Is it wrong that after the Miami game I wished the spread had been 18.5 instead of 20, so that idiots who were stupid enough to bet on UVA lost their money because we couldn't execute a simple extra point?
As if we didn't already have oh about a thousand data points proving what an undisciplined, fecklessly coached team Mike London has foisted upon our school, extra points turned into a penalty-fest this week. UVA scored three touchdowns and fucked up the extra point on every single one of them - two false starts and a block. And I don't blame special teams coach Larry Lewis for any of them, although one of the false starts was illegal procedure on the snapper. So maybe that one. The first false start was Ross Burbank, and it was Eric Tetlow blown backwards for the block; Burbank is a goddam veteran and should know better.
Then again, six false starts on the day mean there's plenty of that blame to go around. Here we are, 11 games into the season, and that darn elusive snap count is still an unsolved puzzle. 11 games into the season and the quarterback still slings uncatchable frozen ropes to a target two feet above his receiver's head, and has the decision-making power of a welding robot besides. If you believe what you read on message boards, and the writer of this particular nugget has much more credibility than the average blabbermouth, the "read-option" we've been running is called in advance from the sidelines. As in, the hand-or-keep decision. What has looked like stunningly poor decision-making from Watford is actually Watford executing what he's been told in advance - and he apparently has neither the gumption nor authority to override that when the given decision is so obviously a bad one. Whatever goes on at football practice these days, I wouldn't call it "coaching." I believe the preferred nomenclature is "ruining perfectly good football players."
The real shame here is that some really nice individual efforts are being lost in the pit of despair. Anthony Harris's eight picks are an amazing number, even if one of them should've just been batted down. Kevin Parks needs 74 yards to reach 1,000 for the season, and even if he doesn't get there he's already had the best season by a UVA running back since that last 1,000 yard season (Alvin Pearman in 2004.) If he doesn't go 11 yards backwards this week, that is - entirely possible since VT's D-line is a wrecking crew and our O-line is incapable of blocking them.
The season will be at its merciful end in less than a week, in the same sense in which the clock ran out on the Oregon game, and when the team physically walks off the field (after having mentally walked off it two hours ago) to a tiny smattering of boos from the masochists that stayed through that whole mess, we can finally slam the coffin lid shut. I'll then fire off a sarcastic letter to Craig Littlepage and receive a response along the lines of "we feel your pain and rest assured we blah blah fix it blah blah have higher goals for the program blah blah." I'd say we could then bury this pathetic season, but that's not quite true - the rotting stench of its corpse will haunt the program for a few years. Or at least over the summer; I can't picture going into the 2014 season with any optimism as long as Mike London is still making decisions. All there is to look forward to is about a year and two weeks from now when eight more losses have entered themselves in the ledger and some ex-MAC wunderkind is promising to make it all better.
P.S. - Let me just answer a question from a couple weeks ago, regarding which members of this coaching staff I'd retain for some continuity: NONE OF THEM. Not even UVA legend Anthony Poindexter, who's such a good safety coach that fourth-year safety Rijo Walker tried to crash the backfield while a Miami receiver ran straight past him to the end zone - on 1st-and-25. Larry Lewis has markedly improved the special teams, but that wasn't hard given the deplorable job Poindexter did with that unit. Vincent Brown has probably done a better-than-average job, and the linebackers look good under Tenuta. But why retain any of the stench of this season? I'm sure there's a coach or two somewhere that can convince a high-schooler to play here besides Poindexter and Chip West, and then actually teach them to play football too.
This goes for everyone from the head coach on down through the assistants, the S&C crew (which is partially responsible for the fact that our interior O-line gets blown up every other play), and the GAs too.
****************************************************
I made some predictions about this game; let's see if my prognostication skills have recovered from the beating they took the past couple weeks.
-- David Watford has between 29 and 43 completions, giving him his second-most in a game this year. I reserve the right to prorate this out in case of early Greyson Lambert showing. No need to prorate. Watford would've had to attempt 72 passes in order to reach the minimum that I expected.
-- Lambert attempts 10+ passes. He threw 19, and only needed a fraction of them to surpass Watford's miserable yardage output.
