game preview: North Carolina

Date/Time: Saturday, November 9; 12:30

TV: ACC Net./ESPN3

Record against the Heels: 54-59-4

Last meeting: UNC 37, UVA 13; 11/15/12, Charlottesville

Last weekend: Clemson 59, UVA 10; UNC 27, NCSt. 19

Line: UNC by 13

Injury report:

Virginia:

OUT - OL George Adeosun, CB Maurice Canady, CB Demetrious Nicholson, TE Mario Nixon, WR Caanan Severin, CB Wil Wahee, OG Cody Wallace

DOUBTFUL - None

QUESTIONABLE - CB Kelvin Rainey, DT Brent Urban

PROBABLE - None

North Carolina:

Can't find one.

Welp, there's no real narrative for this week anymore.  Not for this season.  It's a shame when the season is so ruined beyond belief that the South's Oldest Rivalry means nothing except for UNC making a hell-bent run for bowl eligibility themselves.  They could get there; their schedule the rest of the way is pretty weak.  Not my concern though.  The only thing left as far as we're concerned: does the season continue to be a raging toxic disaster, or only a landfill tire fire?

-- UVA run offense vs. UNC run defense

Top backs:
Kevin Parks: 160 carries, 696 yards, 4.4 ypc, 9 TDs
Khalek Shepherd: 43 carries, 256 yards, 6.0 ypc, 1 TD

UVA offense:
157.22 yards/game, 3.76 yards/attempt
94th of 125 (national), 10th of 14 (ACC)

UNC defense:
204.13 yards/game, 4.41 yards/attempt
78th of 125 (national), 12th of 14 (ACC)

There are a lot of similarities between the Georgia Tech defense previewed a few weeks ago and this UNC crowd; the main one that makes me say this is that Carolina's numbers look bad, but they've basically been run over by good teams (Miami, say) and shut down bad ones.  Guess which one UVA is?

However - this is a bad thing of me to say, but it's probably true - the absence of Cody Wallace is probably a small net positive for the run game.  I'm sort of hard on Wallace, and it's only half fair because I actually do not tend see any deficiencies in his pass-blocking, but he also more or less epitomizes the line's inability to ever get any push in the run game.  Conner Davis isn't on the injury report, so it seems he'll start at guard and Luke Bowanko will stay at center, and we'll get to see quite a bit of Eric Tetlow as well.

Here's another positive: Kevin Parks playing in the state of North Carolina.  After the NC State game last year (a 33-6 UVA win, in case you forgot what that's like) Parks talked about being fired up to play in his home state, on account of none of the schools from there ever recruiting him.  His career stats tend to back him up.  He averages 4.5 yards a carry for his career and over 6 yards a carry when playing in the state of North Carolina.

Defensively, UNC is led by a pair of linebackers - their only linebackers since they run a 4-2-5 defense.  That would be Travis Hughes and middle linebacker Jeff Schoettmer, who has worked his way up from walk-on to starter.  DE Kareem Martin is exactly the terror he was expected to be, recording 12.5 TFL and 5.5 sacks so far.  After that, the next four tacklers are DBs, but that's not really a strike against the Heels since they have that extra one on the field.

I'd posit that a small reason for the success of the linebackers, though, is that UNC's defensive tackles are not wildly impressive.  Tim Jackson is decent (at best) but Ethan Farmer is unproductive.  The ends are much stronger, with the aforementioned Martin and solid production out of the rotation at what UNC calls the "bandit" DE (weakside, basically) from Norkeithus Otis and Darius Lipford.

Since Parks is a between-the-tackles runner, and he brings that shoulder chip with him to his home state, there may be something of an advantage here.  I won't go so far as to say it's an overall, lasting type of thing.  More of a thing that we can take advantage of in stretches.  I don't think Parks will reach that 6-yard threshold from his earlier NC games, but with UVA attacking a less capable defensive middle than it's seen lately, there might be a little extra room for him to work.

-- UVA pass offense vs. UNC pass defense

Quarterback:
David Watford: 207/349, 59.3%; 1,845 yards, 7 TDs, 10 INTs; 5.29 yards/attempt

Top receivers:
Jake McGee: 33 rec., 277 yards, 2 TDs
Kevin Parks: 32 rec., 305 yards, 1 TD

UVA offense:
213.6 yards/game, 5.1 yards/attempt
125th of 125 (national), 14th of 14 (ACC)

UNC defense:
218.9 yards/game, 7.5 yards/attempt
88th of 125 (national), 13th of 14 (ACC)

There may be some favorable chances on this side of the ball, too.  A poop game last week dropped UVA's pass offense straight back to the very bottom of the barrel in the country, so weaknesses pointed out in opposing pass defenses should not always be construed as something we can take advantage of, but weaknesses are weaknesses all the same.

UNC has a few.  The pass rush is one.  With an NFL-bound talent like Kareem Martin, they ought to be better, but they don't otherwise get after the passer very aggressively.  Martin has 5.5 sacks and the other DE position has also accounted for 5.5, so Morgan Moses and Eric Smith both will be tested heavily.  If they can hold down the fort, though, Watford will have clean looks all day; UNC just doesn't send their linebackers very often and the DTs are no threat.

The defensive backs have some playmaking skill; safety Tre Boston has three picks and CB Tim Scott has two.  But Scott's counterpart Jabari Price has struggled some this year, and UNC's linebackers just aren't pass defenders.  If Steve Fairchild has any two-TE sets in his bag, this may be the game to try them out; lining up just one will probably mean UNC puts a safety on him, but two will leave them guessing as to which might head out for the pass.  (Not to mention the extra help on UNC's DEs.)

