signstravaganza 2014

Signing Day!  I admit, to me it's a little disappointing these days, and here's why: Seems to me that a few years ago, you could follow along most of the day - or at least through lunch and the early afternoon - as the recruiting services reported on incoming faxes.  I liked refreshing every 10-15 minutes or so.  It was a nice work distraction - nice enough that it seemed like it really ought to be a national holiday.  Now all the faxes are in by 9 AM, except the ones from the West Coast.  I don't know if all this is true, but this is how it seems to me.

Let's get started by closing out the recruiting board.  The three names in yellow all went elsewhere: Derrick Nnadi to FSU, Vincent Jackson to South Florida, and Ladarius Wiley to Vanderbilt.  None of these are surprises.  If I thought we were a serious threat to land any of them they'd have been in a color higher than yellow.

The proprieties dispensed with, let's talk roster management.  This is a class of 17 players when all's said and done.  18 are on the final version of the recruiting board, but Zack Jones doesn't look to have made it.  We've lost three to attrition so far - E.J. Scott, Adrian Gamble, and Pablo Alvarez.  89 is now the final scholarship count, meaning at least four more eventual departures.  (Quite likely more, since we were actively recruiting three or four more players at the end, and missed on all of them.)  London made a curious comment at his press conference, mentioning 17 graduating seniors after the 2014 season.  Curious because I count 20 scholarship rising seniors.

Clearly, London knows something we don't.  A shocking development.  I will, in the near future - this very post even - harshly criticize London's roster management as it relates to the various positions.  One thing London does very well, however, is manage the overall number.  It's a function of his being highly on top of his players' classroom exploits, or, occasionally (and much more occasionally under London than Groh) their lack thereof.  In general, his recruiting classes hit the target as well as you could expect.

There are features in this post that don't change every year, so let's get to them.  First, the positional analysis.

QUARTERBACK - Corwin Cutler

Cutler took a prep season at Fork Union, putting him back in the 2014 class after originally signing in 2013.  Knowing that they'd have him coming in this season, the coaches chose not to pursue any quarterbacks in this class; they made a few token offers and didn't work any of them especially hard.  That's fine. We'll have five, which is a good number.  You don't really need six.

RUNNING BACK - Jordan Ellis

There was also no need to overpursue at this position, and Ellis is by himself in this class.  That works for me.  Ellis adds a nice size element to the current stable of backs, which is mostly missing right now.  I like Ellis's chances to be a poor man's Kevin Parks, of sorts.  Maybe not even that poor.  He could be the thunder to someone's lightning - say, if Taquan Mizzell is a four-year player.

WIDE RECEIVER - Donovan Dowling, Jamil Kamara

A third straight properly-staffed position, I think.  We'll go in with 10 as of now.  Dowling, as profiled Monday, looks to me likely to fill a possession receiver niche, and should redshirt; Kamara, as more of a feature-potential guy, may not, and probably shouldn't, given our inability last season to find a consistent solution at this position.

TIGHT END - Evan Butts

UVA hasn't recruited a dedicated tight end since Zach Swanson, so Butts is a welcome addition.  I'd like to see him redshirt - I mean, that should be the default setting, really - but Rob Burns and Mario Nixon seem like such odd ducks at the position that it might be Butts's fate to play, if he arrives with enough size.

OFFENSIVE LINE - Steven Moss, Jacob Fieler

OK, so far I've been complimentary of the roster management.  That stops here.  (recordscratch.mp3) 

This is stupid.  Jacob Fieler's been told to prepare to be in the two-deep when he starts spring practice.  That's not because he's a superstar.  That's because we almost literally have no choice.  With George Adeosun probably still out, there are 11 scholarship O-linemen besides Fieler in spring camp.  That means just one injury we don't know about, or one guy who isn't panning out, and Fieler's there by default.  (Yes, I know Jackson Matteo exists, but filling out your two-deep with walk-ons is only further proof that you're fucking this up.)

Let me repeat: A true freshman is in the two-deep because we have no other choice.  The only other option is that the coaches like Fieler more than one or two guys they already have, which is equally ridiculous - you're telling me that a guy who's never been to a single one of your practices is better than the guys you've been developing?  This is understandable in the case of a five-star player.  Fieler had better be a five-star player disguised as a guy nobody ever heard of.

In the fall, there'll be 14 players on scholarship, assuming no attrition, injuries, and such - which is a stupid thing to assume.  We can't even go three deep at offensive line.  And the coaches saw fit to sign two linemen.**  Do you know how many linemen you'd have if you did that every year?  Ten - if you redshirted everyone, which is the opposite of what we do.

This is astoundingly shitty.  Fieler and Moss are good-looking players with potential.  But this is about quantity, not quality.  We have quality, which doesn't excuse the lack of quantity.  The fact remains that London looked at what can only be considered a ridiculously thin lineup and was content to let it get thinner.  Impossible to put it any other way: when it comes to the offensive line, which is the foundation of your offense, London is utterly fucking up the program.

**Will Richardson's decommitment is not a defense.

DEFENSIVE TACKLE - Andrew Brown

The program-screwing doesn't stop on the offensive side.  OK, getting Chris Brathwaite back helps the situation.  It's a good thing, because otherwise we'd be going into this season with five DTs - again, unable to go three deep.  Now we can, if just barely.

On the plus side, Andrew Brown is something else.  The #1 DT in the country to most services, Brown is the kind of recruit that is usually out of UVA's reach.  Fast, powerful, whatever your ideal adjective combination, Brown is it.  He'll play from day 1, of course.  He might play a little DE.  He's got a head start on college as an early enrollee and is likely to quickly blow past most of the depth chart.  And hopefully will blow past opposing OGs just as quickly.

DEFENSIVE END - Michael Biesemier, Darrious Carter, Cory Jones

From a numbers perspective, I can calm down a bit when it comes to defensive end, as we'll carry nine into the season.  Maybe eight or even seven as I'd keep an eye on the positional status of Jack English and the offer status of Stephen Lawe - as in, whether Lawe gets invited back for a fifth year.  It may not happen.

Seven would be thin, but not crushingly so, at least.  The problem is that this class is full of fliers.  You're not looking at very much here - they're all two-stars on two of the four services and none were in high demand.  London flipped all three of these guys very late in the process from commitments to other programs - JMU, Temple, and Toledo, respectively.  It probably speaks to another instance of positional neglect - surely you ought to have a defensive end committed before December when the ones in your program now are so unproven.

The main attraction for these guys so far is body type, which is different than, say, Andrew Brown, who interests people when he actually moves.  Jones is the exception, but he could not be rawer, having picked up football literally last year.  Individually I'd have no problem with any of these pickups, if we had some proven in-demand talent to add as well.  Absolutely, take a flier here and there on someone you think might be a high-reward type.  When that's what your whole class at the position is comprised of, it's a problem.

LINEBACKER - Caanan Brown, J.J. Jackson, Chris Peace

To a large extent, that story continues here, although in Jackson's case, the lack of demand is heavily affected by his early commitment.  Rather than go after proven commodities, the staff chose to sign mold-fitting athletes, all of whom bring to mind Max Valles.  Valles's listing as a "linebacker" is slightly laughable, as, by playing him, the staff chose to sacrifice a great deal of traditional linebacker attributes in exchange for a third defensive end on the field.

So on the one hand, perhaps I'm overblowing the concerns about defensive end depth.  Peace and Jackson in particular could grow into actual, real defensive ends.  On the other hand, the staff offered exactly three players considered by Rivals to be middle linebackers.  Essentially what they've done is take London's philosophy of scooping up lots of athletes without positions, who might be cornerbacks, safeties, receivers, even tight ends or defensive ends depending on their size, and extended that strategy to linebacker as well.  These guys, if linebacker is the right word, will need a lot of coaching up, although you have to wonder if Jon Tenuta will get time to see his vision come to fruition.

DEFENSIVE BACK - Jeffery Farrar, Darious Latimore, Quin Blanding

Blanding, like Andrew Brown, is a talent and a half.  With Brandon Phelps's hold on the free safety job being rather tenuous, and a lot of safeties on the roster that we're just never going to use, Blanding steps in with a clear path to the two-deep and a shot at starting by season's end.  He won't get the head start of spring enrollment, but he's got all the tools all the same.  I harp on the oversigning of defensive backs, but Blanding is exempt.

