Yesterday, obviously, was part one. If you missed it, we're going player by player and trying to figure out what to expect from them. We'll do that, and then a rough sketch of what I expect from this season. And we left off with:
#15 - Sylven Landesberg
Best-case scenario: Develops jump shot. Scores points at a rapid clip and doesn't drop off much as ACC season wears on. Decides Tony Bennett is building something special and stays to see it through.
Worst-case scenario: Doesn't develop jump shot. Defenses figure him out the way they did last year. Scoring is still wicked high anyway, NBA scouts drool and convince him to make the leap.
If Allen Iverson is the Answer and Paul Pierce is the Truth, Sylven Landesberg is the Reason. As in, the Reason last year didn't suck as bad as it could have, and the Reason this year should be better. The Reason people are excited about basketball, and the Reason butts are going to be in the seats. You chalk Syl up for 15 points every night, minimum, and then everything above that is why he's that good. Better yet, nobody will ever accuse him of being a ballhog.
But there are nitpicks, as always. He could stand to turn the ball over less. Could be a little bit better three-point shooter. Could be a bit better conditioned - but you gotta cut him some slack for being a freshman in that respect. If Landesberg doesn't improve on any of this stuff, he'll still be a dynamic player, one of the very best in the ACC. After all, he scores, rebounds, scores, dishes, scores, and rebounds. If he does improve? He'll make all his teammates better too. And he's got the work ethic and motivation to make you confident he'll start off great and get better. If he decides to be a four-year player at UVA, he'll join Sampson, Singletary, and the rest in the rafters. Respect the Reason.
#23 - Jeff Jones
Best-case scenario: Shoots well.
Worst-case scenario: Shoots poorly.
This will sound unfairly harsh. But one of the reasons we've been so bad lately is because the guy we recruited for the role of top gun from outside has been shooting the ball so badly. Shooting percentage last year: .345. Worst on the team unless you count Solomon Tat, who took 15 shots all year. Three-point percentage: .290. Jones was the star recruit of the '07 class and we beat a lot of ACC schools for his services. But it hasn't come together.
However. Good things have been said about his performances in preseason work. And shooting in college isn't any different than shooting in high school, at least, not in the way, say, defense is, or learning new schemes. It's one of those things that's 90% technical and the other half is mental. Jones was a deadeye shooter in high school, and hell, Tony Bennett was known for his shooting in his playing days and still thinks he can beat anyone. So it's not something you forget how to do. Jones was another victim of Leitao's magic-8-ball rotations last year, and like Farrakhan, we should be able to find out whether a more settled role for Jones means better shooting. It's a make-or-break year for him, and he'll be judged almost completely on his jump shots.
#24 - Tristan Spurlock
Best-case scenario: Plays his way into the starting lineup. 20-25 minutes a night. ACC Freshman of the Year candidate.
Worst-case scenario: Plays his way further down the bench. 8-12 minutes a night, and fewer as the season goes on. Just a plain ol' freshman.
Whew. One of the first things Tony Bennett did to endear him to the fans was to convince Spurlock to stay on board after the coaching change. Let's face it. This rebuilding project would have been a million times harder if an entire recruiting class had disappeared into the vapor, and everyone knew it. Spurlock is crucial. He's the bridge into the Tony Bennett era. (Evans, too.)
Spurlock should be seen as essentially the replacement for Mamadi Diane. And I hate to say this because we all liked Diane, but that is one of the three reasons I guarantee we'll be better than 11th. No friggin' way Spurlock is as unproductive as Diane post-injury. That injury ruined a perfectly good player. Take out Diane's six points a game and replace it with eight from Spurlock, but with the potential for more and the talent to push his way into the starting lineup. Spurlock's not going to go all Sylven Landesberg on us and explode onto the scene that way, but that was an exceedingly rare thing to see. What we really want is for him to prove himself indispensible, force his way into the starting lineup, and become the second or third scoring option. And of course, play defense. That'll be counted as living up to his recruiting rankings, and it'll be a good thing for this season but a fantastic thing for the future.
#32 - Mike Scott
Best-case scenario: Continues to boost his rebounding, and figures out how to be more assertive on offense. Primary post scoring option. Double-double machine.
Worst-case scenario: Stagnates.
It's weird about Scott. Clearly, he was the team's second-best player last year after Landesberg, and his stats are very pleasing to the eye. He was the team's leader in double-doubles, the leading rebounder, and leading shooter by percentage at a very nice .544. Plus, he can shoot free throws, which makes him dangerous as a big man. And yet there's this feeling he can be so much better. This comes from actually watching him. He's a natural rebounder and collects them through sheer force of will, a skill that has a way of occasionally disappearing. He's got a number of good moves on offense, which he occasionally refuses to use. There's always a sense of something left out. If Scott starts using the same force of will with the ball in his hands in the post, good things will happen. He'll have more offensive rebounds, simply by virtue of tipping in misses. He'll have a lot more points, because he's good at putting the ball in the basket when he wants to and he shoots free throws well. Scott can and should be our second scoring option, but the danger is that he might not know it.
#45 - Solomon Tat
Best-case scenario: Can be called on for a few good minutes and hold down the fort for a bit while we work off some foul trouble, or worse, injury trouble. In other words, '07-'08.
Worst-case scenario: As with last year, team exasperates coach so much that he is inserted into the starting lineup because nobody else is really deserving of the "starter" label. In other words, '08-'09.
Tat doesn't do anything especially well, though he's a respectable defender. The good news is that he's not usually a disaster in any aspect either. That might be damning with faint praise, but the harsh truth is that if Tat is in the regular rotation, we are in major trouble. In '07-'08, Tat shot the ball well in his limited time and did basically what I think the best-case is: get a little pre-garbage time in blowouts, came in every so often when we hit some really bad foul trouble, and looked respectable against the other team's bench. Last year? He hit four shots. All year long. This is probably because Leitao kept starting him and throwing him out there against the best the ACC had to offer. Largely, I think, to prove a point to the rest of the team. This was batshit insane. Tat works very hard and is a reasonably good defender (it's why Leitao saw fit to start him) but doesn't have ACC-caliber skills (it's why Leitao sat him at the first opportunity.) If played sparingly and against the right opposing players, Tat will be a contributor. This will happen, because Tony Bennett isn't batshit insane.
#55 - Jerome Meyinsse
Best-case scenario: Decent second-unit big-man.
Worst-case scenario: Gets eaten up by ACC second-line centers.
Fun fact: Meyinsse's middle name means "God-given" in French. That has nothing to do with basketball, but I like it. Anyway, Meyinsse, in an ideal world, would be exclusively a forward, and we would have a second seven-footer (or nearly so) to play center in John Brandenburg. We don't, so Meyinsse is going to have to be a center. And most definitely not on the first unit, except for in these first couple games while Sene works off his suspension and Scott gets his foot healthy. (Major uh-oh.) This is not going to go well, but fortunately it's not ACC play yet. Because Meyinsse just isn't a center.