A quarterback for whom the game has not yet slowed down (hint: Watford) could really benefit from not having people up in his face all day.  Watford shows a lot of signs of simply rushing things based on the perception that the game just moves too quickly: he doesn't go through progressions well, he overthrows receivers, he hesitates in deciding whether he should bail on a play except for when he bails too early.  He should be afforded that extra half-second this weekend, and with a little luck things will click and he'll take advantage.

-- UNC run offense vs. UVA run defense

Top backs:
A.J. Blue: 70 carries, 266 yards, 3.8 ypc, 1 TD
Romar Morris: 49 carries, 214 yards, 4.4 ypc, 3 TDs

UNC offense:
108.38 yards/game, 3.00 yards/attempt
117th of 125 (national), 13th of 14 (ACC)

UVA defense:
181.22 yards/game, 4.51 yards/attempt
82nd of 125 (national), 13th of 14 (ACC)

UNC's running game is rather surprisingly unproductive.  Not one of the running backs has leapt up to lay a definitive claim to the job, and the depth chart lists four players like so: A or B or C or D.  There is no starter.  A.J. Blue is the biggest and perhaps this is why he leads in carries.  Romar Morris was the lead man for the lightning to Blue's thunder, but has never quite seized the job and has T.J. Logan and Khris Francis nipping at his heels.  None of these guys excite anyone.

The wrinkle, especially now that Bryn Renner is done for the season, is backup quarterback Marquise Williams.  Williams is also a fairly big guy (for a runner; for a passer, he's shortish) with a little bit of speed, and he's been used in most games this season as a change-of-pace quarterback who can do a little dual-threat action.

And of course, the most exciting news of the week, if you caught it on the injury report: Brent Urban.  If he plays - and I think he will - he may not be quite the slasher into the backfield that he was when healthy, but I'll take 75% of Urban over 100% of most of these guys.

UNC's way-low ranking in the run game should be taken with a slight grain of salt; much of that comes from piling up negative yards from sacking Bryn Renner.  They're not quite that bad.  But they're not real good, either.  The second caveat I offer is that they've played the good part of their schedule already; there could be improvement when they play us, Duke, etc.  However, the line is highly inexperienced at three of five positions, including both guards, and none of the running backs have put a jolt into anyone.  UNC's longest rushing play of the year is 26 yards.  Three UVA backs, plus Watford, can claim longer runs than that.  This is among the least dynamic run games in the country.

-- UNC pass offense vs. UVA pass defense

Quarterback:
Marquise Williams: 40/66, 60.6%; 537 yards, 6 TDs, 3 INTs; 8.14 yards/attempt

Top receivers:
Eric Ebron: 44 rec., 669 yards, 3 TDs
Quinshad Davis: 32 rec., 476 yards, 7 TDs

UNC offense:
302.0 yards/game, 8.1 yards/attempt
37th of 125 (national), 7th of 14 (ACC)

UVA defense:
236.6 yards/game, 7.1 yards/attempt
66th of 125 (national), 11th of 14 (ACC)

I'm just going to start off right now by saying I have no idea what to expect.  Marquise Williams, see, is a redshirt sophomore like Watford, only he's thrown just 83 passes in his career.  This is a guy who had probably the best passing game of his career against Virginia Tech, only one of the elite passing D's in the country, and is coming off two pretty subpar games against BC and NC State.  To put that in perspective, BC gives up a whopping nine yards per attempt and NC State is the other winless team in the ACC.

Williams's two biggest sources of help are tight end Eric Ebron - a first-team all-ACC near-lock - and a tremendous mismatch at WR in Quinshad Davis.  Davis stands 6'4" and is a favorite red-zone target, and can break a big play as well.  UNC has a lineup of complementary receivers as well - Bug Howard, T.J. Thorpe, and Sean Tapley command just enough attention to force teams not to focus on Davis and Ebron - but it's those top two that will burn you.

UVA's cornerbacks are still going to be DreQuan Hoskey and Tim Harris.  With Tra Nicholson out for the year and Maurice Canady having a tough time with a lingering medical problem that UVA won't disclose (but Doug Doughty did) that's how it is - and Harris came out of the Clemson game looking like Wile E. Coyote after a round with Acme dynamite.  Davis will be a problem for sure.

However, I'm inclined to think this game will hinge almost entirely on whether Williams is up for the starting job or not.  Jon Tenuta will look at the inexperience at QB - and the fact that UNC's line gives up more sacks than they should - and play Fun With Blitz Packages.  Williams will probably scramble out of trouble once or twice, much to our chagrin, but he just might also toss some ill-advised lobs somewhere.

-- Favorability ratings

UVA run offense: 4
UVA pass offense: 4
UVA run defense: 6
UVA pass defense: 5

Average: 4.75

-- Outlook

I am about to do something incredibly stupid.

-- Prediction summary

-- Kevin Parks averages between 5 and 5.5 yards per carry.

-- David Watford is not sacked.

-- Watford completes over 60%.

-- UNC's tailbacks run for less than 80 yards, combined.

-- If Marquise Williams completes less than 55% of his passes, UVA wins.

(I don't know why I'm doing this.  Maybe I'm counting on Parks's motivation; maybe I'm just stupid-happy to maybe - not even definitely, but maybe - have Brent Urban back; maybe I think Watford bounces back and has a good game; maybe I don't have faith in Marquise Williams; maybe I'm a hopeless moron.)

Final score: UVA 27, UNC 23

-- Rest of the ACC

Florida State @ Wake Forest - 12:00 - FSU will be sending embossed thank-you notes to Stanford this week.  Win out and they're a near-lock for a championship berth - and their next three weeks are Wake, Cuse, and Idaho.

Syracuse @ Maryland - 3:30 - The Terps take another stab at bowl eligibility; Cuse's postseason is very much in the balance as well.

Boston College @ New Mexico State - 3:30 - At New Mexico State?  At any rate, the Eagles have a very doable path to bowl eligibility, starting here.