In a way, though, watching a lot of recruiting targets go elsewhere - like Daiquan Lawrence and Ladarius Wiley - saved London from himself.  At cornerback, we can now go five deep.  10 cornerbacks for two positions, not including the need for a nickel back.  We can't go three deep at O-line, but London wanted to go damn near six deep at corner?  Farrar and Latimore look like good players in a vacuum, but given the numbers on the roster we probably could have survived without taking even one cornerback this year.  That London wanted three or four (and was content with two offensive linemen) is stunningly awful judgment.

KICKER/PUNTER - none

But not for lack of trying.  UVA briefly held the commitment of Gary Wunderlich until Ole Miss flipped him, and just this week offered the other UA all-star, Adam Centers, who chose Wake Forest instead.

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Like Festivus, Signstravaganza has its made-up traditions, and these are lists.  To wit:

Top five stories of the year:

1. Jamil Kamara's recruitment.  Kamara strung it out until December, though at least one poster on TheSabre claims he's been all UVA since the summer and just enjoyed leaving everyone in suspense.  Nevertheless, it tied a bow on a saga that's lasted years, since Kamara has been on the radar since his freshman year.

2. Jordan Ellis's productivity.  Ellis put to rest a lot of doubt by coming out of the gates like gangbusters and piling up both yards and touchdowns.  He broke a school record for touchdowns in a game and let the record stand a whole week before breaking it again.

3. The Derrick Nnadi saga.  Nnadi needed all season to make up his mind and was back and forth seemingly every day.  I started him in green on the recruiting board, moved him up to blue, back down to green, down to yellow, down to red, and then back up to yellow.  He didn't respond well to being pushed in any one direction, or pulled for that matter, and since recruiting is all about pushing and pulling, it wasn't a terribly predictable path that he followed.

4. The Thoroughbreds.  Why is UVA getting five-star recruits during two-win seasons?  VT fans will tell you it's because their coaches are "steering" them.  What they mean by that is that it's totally unfair that someone whose job it is to give guidance and coaching to a high schooler should offer any guidance or coaching, if said guidance doesn't move them in the right direction.  The definition of "steering" is "suggesting the wrong school."  The truth is that the VT coaching staff has managed to piss off a lot of the wrong people in Tidewater and UVA is reaping the benefits of that plus their desire to keep playing together after leaving high school.

5. Offensive line, or lack thereof.  At least, I think it's a story.

Five most likely to play as true freshmen:

1. Andrew Brown
2. Quin Blanding
3. Jamil Kamara
4. Jacob Fieler
5. Steven Moss

I mean, the first three are no-brainers.  They're playing.  We'd be crazy not to, particularly, I think, in the cases of Brown and Kamara.  The other two are offensive linemen and therefore the beneficiaries of the lack of a depth chart.  Another name that might slide in here: Corwin Cutler, whose chance to win the quarterback job is legitimate.

Five I'm most excited about:

1. Andrew Brown
2. Jamil Kamara
3. Quin Blanding
4. Jordan Ellis
5. Corwin Cutler

For Kamara and Cutler, it's because they represent a chance to fix huge problem spots.  Ellis is there because I'm absurdly biased toward running backs, my favorite position on the field, and his productivity should excite.  And, I mean, you can't not have the five-stars, right?  Brown especially - if he's all he's cracked up to be, I gotta tell you there's very little more exciting to me on defense than a terrorizing defensive tackle roaring up the middle to assault a hapless quarterback.

Three sleepers:

1. Cory Jones
2. Donovan Dowling
3. Chris Peace

Inclusion on this list requires that you have a two-star rating from at least one service and that I like some aspect of your game.  Usually two-star players have ill-defined roles - Dowling, at least from my own perspective, is not likely to make any all-anything teams, but does have a strong likelihood of being able to fill a particular niche and do it very well.  Jones and Peace are just the opposite - they're high-ceiling fliers with athletic ability in need of harnessing.

Five highest-rated:

1 (tie). Andrew Brown (5 stars)
1 (tie). Quin Blanding (5 stars)
3 (tie). Jamil Kamara (4 stars)
3 (tie). Steven Moss (4 stars)
5 (tie). Corwin Cutler (3.25 stars)
5 (tie). Jeffery Farrar (3.25 stars)

Simple star averages.

Eat it, Shaney:

Jamil Kamara
Quin Blanding
Steven Moss
Andrew Brown

Eat it, Randy:

Quin Blanding
Steven Moss
Andrew Brown

Eat it, Larry:

Jamil Kamara
Quin Blanding
Steven Moss
Andrew Brown

Players offered by VT, Maryland, and UNC, respectively, that we won out on.  What a surprise that they're all the same players.  The number of losses to each of these schools numbers slightly more in each case, but without as much star power.

The ones that got away:

LB Connor Strachan (Boston College)
OL Brock Ruble (Florida State)
K Gary Wunderlich (Mississippi)
OL Bentley Spain (North Carolina)
OL Will Richardson (NC State)
OL Sam Mustipher (Notre Dame)
LB Troy Reeder (Penn State)
OL Alex Bookser (Pittsburgh)
WR Cameron Phillips (Virginia Tech)
LB Melvin Keihn (Virginia Tech)

My my, look at all the OLs.  This is the list of players whose going elsewhere hurts the most.  What's worse is all the players from pipeline schools.  Ruble and Phillips are from DeMatha.  Mustipher, Good Counsel.  Keihn, Gilman.  UVA's name is big in these places and London could not or would not get anywhere with them.  Bookser is both mystifying and infuriating - he had UVA in a top four for a long time, and eventually committed to Pitt in December.  He's from Pittsburgh, so a Pitt commitment isn't at all surprising - but the fact that he waited that long suggests he was more than open to leaving the state.  Why, then, despite the interest and the need for O-linemen, did we hear nothing about him after July?  There's no good reason I can think of.

In all, UVA did very poorly this year in the "DMV" area, and Baltimore too.  Very, very poorly.

Finally, presented here is the original board, saved from some 54 weeks ago:

Showing what an imprecise science this can be, last year when I showed off the original board, it had eventual commitments in all different colors.  This year we went 4-for-4 in blue and 0-for-everything else - including orange.

There's no offseason in recruiting, so the 2015 board will hopefully be up soon.  I sure hope the guy in charge of that gets his act together.  That class is likely to be an uphill battle along the lines of 2010.

weekend review

It's the recruiting homestretch, with Signing Day a little over a week away, so there's plenty of movement on and off the recruiting board.  So that's what kicks off the weekend review this week.

-- Added LB Chris Peace and DE Cory Jones (re-add in that case) to orange.  Jones had committed to Toledo a little while ago, but flipped on an official visit this weekend, and was joined by Peace, who committed almost on the spot to his UVA offer.  Both are instate players who up til now had gotten very little attention.

-- Moved OL Will Richardson from orange to maroon.  UVA is very dangerously thin at OL and this class is not helping.  I can't fault London for losing Richardson since Richardson more or less lied to him, but I can certainly find fault with not doing the OL work that should've been done in July.

-- Removed CB DaiQuan Lawrence from blue; recommitted to Wake Forest.

-- Removed DB Daniel Ezeagwu from green (Maryland.)

-- Removed TE Blake Whiteley (Texas) and CB Cornelius Floyd (Arkansas) from yellow.

-- Moved DT Derrick Nnadi from red to yellow.  Weird recruitment, ain't it?  I don't really expect Nnadi to pick UVA when all's said and done (I think, based on nothing, that FSU is going to be the answer) but at least there's a ripple.

-- Added LB Vincent Jackson and CB Ladarius Wiley to yellow.  Wiley is a friend of Jeffrey Farrar and currently technically a Purdue commit, but Farrar is working on him.

With only a week left, this'll be the penultimate update; the next time for the 2014 board will be the last.  I'm working on the 2015 board and slowly but surely filling it up; probably will have it out next week.

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-- UVA picked up a couple tops-in-the-country nods this past week, and in different sports.  Probably the kiss of death in both cases, but whatever.  Baseball America has the Hoos as their preseason #1 team, and rates the lineup as somewhere between "elite" and "team for the ages."  And UVA's performance in ESPN's BPI is the nation's best in January.  So far.  Still plenty of time to screw that up.  But even should UVA lose tonight, it'd be hard to argue any other team in the country had more of a season-turning month - in the right direction - than did UVA.  (And if you could make a case for someone else, it'd be Michigan. :D :D :D )

-- Lacrosse season is still a short ways off and it's already off to a tough start.  Reserve midfielder Carl Walrath got himself kicked off the team for an incident in November in which he thought it would be a bright idea to clock a police officer and take off running.  Now, not that Walrath shouldn't be summarily booted for a brainstorm like that, but it bothers me that it's Craig Littlepage making the statement.  There are several different ways to interpret that, none of which are good.

