wednesday linkpile

Time to deal with a bunch of that stuff that piles up while I'm off plowing through projects that I just have to put out there. First up is that tired-looking recruiting board, and the updates to it:

- Removed a bunch of names that we hadn't heard from or about since before the regime change. Said regime change means it's not likely we're bothering.

- Removed S Ed Reynolds, probably once and for all, who committed to Stanford, and DT Johnathon Hankins, who committed to Ohio State.

- Added LB Ralph Williams to blue. Might be able to snake-oil this guy away from Tennessee. He is Michael Strauss's high school teammate.

- Added OT Dan Foose and RB Dejor Simmons to yellow.

- Recategorized Strauss as an early enrollee. Technically he isn't enrolled right at this moment, but he'll be at spring practice, sure enough to the point where it'd be news now if he wasn't. This is awesome, by the way. Early enrollers always get a nice little boost from being at spring practice, but for quarterbacks the benefit is immeasurable compared to just about any other position.

Frankly, this 2010 board is getting very boring. I'm guessing three, maaaybe four more commits. Total of about 15-17. Not quite the furious finish we had to last year's class. In the near future, therefore, the 2011 board will have its debut. Won't that be fun. My too-early projection for that class size is about 18-22, so the commitments should be at a bit of a faster pace than they have been this year.

Before I forget, the "other" football team spit out some disappointing news today: Tony Tchani is leaving school for the pros. Eh, it's probably time: he's got a championship and he's plenty talented enough to make the jump. We weren't going to lose any major, major pieces of the championship team to graduation, so Tchani leaves the one real hole in the lineup. Which can be filled just fine, thank you: for one thing, we'll actually get to use Brian Ownby for the whole season, and Jimmy Simpson should be able to find his way to the field more often. Simpson, you might recall, had a pretty nice freshman season in 2008 with six goals, but didn't see hardly any time this year. We've got the depth to cover Tchani.

Even if you've been under a rock since New Year's, you probably still know that Jim Reid, formerly the Dolphins' linebackers coach, is going to be the new DC. Cross your fingers for Bill Musgrave to be rehired as OC - myself, I don't see it happening. We gotta get this stuff in place and Musgrave is playing the waiting game. I'll probably make some kind of stab at an overview of the new coordinators once they're both in place and announced.

Remember Aaron Corp? He was USC's dauphin quarterback this year, the heir in the dynasty behind center for the Trojans. That was until Matt Barkley horned in on his territory and kept the job all season. Barkley is firmly entrenched for the next two seasons at a bare minimum, which as bad luck would have it is all the time Corp has left in college. Yeah, I'd transfer too. The neat part is that some guy told some guy who told some guy that UVA had inquired into his availability. Have we? Who knows, but it makes sense. We're thin at quarterback, and all our options in 2011 are going to be pretty young still.

Let's pretend for a hot minute Corp does end up transferring here. As you probably know, he couldn't play in 2010 because of transfer rules, and he's already used up a redshirt year so the working assumption would be that he'd get one year: 2011. I'm also going to assume Marc Verica, the only upperclassman on scholarship, gets handed the keys next year, so that it's once again an open competition for the job in '11. Right now that's going to be between redshirt sophomores Smalls and Metheny and redshirt freshman Strauss, and probably an as-yet-unknown redshirt or true freshman. Would be nice to have a little senior leadership in there, no? Corp could take the job for a year, strut his stuff for NFL scouts, and leave the reins (spelling hint time: it's reins, not reigns, as in, what you use to control a horse) to that same bunch which is now a year older and hopefully wiser in 2012.

Of course, Corp might find it beneficial to have two years to get ready for what he clearly hopes will be a bid at being an NFL draft pick, and therefore transfer to a I-AA school where he can play right away. His decision comes down to, is it better to play two years in a place where getting noticed is that much harder, or one year in a spotlightier place? Me, I'd be thrilled to bring him in, and would promise to keep all Christian Olsen comparisons to a minimum.