NC State @ Duke - 4:00 - I'm being a jerk and rooting for Duke because if UVA goes 0-8 in the ACC I want company.

Virginia Tech @ Miami - 7:00 - VT still has a decent shot at the ACCCG, but it demands a win here.

Notre Dame @ Pittsburgh - 8:00 - I don't know why, but the Domers consider this a rivalry.

Byes: Georgia Tech, Clemson

weekend review

Probably the latest weekend review ever.  Blame real-life hobbies.  Anyway, we start with the Senior Seasons feature:

Peachtree Ridge 28, Parkview 14 - Jordan Ellis is establishing himself as a workhorse, with 122 yards on 21 carries.  Two touchdowns are included, one a run of 35 yards.  Peachtree Ridge is 2-0.

Episcopal 30, Father Judge 22 - Playing tight end/H-back, Evan Butts scored on a 75-yard wheel route.  Episcopal is 1-0.

Bayside 29, Landstown 10 - Quin Blanding caught a 73-yard pass and existed in the Landstown backfield on defense.  Bayside is 1-0.

Mater Dei 44, Upland 13 (Jeffery Farrar) - Upland is 0-1.
Central Catholic 48, Naples Lely 10 (Caanan Brown) - CCC is 1-0.
Eastern Alamance 63, Cummings 28 (Will Richardson) - Cummings is 0-2.
Woodgrove 35, Freedom-South Riding 0 (J.J. Jackson) - Woodgrove is 1-0.
Riverbend 14, Chancellor 0 (Steven Moss) - Chancellor is 0-1.

The recruiting board gets a minor update too.  For posterity's sake:

-- Moved DT Derrick Nnadi from green to yellow.  A weird recruitment, this: Nnadi's been from yellow to green to blue and all the way back down again.

-- Moved OT Marcus Applefield from yellow to green.  Applefield has a top five that includes UVA.

Not much motion here.  Give it a few weeks into the season, really.

And in the rest of the world:

-- I'm intrigued by Jeff White's profile of UVA's new swim coach, Augie Busch.  Stepping into Mark Bernardino's shoes is a very tall task, especially given the less-than-perfectly-smooth way the transition went down (no fault of Busch's) but there's a certain profile of coach that you'd want for the type of job that UVA is and Busch seems to fit it.  Rubber meets the road next February and March at the ACC and NCAA meets.

-- The men's soccer team is off to a decent start, with a win over St. John's and a loss to Louisville, but it's really the ladies who are kicking that ass.  Two straight four-goal wins over top-10 teams (Santa Clara and Penn State) have highlighted the opening stretch.  UVA (that is, the ladies) has scored 16 goals in four games, with eight players getting on the scoreboard, and sophomore Brittany Ratcliffe leading the way with four goals.

-- Blast-from-the-past Jerton Evans, who played safety for George Welsh and Al Groh, is getting a start on his coaching career as the defensive coordinator at Bishop Ireton, which plays in the WCAC against DeMatha and Good Counsel.

-- On the depth chart, Maurice Canady moves ahead of DreQuan Hoskey at cornerback, and tight end is now a jumble and a half with the order being Burns, McGee, Swanson - but "or" is listed next to everyone.  So really, there isn't a tight end depth chart right now.  Those are the main changes for the Oregon game, although Mason Thomas now appears as the third free safety as well.

it's a start

And 1-0 is better than 0-1.  They called it winning ugly, but it's not our fault the game was played underneath a waterfall.  (And really, it was Andrea Adelson calling it ugly.  Adelson is worse than Heather Dinich when it comes to being a haterz.  One of the dumbest things I've ever seen written was a backhanded compliment in which Adelson declared that UVA's defense "found the toughness it had been lacking last season."  Our defense was pretty good last season, minus a few turnovers; Adelson didn't look any farther than the 4-8 record for that line of BS.)

Ugly, anyway, is what they call it when you win with defense and not much offense.  That much, at least, is true.  The running backs mustered barely three yards a carry and nothing longer than 13, and David Watford got very little help from his receivers.  Breaking in a new offense is hard.

Which also made the defensive performance open to interpretation.  Let's face it, you can't just roll up to the field with a brand-new hurry-up offense in hand and expect it all to go beautifully.  BYU's execution was inconsistent, no surprise for a team used to doing things very differently.

But listen to me sound like the haterz.  That's not my job.  First of all, BYU is consistently a good team, and they didn't just stop being a good team this year.  Bronco Mendenhall has never failed to take BYU to a bowl game in his eight years on the job.  They might have a tough time going this year, but they certainly can get there.  Regardless, they're a team that has always commanded respect. 

And what were the reasons for 4-8 and no bowl game last year?  Special teams, turnovers, and the quarterback platoon, I'd say should be the top three reasons.  What happened this weekend?  Special teams shined, there were two huge turnovers (I count the safety here) and one quarterback took all the snaps.  Well how about that.

I said that of the games against BYU, GT, Miami, and VT, we most likely had to win half to go bowling.  So even though we're one game into the season, we're halfway there.  Hard to top that.

Other more specific game notes:

-- Watford's performance was pretty meh, but the numbers make it look worse than it was; with generally good protection and enough scrambling to buy time when necessary, there ought to have been far more open receivers than there were.  Some of this might have been due to inexperience at reading the scene, and honestly I have no way of knowing how much that played a role.  But let's not kid ourselves: the receivers were way below expectations.  Tim Smith dropped two tough but catchable balls on the opening drive alone.

-- It would also have helped if Fairchild had been much more relentless in pounding the WR screen to take advantage of the absurd cushions the BYU cornerbacks were allowing.