That being the case, he isn't going to be asked to be much of a scoring option. He'll be judged on how well he can defend other guys who aren't really centers and the occasional majorly gumpy white kid with seven-foot height and no foot speed. However, he also might be the brainiest guy on the team and should pick up the ins and outs of Bennett's pack-line defense as well as anyone. He's also got a positive A/T ratio, an extreme rarity in a big man. Bottom line: Meyinsse is a little-thing guy, not a stat sheet guy.
Outlook
I said it before and I'll say it again. The media predicted we'd finish 11th again. I guarantee - guarantee - we will improve on that. Three reasons:
1. Leitao was considered a sub-average X's and O's coach. Bennett is considered an X's and O's ninja. We should see a major, major improvement in in-game coaching.
2. Nearly everyone in the ACC loses at least one major scoring component. We do not. We lose Tunji Soroye - big-man depth, but no scoring - and Mamadi Diane, who is replaced by Tristan Spurlock. Spurlock will be a big improvement over '08-'09 Diane.
3. We have the easy, Duke-only-once, UNC-only-once schedule this year.
I fully expect us to make some kind of postseason tournament this year. Even if it's just the CBI or whatever that other one is. If we play to our capability, we can be an NIT team. If we play out of our minds, I don't think it's a major stretch to say we could be a bubble team come February. This would be exciting, but probably unlikely. As I said, I guarantee we'll improve on that 11th place finish - the fun part will be finding out how much.
I think three players will be the big keys to all this. Obviously everyone has to contribute, but the biggest three are these:
- Jontel Evans.
- Jeff Jones.
- Mike Scott.
Evans, because if he can be a dependable second point guard, we can rotate that position between him and Sammy almost exclusively and use our other players where they'll be at their most effective. Jones, because we could not shoot last year and had absolutely no outside threat whatsoever. Changing that will be huge. Scott, because we're a major donut team (no middle) and he's the only chance we have to get any scoring from inside.
OK. So on the principle of perfect honesty, that paragraph was written pre-trivia night at O'Brien's, and this and all following paragraphs are written post-trivia night. Which is to say, post-beer. I promise I will reread this and if any of this stuff makes no sense, I'll fix it. Meantime, I remind you I am not actual media, I am a blogger, and I get to write when I want, how I want. And if that means holding my thoughts on the schedule until after I'm done getting shitty and answering trivia questions, so be it.
Anyway, our schedule. As I mentioned, we have the easy conference schedule this year. It's the same one we had in 2007, which sent us to the NCAA tournament as a fourth seed and the ACC tournament tied for #1 in the regular season. So that is a big plus. Duke and UNC will crush our souls, but only once. The non-conference schedule is....interesting. There are, for starters, an inordinate number of crappy independent teams, all of whom we should beat handily. The rest of it looks like a bunch of teams we also should beat handily, but beware. Remember: Liberty. We have, for example, Oral Roberts. It's teams like that, or Rider maybe, that could end up as trap games. We'd be a nice feather in their cap - they don't care about the difference between a bad ACC team and a good one, they just want to beat one.
Bottom line is that trying to get to the Dance on a schedule like this is nigh-impossible. It's light on big-timers. But that's not the goal, that'd be gravy. But just plain ol' wins? That's what this schedule is for. That's why I say, I expect to be in a postseason tournament. Look, if you can manage a .500 record as an ACC team, you're getting invited somewhere. We can make .500 with this schedule, easy. There might be some losses in there - Auburn, last year, turned out not to be the SEC whipping boy they were when we scheduled 'em. But there's enough NJITs to roll over for us. I don't know how much of this schedule is Littlepage's idea and how much is Tony Bennett's, but it's just the medicine for a rebuilding squad like ours that isn't too sure how good they are.
So, to reiterate and summarize: Postseason play should be in the cards. An ACC finish better than 11th is a guarantee. Both father and son Bennett are trying to downplay this team's potential so as not to set everyone up for disappointment, and in some ways they're honestly telling the cold hard truth and in some ways they're just doing a little PA and managing expectations. Don't be fooled. I believe this team has potential, has talent, and has coaching. I thought that Dave Leitao could take it to the NIT. I still think that's realistic. Acknowledge the realities, but do not let your expectations slip. This team has question marks, but it has answers too. They'll surprise some folks. They'll never score as few as 45 points, Gottlieb, you idiot. (Douche.) And they will play in a postseason tournament, after the ACC one. Expect that. And enjoy the ride, as they find out just how far past that they can go.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
guess what? it's hoops season!
And that is a blessing and a half. Our season doesn't actually open up til Friday, but in symbolic celebration, I'm once again eschewing the usual weekend review, which is typically very football-heavy, in favor of a leetle something I've been tossing around in my head for a while. (Though I did update the recruiting board so you could look at it with Khalek Shepherd included.)
Anyway, you might be asking yourself - well, no, you're probably not, so I'll ask for you: how come I haven't done any season previews of any teams like I do for football and did last year? To tell you the truth, last year about two weeks ago I slapped myself on the head, having fully intended to do a full set of previews and not having started. So I got cranking and didn't finish for quite a while. And when I got to the end, the season had already started and I found that these things were a lot easier to write when I had the benefit of a few nonconference games to work from. So that's the plan this year. Our last game before the break for finals is December 7; right around there is when the season preview series will kick off. This plan is almost certain to fail miserably given that all the trappings of a football coaching search will probably occupying all our thoughts, but that's life. And this post will serve as our own season preview, though the rest of them won't follow this format.
This format being, I'll go through the roster, roughly in numerical order, and offer up my thoughts on best-case and worst-case scenarios for each player. Oh, and it'll be a two-part series. Without further ado, then:
#0 - Doug Browman
#10 - Tom Jonke
#11 - Thomas Kody
#22 - Will Sherrill
Best-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout wins.
Worst-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout losses.
Walk-ons, yo. And I don't remember ever having more than three, but such is the way of the Bennett, apparently. Sherrill is the only one with experience on the team, although Jonke is an old team manager and apparently Bennett decided to reward him with a uniform. Which is kinda cool, actually. Now, the real worst-case scenario - no offense to walk-on types - is that we have to actually rely on them for non-garbage minutes. You know you're in serious rebuilding mode when that happens.
#1 - Jontel Evans
Best-case scenario: Is every bit the feisty on-ball defender of his reputation. Backup point guard, but the kind whose minutes don't fluctuate wildly up and down because so do his turnover numbers. Not lighting up the score sheet, but dependable.
Worst-case scenario: Is every bit the freshman that he is. Gets benched midseason for entire games because his decision-making is driving Bennett to distraction.
Evans is going to be one of the absolute most critically important guys on the team this year. No exaggeration. This team will be at its most effective if Baker and Landesberg don't have to pick up all kinds of minutes at the 1 because we don't have a decent backup point guard. Quality play - or not - from Evans is going to be one of the biggest factors making up the difference between scratching and clawing for the CBI or - in my wildest fantasies - having Selection Day matter. We don't need Evans to score in double digits all the time, and he won't whether or not he's getting significant minutes. We just need him to play nasty defense and put the ball in the right person's hands at the right time on offense.