-- This week I'm gonna start in on spring sports.  Not sure exactly what order I'll do things, but I'll for sure start tomorrow with a lacrosse schedule analysis.

recruiting board update and other catch-up notes

Things have gotten a little slow around the production facilities lately.  I mean, it is close to Christmas after all, and plus I got free Red Wings tickets on Tuesday, so, shit happens.  Admittedly it makes my goal of having ten more season previews written by New Year's pretty ambitious, but regardless.

Let's start with the recruiting board, which is gonna look a lot different when I'm done.

-- Added OL Jacob Fieler to orange.  Fieler is a post-grad player at FUMA who'll join Andrew Brown as an early enrollee.  Adding any warm body at OL is a good sign; I'm more than fairly irritated at Mike London's desire to keep adding low-to-middling "athlete" types just because they play at a high school inside the Virginia borders while blowing off O-line recruiting.  There's far too much depth at defensive back and about two-thirds of what we need at O-line.  More on this in a bit.

-- Added DB Daniel Ezeagwu to green.

-- Removed OT Marcus Applefield (Rutgers) from green.

-- Removed OT Alex Bookser (Pitt) and DE Cory Jones (Toledo) from yellow.

-- Removed OT Brock Ruble (FSU) and DE Kentavius Street (NC State) from red.

It's time to go on one of those rants that us bloggers are famous for.  I don't have to answer to advertisers or subscribers or editors so I can do this.  Lemme start with a huge disclaimer: I fully get that recruiting is a touchy subject to be negative about.  These kids come in with all the confidence in the world and are thrilled to have the opportunity to play for a big-time college team at a fantastic school, even when that team is 2-10.  This is universal.  I remember how fired-up I was to get my acceptance letter to UVA - when someone commits to play football, it's no different, except maybe even better because there's really only one thing that can make your happiness better and that's when you're also making someone else's day, such as, say, a football coach.

Despite all this, it's long past time to take Mike London to task on recruiting.  Might sound like a funny thing to do, since recruiting is supposedly what London does best.  And while he has indeed been able to convince a lot of blue-chip players to consider and even commit to UVA, who might never have done so before, everything else has been a slapdash mess.

As it turns out on a depth chart, you start four defensive backs and five offensive linemen.  Therefore it would stand to reason that you'd want more of the latter than the former on your roster.  At the moment, however, we stand to have 19 scholarship DBs and 16 scholarship OLs for 2014.  And we're pursuing more DBs, without a single OL left on that recruiting board.  And Mike London wonders why his offense is so bad.

It gets worse: for one, it's really only 15 scholarship OLs, since Matt Fortin is the long-snapper and not going to play on the regular unit.  Reports say that George Adeosun's football career may actually be over.  Will Richardson is considering switching to NC State or Florida State.  Cody Wallace is a candidate for a non-invited fifth year.  If in fact we do manage to keep all 15 linemen around, it means we can go three full layers deep on the depth chart.  We can go five deep at cornerback and almost as much at safety, and we're still digging.  London is fighting tooth and nail against Wake Forest and East Carolina to add two-star CB DaiQuan Lawrence, is recruiting Daniel Ezeagwu hard, and the following line shows up in Jamie Oakes's report this morning: "While UVa is in the market for another offensive lineman, it’s not looked at as an absolute necessity in the 2014 class."

Such a direct quote is a no-no and I offer humble apologies, but the point needs to be made.  London has always made it a post-season priority to go find some moderately athletic player from inside the state and steal them out from under the nose of Old Dominion and James Madison.  Mason Thomas has managed to go absolutely nowhere in his career; Divante Walker played a few minutes here and there this year.  He's at it again in spades this year, and may add no fewer than three such players to this year's class (counting Donovan Dowling.)

Meantime, how are those trenches looking?  Alex Bookser was giving UVA just as much of a look as Ohio State, and for the past few months we've heard nothing about him; he committed to Pitt this week.  A guy from Pittsburgh who waits til December to commit to Pittsburgh is there for the taking if you make the effort, and now there goes a high-three-star or even four-star lineman to a division rival.  Brock Ruble just committed to Florida State; this is a guy not just from our own backyard, he's from DeMatha.  And hardly gave us a sniff.  That Mike London managed to screw up the DeMatha pipeline, of all things, is unbelievable.  Yes, there's been attrition on the O-line; that's no excuse for not replacing the lost players.

I haven't even started on the defensive line.  We'll have six defensive tackles next year if all goes well; again, three deep against five deep in the secondary.  One of those tackles is a converted O-lineman, so in moving Andre Miles-Redmond over all we've done is rob Peter to pay Paul, and AMR sat behind true freshman Donte Wilkins on the depth chart.  Tyrell Chavis is another; his conditioning was so bad he had no choice but to redshirt this year, and this after a FUMA-shirt season where he had every chance to get on top of that issue.  We're also depending on Chris Brathwaite to come right back after a missed season and get right back into the swing.

Defensive end is even worse.  This is a train wreck.  It's a junkyard tire fire.  It's a train crashing into a junkyard tire fire while carrying a load of kerosene and toxic waste.  Michael Moore has been a disappointment and absolutely should have redshirted; London has already screwed up his career, possibly beyond repair.  Trent Corney is a situational pass-rusher, as is Max Valles (who's technically a linebacker anyway) and Eli Harold is too light to hold up against the run.  Jack English is totally unknown (and may move to TE) and Stephen Lawe is almost certain to be non-invited.  Marco Jones might move over to help out at DT.  I just listed every DE on the roster.  And is the cavalry coming?  Not hardly; assuming we get Darrious Carter, our DE recruiting will consist of one two-star stolen from Temple and one no-star stolen from James Madison.

But fear not; London will no doubt find a way to add a couple cornerbacks before Signing Day.  Chances are pretty good that we could end up signing as many defensive backs as offensive and defensive linemen combined.  And it's some real big mystery why we're 2-10 and there's a countdown clock up there.

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-- The lacrosse schedule is finally out.  It shouldn't take anywhere near this long to release; nearly every school has it out weeks before UVA does, and the baseball one was out a month ago.  This happens every year.  But at least it's interesting.  There's one extra game - we'll play 14 games now instead of 13, which is basically to say that we added Notre Dame and didn't take away a nonconference game.  This makes sense since Maryland will disappear next year.

Besides Notre Dame, new teams on the sked include Loyola, Richmond, and Rutgers.  Out are Stony Brook (on the schedule since 2006), Vermont (since 2008) and Ohio State (since 2010.)  OSU was pretty much just a two-for-one deal that wasn't going to be permanent, so it's no surprise they're being replaced.  The school doesn't announce this stuff, but I'd guess Rutgers is a similar deal.

Further change: Drexel remains on the schedule, but they're no longer the season opener as they have been since 2002.  That's Loyola this year, in the earliest start ever (February 6; brrrr.)  UVA will also serve as Richmond's first-ever varsity game a couple days later.  I imagine Richmond, as the state's third program, is at least a semi-permanent addition.

Finally, the ACC championship won't be hosted at a school; it'll be at the MLS stadium in (well, near) Philadelphia.  I'm sure it's entirely coincidence that it would've been Maryland's turn to host.  It's also worth mentioning that, where in years past the ACC schedule was always the last three games minus a possible NCAA tuneup after the ACC tourney, now the ACC games are spread out a bit.  Sort of.  Syracuse is still where Syracuse always was, and ND fits into March between Cornell and Hopkins as if they were a non-conference opponent.  Also, that tune-up game isn't a tune-up this year; Bellarmine is before the ACC tourney.

The schedule doesn't turn over much; major changes like this one happen only every few years, so it's interesting when it does happen.  I will use my predictive powers to suggest that next year's changes will only involve losing Maryland and replacing Bellarmine, since Penn only had a two-year run in the spot where Bellarmine is now.

-- The football people are again going to discuss a nine-game schedule.  I guess I'd put the chances of them actually following through at about 10%, but it's nice to see this remains on the plate.  Once again: the fact that 2027 is the next time we'll see Clemson at Scott Stadium is stupid.  And with Louisville and not Maryland as our crossover opponent, I'm a hell of a lot less attached to the idea of keeping that preserved crossover.  Nothing against Louisville, but that instantly gives us (and Louisville) the least foundational and traditional crossover in the league.

Syracuse's AD's idea is to play nine games and guarantee that you play the five opponents this year that you didn't play last year, but that won't fly as is since the NCAA mandates that you play everyone in your division.  Swapping out five opponents leaves only four from the previous year, and you have six division games.  There's no real way to divide 14 teams other than seven and seven, so the best we can do with nine games is to maybe eliminate the crossover (touchy since that would eliminate the yearly FSU-Miami game) and just play three new teams every year.  Or realign so that all the rivalries are in one division (but realignment is dangerous since if they roll north-south, we're suddenly north.)

