football team, and have heard a lot of the players just flat hated him. I don't know if its every really been a documented fact, but I know from talking and hearing from people who were in close contact with him he wasn't the nicest guy.If the general public was privy to everything that goes on at practice, "cuss like a football coach" would replace "....sailor" in the vernacular, but Kelly is gaining a reputation even among those circles. Kelly was also criticized for the way he handled a murder case involving one of his players while at CMU. No need to dive into that sordid affair. To cut to the chase, I think most of those criticisms were uneducated garbage; nevertheless, were he to be hired at Virginia, it's one of those things that'd be guaranteed to come up at some point.
So given the sterling track record, why is Kelly #2 on my list after Tuberville? Well, for one, Tuberville strutted his stuff in the SEC. Second, Kelly is likely to be upward-looking, even if he's wearing our blue and orange. For some reason he is always mentioned in connection with the Notre Dame job; it's thought he has his eye on that. I have no more official proof of that than I do of his rumored arrogance and assholery; nevertheless, "wanting to coach at Notre Dame" is probably almost as prevalent among football coaches as profanity anyways.
If hired at Virginia, Kelly would probably bring immediate improvement without any precipitous drop any time soon. Profanity and arrogance are easily overlooked in a winning coach: Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler were two of the most profane, arrogant, violent, sonuvabitch slave drivers ever to stalk the sidelines of a college stadium, and who, I ask you, are the most beloved coaches in their respective programs' histories? Bo's players spent four years hating his guts and the rest of their lives hero-worshipping him. If successful, Kelly will engender those same feelings in the UVA fanbase; unfortunately, he also wouldn't be likely to stick around much longer than, say, four years. It's of small concern: CMU and GVSU are still doing just fine, and we're a big enough name that four years of Cincy-like success would attract a pretty damn good coach next time around. If unsuccessful, those same qualities would make Kelly one of the most unpopular coaches in all of UVA history, and I don't just mean in football. Given his previous successes, it's a risk I'd love to take.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
thursday linkpile
My big project for today was to update the depth chart. Perfect timing what with a bye week and all. Speaking of bye weeks, I found myself actually disappointed today that I didn't have a game preview to look forward to putting together, which means I was also disappointed there isn't actually a game. Such is the life of a fan: my brain has given up on this season but my heart hasn't. I use both for writing, which means you're in for some really schizoid stuff in the next nine weeks.
The updates are:
- Dominique Wallace and Matt Leemhuis are added to the rolls of the injured, and they'll be that way all year. Dontrelle Inman and Mike Parker are now healthy.
- Cam Johnson moved ahead of Aaron Clark at OLB.
- Tim Smith moved into the two-deep in place of Jared Green.
- Riko Smalls shifts back to quarterback.
Now, some links.
- Remember the ACC Roundtable from earlier this week? Some people answer pretty straight, and then there's the From the Rumble Seat entry, as it would appear they're still in a bad mood about Miami.
- Jim Young at the ACC Sports Journal talked with Kris Wright of TheSabre about how UVA fans are feeling about things. It's pretty a symbolic conversation. The bulk of the article, as with the thoughts of the fanbase right now, is depressingly concerned with the state of the football team and How We Got Here, but there's just a little bit there at the end, off in the future and splashed with optimism, about Tony Bennett's rising sun.
- Jeff White chronicles a grueling basketball workout. (Future UVA bloggers: When in doubt, link Jeff White. There's always some good shit there.)
- Finally, there is some Jameel Sewell fluff. Plus a little bit - like, a very little bit - of insight into the way the offense is sort of cannibalizing the old principles while still using a lot of the new mechanics.
The updates are:
- Dominique Wallace and Matt Leemhuis are added to the rolls of the injured, and they'll be that way all year. Dontrelle Inman and Mike Parker are now healthy.
- Cam Johnson moved ahead of Aaron Clark at OLB.
- Tim Smith moved into the two-deep in place of Jared Green.
- Riko Smalls shifts back to quarterback.
Now, some links.
- Remember the ACC Roundtable from earlier this week? Some people answer pretty straight, and then there's the From the Rumble Seat entry, as it would appear they're still in a bad mood about Miami.
- Jim Young at the ACC Sports Journal talked with Kris Wright of TheSabre about how UVA fans are feeling about things. It's pretty a symbolic conversation. The bulk of the article, as with the thoughts of the fanbase right now, is depressingly concerned with the state of the football team and How We Got Here, but there's just a little bit there at the end, off in the future and splashed with optimism, about Tony Bennett's rising sun.
- Jeff White chronicles a grueling basketball workout. (Future UVA bloggers: When in doubt, link Jeff White. There's always some good shit there.)
- Finally, there is some Jameel Sewell fluff. Plus a little bit - like, a very little bit - of insight into the way the offense is sort of cannibalizing the old principles while still using a lot of the new mechanics.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
depth chart updated
This is not "programming" per se, just a note to keep you informed. The depth chart on the right is now updated. Some improvements over the old one:
- Walk-ons without scholarships are now grayed-out.