OK, so one of the best parts about college football in the Internet age is that the moment something hilarious shows up on TV, it goes straight to YouTube, every blog everywhere, and the message boards, usually before the game is over. Whether it's Lee Corso trying to shake hands with a blind kid or Clemson fans taking a flying leap off the metaphorical ledge, it goes right to your computer screen before Sportscenter even comes on. Such was the case with Sad Cowbell Girl, as she was known in the 12 hours or so before it became common knowledge that she is blind. Unfortunately for the Internet, we'd all already had our jollies. So if you saw a major uptick in the past couple days on the InterWebz We Are All Total Assholes Meter, that's why. We may have a new record for edited blog and board posts in one day, which in itself restores the humor by changing the target to All Of Us Being Dickheads. Don't feel bad, Internet: blindness is not synonymous with emotionlessness. Obviously she had no way of knowing there was a camera and therefore wasn't going to make silly faces at it the way humans are genetically wired to do whenever inside a stadium. But still: when's the last time you ever saw a bored marching band member? Even the cowbell calls for slightly more enthusiasm than it takes to shuffle over to the fridge for another beer.

I'll wrap this up with a complaint, complete with bad language: I hate you, TV networks. I hate what you've done to my bowl system. I hate how you allow shitty bowl games to take place after New Year's Day. I hate how you make good and damn sure there cannot possibly any competition for the bowl game you're airing by making the ACC champion play on a Tuesday fucking night five days after New Year's. I hate how you make this possible by airing something called the "Papajohn's.com Bowl**" on New Year's weekend instead of the Monday before Christmas where it belongs. I hate how you give airtime to some stupid midlevel asshole representing the sponsor so he can pimp his company under the cover of pretending to "wish the best of luck to the finest student-athletes in the nation." This is only funny when watching a team which has suspended half its depth chart for thugging it up at a fraternity fundraiser. I hate how you're putting the BCS CG on a damned Thursday because heaven forbid it compete with your precious NFL. GET OFF MY LAWN.

**This is the only context in which a bowl named for its corporate sponsor will appear on this blog without asterisks like you'd use to represent a curse word in more family-oriented contexts: to emphasize the point that it sounds really stupid. You may see "E*******k Bowl" or "ex-Peach Bowl" but you won't see the actual name if a corporation has whored out the bowl for itself. And by the way, Papa John's pizza is terrible. Putting the cheese on top of the toppings means you have to guess which one is the delicious pepperoni and which one has the nasty disgusting green peppers on it, and even if they did put the toppings where they belong, Pizza Hut and Domino's and Little Caesar's and Sbarro and just about everyone else still kick the ass of Papa John's.

weekend review

Besides the obvious, I mean. If there's a kind of listless tone to this post, just, you know, read below to find out why.

I guess we'll start with soccer, they spent their weekend productively at least. Two wins out in Portland lend some confidence that they really were just kinda messing around in the exhibition season. Will Bates is already coming in handy, slamming home a goal early in the second half against Portland to make sure they didn't get any uppity ideas about a comeback. Tony Tchani and Ross LaBauex swept offensive and defensive MVP awards. All in all a successful trip. No time to fool around: the ACC season kicks off right away with the Duke game on Friday.

There isn't any recruiting board update, so instead I fixed up the depth chart. With Keith Payne off the team I made the assumption that his scholarship gets handed to Patrick Slebonick. Injured players are denoted, and the starters and backups are now basically correct, although it ought to be pointed out that just because someone's not on the nominal two-deep doesn't mean they don't play. Especially at wide receiver.

The future's a lot more exciting than the present right now, so here's what the recruits are up to:
TYLER BROSIUS: Getting back on track this week with four touchdowns - two running, two passing - in a 35-14 win.

ADRIAN GAMBLE (2011): Didn't figure in Independence's 35-32 win.

E.J. SCOTT: Good Counsel opened their season in California with a 28-16 win, but Scott didn't play.

PABLO ALVAREZ: Couldn't find any game details for Alvarez's game this weekend, only the score - his team lost. Instead here's some Alvarez fluff for you.

OK, so we lost. Wasn't a good week for the ACC in general, to be honest. The only teams that won were playing I-AA patsies (or Sun Belt teams) and not even all the teams that were playing said patsies even managed to win. Time for a spin around the ACC blogs to see how they felt about things.

