project

Instead of writing, I decided to work on a project today: a highlight video to get you started on football season.  No, nothing from this football season.  Our wins haven't been where I can get my claws on them.  Two on ESPN3 and one on the Big Ten Network, and yes I have BTN but the powers that be decided that despite the fact that both Indiana and Virginia are closer to this town than Nebraska is, this town would be more interested in Nebraska anyway.  I hate the powers that be.  So no IU highlights.

I digress.  I had this video sent to me by an interested viewer and hope to get more in the future; it is, even as I type, undergoing its final processing into the usual highlight video.  You can find it in the video library, but just to be nice and not a total pageviews whore (it ain't like I'm ca$hing check$ off it, after all) I'll link it right here, the new highlight video I've spent today working on:

1995 UVA vs. Georgia (Peach Bowl)

Yesssssssssss more Welsh era stuff yessssssssss.  It's an ESPN Classic broadcast so it's a little strange-ish because they've already taken out what they see fit to, so the highlight flow is a touch different from what I'd like.  But you'll watch anyway because you want that good-times remembrance of when we could expect to win games.

Astute readers will do a little math in their heads and recall that this game was almost 16 years ago, and I've only been a UVA fan for 11 years, so a little subtraction will tell you this predates my affiliation.  In fact, I'd never seen this game.  So that made it kind of a fun experience, actually, in a different way than you may approach this.  Or maybe you're a newer fan than I, in which case, rock on and enjoy.  I can't help a little editorializing about the game, though, namely:

- Astroturf underneath a badly-lit sanitized NFL dome is and always has been a poor way to play college football.  I must say it takes something away from the experience.

- UGA coach Ray Goff was coaching his final game, having been fired midway through the season but allowed to finish it out.  The loss dropped Georgia to 6-6.  It's kind of quaint seeing signs in the stands supporting the fired coach and wishing him well.  This is, you see, from before the Webz took hold of college football fandom and consequently, before the days of firethatfuckingshitbag.com.

- You'll see a lot of Goff in the highlights.  This may be before the days of burning coach hatred, but it is not before the days of disgustingly biased announcers.  They talk about the time they spent with Ray Goff prior to the game and it clearly gave them a rooting interest - the play by play guy could not be less enthused about watching [really exciting and decisive Virginia play redacted in case you haven't seen this or don't remember] if it was instead a word-for-word recitation of the Unabomber manifesto.  (You like my period reference, by the way?  That was slick.)

Anyway, enjoy the highlights.  With a little luck, more history may be on the way.

video time

Like I said, some days I'd be putting up nothing and working on videos instead.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Click over to the videos page and you'll find the final two games of the lacrosse tournament, the Denver and Maryland games, posted for your viewing pleasure.

Just for your edification, this process is, if I may speak in a foreign language for a bit, a right pain in the arse, lads.  I don't have my Tivo right now, I have something else, and Tivo is what lets you download right to the computer so that's causing what should be a simple four step process (record, download, edit, upload) to turn into at least twice that (record, download to laptop through special box, download to PC, change file format because video editor doesn't like special box's file format, edit, check for parts that the video editor didn't like because of how much data loss there probably is, re-edit to get rid of those parts, check again, upload.)  But we are working hard on this, yes.

Later today: Cal preview part deux.  Fooey, I was hoping to get to the recruiting board today and not to have to do a baseball preview til tomorrow.

series preview: NC State

Date/Time: April 22-24; 7:00, 1:00, 1:00

TV: Games 1 and 3 on UVA live feed; Game 2 on regional networks

History against the Pack: 66-119-1

Last matchup: NC State 2-1 series win (5-6, 8-4, 6-7); April 2-4, 2010; Raleigh

Last game: UVA 12, Richmond 1 (4/20); NC State 19, UNC-Wilmington 5 (4/20)

Last weekend: UVA swept Duke (10-0, 3-2, 18-4); NC State swept UNC (5-4, 8-7, 10-2)

National rankings:

Baseball America: UVA #1; NC State unranked
Collegiate Baseball: UVA #1; NC State unranked
NCBWA: UVA #1; NC State unranked
Perfect Game: UVA #2; NC State unranked
Coaches: UVA #1; NC State unranked
Composite: UVA #1; NC State unranked

RPI: UVA #1; NC State #30

UVA is #1.  My painstakingly thorough sampling of South Carolina fans find that at least two-thirds of them are whining about it based on the premise that 1) they just beat the previous consensus #1 in a series and 2) strength of schedule (ESSS-EEEE-CEEEE baybee.)  Frankly, I don't care - they can have it if they want.  They don't hand out CWS invitations based on this stuff.  All it is, is a reward for being 38-3 and not 29-7 like the Gamecocks, and if they wanted to be where we are they shouldn't have lost games to Clemson (who UVA swept), Furman (#128 RPI) or the Citadel (#159 RPI.)  Neener.