-- Overall, I think you have to ignore that the defense was facing a revamped offense, and then you see a lot of great plays.  Not even counting the safety, which was more a crappy BYU play than a great UVA one, or Ant Harris's pick.  I look at the first quarter: Maurice Canady makes a really nice pass breakup, and then DreQuan Hoskey informs us that the cornerback competition is real and makes an even better one on the very next play.  (Hoskey anticipated the slant - he couldn't have made such a quick break unless he was selling out and assuming a third-down slant - and popped the ball free to force a punt.  Great instincts and great speed on that play.)

-- Stars abound on the defense.  Eli Harold made a mess in the backfield.  Harris did everything.  And Daquan Romero looks a lot like the star linebacker I've been expecting.

-- Kyle Van Noy: Not impressed.  A gambling style leads to a lot of his TFL, and Watford broke a Van Noy tackle attempt and turned a TFL into a first down.  If his foray into the backfield doesn't bear fruit and the play isn't near him, he's a ghost.

-- A 53-yard field goal - in sort of a pressure situation, actually, with less than ideal footing - gives me a world of confidence in the future of the kicking game.

-- This has nothing to do with the game, but I'm a little disappointed that SB Nation let the Blogpoll go by the wayside this year.  Asking for a spot in the Blogpoll when I'd been writing for like two months (it had put a call out for more ACC membership) is the main reason I have any readership in the first place.  I might do a top-25 this year anyway.

Prediction roundup!

-- Khalek Shepherd and Taquan Mizzell split carries and targets in the first half, but as the game goes on, one or the other takes a back seat.  Hard to say what to make of it.  They did indeed split the work in the first half; essentially, both took a back seat in the second.  I'm giving myself credit for this one; the idea was that the coaches, in a close game, would roll with the guy they felt most comfortable with.  That turned out to be Kevin Parks.

-- Dominique Terrell has a huge day, to the tune of at least six catches.  Terrell had one, and the receivers overall were a major, major disappointment.  Only Darius Jennings had more than two catches, and his average was less than nine yards a catch.  Good receiver play could've made this a fairly easy win.

-- The run offense generates about 3.5 yards per carry from the primary backs.  It was about 3.09, which is close but not enough for me to take credit here.

-- If Taysom Hill rushes for 90+ yards, BYU wins.  I didn't go with the flipside and say fewer than 90 means a loss, so this prediction is null - neither a win nor a loss.  However, it's fair to point out that I wrote this: "UVA can win if [Jamaal] Williams gets his yards, but they can't let Hill burn them with his feet."  Williams had 148 yards and Hill did not burn UVA with his feet, and that put UVA in position to win.

-- Hill will average no more than 11.5 yards a completion, but rack up over 250 yards passing.  Hill's completion average was better than that and his total yards were worse.  The first part is not fair, though; 52 of his 175 yards came on the last play of the game with UVA justifiably in a full-prevent defense, and very smartly not contesting the catch but simply ensuring they wrapped up the receiver after the completion.  So I hit that one pretty well.  If the second half had been right, I'd count it.  Halfway doesn't count, though; Hill's passing was much less efficient than I though, and the UVA secondary did a great job making it so.

-- The first team to go up by two scores wins. Killer instinct.  Another null prediction; nobody did this.  The biggest lead of the game was UVA's 12-7 advantage after the safety.  That's not two scores.

That makes for an opening performance of 1-of-4, not to mention 0-1, 0-1 ATS to start the year.  Like David Watford's numbers, though, I think the numbers look worse than the actual performance.  I called for a close, low-scoring game, and that's what we got.  Many of my general instincts were spot-on.  Next week we'll work on translating that to the stat sheet.

Notes from around the rest of the ACC:

-- Part of the reason I'm feeling so high on my prognostication skills is that the FSU-Pitt game played out exactly as expected.  Jameis Winston is the latest media darling, and he did have a tremendous game (25-for-27!) but Pitt is probably just exactly what I said they were.  The main difference: they were supposed to have a pretty good secondary.

-- Logan Thomas's performance is hilarious.  5-for-26 with a pick.  That's a sight to behold.  Except for one lightning strike - a 77-yard TD run by Trey Edmunds - VT's offense is also the shitshow I thought they'd be.  Yes, yes, granted: Alabama.  They make a lot of offenses look like shitshows.  Still: the lightning strike and a Kyle Fuller interception (giving Tech the ball in Alabama territory, which they only converted to a field goal) are the only thing that made that game look like anything but a blowout.

-- Helluva nice job by Clemson.

-- Against Villanova, Boston College didn't look like the surprise bowl team I said they were.

********************************************

Further weekend-review type stuff occurs tomorrow, and this week I want to also squeeze in a recruiting profile on UVA's basketball commitment, Isaiah Wilkins.

the virginia lions

You know how the saying goes.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me like four or five times in a row into thinking improvement is just around the corner, and I am a Lions fan.  If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a fan of the Honolulu blue and silver, this is pretty much how it goes.  You just have to let the wishful side of you do all the thinking.  Just invent reasons why your football team isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is and then show up on the weekend, or the beginning of the season, with an optimistic smile on your face all set for its violent removal by another wasted day of watching them bumblefuck their way around the field.

At some point you'll show up on Sundays (Saturdays, whatever) with the understanding that instead of expecting anything fruitful, you'll just have yourself a nice cathartic couple of hours complaining about everything.  It's a new kind of fun, albeit somewhat more acceptable when the players are professionals.

No matter.  The only thing I'm disappointed in myself about is not realizing it sooner.  It's not like I haven't had like twenty years of practice - the signs should've been much more obvious.  Undisciplined shit doesn't just fix itself next week, especially when the coaches don't care about it.  The quarterback doesn't suddenly know the offense that he couldn't figure out last week.  During the game I tweeted that a great test of accountability would be whether or not Kyle McCartin played at all after picking up an extremely costly personal foul on our first kickoff.  Guess who played the very next kickoff?  Mike London claimed he should have been benched and it was his (London's) fault that McCartin went out there.  It's too late for that.