#2 - Mustapha Farrakhan
Best-case scenario: Reliable three-point shooter off the bench.
Worst-case scenario: Carbon copy of last year.
Mu is one of those guys who no offense but if he's in the starting lineup too frequently, we're in trouble. He had a couple really spectacular games last year. In just 12 minutes against Virginia Poly in January, he bombed home 17 points and shot 4-of-5 from three-land. Very nicely done. That's the kind of thing that earns you major minutes the next game, which he got against UNC (led the team with 27, actually) and proceeded to hoist up 15 shots, only four of which found their way through. Eww. Story of the season for Farrakhan. He had a few other really good games, but too many of them ended up with lines like 1-for-5 or 0-for-7 and spawned a chicken-or-the-egg debate about whether his ridiculously inconsistent shooting was the result of his ridiculously inconsistent spot in the rotation, or vice versa.
He actually was second on the team in 3PT%, however, behind the maddening Jamil Tucker. If he can kind of harness those same numbers and improve his two-point shooting (it can't be too hard to improve on .347 - that's awful) and play with some consistency, he'll be extremely useful as a guy who can rotate in, knock down a shot or two, and generally ensure that the offense doesn't go off a cliff when the starters go out. I have confidence that Bennett's rotations will be less magic-8-ball-inspired than Leitao's were last year ("Should Mustapha play tonight?" "Outlook not so good.") and we'll find out if consistent minutes = consistent shooting, or if Farrakhan shoots his way right out of the rotation entirely.
#4 - Calvin Baker
Best-case scenario: Quality veteran leadership from the two, and a steadying presence on both ends of the floor. Learns when to take the shot and when not to.
Worst-case scenario: Pressed into point-guard duty and continues to play the position as a CAA-level player.
The first year after Baker's transfer from William & Mary, he was sort of a pleasant surprise. The second year, last year, the flaws in his game seemed more apparent, along with the reason he wasn't an ACC player in the first place. But the basic fact is, we pretty much know what we're getting with Baker. About eight points a game, three assists, and a couple rebounds. His stats didn't really change from year to year. What changed was his percentages. He seemingly forgot how to shoot and his shooting percentages, both from two and from three, plummeted. What really changed was his position. Forced to play a lot of point guard after Sean Singletary graduated, Baker didn't really prove himself the man for that job, hoisting up some majorly ill-advised shots at times and passing up good ones.
Calvin's one of the team's undisputed leaders and generally one of the more fundamentally sound players, and he's going to get his minutes. But we will have a much better team - and Baker will be a much better player - if he is manning the two on the second unit rather than the one. We'll need his scoring and leadership, but we can live without his point-guard decision-making.
#5 - Assane Sene
Best-case scenario: Big-time rebounder, scary shot-blocker, provider of a little bit of timely big-man offense. Also, fouls less.
Worst-case scenario: Can't overcome whatever academic and/or disciplinary problems led to his suspension and stays in the doghouse all season. Transfers.
We have, like, kiddie-pool depth in the frontcourt, so the news that Sene would be suspended for the first three games of the season was not happy time. We really could have used John Brandenburg this year - Sene is now the only guy we have that's legitimately a big man and a center. No, Meyinsse is not a center, he's a 4 pressed into 5 duty. Along with Evans, Sene will be critical to our success. With Sene, we have a center. Without him, we have a lineup that's charitably described as "small-ball." The last thing we need is him in the doghouse, and the second-to-last thing we need is him in constant foul trouble like he was last year. When he's not on the bench with too many fouls, he's an offense-altering shot blocker and a pretty good rebounder, and in the latter department he should only improve. But he is also one of the biggest enigmas, and outside of the two freshmen, I don't think anyone knows where his development is leading him right now. With as few options as we have in the frontcourt, the answer to that question is program-altering.
#12 - Jamil Tucker
Best-case scenario: Figures out the non-shooting aspects of the game enough to provide steady rotation minutes and become an indispensable scorer.
Worst-case scenario: Doesn't bother. Gets benched.
Jamil Tucker is maddening. Other than Landesberg, he was the only guy last season who consistently, game in and game out, could fill up the bucket. He was the top three-point shooter last year and one of only three on the team to top a .400 shooting percentage - a very respectable .442, actually. But his defense makes you go RRRGH and for a guy his size, he shows very little interest in rebounding. When people say they want to see improved fundamentals from this team, Tucker is the guy they're thinking of most. Neither Bennett nor Leitao suffer non-defense-playing fools gladly, which is why an offensively starved team last year kept one of its most offensively productive players on the bench so much. Bennett will do the same if Tucker refuses to defend. We will be very much improved on offense this year if Tucker earns himself a lot of meaningful minutes, because his ability to score isn't in question. But Bennett's not going to let Tucker slough off the other end of the floor, and guys like Baker and Spurlock will absorb his minutes. Tucker's probably too good on offense to shut entirely out of the rotation, but don't let yourself be surprised if Bennett does it anyway should Tucker continue ignoring everything about basketball but scoring.
#13 - Sammy Zeglinski
Best-case scenario: Puts the starting point guard job on lockdown. Is first-half Sammy from last year.
Worst-case scenario: Puts starting point guard job up for grabs. Is second-half Sammy from last year.
Last year, this team looked fairly respectable early, in part because Sammy was proving himself a very pleasant surprise. He didn't look like a freshman who'd just missed almost a full year because of an ankle injury. He ran the point smoothly, and shot the ball well. In two moral-victory losses in hostile arenas, he really gave everyone hope that we'd be respectable going forward. Something traumatic and scary must have happened during final exams, though, because after that break, his shot was gone, and a month or so later, so was his starting gig (though he still saw significant minutes off the bench.) He had his moments; the win over Clemson was a gem as far as Z was concerned - 6-for-6 from the field, 15 points, 6 assists, it was brilliant. Mostly, though, Sammy was a freshman point guard and it showed during the ACC half of the season.
Myself, I think we'll see improvement this season. Now that Sammy's got a full season of bringing the ball up the court against ACC competition, my guess is we'll see a lot more of Good Sammy this year. Bad Sammy won't disappear, but as Tony Bennett works his magic and Z's conditioning improves, his development curve will go the other way this year, which is to say, the way it's supposed to. He'll be the default starter at the point this year, and we're going to have to get ready to live or die by his play because, basically, he's what we got.
That's Part 1. Part 2: tomorrow. Oh look, I stopped just before I got to the number one honcho. That's what they call a cliffhanger, isn't it? Actually, we just basically happen to be halfway through the roster if you count all those walk-ons as one player. But still. Tune in tomorrow to see what I think of Sylven Landesberg (hot tip: he's pretty good) and also, our prize recruit.
