swimming pools! movie stars!

UVA and West Virginia talking future football series. More on that in a bit; first, Sammy Zeglinski. This will probably be much bigger news in 2011, right now we'll have to settle for an "oh goody." The CDP reports that the NCAA has officially granted him his medical redshirt for last season, meaning Zeglinski has a full four years of eligibility. No word yet on Tunji Soroye.

So as I mentioned: West Virginia. From the Charleston Daily Mail, there is word that us and them are talking about a four game series. Sounds like fun. WVU was once a fairly common opponent; we played them each year between 1943 and 1950 and WVU must have gotten pretty sick of that because, 8 years, 8 UVA wins. Then from 1972 to 1981, six games, and WVU got their revenge in the fairly dismal just-before-Welsh years. Other than the 2002 C********l Tire Bowl* we haven't played them since 1985. And since the bowl game saw WVU get embarrassed both during the game and at halftime, their fans are not happy campers with UVA, which should make things interesting.

Of interest is the possibility that a neutral site, likely the Redskins' FedEx Field, may be chosen for the game:

Anyway, WVU and Virginia are talking a four-game series that could start as soon as 2010 or as late at 2012. If the teams can't make the home-and-home breakdown work out, they could start and end the four-game set with neutral site games at 91,700-seat FedEx Field in Landover, Md.

That plan would put the FedEx games in 2010 and 2016, with games in Charlottesville and Morgantown, respectively, in 2014 and 2015.

That would shape up 2010 as a difficult season. Road games against USC and Tech and a neutral-site game against WVU would make for some tough games away from friendly Scott Stadium.

And anyway, I don't want to see a neutral-site game. Notwithstanding the notion that WVU fans are basically Maryland fans in blue and yellow (no, turtle boy, that's not a compliment) and trips to Morgantown should generally be avoided by the faint of heart or sensitive of ear, neutral-site games are kind of against the spirit of college football. Bowl games and championship games are different because something bigger's at stake, but the students shouldn't have to travel to see their team play on a fine September Saturday. May I remind Mr. Littlepage that first-year students aren't allowed cars during football season and thus would have to scramble to go see the game?

But that's a nitpick. It's a large nit, but it's a nitpick still, and it's not even guaranteed to be a neutral-site series. A few games against West Virginia are the kind of thing that's good to have so we can still lambaste the SEC for whoring themselves out to the Chattanooga Mocs for half a million and an easy win. (Pretend we're not playing Richmond this year for the purposes of this paragraph. That's a, uh, traditional rivalry.)

*Nobody pays me to mention sponsorship names.

playing catch-up

Spent a couple of days away, so right to it - the news you already know and the opinions you didn't know you needed.

First, the recruiting trail, which Groh & Co. are blazing at a furious pace. The latest commit is Justin Renfrow, and the CDP has the story here. The salient points are thus: Renfrow is out of William Penn Charter in Philly, which you know as the school that sent us Sean Singletary. So I love me some William Penn Charter. And Justin Renfrow loves him some UVA in return:

“Virginia had been my No. 1 school since my freshman year,” Renfrow said.

Besides the above quote, the CDP apparently can also be counted on for Baghdad Bob-ian exaggerations:

With numerous eye-popping offers coming almost daily, Justin Renfrow elected to follow in the footsteps of Sean Singletary.

And where are these "eye-popping" offers coming from?

Renfrow, a three-star recruit, boasted offers from Stanford, West Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut, Duke and Temple, and discussed playing tight end with coaches from Miami and Louisville.

Huh. Well, since we're talking about football, and not, say, law degrees (or even basketball), Duke and Temple are the kind of offers that pretty much don't even cause your eye to lift from the newspaper it's reading let alone go BOING out of the skull. But that's neither here nor there. Renfrow is commit #17, and that number ties us for 5th with Auburn and Texas A&M in the country at the moment for number of recruits. Right now nobody can touch Ohio State, which is taking all the drama out of January for their fans by rolling in 24 commits before July. But damn - stack up the class of '09 against the class of '08 and you'll start to wonder what magical Recruitin' Elixir did Al Groh snarf up sometime in March?

And speaking of eye-popping offers, it's also nice to snag yet another one away from West Virginia. Having run out of eggs to throw at Rich Rodriguez's house, they've broken out a fresh batch of moonshine. MGoBlog used to tag posts "West Virginia is a post-apocalyptic den of insanity", and Brian didn't stop doing that because he ran out of material, he stopped because there's only so much gold you can carry back from the mine. I'm picking up for a little bit where he left off with this thread from their Scout board: Morgan Moses.

Moses is an offensive lineman that we're right in the hunt for; some WVU fans think there is no hunt because he's already silent-verbaled to Groh. This is of course the Scout board, where the polite way to describe most members is "hope springs eternal" and the truth is closer to "blindfolded psychos playing in traffic." Some gems:

he will be surrounded by inferrior talent at UVa, in the WVU spread he will be blocking for the best run game in college football, he will be on TV every january and on featured ESPN games multiple times a year, UVA he might get one national game a year, two IF they would make a bowl, BIG IF though!

Taking a quick look at our TV schedule so far - yup, "ESPN" is still attached to the first set of games - apparently 1 = 3 in WVU Math. Which bodes ill for this next statement:

Once you get 500 miles outside either school everyone thinks WVU education is just as good.

Uh, yeah.

Moving on.

The NBA draft was yesterday night. Sean Singletary, who would not let his 6'0"-on-stilts body stop him from knocking over a rhinoceros if it was between him and an offensive rebound, and who needs something named after him at UVA the sooner the better, became the first Hoo drafted to the League since Roger Mason. Mason, you may remember, was drafted by the Bulls, didn't stick, bounced around Europe for a little while, and is now a respectable if not well-known bench contributor for the Wizards. Singletary is in a decent spot - about as decent as a second-round pick can be in, anyway. The Kings (for that is his new team) have Beno Udrih as their starting point guard, which is in large part why they suck; Udrih was 44th in APG this year. The Kings also have Anthony Johnson and Quincy Douby - both are, technically, schmos. It may be a bit much to expect Singletary to be the Kings' starting point guard coming out of camp next October, but there is a real opportunity for him to make himself part of the rotation.