-- Dallas Crawford rushes for over 100 yards in Duke Johnson's absence. Crawford ran for only 55, but this seems like as good a time as any to point out that we managed to lose despite running 91 offensive plays to Miami's 52. Brent Urban's return made a difference, but that is also what happens when your offense serves up defensive touchdowns like Halloween candy.
-- Ant Harris gets another interception. Truth.
-- Stephen Morris tops 300 passing yards. No, but he came close-ish with 214, which isn't that close but it is considering he only had 13 completions.
-- Miami scores at least one touchdown of 65 yards or greater, through the air. I'm counting the 62-yarder, because I can.
I go to 22-for-55 on the season, which is exactly 40%. Also 7-4 overall but only 5-5-1 ATS since by some miracle, UVA covered. I'd like it made known that I predicted Miami's score exactly, though.
****************************************************
Remarkably, there are still high school players who want to join this clownshow, and some of them played football this weekend too. Let's catch up on those of our recruits still working their way through the high school playoffs:
Upland 30, Santiago 29: Jeffery Farrar intercepted a pass deep in Santiago territory that set up a touchdown and a 16-3 lead that Upland needed all of in the quarterfinal win.
Dacula 28, Peachtree Ridge 21: Jordan Ellis ran for 132 yards but was held off the scoreboard in Peachtree Ridge's season-ending loss.**
Forest Park 27, Varina 18: Donovan Dowling had a few big catches, but Varina's season ends a little earlier than they're accustomed to.
Central Catholic 49, St. Petersburg Catholic 16 (Caanan Brown)
Oscar Smith 41, Grassfield 7 (Andrew Brown)
Woodgrove 49, Eastern View 7 (J.J. Jackson)
The results this week leave four teams alive, mostly in their respective semifinals. Upland and Woodgrove (the latter in a quarterfinal) will have uphill battles; CCC and Oscar Smith are behemoths that will be expected to continue. And in junior news, Juan Thornhill's Altavista also remains alive.
**I looked this up, and, disappointingly, this team is pronounced "da-CUE-la", not like Dracula minus the R. Ur doin it wrong, Dacula.
****************************************************
On a programming note, this is Thanksgiving weekend. Which means of course that I'm not writing anything on Thursday for you turkeys. I'm pushing the VT game preview all the way up to tomorrow, so that I can wait for the results of the Tuesday basketball game to write a preview for Friday's one. It's our big preseason tournament (such as it is) so it's worth a preview. Not gonna get one for Sunday's game, though. Wednesday's preview and then see you Monday.
Showing posts with label lewis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lewis. Show all posts
Monday, November 25, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
weekend review
Some days all I want to write is, "That sucked." I figure if I left it at that, there wouldn't be much else to say, really. But maybe I owe you a little more than two words. I wrote a few more than two for ITA this week, and you should go check that out as sort of a starting point for the rest of the ramblings on where we stand, one-sixth of the way into the ACC hoops season.
The injuries are nothing new. We get slammed with those all the time. It's like all you have to do is impress the fans at the JPJA and then the injury gremlin shows up in the night and chops off your foot. Jeff White points out that Akil Mitchell re-injured his ankle in the Clemson game, which is no surprise since high-ankle sprains get reinjured like it's their job. Oh, and Darion Atkins is essentially week-to-week with what Tony Bennett called a "stress reaction." Like shin splints on steroids. As with anyone who's ever had any kind of a symptom of anything, I know how to look things up on WebMD and the like, and a "stress reaction" apparently is "a preceding stage to a stress fracture."
Oh goody.
So now we're playing almost entirely without the two players that really made the engine purr in November and December. Joe Harris is the main scorer, but Mitchell and Atkins were drawing just all kinds of rave reviews for their athleticism, activity, and ability to light up a stat sheet on both ends of the floor. Remember that? We had shot-blocking, rebounding, killer double-teams, and best of all, they had post moves that worked. Now, according to Whitey Reid, it might be back to the four for Harris, which is a terrific way to get murdered in the post when we're on defense and destroy Harris's scoring value.