Anyway, you might be asking yourself - well, no, you're probably not, so I'll ask for you: how come I haven't done any season previews of any teams like I do for football and did last year? To tell you the truth, last year about two weeks ago I slapped myself on the head, having fully intended to do a full set of previews and not having started. So I got cranking and didn't finish for quite a while. And when I got to the end, the season had already started and I found that these things were a lot easier to write when I had the benefit of a few nonconference games to work from. So that's the plan this year. Our last game before the break for finals is December 7; right around there is when the season preview series will kick off. This plan is almost certain to fail miserably given that all the trappings of a football coaching search will probably occupying all our thoughts, but that's life. And this post will serve as our own season preview, though the rest of them won't follow this format.
This format being, I'll go through the roster, roughly in numerical order, and offer up my thoughts on best-case and worst-case scenarios for each player. Oh, and it'll be a two-part series. Without further ado, then:
#0 - Doug Browman
#10 - Tom Jonke
#11 - Thomas Kody
#22 - Will Sherrill
Best-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout wins.
Worst-case scenario: Garbage time in a few blowout losses.
Walk-ons, yo. And I don't remember ever having more than three, but such is the way of the Bennett, apparently. Sherrill is the only one with experience on the team, although Jonke is an old team manager and apparently Bennett decided to reward him with a uniform. Which is kinda cool, actually. Now, the real worst-case scenario - no offense to walk-on types - is that we have to actually rely on them for non-garbage minutes. You know you're in serious rebuilding mode when that happens.
#1 - Jontel Evans
Best-case scenario: Is every bit the feisty on-ball defender of his reputation. Backup point guard, but the kind whose minutes don't fluctuate wildly up and down because so do his turnover numbers. Not lighting up the score sheet, but dependable.
Worst-case scenario: Is every bit the freshman that he is. Gets benched midseason for entire games because his decision-making is driving Bennett to distraction.
Evans is going to be one of the absolute most critically important guys on the team this year. No exaggeration. This team will be at its most effective if Baker and Landesberg don't have to pick up all kinds of minutes at the 1 because we don't have a decent backup point guard. Quality play - or not - from Evans is going to be one of the biggest factors making up the difference between scratching and clawing for the CBI or - in my wildest fantasies - having Selection Day matter. We don't need Evans to score in double digits all the time, and he won't whether or not he's getting significant minutes. We just need him to play nasty defense and put the ball in the right person's hands at the right time on offense.
#2 - Mustapha Farrakhan
Best-case scenario: Reliable three-point shooter off the bench.
Worst-case scenario: Carbon copy of last year.
Mu is one of those guys who no offense but if he's in the starting lineup too frequently, we're in trouble. He had a couple really spectacular games last year. In just 12 minutes against Virginia Poly in January, he bombed home 17 points and shot 4-of-5 from three-land. Very nicely done. That's the kind of thing that earns you major minutes the next game, which he got against UNC (led the team with 27, actually) and proceeded to hoist up 15 shots, only four of which found their way through. Eww. Story of the season for Farrakhan. He had a few other really good games, but too many of them ended up with lines like 1-for-5 or 0-for-7 and spawned a chicken-or-the-egg debate about whether his ridiculously inconsistent shooting was the result of his ridiculously inconsistent spot in the rotation, or vice versa.
He actually was second on the team in 3PT%, however, behind the maddening Jamil Tucker. If he can kind of harness those same numbers and improve his two-point shooting (it can't be too hard to improve on .347 - that's awful) and play with some consistency, he'll be extremely useful as a guy who can rotate in, knock down a shot or two, and generally ensure that the offense doesn't go off a cliff when the starters go out. I have confidence that Bennett's rotations will be less magic-8-ball-inspired than Leitao's were last year ("Should Mustapha play tonight?" "Outlook not so good.") and we'll find out if consistent minutes = consistent shooting, or if Farrakhan shoots his way right out of the rotation entirely.
#4 - Calvin Baker
Best-case scenario: Quality veteran leadership from the two, and a steadying presence on both ends of the floor. Learns when to take the shot and when not to.
Worst-case scenario: Pressed into point-guard duty and continues to play the position as a CAA-level player.
The first year after Baker's transfer from William & Mary, he was sort of a pleasant surprise. The second year, last year, the flaws in his game seemed more apparent, along with the reason he wasn't an ACC player in the first place. But the basic fact is, we pretty much know what we're getting with Baker. About eight points a game, three assists, and a couple rebounds. His stats didn't really change from year to year. What changed was his percentages. He seemingly forgot how to shoot and his shooting percentages, both from two and from three, plummeted. What really changed was his position. Forced to play a lot of point guard after Sean Singletary graduated, Baker didn't really prove himself the man for that job, hoisting up some majorly ill-advised shots at times and passing up good ones.
Calvin's one of the team's undisputed leaders and generally one of the more fundamentally sound players, and he's going to get his minutes. But we will have a much better team - and Baker will be a much better player - if he is manning the two on the second unit rather than the one. We'll need his scoring and leadership, but we can live without his point-guard decision-making.
#5 - Assane Sene
Best-case scenario: Big-time rebounder, scary shot-blocker, provider of a little bit of timely big-man offense. Also, fouls less.
Worst-case scenario: Can't overcome whatever academic and/or disciplinary problems led to his suspension and stays in the doghouse all season. Transfers.
We have, like, kiddie-pool depth in the frontcourt, so the news that Sene would be suspended for the first three games of the season was not happy time. We really could have used John Brandenburg this year - Sene is now the only guy we have that's legitimately a big man and a center. No, Meyinsse is not a center, he's a 4 pressed into 5 duty. Along with Evans, Sene will be critical to our success. With Sene, we have a center. Without him, we have a lineup that's charitably described as "small-ball." The last thing we need is him in the doghouse, and the second-to-last thing we need is him in constant foul trouble like he was last year. When he's not on the bench with too many fouls, he's an offense-altering shot blocker and a pretty good rebounder, and in the latter department he should only improve. But he is also one of the biggest enigmas, and outside of the two freshmen, I don't think anyone knows where his development is leading him right now. With as few options as we have in the frontcourt, the answer to that question is program-altering.
#12 - Jamil Tucker
Best-case scenario: Figures out the non-shooting aspects of the game enough to provide steady rotation minutes and become an indispensable scorer.
Worst-case scenario: Doesn't bother. Gets benched.
Jamil Tucker is maddening. Other than Landesberg, he was the only guy last season who consistently, game in and game out, could fill up the bucket. He was the top three-point shooter last year and one of only three on the team to top a .400 shooting percentage - a very respectable .442, actually. But his defense makes you go RRRGH and for a guy his size, he shows very little interest in rebounding. When people say they want to see improved fundamentals from this team, Tucker is the guy they're thinking of most. Neither Bennett nor Leitao suffer non-defense-playing fools gladly, which is why an offensively starved team last year kept one of its most offensively productive players on the bench so much. Bennett will do the same if Tucker refuses to defend. We will be very much improved on offense this year if Tucker earns himself a lot of meaningful minutes, because his ability to score isn't in question. But Bennett's not going to let Tucker slough off the other end of the floor, and guys like Baker and Spurlock will absorb his minutes. Tucker's probably too good on offense to shut entirely out of the rotation, but don't let yourself be surprised if Bennett does it anyway should Tucker continue ignoring everything about basketball but scoring.