This isn't about Kyle McCartin, although that's not to exempt a senior from blame for taking a freshman penalty.  I don't care if it was an oversight on London's part and he meant to bench McCartin.  He didn't.  Meaning he had other things on his mind than fixing the team's most glaring and costly issue.  And apparently so did the guy to whom London has delegated special teams responsibility.  This is why I said we can't afford another week of Anthony Poindexter on special teams duty.  His unit just directly cost his team three points and he didn't give enough of a fuck to hold accountable the guy responsible.  It shouldn't have to be London's call to sit someone down.  Ultimately I think that is London shielding Dex from blame, which is at least more admirable than wringing your assistant out to dry.

So I see no reason why we should ever expect anything but more of the same.  You just got visual confirmation that it's all talk, all bluster and no action.  Week after week it's the same mistakes.  No lane responsibility.  No discipline.  The list of special teams disasters includes at least two penalties, two muffed punts, one 60-yard punt return given up, and one instance of taking the ball out of the end zone again only to trip over the 10-yard line.  The casualty: yet another check mark in the loss column, directly attributable to special teams.  And every week Poindexter is coaching the unit will be another week in which the best you can hope for out of the special teams will be that the margin of loss is so big that their undisciplined bullshit didn't matter.

Further reactions in brief:

-- It feels really good to see my faith in Chris Brathwaite paying off.  Nine tackles, two for loss, is a phenomenal game out of a defensive tackle.  Just a monster game.

-- Actually the defense in general is exempt from the rage machine this week.  Four PBUs for Drequan Hoskey, and 10 for the defense overall, plus Brathwaite's day, and 14 tackles out of Steve Greer; I don't have anything bad to say about the defense.  Obvious caveats about the level of competition apply, but the D played well.  It's a safe bet Wake would never have seen the end zone if they hadn't been set up on our own 16 yard line by you-know-what.

-- Does anyone still believe in the stupidity that is the godawful mistaken belief that whether or not Phillip Sims actually completes his downfield bombs, just the fact that he chucks them will loosen up defenses enough for us to run on them?  For one thing, Wake clearly had no respect for the passing game because they were shooting linebackers and safeties through the gaps all day long and stuffing the run game.  For another, Sims's play-fakes suck, so it's not like there's any good reason to respect the pass regardless.  It is bad for the offense when the quarterback arm-punts.  I feel like I should not have to say that, but then I feel like there are people who still need it said to them.

-- Something that doesn't usually make a blip on any radars but something that I liked: Jeremiah Mathis catches a pass from Sims about 12, 13 yards downfield, and immediately lunges forward.  Almost as immediately he's tackled, but the result of the play is 16 yards.  Watching receivers juke and shuffle immediately after a catch to try and get past a tackler is infuriating because it works maybe once in twenty times.  I watched Perry Jones (maybe it was Parks but I think it was Jones) catch a ball over the middle and immediately stop, with the idea that he was going to juke his defender out of his shorts.  Naturally he got tackled from behind.  Duh, there are other defenders back there and they're chasing you.  Run away from them, which is forward for more yardage.

-- Yes, we got horse-screwed on that fourth-down spot.

-- How do you know your year is going badly?  When the loudest cheer of the second half is for not carrying the ball out of the end zone.  That ought to sting the coaches a little.  On second thought, I bet the first time NC State kicks the ball over the goal line, our returner brings it out.  Things are not being taught.

On to the predictions:

-- Five yards a carry for Kevin Parks.  Uh, or half that.  Either way.

-- Parks both catches the most passes, and has the most carries, of any UVA back.  I should've stuck with most carries, as he had 10 to Jones's 7, but Jones caught five passes.

-- Tim Smith, in his welcome-back party, does not catch many passes (three at most) but one is a big one.  I'm giving myself this one even though he caught four, which is one more than three.  A 56-yarder on one of Sims's best throws of the day certainly counts.  (I continue to beat the drum that there's no such thing as a big YAC play without a very nice throw, and Sims hit him perfectly.)

-- Tanner Price completes fewer than 50% of his passes.  Price (or his receivers) was as bad as I expected, going 7-for-19.  How do you lose when your opposing quarterback goes 7-for-19?  Oh, right.

-- Brandon Terry, not Terence Davis, is Wake's leading receiver.  Terry caught just one pass, but it was for 41 yards and nobody else on Wake, except for one player (Lovell Jackson) caught more than one.  Do I give myself this one?  Yes - the point was that Davis was not a threat to the Hoos, but Terry was, and his big 41-yard catch was the one right after McCartin's PF penalty that set up Wake's first field goal.  People were way down on our safeties for that, but Terry is six-foot-bloody-five, and that play was unlikely to be stopped.

3-for-5 is not bad; it puts me at 16-for-39 for the season, which is 41%.  But my now-dead optimism stupidity has me at 4-4 on the game prediction season and 0-6-2 ATS.  I promise you I will never again pick the Hoos to win another game this season.  You can hold me to that.  They haven't played so as to deserve it.

Note: I've decided to shake things up a tad; for the rest of the season, except for the bye next week, I'll have my game reactions up on Sunday, and then Monday will be more of an everything-else day, including Blogpoll ballots and Senior Seasons.  It used to be more that way anyway, and kind of evolved out of it, and I think it works better this way.

practice shakeup

One annoying - yet entertaining - feature of fall camp is that once the whistle blows, a lot of old assumptions get tossed out the window.  You have this nice simple worldview and it has to get all complicated once the coaches start deciding things.  No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

The biggest one so far this year: the secondary.  No surprise, that.  It's full of young'uns whose on-field abilities aren't yet fully known.  Before the year we went in with the assumption that the safeties would be Anthony Harris and Rijo Walker, one cornerback would be Demetrious Nicholson, and then Brandon Phelps and Drequan Hoskey would battle to see who would start and who would be the third corner.