At any rate, a nine-game schedule in nearly any form is preferable to visiting certain locations once every fourteen years.  Check out the future schedules on the official page; we'll visit Provo, Utah twice before we ever visit Boston or Syracuse.  Are they sure we're in the same conference as BC and Cuse?

weekend review

Mannnnn..... I put off writing this as long as I could because it was definitely one of those weekends that makes me wish I had a different obsession.  Or at least different teams.  I should go pretend-root for the Boston teams, I hate them all (the pro ones) and I could then at least take a perverse pleasure in watching the sport gods think they're spiting me.

Almost nothing went right - even when my teams weren't playing they were getting jobbed by the jobbing jobbers down in Brazil.  (OK, OK - of the many things FIFA does badly, and possibly corruptly, the WC draw probably isn't one of them.)

From just a UVA perspective, the women's soccer season went poof in penalty kicks, and the men's basketball season is already going poof before our eyes.  Losing to Wisconsin is one thing; losing to a satellite campus is another entirely.  Now there are two full weeks to stew over it.

Fall sports aren't over quite yet, though; one last gasp remains in the form of men's soccer, which plays Maryland this Friday.  Fun fact: out of eight teams making up the men's and women's College Cups, six are ACC squads.  UVA is two of them; FSU, VT, Maryland, and ND are the others.  VT came oh-so-tantalizingly close to filling that dippy trophy case, but got nosed out of the semis by Florida State.  The 75 points you get in the Director's Cup for getting that far will probably be a third of Tech's total for the year.  A school with already far too many national titles won the women's tournament, so let's hope the pattern holds, and the school with the second-most men's titles adds another star to the crest.

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Two of our senior-year commits played some football this week.  Both of them Browns, come to think of it.  Caanan and Clearwater Central Catholic reached the state title game in Florida, and lost 34-7.  Andrew and Oscar Smith played a defensive struggle against Colonial Forge and won, 17-0, moving them to the state championship against Centreville.  In Scott Stadium, of course.  And for that matter, UVA's 2015 commitment, Juan Thornhill, also plays for a state title next week.

Lastly, the recruiting board gets a little update of its own:

-- Re-added CB DaiQuan Lawrence to blue.  Lawrence committed to Wake Forest over UVA but re-opened his recruiting following Jim Grobe's resignation.

-- Added DE Darrious Carter to blue.  Carter is currently a Temple commit.

-- Added CB Cornelius Floyd to yellow.


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This is the dead period of final exams; I love the Christmas season but hate the 10-14 days between basketball games during finals.  And it's a full two weeks this year.  With such a gap, it's time to go full speed into the ACC previews for basketball, and I may have to run some two-a-days this year as there are three extra teams and I'm getting a late start.  And there are four more verbals on the list which I can sprinkle in.

weekend review

So, the more astute members of the audience, and the less astute ones too, should notice a new addition to the blog.  I figure it this way: Al Groh was let go the very same day in 2009 as the season-ending loss to VT.  That was November 29.  By Gregorian coincidence, next year's Thanksgiving Saturday is also November 29, and if things go as everyone fully expects, five years to the day of Groh's sacking, UVA will fire another football coach.  And the team will be freed from the yoke of pathetically undisciplined, aimless coaching.  Maybe that'll only be for a week - we have no idea who'll take London's place - but there's no way the replacement can be less adept at obnoxiously basic crap.

This year's edition of the VT game was London in a nutshell.  He did a great job at firing the team up and getting them ready to play; I certainly did not see any of the quit that was hinted at in the Clemson game and seemed more than evident against UNC.  He also did a shit job at preparing them.  As ever.  We didn't do anything different like you'd like to see against an archrival; we just did a few things better.  And most things just the exact same as always.  The unused first-half timeout can be sold to raise money for the program, of course, but the chance to score off of an opponent's turnover is lost to the wind forever.

I'll probably write a position paper or something on the coaching staff later on, but the cliff notes here are: we're stuck with them; fire all or fire none but don't make any more piecemeal changes; Steve Fairchild comes in for some unfair criticism at times but lots of perfectly good criticism too; whatever the conventional wisdom is about who the next coach should be, I don't want it; and there's not a single coach including alums Dex and Biscuit that I'd shed a single tear over losing.

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Basketball was much more entertaining, wouldn't you agree?  In fact, I have the games downloaded and will spend time this week chopping them into highlights - and not only that but the very first HD highlights I've done.  I expect so, at least.  They're very worthy games.  The Fightin' Smoos put up a real scuffle and a scare into the Hoos; that looks to be a pretty darn good frontcourt they have there, and hopefully they put it to good use in the newly-constituted AAC.

The SMU game was a great time for the free-throw shooting to come alive (if only temporarily) as the refs called well over a foul a minute.  Even more so, it was a great time to shoot 10-for-14 from three-point range, which ultimately is what sank the Mustangs.

Interestingly, though, I think I found the Missouri State game more educational, despite the carpet-bombing the Hoos delivered.  It was 11-3, bad guys, at one point, and then an 80-45 run squashed flat any hopes of a Bears upset.  UVA has made a bit of a pattern this year of going on a long, morale-crushing run in the latter part of the first half, clamping down on defense to hold the opponent scoreless for long stretches.  At some point there, Tony Bennett yells something in Russian, and the pack-Drago defense unleashes its cold, calculating fury.

What I think is happening is that opposing coaches are scouting the pack-line a little harder, and finding a couple ways to attack it, and the UVA players need a few passes against whatever the opponent is bringing to adjust.  It helps if the opponent starts the game 4-for-5 beyond the arc.  Then an adjustment is made, and the opponent goes poof.  Against Hampton, the frontcourt guys worked a little harder on denying entry passes, because the Hampton forwards were catching the ball in good position.  Against Missouri State, the guards helped a little less down low and stayed home a little more so as to make those threes just that little bit harder to shoot.  And voila: game over.

Next up is the toughest remaining non-con game: Wisconsin.  The Badgers have remained perfect against some very decent competition: St. Louis, West Virginia, St. John's, and the apple of the bunch, Florida.  On the plus side for UVA: Their defense isn't as elite as it's been in recent years, and they run with a very thin rotation.  Eight players get 97.8% of their minutes, and their five starters get 78.4%.  As you'd expect from a team like that which also hasn't lost a game, they're among the very best in the country at staying out of foul trouble.

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Recruiting board needs an update due to commitment today:

-- Added DE Michael Biesemier to orange.  I know I shouldn't talk down about a recruit who just committed like six hours ago and who I haven't even come close to profiling yet, and I know I'm still grouchy about a two-win season, and I know we needed to find a defensive end somewhere in this recruiting class, and commitments are supposed to be exciting, but.... I still have an awfully tough time getting fired up over stealing a recruit from James Madison.  This is what you reap when you sow a 2-10 season.  Eventually we'll have a closer look to see what we see.

-- Added TE Blake Whiteley to yellow.  Whiteley is - brace yourself - a JUCO player, certainly the first I've ever put on the recruiting board.  (UVA's transfer-credit policies tend to rule out most JUCOs.  It's different sending someone to Piedmont to get re-eligible, because the school can tell them what to take.)  Texas will almost certainly snap him up if they offer, otherwise it looks like Arkansas is the main competition.

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Elsewhere news:

-- The David Teel interview of Craig Littlepage ruffled a lot of feathers.  Count mine as not among them.  Nothing there came as a surprise; the fact is that once the statement is made that London isn't going anywhere, Littlepage has to back that up with all his guns every time he's asked.  It's a lose-lose proposition, because the tiniest crack in that facade is met with huge headlines all but officially proclaiming the end of the London tenure.  Hell, I've gone and done it myself without Littlepage's help.  The only thing is that Littlepage ought to know it's a lose-lose proposition and politely decline the interview, because now he sounds like a clueless bumbler who takes a 2-10 coach and says, yup, what a great job he's gonna do, I just know it.

The other problem I have is that the transcript there only stokes my fears that Jon Oliver, far from being next to face the firing squad, is actually being groomed as Littlepage's successor.

-- Oval-football season is over, but Euro-football rolls on smartly.  The men's team was shown a red card 57 seconds into the game against Marquette, and so played damn near a full game a man down, and still stomped the Golden Eagles 3-1.  And then received a fortuituous bit of news: as the 8th seed in the tourney, UVA would've had to play #1 seed UCLA in the quarterfinals, but unseeded UConn put a stop to that.  Which means one more game at friendly Klockner.