NC State was the opening act for the second year in a row, and for the second year in a row shat the bed. State Fans Nation says the following:

South Carolina was bigger than NC State. South Carolina was faster than NC State. South Carolina was better coached than NC State. South Carolina had three
trips to the red zone. NC State had ZERO. It was amazing that this game was even close.

Tell it like it is, man. If there's one consolation about losing to a I-AA team it's that it wasn't the very first game of the season with the entire nation watching because they're starved for football.

Georgia Tech dropped 37 on Jacksonville State, but From the Rumble Seat is feeling left out of the pity party and isn't impressed with the Jackets' performance anyway.

Boston College's offense scored 45 points on Northeastern. Eagle in Atlanta thinks that's a B+ effort. Despite the BC fanhood, apparently the blog is written by my freshman year computer science prof. At this point I'd hand Jameel Sewell a B+ if he learned which color jersey his receivers wear.

Wake Forest lost to Baylor, which I kind of think says "Baylor's decent" at least as much as it says, "wow, Wake sucks."

Block-C is just as unimpressed about their win as FTRS is about theirs.

Duke lost to Richmond, and it's a shame there's no Duke blog so I can go find someone equally miserable. Normally Dookies would just say "wait til basketball season" but Cutcliffe is causing expectations, which are not met by losing to Richmond.

VT didn't help the ACC's cause, and Gobbler Country has seen it all before and it depresses him. "We are the same team we were last season." I BET THAT SUCKS.

Testudo Times is another blogger handing out grades for his team. The only difference between that and BC is Maryland got completely trucked. The grades remain pretty much the same. This is more like my astronomy professor, whose grading saved my ass and my grade point that semester from my computer science prof.

FOV Cavalier of the Year, #11/#12

Bleh. You're lucky I even bothered to crawl out of bed today let alone summon the energy to post something. There's much going on this weekend - one football commitment is already on the books, that being LB Ryan Cobb - but rather than spend all day trying to keep up with that, look for a few weekend review-type posts at the end of it. For now we're focused on naming our Cavalier of the Year, and maybe, just to keep my mind off, you know, things, I'll get cranking on YouTubeing some of those baseball games I've got in the hopper.

The official From Old Virginia Birthday is June 10, at which time this blog marks its first year of publication. For the birthday celebration, we - that is, me, and you the readers - will name the FOV Cavalier of the Year. My job is to pick the twelve finalists and write a few words about each that tell you all about their accomplishments. Your job is easier: to vote in the poll that will run once all twelve are finished.

Two of the finalists will be highlighted each day this week, through Saturday. They're in random order with no rhyme or reason implied or intended. Today: Tony Tchani and Paige Selenski.

Tony Tchani - Men's soccer - Midfielder

Team accomplishments:

- Made ACC tournament championship game after upsetting #1 Wake Forest
- Made second round of NCAA tournament

Personal accomplishments:

- ACC Freshman of the Year
- Second-team All-ACC
- First-team All-Region
- Led team with 9 goals despite missing eight games

Freshmen were the name of the game for the soccer team this year, and Tchani's the guy in front. He had multiple two-goal games, but his biggest goal of the nine he scored had to be the penalty kick scored near the very end of the North Carolina game, a 1-0 road win over the #12 team in the country that vaulted us into the rankings for the first time this season. You have to wonder how the postseason could have gone if Tchani's injury against Longwood (Longwood, argh) had been as mild as the CDP said it was; it wasn't, and all the prime-time scoring punch the team had was basically vaporized.

Paige Selenski - Field hockey - Midfielder













Team accomplishments:

- Spent entire season ranked in top 15 nationall
- Advanced to second round of NCAA tournament

Personal accomplishments:

- ACC Freshman of the Year
- National Rookie of the Year
- All-ACC selection
- First-team All-Region
- Participates on national U-21 field hockey team
- National Rookie of the Week for October 7
- Led team with 19 goals and 47 points; second in assists with 9