Maurice Canady is blowing that up with prejudice.  Four practices in and he's running with the first team already.  To me that's a bit of a surprise; Canady made a huge impression, pressed into duty as Varina's emergency quarterback last year, and his athleticism opened a lot of eyes.  But as a cornerback, I expected he'd need some time to acclimatize back to defense.  Apparently not.  I'm not allowed to pass on paywalled practice reports, but let's just say that if they're right, the newspaper is way underselling this dude.

Add to that the revelation that Phelps "may see time at both corner and safety" according to Jeff White, and you have the makings of a slightly new pecking order in the secondary.  Truth is, with the makeup of the group, Phelps isn't likely to be much of a cornerback anymore.  If you have three cornerbacks you like, that's all you need for 90%-plus of the snaps.  Phelps is sliding over to safety and looking more and more likely to stick.

So let's possibly overreact to four practices none of which were in full pads.  What this means for all the personnel involved:

- Nicholson: Still the man.  Duh.
- Canady: If he keeps going gangbusters like this, the second cornerback.
- Hoskey: The third cornerback, at that rate.  But still a major piece who will play plenty of snaps.
- Phelps: A safety of some variety, and of the three safeties in the mix, the highest-profile as a recruit, therefore a major threat to nose in on someone's playing time.
- Walker: Free safety, for now.
- Harris: Strong safety, for now.

A starting four of Nicholson, Canady, Phelps, and Harris would be the most freakily inexperienced secondary I have ever seen.  Three true sophomores and one true freshman, with only one of them ever having actually played defensive back in a real game with real footballs.  That makes this a scary, scary year, in a thank-God-we-don't-play-Clemson sort of way.  But the idea of that group being together for three years is also droolingly appealing.

questions at camp for the defense

Continuing the series from yesterday with the camp issues for the defense.

1. Can Eli Harold be a terror on the edge?

The least proven ability on the entire defense is pass-rushing.  Your starting defensive ends are Billy Schautz and Jake Snyder.  Schautz has an outstanding head for football, but isn't athletic enough to speed-rush the quarterback, or powerful enough to bull-rush.  When he gets by his man, it's through technique and footwork.  Snyder is a big, strong-side run stopper, whose job is to hold the edge, and his backup, Brent Urban, is the same.

Mike London moved Ausar Walcott down from linebacker - for real this time, not as a wake-up call after offseason foolishness - in an effort to provide some speed-rush for pressuring the QB.  But not one of these DEs has the raw athletic freakishness of top recruit Eli Harold.  Harold will get a chance right off the bat to make his presence felt in the backfield.  And truthfully, if he isn't yet up to the chore, this season's pass rush will be inconsistent and not terribly productive.

2.  Is Steve Greer the real deal?

Greer was one of two Hoos named to the preseason all-ACC team.  He's not very big and not very fast, but he's developed into a crucial player - captain on the defense, unquestioned leader, and team tackling champ for two of his three years on the field.  And probably this year, too.  He's always been able to work quietly in the background, though, or at least, as much as you can do that at middle linebacker.  Being named one of the top three linebackers in the league is a high honor, but it means teams are gonna be gameplanning for him.  He'll have a lot on his plate no longer being backed up by senior safeties, and UVA's defense is going to go as he goes.  That's likely to be great news.

3.  Do the defensive backs know what's about to hit them?

Folks had complaints about the play of our defensive backfield at times last year, but they still were mostly seniors, and the plaudits for Chase Minnifield outweighed any complaints about safeties sometimes giving up big plays.

As veteran as that group was, though, this group is greener.  Let's put it this way: Tre Nicholson is a true sophomore and has six times as many starts as every other defensive back on the roster combined - which is because the only other player to have started a game is Rijo Walker, with two.  The other safety, Anthony Harris, is as green as they come.

At cornerback, it looks like a three-man rotation (a familiar setup - you'll remember how much time Dom Joseph saw despite not technically being a starter) with Nicholson as the veteran leader and Drequan Hoskey and Brandon Phelps rotating.  Hoskey - for now - has a leg up.  There's a ton of talent in the cornerback group, but barely enough experience to fill a paper bag.

And if that weren't enough, it seems a near certainty that a true freshman will be forced onto the field, and it's anyone's guess who that might be.  Defensive back might be the position that draws the most scrutiny in the whole camp.

4.  Am I right about Chris Brathwaite?

I've long felt that Brathwaite is a sleeper talent in the truest sense of the word.  I hate when people use the word "sleeper" or "diamond in the rough" because usually they do it wrong, but Brathwaite is the type the terms are meant for.  And this is a possible breakout year for the big, strong DT from New York.  Brathwaite is poised to leapfrog Justin Renfrow on the depth chart and earn a starting role alongside Will Hill, which is really great because I think there comes a time when Brathwaite is seen stepping on some right guard's face on the way to eating his quarterback as a light tea-time snack.  Practically every time Brathwaite has been mentioned on this blog in the past it's accompanied by effusive praise for his future prospects, and now that he's getting first-team reps, I'm excited to find out if this praise is well-placed.

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Get excited yo: next week I kick off the ACC previews.  As always, FOV readers will be the best-informed UVA fans on the competition.  Can't get this stuff anywhere else, and you will be able to talk intelligently about the rest of the ACC and where the Hoos fit into the pecking order.