And it still doesn't get you to Omaha.  Doesn't even help you win the series at hand, and that's a shame because we could use it this week.  NC State isn't quite the crapfest I had them pegged for, but they're not real amazing either, and they could be 0-40 and it wouldn't matter because the Wolfies have UVA's number as badly as Duke lacrosse does.  (Hey, guess who our opponent in that sport is tomorrow.)  Since 2001 - two years before the O'Connor era - UVA baseball has won just one series against NC State.  Every year we have this amazing team and no matter how awesome you are, there's still the guy on the back of the chariot whispering memento mori in your ear.  That's NC State.

Their sweep of UNC last weekend was surprising (and a big help in the standings) but I'm still not especially impressed.  They really, really needed that sweep in order to stay afloat and in tournament contention.  The hitting and pitching are both kinda eh.  They're built around the "two walks and a dinger" model of baseball, which is a little obsolete with the new bats.  Last year they had a murderer's row lineup and a death row pitching staff waiting for execution, and the average NC State game was a 9-6 Pack win.  (For comparison's sake, with UVA it was 7-4.)  The scoring output has gone down by three runs a game, and the improvement in the pitching is only about what you'd expect with the new bats.

UVA batters teed off against soft-tossing Dillon Haviland last week, once they got used to his speed, and should be able to find similar success this weekend.  On Friday, NC State will have Cory Mazzoni trying to counter Danny Hultzen, and Mazzoni is a legit MLB prospect but the only pitcher on the Pack staff with the capability to overpower.  His ERA is a little inflated but his other stats are fine, and he brings a mid-90s fastball.  Mazzoni is the only constant in the rotation.  Nobody else on the staff has yet managed 40 strikeouts - partially because most of these pitchers aren't strikeout-inclined and partly because none of them have pitched many innings, having been shuffled in and out of the rotation.

So, the numbers and everything point to a hopeful sweep.  After the Hultzen-Mazzoni matchup, NC State doesn't have frightening pitching.  Better than Duke, but not exactly CWS-quality stuff.  It's possible NC State pulls the ol' switcheroo and uses Mazzoni on Sunday in hopes of stealing one, but that hasn't been their way of things and I don't think they will.  Friday should be a decent pitchers' duel; after that, the potential exists for some lopsided games.  As long as NC State leaves their voodoo dolls in Raleigh.

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

Note - lacrosse tomorrow against Duke, yes, yes - but look, we played those guys last week and if you watched the game, there's nothing new to learn.  Hopefully the ACC POY returns to action, because the offense is rough to watch with him in there and rough and slow when he's not.

Note two - finally, finally, finally the videos page gets an update.  The Cornell video is finished and available in the library, and you can also see what else I have that awaits.  Unfortunately this is going to be more of an unsteady drip than a running faucet, since I'm still working on the new process and there are a lot more machines, wires, and bits of software standing between a recorded game and a finished highlight video.  Blame AT&T and their bronze-age approach to copy protection; Apple got rid of DRM a long time ago ya fascist neanderthals.

new video up

Instead of writing, today I got busy finishing some more highlights, which are now, and as ever, available on the videos page to the right. The newest one is your UVA Cavaliers against Wake Forest in 2007. This game, you may remember, set a possible record for the highest ratio of excitement level of the final five minutes to that of the extremely boring first fifty-five. Some really forgettable stuff happened for most of the game, mostly punts and 3-yard gains up the middle, but the finish was not to be missed. Such was 2007.

new old video up

Today, again, I decided to do less writing, more video editing, and the result is highlights of the 2007 Duke game on the videos page. It makes me sad that that was the last time we've beaten them in football.

another new video

It's a holiday, so there is not so much with the posting, but yes for the making of the videos. The marvel that is ESPN Classic brought you another Thomas Jones Special, this time the 200+ yard effort against Georgia Tech that saw the Hoos take down the #7 team in the country and Jones break the single-season UVA rushing record with four and a half games to go. If you're not too stuffed full of brats and beer, enjoy.