I'll be the first to admit I know squat about field hockey. But I know a little something about awesome, and National Rookie of the Year is awesome. You might have noticed a little theme in that there are quite a lot of these finalists with ACC Freshman/Rookie of the Year honors; Paige Selenski is the only one to reel in both that and national honors as well. Her national Rookie of the Week honors came after racking up four goals and three assists in two games, one of which was against the #1 team in the land. Spiffy. Like the men's soccer team, the gals here have a bright future with a lot of very good freshmen on the team, but Selenski's got not just her team, but the whole nation beat here.

it's never over

"Next Man Up" is a handy slogan to have these days. It appears the next Next Man Up is going to be Raynard Horne or Curt Orshoski, as Rashawn Jackson has managed to get himself arrested for grand larceny. Sheesh. No truth to the rumors that we chose the colors blue and orange to match the police uniform and prison jumpsuit. You gotta hand it to the 2005 recruiting class. Between Will Barker's beer, Rashawn Jackson's XBox, and Mike Brown's car stereo, they've managed to steal enough shit for a pretty good party.

The 2009 schedule is falling into place; TCU will be one of the visitors to Charlottesville next year. We also have W&M coming by for a visit, and a trip to Hattiesburg for Southern Miss. That leaves one slot, which may well be filled by one of the four MAC games we're owed from that trip to MTSU last year.

The soccer team beat American 4-2, but the bigger news to take from this article is that Tony Tchani's knee is going to need surgery. Ugh. This brings to three the total of torn knee ligaments between Tchani and Chris Agorsor.

Here is a little bit of fluff worth reading; it's about Oscar Smith, which you'll recognize as the Chesapeake powerhouse that's sending us two of their standout players in the 2009 recruiting class.

The Blogpoll breakdown is up over at CBS Sports, and your humble blogger is an award winner this week! These awards, actually, are rather dubious in nature and meant to nudge voters toward the general mean. Mr. Stubborn is "awarded" to this blog for having the least change in the ballot from last week to this; a huge factor in this is that a lot of teams I thought sucked and were unworthy of ranking did in fact suck. Most blogs sent Pitt crashing out of their ballot for losing to Rutgers, and I never had Pitt to begin with.

Finally, check back later tonight. I have something in the works that I'm pretty excited about.

weekend review

First things first: Tim Smith is a Wahoo pledge! More below. (Way below.)

I've been a bit negligent in checking out the soccer team recently, but it's been mostly bad bad bad news. The team is 0-2-1 in the last three, with the lone tie coming against Longwood. It's not so much the tie that's bad, it's that now we are playing games without either one of our wunderkind freshmen. Tony Tchani got hurt against Longwood and missed the Duke game, a 1-0 loss. It's encouraging that we more or less beat Duke on the stat sheet, but failing to beat them on the scoreboard can be basically chalked up to no Tchani. Jimmy Simpson tries valiantly, but the present and future of this program are Agorsor and Tchani, who are down to one healthy knee each. Next on the schedule are three home games, and we wrap up the season with the two teams currently leading the ACC: Maryland and Wake Forest. It'd be nice to come away with some points from those two matchups, but unless we miraculously earn the first seed in the ACC tournament, there's very little difference between any of the teams we'd draw in the quarterfinals. I don't want to lose to Murlin in any capacity at all, whether it's football soccer or mock trials, but if Tchani is marginal, clearly the wise thing to do is hold him out til he's absolutely healthy or the quarterfinals, whichever comes first.

OK! Time now to shift from Yannick Reyering's first team to his second. And I'm not the only one who thinks it's time for a look at the Virginia football team. Ms. Heather at ESPN has Virginia this and Virginia that in various posts. Her conversion, to paraphrase, is complete:

Virginia's ascension from bottom to top is complete. The Cavaliers answered the one question still hanging out there: Can they win on the road? Not only did they manage that, but they did it against one of the better teams in the ACC, and they did it on Georgia Tech's homecoming. It's time for Al Groh to start to get some serious ACC Coach of the Year consideration. And it's time for everyone to stop grouping Maryland's loss to Virginia in the same sentence as the Terps' loss to Middle Tennessee.

Mark Schlabach is a believer too.