Oh, and finally, speaking of kickoffs, as the Olympics begin their two-week run tonight, check out the list of UVA athletes participating in the Games in London, as put together by Streaking the Lawn.  Included are no fewer than three former Cavalier of the Year nominees as well; there's a reason that award exists.

postseason update

In case you were wondering (I was) this is what it looks like:

And it is coming to a University of Virginia near you.  It might not be the most historic of trophies or trophy games, but it does actually have a neat back story.  Arizona and ASU claim their Territorial Cup is the oldest trophy in college football (the object itself, not the game in playing for the object), but they only started making the Territorial Cup a thing in 2001, and this pitcher is actually far, far older than their silly western cup.

Every single player yesterday can give themselves a big fat pat on the back.  Kevin Parks for breaking the freshman TD record at UVA.  Kris Burd for moving into 2nd place on UVA's all-time receptions list.  Drequan Hoskey(!) for a huge, huge end zone pass breakup on FSU's last series.  Bill Schautz for exploding around the edge and forcing an E.J. Manuel fumble and for a terrific pass breakup on his final play of the season.  (Haven't felt worse about an injury in a long time.)  Mike Rocco for standing in the pocket like a professional and delivering two picture-perfect touchdown drives.  Perry Jones for a terrific touchdown catch.  Everybody.

Chase Minnifield, however, gets the game ball.  For hauling ass downfield, tackling Bert Reed at the 1, and setting up the defense to hold FSU to a field goal.  Saving those four points out-and-out won the game, and I don't want to hear anything about how people might've made different decisions being down by 10 instead of 6 and so on and etc.  Not for a play like that.

But the title promises postseason talk.  The postseason - after losing to NC State about four eons ago, that felt just as it had for the past three long seasons: nothing most than a ghost story.  You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner.  You're in one.  Next Saturday is the division championship game.  It's Hoos and Hokies for the season.  Bowl games?  It's the postseason right now.

But let's take a cursory look at the bowls anyway, just because that's what we do.  And this week, we're looking at all the bowls.  Time to start thinking with a winner's mentality.  Everything's on the table.  And just to switch things up, we'll start at the bottom.

-- Independence Bowl (Shreveport)

Matchup: MWC #3
Potential opponents: Wyoming, San Diego State

Thanks to Miami removing themselves from consideration, the Military Bowl is officially out of the running for UVA.  Miami is self-banned and UNC can't catch up in the rankings, so only six teams can be selected ahead of the Hoos.  So the Independence Bowl, picking 7th, is the worst-case scenario.

And I continue to maintain that no sane bowl official will choose Wake Forest over UVA, or really, any other ACC team, if they don't have to.  Ending up here would also mean NC State got picked in front too, which I don't think will happen. Technically we could end up in Shreveport, though I'd rather not, and be playing probably Wyoming, or maybe SDSU if the bowl officials want a bigger-market team.

-- Music City Bowl (Nashville)

Matchup: SEC #7/#8
Potential opponents: Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Mississippi State, at-large

Again, with that FSU pelt on the wall, I no longer think UVA drops this far.  Again again, though, possible.  All of those possible opponents, however, need to win one more.  All of them can do it - their last opponents, respectively, are Wake Forest, Kentucky, and Ole Miss.  However, right now, the SEC only has seven bowl-eligible teams, and you can bet on two of them going to the BCS, leaving five.  It may be that the Music City Bowl has to go hunting for an at-large team from like the MAC or something.  In that case we definitely do not want to fall here.

-- The former Tire Bowl (Charlotte)

Matchup: Big East #3
Potential opponents: The whole conference minus a few from the bottom

Lose to Virginia Tech, and this looks like a very likely landing spot.  You'd see one of Clemson or VT in the Orange, the other in the ex-Peach, FSU in the CS Bowl despite us beating them (I mean, they're right next door) and then....well, maybe the Sun Bowl picks us, and if they don't, these folks probably won't hesitate to snap up a next-door neighbor.

I have no idea who the opponent might be.  Louisville and Rutgers currently sit atop the Big East, which makes all the sense of a penguin in the Sahara eating a peanut butter sandwich.  That conference is absurd.

-- Sun Bowl (El Paso)

Matchup: Pac-12 #4
Potential opponents: Washington, Arizona State, UCLA, Utah, California

Both Washington and ASU completely biffed yesterday, opening up quite a few possibilities.  I do think it's most likely that the Sun Bowl takes Arizona State due to proximity, as long as Pac-12 rules allow it and also as long as they win their last game.

Beating Tech would guarantee UVA falls no lower than this bowl per ACC selection rules.  It's possible we may have already earned our way here anyway; it may depend on how bowl officials see us stacking up cash-flow-wise against Georgia Tech.

-- CS Bowl (Orlando)

Matchup: Big East #2
Potential opponents: Notre Dame or Big East mishmash

But there's no good reason to take the Big East mishmash when you can have a solid Notre Dame team.  Hmm, Cincinnati or Notre Dame, Cincinnati or Notre Dame.  Tough call.  Notre Dame, for obvious reasons, falls under the Big East umbrella for bowl tie-ins, and is almost certain to be invited to this bowl.  For equally obvious reasons, Florida State is likely to be their opponent.  We can beat the Seminoles all we want but we can't beat them so hard their fanbase moves to Idaho.  Only way FSU doesn't go here is if they go to Atlanta instead.

-- The former Peach Bowl (Atlanta)

Matchup: SEC #5
Potential opponents: Auburn, Florida

The folks in Atlanta have their eye on UVA.  But - there are obstacles.  We're not going if we lose to Tech, of course.  If we do, the Peach Bowl will simply grab the ACCCG loser between Tech and Clemson.  That much is obvious.  If we win, and then lose the ACCCG, then what?  The Peach's options would be 10-2 VT, 9-4 UVA, or 8-4 FSU.  (Probably they wouldn't take them at 7-5 in the event of a loss to Florida.)  And honestly, I have no idea how that decision would go, but VT and FSU both have a lot more name recognition right now than we do.  So.