That will not be televised, but the women, in the women's College Cup against UCLA, will be.  Friday the 6th at 7:30, ESPNU.  Going to be on the TiVo for sure.

-- Alabama fans are officially horrible people.  Not content with killing mere trees, Alabama fans have graduated to actual human murder, the motive being: not being upset enough over the loss to Auburn.  In recent memory, Alabama fans have:

- Publicly teabagged a passed-out LSU fan
- Destroyed a popular monument at Auburn
- Sent death threats to the kicker who missed the field goal this week - and the kicker's family.
- Murdered a fellow Alabama fan because that person joked about the loss.

At some point there - it might've been after the 100th death threat, or when some crazy bitch pulled a gun and started popping caps - Alabama fans lost the right to whine about judging the whole fanbase by a few bad apples.  If you are an Alabama fan there's a smallish but reasonable chance that you're a sick fuck, and a 100% chance you take football far too seriously and need to get a damn life.

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Senior Seasons feature as a few of our players move closer to state titles.

Centennial 86, Upland 56: Jeffery Farrar obviously didn't do anything special here, I just felt like pointing out the 909 yards racked up by Centennial.  Farrar's Upland had 557.  Defense was not something anyone was interested in, apparently.

Clearwater Central Catholic 7, Miami Westminster Christian 0: And Caanan Brown could not have played a more different game.  CCC will play for the state championship next week.

Oscar Smith 40, Forest Park 7: The actual notable thing is that the big Smith-Ocean Lakes matchup was derailed, and Oscar Smith will now play Colonial Forge in the semifinals next week.

Salem 42, Woodgrove 25: J.J. Jackson's season ends this week as well.

really late weekend review

I suppose propriety dictates I say some stuff about last night's VCU game.  Fine then:

-- Some folks are calling it an ugly game.  All the fouls and such.  The clock screw-ups didn't help, but I like college basketball for all the different styles of play.  Truth is, you see one NBA game, you've seen 90% of them.  College lets two wildly distinct styles clash, and this was a perfect example.  UVA was sped up faster than it wanted to be, even in the halfcourt, and VCU could not often set their press such as they'd like because UVA's defense was too good.  Whatever you call that game, it wasn't "havoc," but VCU still found a way to impose its will at times.  Give me a highly competitive game like that one over the ballet that some people seem to demand out of their hoops, I don't care how many fouls you have to call.

-- Is it possible to have such a massive free-throw advantage and still find the refereeing slanted too far towards the other team?  I think so.  It takes more than one crappy call to get Tony Bennett riled up, and riled up he was when Anthony Gill got called for a foul he didn't commit.  Tony had to pull him, for reasons of three fouls early in the second half, but it was plain he didn't fault Gill.  I could even read his lips as he sent Gill off with a pat on the back: "that's good D."

-- London Perrantes will probably be the starting point guard eventually this season.  There's no hesitancy on Tony's part to put him in for important minutes.  Tony did not do the same with Teven Jones (whose nine minutes against VCU, by the way, I mostly liked) last year at all.  I don't think Malcolm Brogdon is doing badly, but he's not really a natural.  You might think that Jones could work his way into the lineup as the backup PG, and he just might; the barrier to that is that Tony appears to want to play Brogdon quite a bit.  So what, you ask.  Well, playing Brogdon exclusively at the 2 means squeezing Joe Harris and Justin Anderson.  A lineup with a point guard, Brogdon at the two, plus Harris and Anderson, that obviously leaves room for only one of our very talented frontcourt four.  Or, you know, sitting Harris or Anderson.  Giving Brogdon point guard minutes means not having to choose as much between him, Joe, and Justin.

-- Not gonna blame the loss on free-throw shooting when VCU was 6-for-15 at the line.  You can't say "if we'd shot better but VCU has to shoot just as badly."  On the other hand, hitting a couple more threes would've been nice.

At any rate, moving on.  Losing is bad and all, but there's a winning streak ahead, a tournament of sorts, and a chance to pick up some momentum going into the Wisconsin game - a team which just knocked off highly-rated Florida, so they're no schmucks.

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News and such:

-- Soccer tournaments: Unfortunately the ladies didn't make it through the ACC tournament, but they earned a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney anyway.  As if there was any doubt of that.  In fact all four NCAA #1 seeds are ACC teams.  UVA hosts St. Francis (PA) on Friday.

-- Every damn year.  For the sixth season in a row, the men eliminated Wake Forest from the ACC tournament.  You might think I'm kidding, and I'm not, and one of those years was the national championship year when the Hoos booted Wake from the ACC tournament and then just for giggles also ousted the Deacons from the NCAAs.  Could you imagine if in something more visible like basketball we lost to the same team in the ACC tournament every single year since 2008?  Oh, and most of the time, including this season, we've been the underdog seed; 6 against 3, this year.

The next step is also on Friday, where UVA will take on Notre Dame in a game broadcast on ESPN3.

-- VT's nine-strikes-and-you're-out policy finally caught up to Cody Journell, whose many, many brushes with raging stupidity finally exhausted Frank Beamer's patience.  Journell, you'll remember, broke into someone's house, using a BB gun, (to steal his weed back, as he amazingly admitted to police) and was given the services of slimy fixer Jimmy Turk to get his felony breaking and entering knocked down to a misdemeanor so Tech could continue to claim zero tolerance for felonies.  Then he opened a can of pepper spray "by accident" in a BW3.  Then he was suspended for unknown foolishness, earlier this season.

Every college team, including UVA, has players do dumb things that get the police involved.  Some just are OK with that.

-- The ACC hoops tournament is in Greensboro this season and next, but the ACC announced that in 2015-2016 it'll be in Washington, DC, which I'm sure has nothing to do with the sudden lack of presence in that area when Maryland leaves.  Regardless of the reason, it'll be nice to have it anywhere but NC for once and even nicer to have it close by our fanbase.

-- The 2014 recruiting board will be updated in just a second here, but interestingly (especially for lean times such as these) the 2015 board, when it debuts, will already have a commitment on it in the form of Altavista athlete Juan Thornhill.  A commitment likely to stick even if the coach he signs for isn't Mike London, as Thornhill is a Virginia fan.

-- ESPN's Lions writer does this thing where he asks different Lions a different question every week.  This week it was: what would you want a free year's supply of.  Kevin Ogletree is no dummy at all: gasoline.  It reminded me of another anecdote from way back that illustrates the naturally high intelligence of a UVa grad: I remember seeing a little local TV feature about the Lions rookies having to sing a training camp song for the veterans.  Germane Crowell saw his fellow rookies get mercilessly booed no matter what they sang or how well they sang it, so his choice was the Star-Spangled Banner, figuring (correctly) that nobody would boo that.

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I said last week there would be a recruiting board update when it became necessary, and it became necessary.

-- Added ATH Donovan Dowling to orange.  I have said, have I not, that Mike London would probably fill out this recruiting class the same way he always does: with an instate athlete-type who projects to either WR or DB and who had not yet received any offers worth committing to.  The Varina pipeline comes through here to fulfill the prophecy.  No relation, by the way, to Ras-I.

-- Added DE Cory Jones to yellow.  A late-late-bloomer from DC that regional coaches are keeping an eye on.

-- Removed RB Madre London (Michigan State) from yellow.

Chances are at this point that recruiting consists almost entirely of the guys above the yellow only, with the possible exception of Cory Jones.

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Senior Seasons to wrap this up:

Upland 24, Rancho Cucamonga 6: The article didn't say any names, but it sounds very much as if Jeffery Farrar was suspended for this one for a fight during last week's game.  Upland is 7-3.

North Gwinnett 44, Peachtree Ridge 22: Jordan Ellis's touchdown and 61 yards were nowhere near enough to prevent the blowout loss.  Peachtree Ridge is 7-3.

Haverford School 27, Episcopal 7: Evan Butts caught a 73-yard touchdown, but that was his team's only score.  Episcopal is 7-3.

Bayside 27, First Colonial 7: Quin Blanding scored two touchdowns - one running, one receiving -  and Bayside snuck into the playoffs...but all they did was win the honor of being the first team to be reamed by Oscar Smith.  Bayside is 6-4.