#13 - Sammy Zeglinski
Best-case scenario: Puts the starting point guard job on lockdown. Is first-half Sammy from last year.
Worst-case scenario: Puts starting point guard job up for grabs. Is second-half Sammy from last year.
Last year, this team looked fairly respectable early, in part because Sammy was proving himself a very pleasant surprise. He didn't look like a freshman who'd just missed almost a full year because of an ankle injury. He ran the point smoothly, and shot the ball well. In two moral-victory losses in hostile arenas, he really gave everyone hope that we'd be respectable going forward. Something traumatic and scary must have happened during final exams, though, because after that break, his shot was gone, and a month or so later, so was his starting gig (though he still saw significant minutes off the bench.) He had his moments; the win over Clemson was a gem as far as Z was concerned - 6-for-6 from the field, 15 points, 6 assists, it was brilliant. Mostly, though, Sammy was a freshman point guard and it showed during the ACC half of the season.
Myself, I think we'll see improvement this season. Now that Sammy's got a full season of bringing the ball up the court against ACC competition, my guess is we'll see a lot more of Good Sammy this year. Bad Sammy won't disappear, but as Tony Bennett works his magic and Z's conditioning improves, his development curve will go the other way this year, which is to say, the way it's supposed to. He'll be the default starter at the point this year, and we're going to have to get ready to live or die by his play because, basically, he's what we got.
That's Part 1. Part 2: tomorrow. Oh look, I stopped just before I got to the number one honcho. That's what they call a cliffhanger, isn't it? Actually, we just basically happen to be halfway through the roster if you count all those walk-ons as one player. But still. Tune in tomorrow to see what I think of Sylven Landesberg (hot tip: he's pretty good) and also, our prize recruit.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
how bad are we? this bad
So, in the middle of watching our putrid offense fumblefuck its way to another big loss, I had two minor epiphanies. I watched a ton of Jeopardy growing up and still enjoy it, so they came to me in the form of questions. The second I'll get to in a bit. The first was this:
- When's the last time we put together a real, honest-to-Jebus, actual drive? I mean actually drove down the field for a real live touchdown?
Both of our TDs against Miami were the result of a blocked punt, and the field goal was because we couldn't advance the ball after gettting nice field position on an interception. We didn't put the ball in the end zone against Georgia Tech at all, and our offense's one touchdown against Maryland was the result of a one-yard drive.
So I decided to go back and find out. Criteria for a drive in this instance:
- Has to start inside our own 35. In other words, we can't be handed gift-wrapped field position thanks to a turnover or a long return (which itself is pretty rare.)
- Has to result in a touchdown. Settling for field goals all the time is why we lose.
- Can't include a play that goes for longer than half the drive. So no heaving it down the field and making a lucky grab. We have to actually march the distance. Get positive yards, positive yards, positive yards, and keep doing it consistently and sustainably.
It turns out that we have exactly six such drives all season. Six! In nine games. The count is: one against William & Mary, two against Southern Miss, two against Indiana, and one against Duke. (There's a third one against IU that started on our own 36, just outside my arbitrary line, but it's balanced by the fact that one that I counted was basically just three long plays interspersed with incomplete passes. Besides, the Duke one started on the 34.) So they've all come in four games this season, which means that in the five other games, we've completely failed to mount a drive on offense and have either relied on the defense to put us in good position to score, or settled for field goals. Or just not scored.
It's kind of a useless number without a comparison, and they don't keep stats on that number, so I can't tell you that we're like 115th out of 120 or something. (We probably are.) I did look at two other teams though: UNC and Georgia Tech. UNC, because they're the next-sorriest offense after ours, and GT, because I figured they were probably the kings of long-ass drives.
UNC has seven such drives all season. Only one more than our six, but they have one in each of seven games. So they can actually depend on their offense to produce such a drive. GT has (hang on, lemme count up my tally marks) fifteen. Not only can they count on their offense to produce a long, clock-chewing drive, they can usually expect more than one such drive in a game.
So in the last four games, we've mounted one halfway decent drive for a touchdown, that being against, y'know, Duke. Two of the other five came against Southern Miss, whose coach admitted to being completely fooled that we'd scrapped the super-spread look of the first two games, so chalk those up to a surprise that works exactly once. Two more were against Indiana. I don't know where the 536 yards of offense came from, but I figure it's just our yearly "rochambeau some unsuspecting poor bastard at random" game that we can't ever duplicate. (Last year it was Maryland and the year before, Miami.) The other was against a I-AA opponent that we still couldn't beat.
So I've changed my outlook a tad, not that it much matters with three games left on the docket. I used to think if we were going to win a game, we needed to catch a bad defense. That's why I thought we could knock off Georgia Tech. Silly me: it doesn't matter what defense we play. Whether it's the Pittsburgh Steelers or Sisters of the Poor, the offense can't gain yards against it. If we're going to snag a win somewhere, our defense has to consistently be able to fuck someone up and hand us short fields or score themselves. It's no coincidence we have two ACC wins and they're against the other two worst offenses in the league, and two of the four with a negative turnover margin. (We don't play the other two.)
The next worst after those two is Clemson at 5.1 yards per play and a middling turnover margin. BC likewise is not great, with 5.4 yards and a dead-even turnover margin. We weren't ever going to actually beat a good offense like Miami and GT, because no defense in the world can overcome the massive talent gap that exists between our offense and a good one.
Which leads to epiphany #2:
- Has Latrell Scott torpedoed our entire offense?
The more I watch the offense, the more I'm disgusted with the wide receiver play. They had another brutal day against Miami, catching four of Verica's 11 completions. 5 of 13 against Duke. Our top wide receiver is Kris Burd, and he's 31st in receptions and 32nd in yardage in the conference.
I know we've never really been a receiver-heavy offense under Groh, but this is ridiculous. And I'm not letting the tight ends off the hook, either. Burd has outstripped all our WRs' production in 2007, but we had Tom Santi and Jon Stupar to pick us up. Joe Torchia hasn't stepped up.
Whether Scott is at fault for the putrid receiver play, though, is a lot harder to tease out of the numbers. He was only at Tennessee for one year, during which his charges showed neither marked improvement nor marked decline. And there are a lot of contributing factors here. The receivers are young and we lost our two best ones in the offseason. The offense has never emphasized the receivers and lives and dies by the short play. And so on.
It could be that this bunch just isn't supremely talented and is young to boot. If this is the case, then we were sold a bill of goods last summer. Jared Green had a good freshman season and is ready to step up. Matt Snyder has made a major impression in camp. Javaris Brown has tremendous speed. Tim Smith is an electric talent. None have made a dent in anything. Snyder has been glued to the bench all season. Green has regressed. Brown had two good games early in the season (in which two catches qualify as "good games" and has been totally invisible otherwise. Smith has been OK, but has suffered through all the freshman ups and downs.