- No asterisks in the freshman column. Freshmen are freshmen; if they redshirt, they'll just get held back to 2013. That's basically what's happening now - the redshirt freshmen this year were last year's true freshmen listed under 2011 - only without asterisks.
- Members of the two-deep are listed at the top of their box. That wasn't the case before and it was weird-looking.
I left last year's senior class in, so you can see what holes in the lineup need to be filled.
Hopefully you'll find this one a little easier to read.
- Walk-ons without scholarships are now grayed-out.
- No asterisks in the freshman column. Freshmen are freshmen; if they redshirt, they'll just get held back to 2013. That's basically what's happening now - the redshirt freshmen this year were last year's true freshmen listed under 2011 - only without asterisks.
- Members of the two-deep are listed at the top of their box. That wasn't the case before and it was weird-looking.
I left last year's senior class in, so you can see what holes in the lineup need to be filled.
Hopefully you'll find this one a little easier to read.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
depth chart by class
This is an item shamelessly reappropriated from MGoBlog, which shamelessly reappropriated it from some Tennessee blog, who quite possibly shamelessly reappropriated it from somewhere else. I like it, it's useful, and it's going to be added to the blog.
What it is, is the depth chart, by class. Here's how to interpret the cryptic message:
- The year indicates the final year of eligibility for each player underneath. The freshman column shows both redshirt and true freshmen, each with four full years of eligibility. Above the dashed line are redshirt freshmen; below it are true freshmen. Guys who redshirt simply remain in this column another year and move above the dashed line.
- Bolded players are current starters on the two-deep; italicized are reserves on the two-deep. Players in red are injured and out for the season. Players in purple are injured but expected to be back.
- I've put an (O) next to outside linebackers and an (I) next to inside linebackers. I wanted to make two separate sections but I'd be flipping a coin on some of the players lower on the depth chart, walk-ons and such.
- Players in gray are walk-ons without a scholarship. I've actually removed most of them from the chart; it's getting to be a pain in the butt to track and most of them are never gonna see the field. The ones that might do remain on the list here.
- The small orange number next to the year indicates the number of scholarship players in that year's class. Next to 2014 there are two numbers - the former is actually the number of players with 2015 expirations and the latter is those for 2014.
- Caveat: Not all positions, most especially those along the offensive line, are going to be exactly right. Offensive line in particular - guys without a set position listed on the roster have to go somewhere, so they end up at tackle because that's how they came in.
- This will be permanently linked on the side as part of a hopefully-growing list of resources.
- It's an image because I am dumb and have HTML fluency equal to my Japanese fluency, and can't write tables. Just click on it and it'll get bigger and easy to read.
So there's that, and now there's a basketball one. I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but one caveat: don't take the numbered positions as complete gospel. That's sort of a nominal starting point, and not to be read as "either Assane Sene or James Johnson will be on the court at all times because they're the only fives." You know how it goes in basketball. Sometimes your biggish shooting guard gets asked to play the four. Those numbers are written in pencil.
And now guess what - there is lacrosse too! Positions, again, are....not 100%, especially among the incoming recruiting class where it may not be actually settled yet. It doesn't help that the official site makes no distinction among midfielders. But I think they're close.
What it is, is the depth chart, by class. Here's how to interpret the cryptic message:
- The year indicates the final year of eligibility for each player underneath. The freshman column shows both redshirt and true freshmen, each with four full years of eligibility. Above the dashed line are redshirt freshmen; below it are true freshmen. Guys who redshirt simply remain in this column another year and move above the dashed line.
- Bolded players are current starters on the two-deep; italicized are reserves on the two-deep. Players in red are injured and out for the season. Players in purple are injured but expected to be back.
- I've put an (O) next to outside linebackers and an (I) next to inside linebackers. I wanted to make two separate sections but I'd be flipping a coin on some of the players lower on the depth chart, walk-ons and such.
- Players in gray are walk-ons without a scholarship. I've actually removed most of them from the chart; it's getting to be a pain in the butt to track and most of them are never gonna see the field. The ones that might do remain on the list here.
- The small orange number next to the year indicates the number of scholarship players in that year's class. Next to 2014 there are two numbers - the former is actually the number of players with 2015 expirations and the latter is those for 2014.
- Caveat: Not all positions, most especially those along the offensive line, are going to be exactly right. Offensive line in particular - guys without a set position listed on the roster have to go somewhere, so they end up at tackle because that's how they came in.
- This will be permanently linked on the side as part of a hopefully-growing list of resources.
- It's an image because I am dumb and have HTML fluency equal to my Japanese fluency, and can't write tables. Just click on it and it'll get bigger and easy to read.
And now guess what - there is lacrosse too! Positions, again, are....not 100%, especially among the incoming recruiting class where it may not be actually settled yet. It doesn't help that the official site makes no distinction among midfielders. But I think they're close.
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