Central Catholic 37, Anclote 14 (Caanan Brown) - CCC is 8-2.
Shiloh 31, Central Gwinnett 14 (Darious Latimore) - Central is 2-8.
Jordan Matthews 37, Cummings 6 (Will Richardson) - Cummings is 3-8.
Oscar Smith 60, Hickory 7 (Andrew Brown) - Oscar Smith is 10-0.
Woodgrove 35, Loudoun Valley 0 (J.J. Jackson) - Woodgrove is 7-3.
King George 27, Chancellor 0 (Steven Moss) - Chancellor is 1-9.
Highland Springs 45, Varina 35 (Donovan Dowling) - Varina is 8-2.

That wraps up the regular season, and it's the end of the line for four teams.  Episcopal plays in their own little private-school league, which doesn't do playoffs.  Central Gwinnett, Cummings, and Chancellor had losing seasons, big-time-style, and will not make the playoffs.  (Though, thanks to VHSL realignment, being 1-9 hasn't stopped some teams from being in the playoffs.  Wut?)

Oscar Smith will host Bayside, so at least one season will continue next week (probably Oscar Smith's) and one will end (probably Bayside's.)  The only other team to play in a playoff game and not host will be Peachtree Ridge.

weekend review

Well well.  Let's start this off with what must be the first piece of good football news in weeks: a recruiting board update that includes a commitment.  Whoda thunk it?  Here's the new score:

-- Added CB Darious Latimore to orange.  Latimore is a guy I did know about, and with SEC offers fairly close to home, didn't think would be worth adding.  A guy who likes us better than Tennessee is a guy who I think has his head on straight and probably nobody else does.  But a guy who's willing to commit now has to know the score and doesn't care, instantly making him the safest commit on the whole list.

Latimore is a consensus mid-to-low three-star guy with mid-three-star offers: Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, and Kansas State.  Assuming Jeffery Farrar is also a cornerback, he makes the second in the class, which in turn is just about the sweet spot for that position this year.

-- Moved DE Melvin Keihn from blue to green.

-- Moved OT Alex Bookser from green to yellow. 

-- Moved DT Derrick Nnadi from yellow to red.  These three are reflective of the poor shape of the win-loss record and roughly what I think the effect is on the recruiting board.

I still rather expect that Mike London will find another Mason Thomas type somewhere in-state to fill out some numbers, because that's what he does; whether such a player will be impactful is generally up in the air, although it should be noted that Divante Walker has been making appearances on both special teams and defense this year.

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Sock-hair.  And more good news!  Not as much in the men's department, where they managed only a tie in Blacksburg.  Virginia Tech is a team you'd like to beat, but the Hokies are 1-2-5, so draws are kind of their thing.  The ladies, on the other hand, went down to Chapel Hill - without USWNT member Morgan Brian, earning her third cap against Australia - and did something extraordinary.  According to the official recap: "the Cavaliers [handed] North Carolina just their second multi-goal loss since 1986, a span of 690 games."

That's amazing.  In 27 years UNC has lost by more than one goal just twice - one of them last week.  Carolina has a surprising three ACC losses this year, but still.  UNC was also missing a top player to USNWT action, but still.  This ladies' team is a mighty offensive powerhouse, with some real depth - there are three players in Brian, Makenzy Doniak, and Brittany Ratcliffe who are crushers of dreams and a full complement of forwards and midfielders who know how to find their playmakers.  In Brian and Danielle Colaprico, UVA has the top two assist leaders in the ACC.

The impression I've had from watching this team - admittedly against the two worst squads in the ACC, Pitt and a portion of the NC State game - is one that attacks not with relentless aggression, but with a calm self-assuredness.  As if they know that as long as they keep the pressure on, they're better than the defenders and eventually something will go in.  They play with confidence, knowing they don't need to be flying forward at all times in order to score.  It's fun to watch a Virginia team that is better and knows it.

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A couple of news notes:

-- It looks like Miami will finally hear the word from the NCAA.  Sanctions come tomorrow.  Guaranteed nobody will be happy.  After the NCAA botched the investigation, it's not likely the punishment will appease people who want to see blood for, you know, allowing players to live like pimps on delicious booster cash.  Meantime Miami president Donna Shalala is being a colossal whiny bitch, claiming that "we have been wronged in this investigation."  So if the punishment is no dessert for a week, she'll appeal.

-- You remember Trae Golden, maybe.  He was recruited fairly heavily by UVA, then went to Tennessee where he suited up against the Hoos in JPJA last year - and will now do so again at Georgia Tech.  GT could be solid this year.

-- Basketball media days were last week - and I consider the result a surprise.  In a show of respect for what Tony Bennett has put together, the Hoos are 4th in the preseason media poll.  Given the amount of impressive new blood joining the league - the lowest-ranked new member in the poll was Pitt at 6th of 15, with ND 5th and Cuse 2nd - that is high praise indeed.  It says "we expect you to make the ACC semis and, obviously, the NCAA tournament."  Like, 4 or 5 seed stuff in the NCAA tournament.  Plus they put Joe Harris on the preseason all-ACC team - and not a single Tar Heel.

We all know what the media poll really means once the rubber hits the hardwood, but there's another truism about college programs: they're only as good as their publicity.  If the media says you're awesome, people start to believe it.  This isn't the same as constant TV coverage with Dick Vitale and all the rest, but it's a little bit something regardless.  It says there are expectations, and that the games we play will be Big Games for reasons besides the opponent.  You have to back that up obviously, but it's a start.

And just as a footnote, that other team in Virginia is last.  With 65 points from 54 voters, a minimum of 43 media types figure the Hokies for the worst team in the ACC.  Playing them a guaranteed twice a year is going to be a little advantage over the rest of the league for the foreseeable future.

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Darious Latimore joins the club just in time for this week's Senior Seasons feature.  It's easy for me, too, because I can use the same source I use for Jordan Ellis.  They're from the same region of Georgia and their schools are not terribly far apart.  They don't play each other, though.

Episcopal 30, Penn Charter 0 - Evan Butts scored twice, once on a conventional reception and once on a fumble return as a defensive end.  He also racked up 98 yards receiving.  Episcopal is 7-1.

Upland 27, Los Osos 10 (Jeffery Farrar) - Upland is 4-3.
Central Catholic 47, Calvary Christian 23 (Caanan Brown) - CCC is 6-1.
Brookwood 23, Central Gwinnett 14 (Darious Latimore) - Central Gwinnett is 2-5.
Cummings 37, Carrboro 20 (Will Richardson) - Cummings is 2-6.
Oscar Smith 42, Grassfield 0 (Andrew Brown) - Oscar Smith is 7-0.
James Monroe 42, Chancellor 12 (Steven Moss) - Chancellor is 1-6.
Loudoun County 31, Woodgrove 28 (J.J. Jackson) - Woodgrove is 4-2.

Oscar Smith also beat Nansemond River 48-7 last Monday in a rain-delayed game that didn't make it into last week's update, and Chancellor lost to Caroline 26-20 on the same date.

weekend review

Le sigh.  It wasn't a great weekend, but we're obligated to review it anyway.  Someone on one of the boards said that the collective IQ of the fanbase is directly proportional to the win-loss record, which, ain't it the truth, man.  One thing that will really blow everyone's mind is if London is fired after next year (which means, probably, that we didn't go bowling now or then) and an objective review of the Al Groh and Mike London eras proves Groh the superior coach.  If IQs could be negative, you'd see it then.

We'll start with the recruiting board, I suppose.  2014 recruiting has ground to a halt, but not at other schools, which means targets keep slowly coming off the board.  The updates:

-- Removed WR Juwann Winfree (Maryland) from yellow.

-- Removed DT Ricky Walker (VT) from red.

So yeah, these are not happy times in the recruiting world, although I do question London's commitment to recruiting either of those players.  Walker never actually got offered; if London wanted to, he could've simply sent a letter, as written offers are kosher by now.

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Let's go around the ACC and see what kind of fun other people were having while we were watching our fourth-year coach get mashed by a MAC team at home.

-- Miami knocked off GT.  Now, they gotta play FSU from the Atlantic while VT doesn't have to play anyone of consequence, so they don't have a lot of margin for error.  But it sets them up to achieve, after nine seasons of waiting, what the ACC dreamed of all this time: a Miami-FSU CG.  All they gotta do is beat Tech, really, and not lose more than once.

-- FSU must have been kinda cheesed off about all this Maryland talk.

-- NC State is definitely one of the Jekyll-and-Hydiest teams in the ACC.  A loss to Wake - ouch.

-- Seriously, man - really cheesed off.

-- UNC is setting up to be the team I missed the hardest on in the preseason.  I mean, they might not even go bowling unless they rattle off a huge win streak after their inevitable Thursday loss to Miami this week.  The competition afterwards kinda sucks, so they could do it, but still.

-- I'm not kidding.  Pissed as hell.