You could blame the offense, but this is basically the same offense in which Ogletree and Covington combined for 90-odd catches last year. Al Groh's offense, despite the heavy use of tight ends and running backs in the receiving game, has never precluded us from having good receivers. You could claim the quarterback just isn't finding the receivers, but we've used three quarterbacks this year and none of them are finding the receivers.
All I know is that it's Scott's job to fix this mess and it ain't happening. I don't know whether that's because he has nothing to work with or because he's not a good coach. He's supposed to be this dynamic recruiter, but I'd sure like to see him teach our receivers to get open at some point - that being his primary job. Right now if I had to point to the number one cause of this rotten season, it's the inability of our receivers to get themselves open.
*****************************
Not many thoughts on the actual game. Not when we get beat by five touchdowns. However:
- Miami has got to be the worst sports town in the country. The Hurricanes were the only show in town yesterday. The Heat weren't playing. The Panthers were on the road (not that anyone in Miami knows what hockey is.) Even FIU was out of town. And the paid - not actual - attendance? 48,000. That stadium was sad-looking. There actually couldn't have been more than 35,000 in it. We can get 41,000 (paid not actual) customers to come watch our crap team play Duke, almost all of whom have to make at least an hour's drive to the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, and a metropolitan area of five and a half million can't even come close to filling up a stadium with tarps over one-fourth of the seats to watch the #16 team in the land? Weak.
- There is one bit of comfort to yesterday's game. Miami players were talking afterwards about how it felt good to get some revenge for 2007. That game must have really stung if it takes two years' worth of wins to get revenge for it.
- After Littlepage's vote of no confidence this week (yes, that's what it was) if this isn't what the end of a coaching tenure looks like, I don't want to find out what does.
- When's the last time we put together a real, honest-to-Jebus, actual drive? I mean actually drove down the field for a real live touchdown?
Both of our TDs against Miami were the result of a blocked punt, and the field goal was because we couldn't advance the ball after gettting nice field position on an interception. We didn't put the ball in the end zone against Georgia Tech at all, and our offense's one touchdown against Maryland was the result of a one-yard drive.
So I decided to go back and find out. Criteria for a drive in this instance:
- Has to start inside our own 35. In other words, we can't be handed gift-wrapped field position thanks to a turnover or a long return (which itself is pretty rare.)
- Has to result in a touchdown. Settling for field goals all the time is why we lose.
- Can't include a play that goes for longer than half the drive. So no heaving it down the field and making a lucky grab. We have to actually march the distance. Get positive yards, positive yards, positive yards, and keep doing it consistently and sustainably.
It turns out that we have exactly six such drives all season. Six! In nine games. The count is: one against William & Mary, two against Southern Miss, two against Indiana, and one against Duke. (There's a third one against IU that started on our own 36, just outside my arbitrary line, but it's balanced by the fact that one that I counted was basically just three long plays interspersed with incomplete passes. Besides, the Duke one started on the 34.) So they've all come in four games this season, which means that in the five other games, we've completely failed to mount a drive on offense and have either relied on the defense to put us in good position to score, or settled for field goals. Or just not scored.
It's kind of a useless number without a comparison, and they don't keep stats on that number, so I can't tell you that we're like 115th out of 120 or something. (We probably are.) I did look at two other teams though: UNC and Georgia Tech. UNC, because they're the next-sorriest offense after ours, and GT, because I figured they were probably the kings of long-ass drives.
UNC has seven such drives all season. Only one more than our six, but they have one in each of seven games. So they can actually depend on their offense to produce such a drive. GT has (hang on, lemme count up my tally marks) fifteen. Not only can they count on their offense to produce a long, clock-chewing drive, they can usually expect more than one such drive in a game.
So in the last four games, we've mounted one halfway decent drive for a touchdown, that being against, y'know, Duke. Two of the other five came against Southern Miss, whose coach admitted to being completely fooled that we'd scrapped the super-spread look of the first two games, so chalk those up to a surprise that works exactly once. Two more were against Indiana. I don't know where the 536 yards of offense came from, but I figure it's just our yearly "rochambeau some unsuspecting poor bastard at random" game that we can't ever duplicate. (Last year it was Maryland and the year before, Miami.) The other was against a I-AA opponent that we still couldn't beat.
So I've changed my outlook a tad, not that it much matters with three games left on the docket. I used to think if we were going to win a game, we needed to catch a bad defense. That's why I thought we could knock off Georgia Tech. Silly me: it doesn't matter what defense we play. Whether it's the Pittsburgh Steelers or Sisters of the Poor, the offense can't gain yards against it. If we're going to snag a win somewhere, our defense has to consistently be able to fuck someone up and hand us short fields or score themselves. It's no coincidence we have two ACC wins and they're against the other two worst offenses in the league, and two of the four with a negative turnover margin. (We don't play the other two.)
The next worst after those two is Clemson at 5.1 yards per play and a middling turnover margin. BC likewise is not great, with 5.4 yards and a dead-even turnover margin. We weren't ever going to actually beat a good offense like Miami and GT, because no defense in the world can overcome the massive talent gap that exists between our offense and a good one.
Which leads to epiphany #2:
- Has Latrell Scott torpedoed our entire offense?
The more I watch the offense, the more I'm disgusted with the wide receiver play. They had another brutal day against Miami, catching four of Verica's 11 completions. 5 of 13 against Duke. Our top wide receiver is Kris Burd, and he's 31st in receptions and 32nd in yardage in the conference.
I know we've never really been a receiver-heavy offense under Groh, but this is ridiculous. And I'm not letting the tight ends off the hook, either. Burd has outstripped all our WRs' production in 2007, but we had Tom Santi and Jon Stupar to pick us up. Joe Torchia hasn't stepped up.
Whether Scott is at fault for the putrid receiver play, though, is a lot harder to tease out of the numbers. He was only at Tennessee for one year, during which his charges showed neither marked improvement nor marked decline. And there are a lot of contributing factors here. The receivers are young and we lost our two best ones in the offseason. The offense has never emphasized the receivers and lives and dies by the short play. And so on.
It could be that this bunch just isn't supremely talented and is young to boot. If this is the case, then we were sold a bill of goods last summer. Jared Green had a good freshman season and is ready to step up. Matt Snyder has made a major impression in camp. Javaris Brown has tremendous speed. Tim Smith is an electric talent. None have made a dent in anything. Snyder has been glued to the bench all season. Green has regressed. Brown had two good games early in the season (in which two catches qualify as "good games" and has been totally invisible otherwise. Smith has been OK, but has suffered through all the freshman ups and downs.
You could blame the offense, but this is basically the same offense in which Ogletree and Covington combined for 90-odd catches last year. Al Groh's offense, despite the heavy use of tight ends and running backs in the receiving game, has never precluded us from having good receivers. You could claim the quarterback just isn't finding the receivers, but we've used three quarterbacks this year and none of them are finding the receivers.
All I know is that it's Scott's job to fix this mess and it ain't happening. I don't know whether that's because he has nothing to work with or because he's not a good coach. He's supposed to be this dynamic recruiter, but I'd sure like to see him teach our receivers to get open at some point - that being his primary job. Right now if I had to point to the number one cause of this rotten season, it's the inability of our receivers to get themselves open.