As for the opponent, think Auburn.  I doubt Florida will beat FSU, and if they do they'd be a viable option, but the bowl folks state they won't take a 6-6 Florida.  Win-loss record does matter for their promos (which is one reason I'm fairly confident NC State won't get picked ahead of us.)  They don't want anyone at 6-6 if they don't have to, I'm betting.  And in getting the fifth pick, they really have the sixth because two SEC teams will go BCSing.  So that means South Carolina, Georgia, etc. are out of reach.  Auburn is really the only team left worth having.

-- Orange Bowl (Miami)

Matchup: BCS at-large
Potential opponents: Whatever shitty Big East team ends up at the top of the scrum, or Houston

Here we are in dreamland.  Either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your view on things, the Orange Bowl has the dead-last selection in the at-large rotation.  All the good teams will be taken by then, leaving the Orange Bowl with some team that automatically qualified and nobody wants.  That's probably the Big East.  The Sugar Bowl picks one slot ahead of the Orange, and if Houston is automatically BCS-eligible (which they will be if they win out) I think the Sugar would take the team from right next door.  Obviously there's still a pile of work to be done before we have to worry about this.

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So, what do I think is most likely?  There are three paths from here:

- Lose to Tech
- Beat Tech, lose to Clemson
- Win out

Door #3 is the Orange Bowl, but obviously also the least likely.  Door #2 - probably the Sun Bowl, as even then, VT will have a better record, and better name recognition too, I suspect, meaning Atlanta will pass on us.  They might not, but I think they would.  We need a few years to take care of that problem.  Door #1 means either the Sun Bowl or a trip to Charlotte for the Department Store Bowl; no way Wake gets picked over us, and I doubt NC State would, either.

the recruit: C.J. Moore

Name: C.J. Moore
Position: CB
Hometown: Buford, GA
School: Buford
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 165

24/7: 80; three stars
ESPN: 75; three stars; #68 CB; Southeast #512; GA #107
Rivals: 5.4; two stars
Scout: three stars; #87 CB

Other offers: Wake Forest, Air Force, Navy, Rice, Memphis

This is the third prospect named Moore that it's been my pleasure to profile this year, so get all the "all your Moores are belong to us" jokes out of your system before we move on.  Moore is the new Wallace, yes?  Actually let's hope not, because two of our three Wallaces washed out.

Anyway, C.J. Moore - he is fast.  Moore has a genetic advantage in the speed department, as he is a nephew to three-time Olympic gold-medal sprinter Gail Devers.  He's a talented cornerback on a powerhouse high school team; he had seven interceptions last year and I think he's got about five this year (but I'm nowhere near sure.)  Buford is mighty as hell.  (If I were them I'd change the school's name to Buford T. Justice High instead of just plain ol' Buford, but I don't get to make those decisions.)  In case you missed it in the weekend review, they are going for their fifth state championship in a row.  They've churned out over 50 college players in the last decade.  They only play in the 2A division in Georgia (which goes up to 5A), but I think it'd be a mistake to cast a skeptical eye at the competition they play.  Buford usually schedules up when they can.  Their league isn't the Beach District, but it's not terrible; remember, they finished the year with Greater Atlanta Christian, which is where we got Malcolm Brogdon.

Despite playing at a place that every school in the South knows about (Buford sends people everywhere in the SEC and beyond), Moore got a pretty weak set of scholarship offers.  Likely this is because of his size.  He doesn't project to grow much, either.  Demetrious Nicholson is skinny but with room to add on.  Moore doesn't look like he's got the ability to add a lot of weight and still keep his speed.  Despite that, he gets a reasonable consensus of lowish three star ratings from the services, except for Rivals which has him pretty far down the list.

The other three services agree, though, so we're going with that.  ESPN is very complimentary of his cornerback skills, largely on the mental side of the game - positioning, timing, etc.  They praise his zone coverage ability and have some questions about man-to-man.  Naturally, a guy Moore's size will have trouble sometimes with man-to-man coverage in college; bigger receivers will almost always be able to get the drop on him.

Run support is a little questionable too; ESPN points out his high tackling form, and that's backed up by his highlight tape.  He's not ready for the college run game; a 5'9", 160-165 pound kid trying to tackle high is gonna be someone's highlight-reel broken tackle.  It's happened to Nicholson a few times this season already and he doesn't even try to bear-hug.  But that's not a difficult habit to break - it might be broken by the time the bullets start flying next September.

Which raises the question; will Moore be on the field?  You know how it is with cornerbacks right now.  It's a bad situation depth-wise, covered up by the fact that we have an all-conference future NFLer manning the position for now.  Said star will be gone next year, as well as the top backup, Dom Joseph, leaving us with exactly three cornerbacks: Nicholson, Brandon Phelps, and track star walk-on Drequan Hoskey.  There are numbers in the incoming freshman class, but it's awfully thin on field-ready talent like Nicholson.  Maurice Canady is playing quarterback right now.  Wil Wahee is more of a two-way athlete right now than a cornerback who moonlights on offense, which is what C.J. Moore is.  I don't know whether Hoskey is ready to assume a nickel-back, in-the-rotation role like what Dom Joseph does now.  Even if so, cornerback is the one position almost certain to see some true freshmen on the field.

And I think Moore has as good a shot as anyone; only Kelvin Rainey in the class of 2012 is as much a natural cornerback as Moore is.  If all goes according to plan, Phelps and Nicholson will own the position for a while, and there's a decent chance the 2012 crop of cornerbacks gets recruited over in the following years.  So I don't see Moore ever really owning the starting job; if he does, it's a while down the road yet.  But his speed alone will get him on the field, and he brings a lot of tools with him; there may or may not ever be a starting position available for him, but there'll almost always be a role.