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It's a small Senior Seasons section this week, because Farrar, Richardson, and Moss were all on bye weeks this weekend.  Probably a record for the smallest ever.  Nevertheless, we press on.  Grimly.

Collins Hill 35, Peachtree Ridge 28: Jordan Ellis racked up three more touchdowns and 102 rushing yards, but his team suffered their first loss of the season in a battle of undefeated teams.  Peachtree Ridge is 5-1.

Lawrenceville 48, Episcopal 47: Evan Butts caught what would've been the game-tying touchdown if Episcopal had kicked the extra point, but they went for two and ended their long winning streak in the process.  Episcopal is 5-1.

Central Catholic 35, St. Petersburg Catholic 14 (Caanan Brown) - CCC is 5-1.
Oscar Smith 70, Deep Creek 6 (Andrew Brown) - Oscar Smith is 5-0.
Bayside 18, Kellam 10 (Quin Blanding) - Bayside is 3-3.
Woodgrove 35, Heritage 7 (J.J. Jackson) - Woodgrove is 3-2.

That's all I got for one night.  I could go on about depth chart changes this week, but the only ones were at wide receiver where none of Jennings, Terrell, or Smith are atop the charts.  You can riddle that out on your own.  Nothing is working for me tonight, from the plumbing to the compass to the thermostat, and I don't mean my house.  And we might be less than a week away from "wait til basketball season" so that's not the best of mood-setters either.

weekend review

No game this week means I don't get to have as much fun writing as I'm used to, but we'll plow ahead anyway.

Impressions from around the ACC this week:

-- VT's offense remains putrid.  This week, ECU managed to stymie the Hokie running game to the tune of 1.6 yards a carry.  Not to be left out of the show, Cody "They Stole My Weed, Officer" Journell biffed a pair of 40-ish-yard field goals and an extra point.  If the football gods are cruel, Virginia Tech and Michigan State will meet in a bowl game this year, with one of them winning 6-0 in 7OT on an interception return.  Or, given the relative quality of the defenses (very good) and offenses (ick) on those teams, college football's first overtime safety.

-- Wake Forest is pretty bad.  Jim Grobe is going to have the hottest seat in the ACC this year.

-- Maryland looks better so far than I've been giving them credit for, but they haven't been tested, either.  Let's see what happens next week.  If they can beat West Virginia they'll be way ahead of track for bowl eligibility.

-- Even with my faith in Boston College I didn't expect them to beat USC, but they were doomed the moment USC trudged off the field with a loss to Washington State.  USC wasn't going to let it happen twice.

News and other stuff:

-- The men's soccer team is off to a rough 0-2 start in the ACC, but the women are on a mission.  UNC was a unanimous #1 pick in the coaches' poll last week, but Notre Dame made short work of that, and that cleared up space for at the top for UVA, your new #1 team in the country.  That's Top Drawer Soccer's ranking; the coaches' poll will be tomorrow and I'd guess UVA will be on top of that one, too.  The ACC is a minefield, of course, with five of the nation's top eight teams.  ND, UNC, Wake, and FSU share the rankings with UVA.  The girls won't play any of those teams until October 10 when they host the Irish, but this Sunday will see them on ESPN3, taking on Pitt.  I don't plan to miss it.

-- Both Perfect Game and Baseball America named Nathan Kirby the top prospect in the NECBL this summer; Cam Tekker was also PG's #10 prospect.  The NECBL is a notch below Cape Cod, but it's a quality league nonetheless.

-- In South Carolina, there's a school called North Greenville, which plays football as a D-II independent.  This school just beat the gray wool pants off of VMI this week.  VMI ran for fewer than a yard a carry, largely a factor of their inability to keep North Greenville pass rushers away from their quarterback.  Getting killed by Oregon is not a thing that would get in the way of our goals this year; not killing VMI, however, would be.

-- Friday will be an important day for Tony Bennett, as in-state prospect Robert Johnson announces his decision.  Johnson is choosing between UNC, IU, FSU, and UVA; everything I've seen suggests this one is totally up in the air.  It's not often UVA has that kind of chance against a school like IU or UNC.  Johnson is a four-star shooting guard and Rivals's #42 player in the country.

Senior Seasons:

Clearwater Central Catholic 21, Jesuit 3: Caanan Brown opened the scoring for his team, catching a 65-yard touchdown while playing tight end.  CCC is 2-1.

Peachtree Ridge 55, Duluth 17: Jordan Ellis caught a touchdown (24 yards) and ran for another (41 yards) in Peachtree Ridge's big win.  Peachtree Ridge is 3-0.

Upland 41, Jordan 0 (Jeffrey Farrar) - Upland is 1-2.
Smith 35, Cummings 21 (Will Richardson) - Cummings is 0-4.
Episcopal 34, Caravel Academy 15 (Evan Butts) - Episcopal is 3-0.
Massaponax 35, Chancellor 6 (Steven Moss) - Chancellor is 0-3.
Oscar Smith 61, Indian River 0 (Andrew Brown) - Oscar Smith is 2-0.
Salem 13, Bayside 10 (Quin Blanding) - Bayside is 2-1.

It's also time for an update to the ol' recruiting board.  I don't think we're any closer to a commitment any time soon, though.

-- Removed TE Jamal Custis (Syracuse) from green.

-- Re-added RB Madre London to yellow.

-- Added DT Ricky Walker to red.  This is an interesting one.  Our chances are pretty much terrible, Mike London not having expended much effort on this recruitment because Walker seemed exceedingly cool to his offerings.  Walker hasn't even been technically offered a scholarship yet.  But he does have a big brother - Rijo - playing at UVA, and seems to have sent the message lately that, hey, I'm listening if you're talking.  So London is talking.  We will see how this plays out, and it's likely that by this point other schools have Walker's attention too much to let go.  But as long he's uncommitted, there's at least a little bitty chance.

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.

weekend review

So.  Back from vacation.  Going on a long trip means things get a little out of date, so today I catch up a little.  And because it's my blog you also have to sit through the dreaded vacation slides.



Some people get a thrill out of meeting celebrities. I get mine from visiting celebrity cities. Standing on top of the Arc de Triomphe with all of Paris spread before you is like a personal dinner with Marilyn Monroe. I like my kicks better, because you can't meet Marilyn Monroe anymore. This first view of Paris - we went straight from the airport to the hotel to here - was indescribably sublime in a way that a stitched-up panorama on the screen could never convey.  It's above the city but not way above the city, so it's like being in all of Paris at once.  And it instantly became one of my favorite moments of my life.



-- Fortunately, UVA got through fall camp without getting too banged up in the injury department.  The only major camp casualty (besides Sean Cascarano's hip, which developed into a problem long ago) was Wil Wahee, who was coming along nicely as the fourth cornerback on the roster and now will miss the season.  It's a blow to the depth (and to special teams as well), and probably means peeling the redshirt off of Tim Harris.  But worse things have happened.

-- The same can't be said for Virginia Tech.  Injuries and just plain departures were rampant in Blacksburg this year.  Let's see if I can remember them all:

- Whip linebacker Ronny Vandyke and RB Tony Gregory are out for the season.
- OL Mark Shuman and RB J.C. Coleman are both in the 4-6 weeks range.
- A whole bunch of players simply left the program.  OLs Jake Goins and Adam Taraschke quit football, safety Davion Tookes left the team along with a couple defensive linemen, and CB Donaldven Manning transferred out after losing a camp battle.
- DL Corey Marshall is, according to Tech, "out indefinitely while resolving some personal issues."

Our Hokie friends like to spin this as just normal attrition, but normal attrition happens in the spring and summer.  It's not exactly the total unraveling of their progam either, but that is not how a good, healthy training camp goes.  They've had to move Wyatt Teller away from his more natural defensive end position to try and shore up the offensive line, which is unraveling.

We also visited Cologne, Germany.  I had never had Cologne on a list of places I just had to see, but the opportunity presented itself and we took it.  Paris is awesome in the most literal sense of the word, but I also get a kick out of going to unexpected places, which is to say, ones that it never even crossed my mind to visit.  In that sense it's like Jakarta, Indonesia.  I've always loved traveling and have a really long list of places I want to see.  Neither Jakarta nor Cologne were ever on them.  The difference is, though, I'd go back to Cologne.  

-- I don't think I'm done talking about VT just yet.  I've already gone over their offensive troubles in the previews, but their recent fall camp scrimmage really drives it home.  The two quotes I like best from Bitter's article on it:

"As mentioned before, the protection wasn’t great. The first-team o-line was (from right to left) Laurence Gibson, Andrew Miller, David Wang, Caleb Farris and Jonathan McLaughlin. Even the second-team defensive line was giving them trouble, though."