Meanwhile, we've entered that shadowland where you don't get a mythical little number from 1 to 25 next to your name in boxscores, but some people think you deserve one and so you get to look at the rankings and count past 25 to get your pretend mythical number. These range from 27th to 36th (that'd be the coaches' poll); the draft Blogpoll has us 30th, and the nice thing is about the Blogpoll, you can see exactly who ranked you where. The numbers happen to be: two 25th-place votes, five 24ths, one each of 21st, 20th, and 19th, and one vote, amazingly enough, for 15th place. The intrepid blog sticking their neck out for us (and probably sticking it straight into the Wack Ballot Watchdog section of the breakdown) is The Auburner. The Auburner features a picture of an anthropomorphic, sword-wielding, sunglasses-clad tiger, astride a similarly bespectacled eagle, which is carrying off a bewildered but rather placid elephant. If you understand this, you are either a college football fan, or lying.

None of this should be construed as complaining that we don't have the little mythical ranking number; my own ballot doesn't even include us, and I am honestly not sure when it will. Ranking by resume (as the bloggers do) as opposed to the Shiny Object Method (as the media tends to do) means I'm not allowed to excise Duke and UConn from my memory. We shall see.

Quick newsy notes:

- Groh is hoping to get Antonio Appleby and Nick Jenkins back for Miami. Hoping is not the same as expecting, though. But I'm not that worried. Nate Collins did a bang-up job against Georgia Tech. They were never able to run up the gut. All their big run plays were to the outside.

- Congrats to Will Barker, the ACC OL of the week. This sentence from the release struck me as odd, though:

"He finished with the second-highest grade among the linemen while being matched up against Georgia Tech’s standout ends Michael Johnson and Derrick Morgan."

What about the guy who graded highest? (It was probably Monroe.) And admittedly, if I were a GT fan, I'd probably be spluttering with rage at hearing the guy who should have been called for a hold on a critical touchdown was just named lineman of the week.

- What about our jocular little rivals down in Blacksburg? They're not feeling that way with the possibility that both Sean Glennon and Tyrod Taylor may be out for next week's Meteor Game with Maryland and Cory Holt may have to step in.

Recruiting! Whee! Yes, the 21st member of the class is WR Tim Smith, from the same Chesapeake powerhouse that is sending us Perry Jones. Smith is one that I've felt for a while would end up a 'Hoo (keeping in mind the usual disclaimer that when it comes to recruiting, I know shit for a fact.) He had a couple other finalists but one dropped him and he barely mentioned the other. The recruiting board is duly updated, as is the depth chart by class. Besides Smith, the only other change is to bump lineman Brennan Williams up to Good from Fair. Williams cut his list ($) by removing Duke and Michigan from the process. He's now considering only UVA, UNC, BC, and Wake. There are four schools in the running here, but I feel pretty good about this one too - let's just say I feel like we have better than a 25% chance.

As always, next up is the high schools....

DOMINIQUE WALLACE: Took a little bit of a break as Chancellor played a weak King George team. Carried 11 times for 87 yards and a touchdown in a 49-0 win.

ROSS METHENY: Sat out Sherando's 46-7 win over Brentsville recuperating his tweaked knee; this probably had much to do with Brentsville being 1-6 going into the game.

THE OSCAR SMITH GUYS: Perry Jones and Tim Smith each had a pair of touchdowns as OS blew out yet another hapless opponent.

ALEX OWAH: Back in action with 125 yards and 2 TDs as Harrisonburg beats Turner Ashby 32-7. I have been remiss here, as Owah's first game back was last week, with 190 yards and another couple of touchdowns.

As always, the last item of the day is a spin around the ACC to recap the action from the most familiar point of view: the blogs.

Miami slogged through a 16-10 win over Wake Forest; Old Gold & Blog is too busy counting giant new phat stax of cash to notice much. No, seriously, congrats to Zach, another blogger jumping from the unwashed ranks to the big-time, but damn: we are once again sans a regular Wake Forest blog.

UNC thumped the bejeezus out of Boston College 45-24, a faith-restoring game for Tareye or Buckheel? who is already playing out UNC-in-Tampa scenarios. Meanwhile BC Interruption points out that the Eagles still control their destiny in the Atlantic, which is bizarre and perfectly normal in today's ACC.