It's not like they're both declared out for the FSU game this coming Saturday, of course. The week away from game action might help. But until further notice, even if they play they're both likely to be pretty limited, and they're not getting any practice time.
If that weren't bad enough, we now have a point guard going on tilt. Against Clemson, Jontel Evans played probably the worst game I have ever seen out of a UVA point guard, and Calvin Baker could conjure up a real stinker sometimes when he had to play the 1. There's no sense in beating around the truth, though: Evans was absolutely horrible against Clemson. He's well aware of the need to take care of the ball, of course - it seems to me he's too well aware. He was indecisive, which in turn caused turnovers. (Case in point: a semi-transition moment when he thought about passing to Mitchell, decided not to, and traveled.) He didn't want to risk a turnover by attacking the basket, so he dribbled around the entire halfcourt everywhere but near the basket. That only ever resulted in shot-clock violations, or a hurried shot at the end of the time limit, which is just as bad. Against Clemson the offense was a chaotic mess, and yes, the finger needs to point squarely at the senior point guard.
Among UVA fans, you very often see premature quitting on the season. There is this thought that if you bring in the future starters right now, they'll gain the experience they need and, magically, the program will be so much better next year. It's an attitude that is almost willfully ignorant of the many other pieces of the puzzle, such as the should-be-obvious fact that if you lose a lot of games this season by playing your greenest players over your best players, recruiting tends to suffer. I hate this attitude. And yet there'll be a lot of merit to the idea of having Teven Jones start if Evans keeps playing like that. Not just to give Jones experience for next year so he can be a useful bridge to the era of Devon Hall and London Perrantes, but because if Evans keeps that up, Jones will be the best point guard we have.
There clearly is no better time for a week off, followed by a home game in front of what should be a decent crowd.
****************************************************
-- Always two there are, a master and an apprentice. If Jeff Banks looked like a perfect fit for UVA's football staff, I guess you got no choice but to say the same about his replacement, Larry Lewis. Lewis coached Banks when Banks was punting at Washington State and gave Banks his first coaching job, at Idaho State. Otherwise I probably can't do much of a better job outlining Lewis's career than the official release plus Jeff White's take, so I won't try. I also assume that when London (or Jon Oliver, or both, I dunno) interviewed Lewis, they asked the question, "You're going to at least stick around to help coach a practice, right?" So I figure UVA landed on its feet here after being spurned by Banks. Godspeed to Lewis as he tries to fix one of the brokenest units UVA has ever seen.
-- UVA isn't the only program in the state hiring assistant coaches. Tech settled on an offensive coordinator to replace Brian Stinespring, and hired Scot Loeffler from Auburn's recently fired staff. As a Michigan fan I know a great deal of Loeffler's history; he was Tim Tebow's QB coach, which earned a fair amount of mockery from my fellow blue-and-orange brethren, but Loeffler, it should be noted, was also Tom Brady's first QB coach, and also tutored Chad Henne. And Henne owns every passing record at Michigan that matters and threw more touchdowns than all but one Big Ten quarterback, ever. So I wouldn't cast too many aspersions on his ability to coach QBs. As for track record as an OC, well.....that's a different story.
-- I'll fix the recruiting board later, but for now the basic story is essentially trading Hipolito Corporan for in-state recruit Connor Wingo-Reeves. I listed CWR on the board as a linebacker since that's where all the services place him, but I think he's more likely to be a fullback. A real fullback, the run-into-linebackers type, which is refreshing. As for Corporan, he's off to Utah, a place he'd been hinting for a while now that he'd probably end up. UVA is definitely deep enough at cornerback to absorb the loss.
The injuries are nothing new. We get slammed with those all the time. It's like all you have to do is impress the fans at the JPJA and then the injury gremlin shows up in the night and chops off your foot. Jeff White points out that Akil Mitchell re-injured his ankle in the Clemson game, which is no surprise since high-ankle sprains get reinjured like it's their job. Oh, and Darion Atkins is essentially week-to-week with what Tony Bennett called a "stress reaction." Like shin splints on steroids. As with anyone who's ever had any kind of a symptom of anything, I know how to look things up on WebMD and the like, and a "stress reaction" apparently is "a preceding stage to a stress fracture."