"Likely starter Trey Edmunds only got one carry. Running backs coach Shane Beamer didn’t want either Edmunds or Mangus running behind the second-team offensive line."

The second-team offensive line at VT is so bad that the coaches were afraid they'd get their running backs hurt.  That is priceless.

-- Regarding our own offense, Steve Fairchild recently gave his end-of-camp press conference, in which I thought his utter refusal to answer anything worth answering was telling in and of itself.  Several of the questions asked ("How much has working with Mike Martz influenced you?") were cleverly but fairly obviously designed to see how much he'd reveal about his plans for the offense, and Fairchild was too smart to take any of the bait.

Nevertheless, I think there's a lot to be learned even from that.  The scrimmage highlights on VSTV included at least one read-option run, and word has leaked out all during camp about things like the pistol formation.  I don't think we're looking at a major tear-down and revamp such as what Gregg Brandon attempted to do, but pistols and read-options have never been a thing at UVA before.  Bill Lazor ran a pro-style offense, and they're calling this one a pro-style offense too, but I think it's plain to see that the changes will be much bigger than that bit of terminology would indicate.

Victor Hugo wrote, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, "There exists in this era, for thoughts written in stone, a privilege absolutely comparable to our current freedom of the press. It is the freedom of architecture."  Those medieval architects, given the freedom to build what they couldn't write down, knew what they were doing.  It's a tremendous testament to their abilities that their creations, 700 years later, still have the power to awe and amaze - and survive four years' worth of visits from Allied B-17s to boot.

-- Baseball is generating some news too.  Phil Gosselin, this past week, became the 32nd former Hoo to appear in the major leagues, getting the call-up from the Braves and making his mark pretty well with a 2-for-4 game in which he scored what would eventually be the winning run.  Gosselin made his debut against the Nationals, and if Stephen Strasburg hadn't been ejected from the game (actually Gosselin's second, but he was only a defensive replacement in his first game), might well have had his first MLB at-bat against him.  Gosselin's claim to fame, of course, is drilling the home run in Irvine that handed Strasburg and San Diego State the loss in the opening game of the regional.

Also, his old teammate Tyler Cannon is coming back to UVA as a student assistant coach - probably a one-year deal unless a more regular spot opens up, since he's back mainly to finish his degree.  Cannon made it as high as AA-ball in his career.

-- The hoops schedule came out, and I have to say it's not impressive.  I think we might well be in for another season of worrying about whether the OOC SOS will drag us down again.  The marquee game is Wisconsin in the ACC/B1G Challenge; elsewise, as far as headliners go, there's a trip to Tennessee, a neutral-site game against Davidson, and VCU.  Most of the rest of it is filler; assuming we don't make a mess of our preseason tournament, the prize at the end is a game against Texas A&M.  Which isn't a good team, residing in the dregs of a decent-not-great basketball conference.  This doesn't capture the imagination.  We're stuck basically hoping A&M isn't bad enough to lose to whatever mid-major they drew in their end of the preseason tournament and that Larry Brown can get SMU (also on the schedule) up to speed in record time.

I'm not really complaining about being the star attraction in this Corpus Christi Whatever preseason tournament (it's brand-new, so without looking, it probably has the word "Classic" in the name); I mean, we can't go to Maui every year.  But another big game or two would go a long way on this schedule, which still has too many sub-250 RPI teams on it.  I continue to say we need to schedule a regular series with Georgetown just to stick it Maryland's eye.

Paris, of course, is one of the most popular literary (and dramatic, cinematic, etc.) settings of all time.  To me, if I'm standing where an angry mob tore down the Bastille or where Marius first caught a glimpse of Cosette, or whether it's the location of an early Middle-Age siege of the city or a fictional masquerade, it's all the same.  You have to use your imagination to picture either one, so landmarks made famous by literature are just as interesting as those made famous by history.  Often they're made famous by both anyway.  This is why I felt the gentleman who, during our tour, challenged the veracity of the relics of the Magi (which are held by the Cologne Cathedral) was completely and utterly missing the point - as well as being a bit of an asshole.

-- I need to do a little bit of a recruiting board update, if only because one of the events of my vacation was Gary Wunderlich's highly disappointing decommitment.  Don't know what appeal an Ole Miss diploma holds when you've got an offer to get a Virginia one, but fandom came into play here, I think.  The changes:

- Moved K Gary Wunderlich from orange to maroon.

- Removed RB Madre London from yellow.

- Removed RB Joe Mixon from red.

I suspect there will be new offers going out as the coaches have a chance to see some players during their senior seasons.

And speaking of which, it's time for that feature to get a start as well.  Unless some people commit quickly, this is gonna be a very short feature this year; there are only nine players to follow.  Four were in action this weekend, two in preseason games.  Caanan Brown and Evan Butts were those.  Following the proper format for the other two....

Peachtree Ridge 23, Walton 17 - Jordan Ellis had a very good start, scoring what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown and grinding out 136 yards.  Ellis flashed a little pass-catching ability too.

Western Alamance 37, Cummings 0 (Will Richardson)

Next week, everyone but Andrew Brown and Oscar Smith are in action.

We visited the Louvre.  You have to visit the Louvre.  It's way cheaper than you'd think, for one thing.  About $15 to look at as many Virgin-Mary-with-Child's as you can cram into your eyeballs, and for the privilege of getting elbowed in the gut by little Chinese ladies for the right to stand as close to the Mona Lisa as they'll let you.  It's a little hilarious how much morbid shit these Renaissance artists churned out, too.  It's like there was this competition to see who could depict St. Sebastian with the most arrows sticking out of his ribs.  I've never been confused with an art connisseur, but I know what I like.

recruiting board update

I told myself I would update the board after Greg Stroman committed to UVA, and then I didn't because oops.  Finally an oops that wasn't my fault.  At any rate, we have some work to do there, and we got a perfectly damn good athlete commitment anyway even if it wasn't strictly Stroman.

-- Moved ATH Jeffery Farrar from green to orange.  A very intriguing pickup.  Farrar narrowed his choices down to UVA, Cal, and Arizona State before choosing UVA on ESPN, and there was a pretty legitimate concern he'd go with Cal.  Recruiting in California is definitely new ground; UVA didn't quite just waltz in and have their pick of elite talent, but they're sure not picking up scraps either.  Farrar had offers from half the Pac-12 (including UCLA) plus Miami and a few other eastern schools, too.  And ESPN has him in their top 300.  Getting a commitment from one of the name players in the state has got to be something of an eye-opener.

-- Removed WR Cameron Phillips and CB Greg Stroman from blue; both decided on VT.

-- Removed TE Devin Pike (Louisville) from green.  (On the subject of Louisville, you'll also notice that former UVA commit Chris Nelson is now headed there as well.)

-- Removed DE Kurt Holuba and LB Jawhaun Bentley from yellow; neither have committed but both made deep cuts to their lists that put UVA on the outside.

-- Removed OT Bentley Spain (UNC) from red.

-- Moved OT Brock Ruble and DE Kentavius Street from yellow to red.

-- Moved TE Jamal Custis from yellow to green.

-- Added RB Madre London to yellow.  UVA is probably too late to the party, but what the hell, we need to put something on this board, which is getting awfully thin.

Let's talk about that for a sec.  We've been talking about a small class for a long time now, so we are sort of approaching the limit.  And you have to be kind of impressed with the roundedness of it; the way I have it laid out on the depth chart, there's no more than one commitment at any given position except for DE, where there's two.  And where we could really use the depth.  The class is sitting on twelve now, including Zack Jones, who went to FUMA and not Hawaii after all.

On the other hand, I mentioned a few weeks ago that the class size could be a bit larger than what we'd been talking about all year.  That's likely to play out - if we can find the players to fill it.  At a time when we're talking about expanding the class, the board itself is shrinking quickly.  There are 21 juniors on the team, so the class of 2015 is going to be colossal, which is to say it behooves the staff to fill the 2014 class fairly well.  Stopping at 12 or 13 means the 2015 class would need to be just that much bigger.

On that board as it stands now, the only prospect where I'd predict UVA with any confidence is Jamil Kamara.  Melvin Keihn, maybe - I wouldn't be surprised if he committed to UVA but I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't, either.  But, let's say this class worms its way up to 16 players.  Maybe someone surprises me, but the chances seem pretty good that it gets there by adding Kamara and three as-yet-unoffered players (or Kamara, Keihn, and two) as opposed to pulling players up from the lower reaches of the board.