Stony Brook video up

Just cause I was done with today's post doesn't mean I was done working for you. The video library now features yesterday's heart-racer against Stony Brook. Lacrosse videos are always the most popular videos in the set, so be one of the cool kids and go check it out.

And for an encore, I will piss and moan at you about the refereeing for just a couple seconds here. I said it was bad; part of the reason was because you could plainly see, live, the crease violation(s!) that should have wiped out Stony Brook's fourth goal. You could, I could; the ref didn't, even though he was in prime position to. The proof is clear:



That's Stony Brook's Robbie Campbell, stepping into the crease not just once, but twice, a split second before scoring the first goal of the second half to cut UVA's lead to 5-4. Did it affect the play? No, but rules is rules, and if you're going to call this one back....


...then you have to call them all back. Consistently. The refs did not do a good job; this is the most blatant one that they blew.

more video action

Writing anything felt like too much work for this kind of Friday afternoon, so I made a new highlight video instead. I'm sitting on a few older football games now and hope to have more shortly; eminent gentleman and scholar CCav59 at TheSabre generously made his 2007 collection publicly available and does not at all mind my using them for highlight video purposes. Thus, the videos page is set to include a lot more of the last football season that was any kind of successful, and it starts with that season's Georgia Tech game. Happy reminiscing.

busy as a bee

I'm churning out highlight videos like UVA is churning out ACC championships. Or like the baseball team churns out runs against Maryland. The latest is once again on the videos page: the miracle of ESPN Classic is once again at work for you, this time bringing us highlights over a decade old. This time it's BYU way back in 1999: cool unis, George Welsh, Thomas Jones....old school stuff.

I'm happy UVA won the game, but I'm at least as happy, if not more, that the BYU bib look never caught on in the mainstream. Seriously, eww.

UNC video is up

About five minutes ago, the lacrosse team ripped the Duke monkey off its back and stomped it to death. Sunday, we'll see 'em in the ACC final. To celebrate, I figured I'd finally get around to posting the UNC win from two weeks ago on the videos page.

OK, well, that's not totally accurate. Actually what happened is I decided after it was 4-0 bad guys to try and finish the damn thing up because it was a lot more productive of a pursuit than watching us not play defense. Without me and my jinxy ways, they began lighting the scoreboard up like Christmas, so I figured, no need to mess with what's working, I'll just go ahead and finish up all the way and then watch the rest of the game. So that's what I did, and they outscored Duke 12-4 without me. So now you have a video and a win over Duke, and I think that's a pretty productive afternoon and earns me another scotch.

i'm just super-excited about this

Hey, remember when UVA had a good football team? Well, if your memory needs a little jogging, I've got just the thing. Thanks to the miracle of ESPN Classic, the old 2003 Tire Bowl is now part of the videos library. I'm all kinds of pleased with it (except for the fact that they cut out the first-quarter goal-line stand, that's a little annoying.) Although I do owe you this warning: I was at that game and only just now realized how lucky I was to have had the foresight to get tickets, because Pam Ward is the announcer. Pam Ward is excruciating. If you can stomach Pam Ward, you should thoroughly enjoy the Alvin Pearman fireworks display, as well as the awesome game plan that Al Groh and, yes, Mike London, came up with to shut down one of the top receivers of the decade. Ballsy game plan that involved awesomeness like dialing up blindside corner blitzes on fourth down. Go forth and enjoy.

if you're not having fun then you're probably dead

I know I'm having fun. Got-damn am I having fun. Fun is watching the #1 team in the country look like the #1 team in the country and wearing your colors while they're at it. Even more fun is that I could be talking about one of several different sports this weekend - baseball, lacrosse, or tennis. Today it happens to be lacrosse. If you watched the Hopkins game yesterday, you saw what it looks like when a team is firing on all cylinders and really clicking. And if you missed it, there is video.

Thoughts coming at you like bullets:

- They're not depending on any one player or one unit to produce goals. Three hat tricks, eight different players scoring a goal, and two players with five-point days. The opposition couldn't focus in on one player and couldn't stop our athletes one-on-one. We have the best offense in the country.

- Along those lines, the best thing to happen to the offense this season was Shamel Bratton's injury. Yup. With Shamel out, Rhamel got his chance to get out from the shadow a little bit. Now Shamel's back too, and the supremely athletic midfield we were promised when these two signed on has materialized. Both of them make you go "ARGH don't shoot th- oh SWEET." Unless you have to defend them, in which case there's nothing to do but clean the singe marks off your jersey.