Duke beat Vanderbilt 10-7 in what is normally a cripplefight but actually involved two teams fighting for bowl eligibility.

Bad Maryland locked Good Maryland in the port-a-potty this week and then survived an upset bid by NC State, winning 27-24. Turtle Waxing has this bit of irony: "Besides the holding penalties, which were too many and at the worst times, the line did a great job."

Virginia Tech played their first of two Meteor Games (in which I watch hoping for 2008 TC-3 to target the 50-yard line) and lost to FSU, 30-20. Gobbler Country is mad about that punt on 4th and 10 with two minutes to go. Frankly, he has every right to be. Frank Beamer was aiming to get a fumble on the return. This is either a stunning, inexcusable lack of faith in the offense, or even more inexcusable hubris about his special teams reputation. Either way, it's piss-poor coaching.

BEST DAY EVER

This is my blog - there are many like it, but this one is mine. My own humble little spot in the big wide InterBlogoWeb where I get to write what I like. That means, just every so often, you will find me wandering off track to write about other stuff I like besides Virginia sports. Not terribly often, mind you, not at all; but this is going to be one of those times, because if it isn't now, it never will be. If you don't care about the NFL or just want to skip ahead to the Virginia stuff, feel free. It's down a few paragraphs, you can't miss it.

Today, all is sunshine and daisies and butterflies and gumdrop rivers. Because, you see, I am a Detroit Lions fan. And today is the day that all of us have been waiting for, who cheer on the Honolulu Blue and Silver.

He's gone. Matt Millen. Fired.

The Lions I grew up with, you see, were maddeningly inconsistent throughout the '90s. They would do things like beat the defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football, only to get waxed at home the next week against the Cardinals. They would start a season 2-6, then rip off an 8-game win streak to roll into the playoffs, guarantee a win.....and give up 56 points in a blowout loss. Millen was hired to fix the inconsistency. Bill Ford "stake[d] his reputation on Matt's success."

Did he ever fix the inconsistency. It got to the point where us Lions fans no longer minded the losing, because we knew it was coming, we knew who to blame it on, and it just gave us one more reason (84 in total) to pile on the anger.

Millen inspired a movement. Fire Millen became a slogan. This was not just some loudmouth with his www.FireCoachX.com website. This was new, unique, a first of its kind. Fire Millen showed up at Michigan basketball games. At Tigers games. At Red Wings games IN ANAHEIM! The local radio station bought a billboard. Millen inspired the only other-team's-color-out as fans went with orange for the Cincinnati Bengals' visit. (Three years and 11 wins ago. And yes, the Lions lost that game.) FireMillen.com is so popular they're putting out press releases about this. A blog! Putting out a press release.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled. And a little worried. If the Lions continue to suck - I mean, past the time they're supposed to not suck any more - the only person we'll have left to kick around is the owner, William Clay Ford, and he can't be fired. But that's OK. The Lions could go 0-16 and the 2008 season would be a rousing success. Because Fire Millen just became Millen Fired.

WE NOW RETURN TO REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING.

Pretty typical midweek stuff. We'll start with Marc Verica again, because the Wednesday after his first ever start seems to be a pretty good time for fluff articles. Did you know he plays the piano? I didn't either, but Doug Doughty and Jeff White are dying to tell you this. The Washington Post gets in on that action too - that's three in one day, in case you lost count. Verica plays the piano, was put into a similar situation in high school, is unflappable, etc. etc.

Switch gears for a quick second over to the soccer team, which beat CCSU 4-0 last night. Tony Tchani, who is a frickin' hoss, scored twice.

Switch back! The UVA notes in the RTD update us on Sean Gottschalk:

Gottschalk, a graduate of Deep Run High, hopes to resume his football career, but it's not clear if he'll play this season. Even if Gottschalk were to return to practice today -- and that's not expected to happen -- he would need three or four weeks of training before he's ready to play again, Groh said.

"Hopes to resume his career." That is not promising.

Peter Lalich is going to Oregon State, which in Oregon-hippie fashion has a weird class schedule and has not started classes yet - a big reason for the selection.