*****************************
Not many thoughts on the actual game. Not when we get beat by five touchdowns. However:
- Miami has got to be the worst sports town in the country. The Hurricanes were the only show in town yesterday. The Heat weren't playing. The Panthers were on the road (not that anyone in Miami knows what hockey is.) Even FIU was out of town. And the paid - not actual - attendance? 48,000. That stadium was sad-looking. There actually couldn't have been more than 35,000 in it. We can get 41,000 (paid not actual) customers to come watch our crap team play Duke, almost all of whom have to make at least an hour's drive to the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, and a metropolitan area of five and a half million can't even come close to filling up a stadium with tarps over one-fourth of the seats to watch the #16 team in the land? Weak.
- There is one bit of comfort to yesterday's game. Miami players were talking afterwards about how it felt good to get some revenge for 2007. That game must have really stung if it takes two years' worth of wins to get revenge for it.
- After Littlepage's vote of no confidence this week (yes, that's what it was) if this isn't what the end of a coaching tenure looks like, I don't want to find out what does.
Blogpoll ballot Week 10
A little later than normal, but here we go:
I belatedly took last week's advice and punted Boston College in favor of Clemson.
I suspect the denizens of Bloggerville will swing their first-place votes Alabama's way, but Alabama is hurt in my system by Virginia Tech not being quite the powerhouse they were thought to be, and I think Alabama's had a few too many too-close-for-comfort games.
Navy seemed high to me at first, but as Ohio State trends upward, so does Navy. Plus, a couple teams that they've beaten looked like ass at first but have been sort of sneaking towards decency (namely, Air Force and SMU.) Then again, they didn't look too impressive against Western Kentucky. Unfortunately they're done playing teams worth a damn, so it'll be even harder to tell from here on out.
This ballot took a while but I think the extra time was worth it - damn if it's not a pain in the butt trying to figure out exactly what to do with idiots like Oregon and Iowa that have pretty nice-looking resumes but decided to take this week off.
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | |
| 2 | Alabama |  1 |
| 3 | Florida |  1 |
| 4 | Georgia Tech | 3 |
| 5 | TCU | 4 |
| 6 | Cincinnati | 1 |
| 7 | Boise State | 1 |
| 8 | Houston | 4 |
| 9 | Oregon | 5 |
| 10 | Southern Cal | 4 |
| 11 | LSU | 1 |
| 12 | Ohio State | 6 |
| 13 | Pittsburgh | 2 |
| 14 | Iowa | 8 |
| 15 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 16 | Oklahoma State | 1 |
| 17 | Wisconsin | 1 |
| 18 | Penn State | 5 |
| 19 | Virginia Tech | 2 |
| 20 | Utah | 4 |
| 21 | Clemson | |
| 22 | Navy | |
| 23 | Arizona | 3 |
| 24 | Auburn | |
| 25 | Notre Dame | 6 |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: California (#22), South Florida (#23), Boston College (#25).
I belatedly took last week's advice and punted Boston College in favor of Clemson.
I suspect the denizens of Bloggerville will swing their first-place votes Alabama's way, but Alabama is hurt in my system by Virginia Tech not being quite the powerhouse they were thought to be, and I think Alabama's had a few too many too-close-for-comfort games.
Navy seemed high to me at first, but as Ohio State trends upward, so does Navy. Plus, a couple teams that they've beaten looked like ass at first but have been sort of sneaking towards decency (namely, Air Force and SMU.) Then again, they didn't look too impressive against Western Kentucky. Unfortunately they're done playing teams worth a damn, so it'll be even harder to tell from here on out.
This ballot took a while but I think the extra time was worth it - damn if it's not a pain in the butt trying to figure out exactly what to do with idiots like Oregon and Iowa that have pretty nice-looking resumes but decided to take this week off.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
game preview: Miami
Date/Time: November 7; 12:00
TV: Raycom
Last matchup: Miami 24, UVA 17 (2008)
Last week: never you mind what happened last week
Line: Miami by 14
Opposing blogs: Anton Azucar, The 7th Floor
It's still very weird that Miami is an every-year opponent these days. But it means we get next year to try and take revenge for whatever's going to happen this year.
It would appear, by the way, that Marc Verica is getting the start this Saturday. Whether that's because Sewell's ankle is bothering him, or because he's been playing poorly, or because he's been playing poorly because the ankle is bothering him, doesn't much matter. Neither, really, does the quarterback switch - not when the pocket collapses against a four-man rush on a regular basis and nobody can get open anyway.
HOW WE CAN WIN
- [null set]
HOW WE CAN LOSE
- Step onto the field.
HOW THE GAME WILL GO
We're doomed. Here, watch this instead.
REST OF THE ACC
Virginia Tech at East Carolina, right now
Maryland at NC State, 1:00
Duke at North Carolina, 3:30
Wake Forest at Georgia Tech, 3:30
Florida State at Clemson, 7:45
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
the recruit: Khalek Shepherd
Was going to profile Kevin Sumlin as a coaching candidate this week, but Sumlin is a guy who might come to UVA, and as of yesterday, Khalek Shepherd is a guy who will. So, priorities.
Name: Khalek Shepherd
Position: RB
Hometown: Brandywine, MD
School: Gwynn Park
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 170
ESPN: 76, #95 RB
Rivals: three stars, 5.5
Scout: three stars, #99 RB
Oops. You might recall, a few updates ago, I dropped Shepherd from the recruiting board. Smart move, obviously. In my defense, Shepherd's has been a weird recruitment, in that hardly any of it happened publicly and his so-called stock has been on a decidedly downward trend all year. He was an original member of the Rivals 250 and had four stars and all that, and shortly thereafter got passed up, dropped out, lost his fourth star, and settled in the middle ranges not only on Rivals but everywhere else. While all this was going on, nothing was being heard. No interviews, no "hey how's the recruiting going" stories on any of the websites.
This, I attribute to his father, a former NFLer himself. A guy who's had to deal with all this stuff might not want his son getting hounded by recruitnik types, and even now with the commitment, not a word has been heard out of Khalek's own mouth. His dad is doing all the talking.
The disconcerting thing is not his drop down the rankings. The services have all settled on a pretty much consistent rating for him. About as consistent as you'll ever see. It's not a great one, but no big deal. There's surely a penalty involved there for being 5'8", for one, which means strictly talent-wise he might be more of a, say, 78 on ESPN's scale. But Shepherd is said to have two other offers, Maryland and Boston College, which are fine schools to beat out for a recruit but those offers came ages ago. Where were all the other offers? It's weird. Again, though, this might have something to do with Dad (and coach - same guy) holding info about Shepherd under lock and key.