- Adam Ghitelman was in top form. He's one of the absolute best at doing all those things goalies do outside of actually stopping the ball, especially clearing, and yesterday he was also stopping the ball. Made all the stops he was supposed to and a few he wasn't. I want that Adam Ghitelman to show up in the tournament, not the one we sometimes see that has the reflexes of a drunk hippopotamus.

- Hooray, Nizolek's back! And you could tell the difference in the defense.

Coming up: three top-ten teams. Such is the way of ACC lacrosse. Maryland's not going to be happy about losing in 7OT last year, UNC takes place in the big-stadium environment in New York (ok, New Jersey) and then there's Duke, which never fails to enter the game ranked lower than us and never fails to beat us. And then we do it all over again in the ACC tournament.

Towson video

Instead of writing anything today, I made another video. It's the first lacrosse video of the new year (and of the slightly new format - now with pictures where there didn't used to be any!) so that's exciting for you, and the backlog is now officially and finally cleared, so that's exciting for me. Have fun with it.

Big weekend this week: baseball hosts #8 Clemson, lax hosts #12 Hopkins, and there's the potential for another individual national championship as the men's team takes to the water at the NCAA's with Scot Robison seeded #1 in the 200 free. Never a dull moment.

new video

Been hard at work this weekend, yup. Finally got the last video up that I've been sitting on - head over to the videos library to relive the hoopsters' second win over NC State as well as Mu Farrakhan's facialization of the Pack's Javier Gonzalez.

So that's the last basketball highlight of the season .... and once again, I'd like to send a hearty fuck you to NESN for depriving us of the ACC tournament win over Boston College by switching the programming at the last minute while I was at work. Thanks, assholes!

On the plus side, sometime soon(ish - this week I'm hoping) we'll inaugurate the spring season videos with today's lacrosse win over Towson.

Miami video up

The long-sat-upon Miami video is now linked on the videos page. It's a little short, I'm afraid, because f$&#ing Texas took their sweet time finishing off f$&#ing Texas A&M and so like at least a quarter of the game got preempted. Which is where a lot of the domination happened. Still, it's worth watching if only for Jontel's crazy starscraping shot to finish off the first half.

Let us hope this visit to happier days gone by will help break the string of bad mojo in time for tomorrow's tilt against BC.

new video, new quiz

It hasn't been an idle weekend for me. Busy busy busy. (This is also why I didn't post anything Thursday.) The videos page now links up to the highlights from the soccer team's semifinal win over Wake Forest, and there's a new quiz too. Now you can take your stab at finding out how much you know about UVA's history in bowl games.

NC State video up

The first video of the decade is officially here. Yesterday's win over NC State is posted to the videos page. Happy reminiscing.

first basketball game ever

On the videos page, that is. I finally got around to chopping up the highlights for the Cleveland State game, which was the first - and remains the only - basketball win that's been shown on TV in these parts. It's not that important a game (I'd really have liked to have that UAB game), but hey, it's something. If you like watching tall white gumpy walk-ons go apeshit for twenty minutes, this is the game for you, as Will Sherrill spent like the entire second half dropping jump shots and generally being a huge pain in Cleveland State's butt. And yet check out how wide-open he is at about 5:30 of the video. You'd think they'd learn.

Akron video

Normally I just procrastinate on this stuff, but a national championship calls for same-day delivery. (I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's still Sunday as far as I'm concerned. Get off me.) The videos page, therefore, is updated with sweet sweet national title goodness. Go watch. It's the first soccer highlight video I've even had a chance to make, but I'm way happy with how it turned out. If I do say so myself.

And yes, eventually, the semifinal against Wake will be posted too. But that probably won't be til after Christmas. Way things go.

new video finally up

My second season in the fourth circle of football hell is mercifully approaching its unwatchable end. By this time next week, it'll all be ended and I'll more than likely be trying to forget there even is such a thing as football.** To that end I've finished up the Maryland highlights, now available on the videos page. Just to get it done before football finishes its long agonizing swirl down the drain. It would have been up a month ago, actually, but this is what I was doing when my old hard drive put a shotgun in its mouth, so, yeah: late.

**Technically the Lions are still playing and will be doing so for another month and a half, but that team sucks so fucking bad it's basically like they're not even really participating in the league.