Saved the best for last - the depth chart and the coach's press conference. Depth chart is mildly interesting. No changes on the O-line, at least not among the starters. Biggest shakeup is in the secondary (which needs it.) Ras-I Dowling returns to the depth chart, backing up Mike Parker in OR status with Chase Minnifield. Brandon Woods is demoted to backup and redshirt freshman Corey Mosley takes his place. Nick Jenkins and Nate Collins switch spots at nose tackle - Jenkins is now listed as the starter, though chances are the roughly 60-40 split of snaps will continue.

From the presser:

- Groh wants to keep the redshirt on Riko Smalls but realizes the circumstances may end up dictating otherwise.
- Hints that Verica had a little more notice to prepare for the UConn game than was generally known.
- Fluff fluff fluff, Duke's a tough team yada yada yada.

weekend review

I still have not actually watched the UConn game. I'll most likely do that tomorrow, albeit in fits and starts on the TiVo, and mainly for the purpose of doing my review of Verica's performance. I have no desire to sit there like I don't know what's gonna happen next and watch our defense get gashed for half a mile of rushing yardage.

Let's start this thing off with some good news for once. The soccer team showed signs of life on Saturday by thrashing NC State. They've struggled, but did very well in the ACC opener against a team that isn't exactly an ACC contender. Let's hope there's a parallel there for the football team. What we've seen from the soccer team so far is what you'd expect from a very young team with supreme talent, which happens to be what they are. Of the 14 goals scored this season, just 3 are from non-freshmen: 2 from sophomore Jimmy Simpson and 1 from junior Matt Mitchell. Chris Agorsor and Tony Tchani are bound and determined to have a knock-down drag-out fight (figuratively speaking, thankfully) for the goals lead this season; Tchani leads 5-4 at the moment.

Next up: Central Connecticut State, who has rolled up a 4-1-1 record against largely second-tier competition. Fun fact: CCSU is basically Little Britain, with 6 fellows from jolly old England, and that doesn't count the guy hailing from the Isle of Man.

Now back to football and the gloomcloud that comes with it. The RTD today does a nice job of reminding us who we're missing for whatever reason: academics, shenanigans, injury, transfer to other sports, or some combination of the above. The toll is thus: 2 quarterbacks, 2 defensive ends, 2 cornerbacks, 3 linebackers, and a wide receiver, including at least four players (Cook, Fitzgerald, Gottschalk, and Lalich or Sewell) who'd be starters and more who'd be in the two-deep. I won't expound on this much. You know as well as I do what we're missing here.

Oh looky here. A recruiting board. And it looks much the same as it did last week. Nobody committed or narrowed their list or anything. The updates are:

- Added some actual schools for Bernardo Nunez. He claims no leader (Rivals $) at the moment, but mentioned a number of different places he wants to go on visits to. So those schools are piled up under his name.
- Put Michigan and Duke back in Brennan Williams' top 5.

QB Kevin Newsome
- VT, PSU, Mich., UNC, WVU
RB Tavon Austin
- Md., WVU, UGA, Mich., Neb., Tenn., Ill.
RB De'Antwan Williams
- Bama, VT, BC, Md., Rutgers, WVU
WR Justin Brown
- PSU, VT, NCSt., S.Car, UNC
WR Sean Farr
- Md., WVU, Akron, EMU
WR Timothy Smith
- L'ville, S.Car, WVU
WR Antone Exum
- SCar., VT, WVU, PSU, Md., Tenn., Purdue, L'ville, CU, Wake
TE Logan Thomas
- VT, Clemson, WVU, UNC, Wake, Tenn., FSU, PSU
OT Morgan Moses
- pretty much everyone east of the Mississippi
OT Oday Aboushi
- Iowa, Md., Rutgers, PSU, Mich., BC
DE Brennan Williams
- BC, Wake, Mich., Duke
DE Michael Buchanan
- Purdue, Ill., Cal, Vandy, KU
DE Lanford Collins
- VT, PSU, Tenn., WVU, Md., NCSt., UNC, BC, Ill.
DE Garry Gilliam
- UConn, PSU, Temple, Pitt, Akron
DE Will Hill
- UConn, Mich., S.Car., Tenn., Md.
DE Bernardo Nunez
- OU, Md., Oregon, Pitt, ECU, NCSt., Rutgers
DE DeAntre Rhodes
- VT, Md., Clemson, Tenn.
DE Pat Muldoon
- Cincy, BC, Wisc.
OLB Jelani Jenkins
- everyone and their aunt
CB Travis Hawkins
- who isn't interested?
S Javanti Sparrow
- Clemson, UNC, PSU, VT, WVU
DB Joshua Evans
- 28 other schools. for real.