Oh goody.
So now we're playing almost entirely without the two players that really made the engine purr in November and December. Joe Harris is the main scorer, but Mitchell and Atkins were drawing just all kinds of rave reviews for their athleticism, activity, and ability to light up a stat sheet on both ends of the floor. Remember that? We had shot-blocking, rebounding, killer double-teams, and best of all, they had post moves that worked. Now, according to Whitey Reid, it might be back to the four for Harris, which is a terrific way to get murdered in the post when we're on defense and destroy Harris's scoring value.
It's not like they're both declared out for the FSU game this coming Saturday, of course. The week away from game action might help. But until further notice, even if they play they're both likely to be pretty limited, and they're not getting any practice time.
If that weren't bad enough, we now have a point guard going on tilt. Against Clemson, Jontel Evans played probably the worst game I have ever seen out of a UVA point guard, and Calvin Baker could conjure up a real stinker sometimes when he had to play the 1. There's no sense in beating around the truth, though: Evans was absolutely horrible against Clemson. He's well aware of the need to take care of the ball, of course - it seems to me he's too well aware. He was indecisive, which in turn caused turnovers. (Case in point: a semi-transition moment when he thought about passing to Mitchell, decided not to, and traveled.) He didn't want to risk a turnover by attacking the basket, so he dribbled around the entire halfcourt everywhere but near the basket. That only ever resulted in shot-clock violations, or a hurried shot at the end of the time limit, which is just as bad. Against Clemson the offense was a chaotic mess, and yes, the finger needs to point squarely at the senior point guard.
Among UVA fans, you very often see premature quitting on the season. There is this thought that if you bring in the future starters right now, they'll gain the experience they need and, magically, the program will be so much better next year. It's an attitude that is almost willfully ignorant of the many other pieces of the puzzle, such as the should-be-obvious fact that if you lose a lot of games this season by playing your greenest players over your best players, recruiting tends to suffer. I hate this attitude. And yet there'll be a lot of merit to the idea of having Teven Jones start if Evans keeps playing like that. Not just to give Jones experience for next year so he can be a useful bridge to the era of Devon Hall and London Perrantes, but because if Evans keeps that up, Jones will be the best point guard we have.
There clearly is no better time for a week off, followed by a home game in front of what should be a decent crowd.
****************************************************
-- Always two there are, a master and an apprentice. If Jeff Banks looked like a perfect fit for UVA's football staff, I guess you got no choice but to say the same about his replacement, Larry Lewis. Lewis coached Banks when Banks was punting at Washington State and gave Banks his first coaching job, at Idaho State. Otherwise I probably can't do much of a better job outlining Lewis's career than the official release plus Jeff White's take, so I won't try. I also assume that when London (or Jon Oliver, or both, I dunno) interviewed Lewis, they asked the question, "You're going to at least stick around to help coach a practice, right?" So I figure UVA landed on its feet here after being spurned by Banks. Godspeed to Lewis as he tries to fix one of the brokenest units UVA has ever seen.
-- UVA isn't the only program in the state hiring assistant coaches. Tech settled on an offensive coordinator to replace Brian Stinespring, and hired Scot Loeffler from Auburn's recently fired staff. As a Michigan fan I know a great deal of Loeffler's history; he was Tim Tebow's QB coach, which earned a fair amount of mockery from my fellow blue-and-orange brethren, but Loeffler, it should be noted, was also Tom Brady's first QB coach, and also tutored Chad Henne. And Henne owns every passing record at Michigan that matters and threw more touchdowns than all but one Big Ten quarterback, ever. So I wouldn't cast too many aspersions on his ability to coach QBs. As for track record as an OC, well.....that's a different story.
-- I'll fix the recruiting board later, but for now the basic story is essentially trading Hipolito Corporan for in-state recruit Connor Wingo-Reeves. I listed CWR on the board as a linebacker since that's where all the services place him, but I think he's more likely to be a fullback. A real fullback, the run-into-linebackers type, which is refreshing. As for Corporan, he's off to Utah, a place he'd been hinting for a while now that he'd probably end up. UVA is definitely deep enough at cornerback to absorb the loss.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