Now for the high schools.....

DOMINIQUE WALLACE: Carried 14 times for 113 yards and three touchdowns in Chancellor's 40-13 win over Riverbend. Wallace is the area's rushing leader with 528 yards and 6 touchdowns in four games.

CONNOR MCCARTIN: 4 carries, 28 yards; 2 receptions, 29 yards in 42-14 Fauquier victory over Mountain View. McCartin is a linebacker recruit.

COREY LILLARD: Ran for 69 yards and a TD in Liberty's 41-32 win over Stafford. Lillard is a DB recruit.

ROSS METHENY: Completed 8-of-10 for 89 yards and 2 TD's in Sherando's 55-7 stomping of Warren County. Metheny has yet to play every drive for his team in a full game, because Sherando is 3-0 by scores of 37-10, 49-0, and 55-7.

PERRY JONES: Scored twice in Oscar Smith's blowout win over Great Bridge. 50-14, in case you're wondering. Oscar Smith is a fucking machine.

KEVIN ROYAL: Scored on a 45-yard pass, but Brunswick lost to Hopkins, 27-12. Fun fact! Kevin Royal is from Greenwich, CT, where the local newspaper (from which all Royal links come) is aptly called the Greenwich Time.

The week was a good one for the ACC: UVA did not play, so the conference did not lose any nonconference games. Which is nice.

- Georgia Tech rolled Mississippi State 38-7. Georgia Tech Sports was in attendance and rather obviously liked what he saw.

- NC State beats ECU* 30-24 relinquishes the title of Sorriest-Assed Team In All The ACC (SATIATA), which I would be really happy for them for doing except guess who gets to pick up the crown? And we need only lose to Duke to jam that mother squarely on our head and go streaking. State Fans Nation hates him some ECU fans and loves him some Russell Wilson.

- Maryland crushed Eastern Michigan 51-24. Eastern is the direction-est of all the D-I Directional Michigans, and has a really hard time in football because they share a county with a football behemoth.

- Boston College handled UCF, 34-7. BC Interruption is not mollified by the lopsided score and senses a quarterback controversy a-brewin' in Chestnut Hill.

- Clemson beat SC State. By a lot.

- VT won another 20-17 game, over UNC this time. Gobbler Country wonders how on earth. Tareye or Buckheel didn't seem to notice, because Yates Yates Yates. One can hardly blame the Heel faithful if they're more worried about the next six weeks than the last one.

- Miami did their part against the power conferences (if not exactly the power teams therein) by beating Texas A&M 41-23. It was not a good week for maroon-and-white teams against the ACC.

- Lastly, Wake Forest looked half-assed against FSU (no thanks to three missed FGs from their All-Galaxy kicker) but fortunately for them FSU looked like complete and total ass, as Wake got out of Tallahassee with a 12-3 win. Old Gold & Blog looks on the sunny side and praises the defense, which got three straight picks against two different Seminole quarterbacks to quash any comebacks. Take possession, pickoff. Take possession, pickoff. Take possession, incomplete, incomplete, pickoff. lollerskates. At least Christian Ponder threw two passes into oblivion before his interception; Richardson just got right down to business and threw two straight first-down picks.

There it is - your weekend in review. Your last little tidbit of info: The Maryland game on 4 October will be at 7:00 (night game, yay! I have fond memories of these, which is surprising considering the usual effect of 10 hours of pregaming on one's memory) and will either be on ESPNU or ESPN360, which would mean either I have to shell out for GamePlan, or I just put on my TiVo recording of last year's thrilla in College Pazilla and pretend Chris Long is still in orange and blue, blowing up quarterbacks.