Not that it matters. What matters is what happens once Shepherd steps on a football field. We're clearly in need of some running back depth, though between he, Perry Jones, and K.P. Parks, we might find ourselves in need of running back height, too. Depth is exactly what Shepherd should provide. He's not going to be the type to carry 25 times a game, but he does shape up to be the kind of back that makes one excellent half of an effective tandem. If he turns out to be a decent pass-catcher then he could also move around between the backfield and the slot, depending on just how much spread offense is in our future. For a ceiling, think Mikell Simpson, only hopefully a bit harder to bring down.
I had thought we were done picking up running backs, but next year we lose both Simpson and Rashawn Jackson, so it makes sense to add another one here. Torrey Mack ought to be in line to inherit the job, but the reason he hasn't seen the field as much as we thought he might is that his pass-blocking is atrocious. That's not a Groh idiosyncrasy. Most coaches won't play a back if his pass-blocking isn't up to snuff, because that gets quarterbacks killed and it also means his presence in the backfield is a tell for a running play. Mack has got to improve that part of his game. I don't really see Max Milien as a starter type; Raynard Horne has probably demonstrated his ceiling; Dominique Wallace will be coming off of an injury; the sum and gist of it all is that both Shepherd and K.P. Parks should be expected to get a shot to jump right into the mix and redshirt only if they fall behind rather than as the default option.
Side note: lol at scout-speak at ESPN. One of the lines in the scouting report on Shepherd says: "He may lack great size on paper." But, uh, once you see him, he's actually pretty huge? Lacking great size on paper = lacking great size in real life, obviously, and especially since official listings are frequently padded just a smidge.
Name: Khalek Shepherd
Position: RB
Hometown: Brandywine, MD
School: Gwynn Park
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 170
ESPN: 76, #95 RB
Rivals: three stars, 5.5
Scout: three stars, #99 RB
Oops. You might recall, a few updates ago, I dropped Shepherd from the recruiting board. Smart move, obviously. In my defense, Shepherd's has been a weird recruitment, in that hardly any of it happened publicly and his so-called stock has been on a decidedly downward trend all year. He was an original member of the Rivals 250 and had four stars and all that, and shortly thereafter got passed up, dropped out, lost his fourth star, and settled in the middle ranges not only on Rivals but everywhere else. While all this was going on, nothing was being heard. No interviews, no "hey how's the recruiting going" stories on any of the websites.
This, I attribute to his father, a former NFLer himself. A guy who's had to deal with all this stuff might not want his son getting hounded by recruitnik types, and even now with the commitment, not a word has been heard out of Khalek's own mouth. His dad is doing all the talking.
The disconcerting thing is not his drop down the rankings. The services have all settled on a pretty much consistent rating for him. About as consistent as you'll ever see. It's not a great one, but no big deal. There's surely a penalty involved there for being 5'8", for one, which means strictly talent-wise he might be more of a, say, 78 on ESPN's scale. But Shepherd is said to have two other offers, Maryland and Boston College, which are fine schools to beat out for a recruit but those offers came ages ago. Where were all the other offers? It's weird. Again, though, this might have something to do with Dad (and coach - same guy) holding info about Shepherd under lock and key.
Not that it matters. What matters is what happens once Shepherd steps on a football field. We're clearly in need of some running back depth, though between he, Perry Jones, and K.P. Parks, we might find ourselves in need of running back height, too. Depth is exactly what Shepherd should provide. He's not going to be the type to carry 25 times a game, but he does shape up to be the kind of back that makes one excellent half of an effective tandem. If he turns out to be a decent pass-catcher then he could also move around between the backfield and the slot, depending on just how much spread offense is in our future. For a ceiling, think Mikell Simpson, only hopefully a bit harder to bring down.
I had thought we were done picking up running backs, but next year we lose both Simpson and Rashawn Jackson, so it makes sense to add another one here. Torrey Mack ought to be in line to inherit the job, but the reason he hasn't seen the field as much as we thought he might is that his pass-blocking is atrocious. That's not a Groh idiosyncrasy. Most coaches won't play a back if his pass-blocking isn't up to snuff, because that gets quarterbacks killed and it also means his presence in the backfield is a tell for a running play. Mack has got to improve that part of his game. I don't really see Max Milien as a starter type; Raynard Horne has probably demonstrated his ceiling; Dominique Wallace will be coming off of an injury; the sum and gist of it all is that both Shepherd and K.P. Parks should be expected to get a shot to jump right into the mix and redshirt only if they fall behind rather than as the default option.
Side note: lol at scout-speak at ESPN. One of the lines in the scouting report on Shepherd says: "He may lack great size on paper." But, uh, once you see him, he's actually pretty huge? Lacking great size on paper = lacking great size in real life, obviously, and especially since official listings are frequently padded just a smidge.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
ACC roundtable
It's that time again. This edition is brought to you by From the Rumble Seat. Let's go ahead and get straight to it.
1. Alright fellas, this is your turn to apologize to the Boston College Eagles who went to Hell and back and have now arrived as the 3rd team for the ACC (and only team in the Atlantic) to be bowl eligible. You know you were snickering in the preseason. Also, give a high five to Mark Herzlich for finishing his last treatment of chemo.
High five. As for the apology, like hell. Going bowling is reward enough, isn't it? Chances are pretty excellent that Boston College will be our seventh loss and therefore officially eliminate us from bowl contention. Apologize? They should apologize to us.
But seriously, it's cool that Herzlich looks about done with that whole nasty cancer thing.
2. An Orange Bowl victory over a Boise/ TCU or an Orange Bowl victory over a Penn State/ Cincy team - which means more for the conference? Is there even a difference?
Penn State would mean the most, but only if the ACC rep is Georgia Tech, which right about now is the only ACC team that the national media really takes seriously. (Probably Miami also.) GT/PSU would be a great matchup. The only benefit to beating BSU or TCU is one that I'd enjoy and few others would, because I'm the lunatic that doesn't want a playoff. An ACC win over Boise or TCU wouldn't really elevate the ACC much in the eyes of the world - the message it would send is that the best of the mid-majors still can't hack it even against the lower end of the BCS conferences after all.
3. Enough with the CJ Spillers, the Christian Ponders, and the Jacory Harrises. We wanna talk defense. Who is the defensive POTY thus far in the ACC?
Robert Quinn of UNC and Derrick Morgan of GT are getting plenty of well-deserved press for being quarterback-terrorizing sackmasters, and I really have to throw a nod to BC's Luke Kuechly, leading the ACC in total tackles as a true freshman. That's one recruiting battle I really wanted to win at the time and even more so now.
But guess what. I'm gonna play favorites here and I don't care what anyone thinks. Nate Collins is your DPOY and that is a fact. Collins is the only defensive lineman in the ACC's top ten in tackles, and this in a defense that asks its lineman mainly to occupy offensive linemen and leave the playmaking to the linebackers. Morgan and Quinn don't even sniff the top 50. Not even close. Nice gaudy sack totals, but they're not run-stuffers. Collins is also ACC-top-five in sacks with five, and that's five solo sacks, no cheesy assists. And then there's that interception return for a touchdown. Collins doesn't get the accolades that he should because we kinda suck. But he's the best complete defensive lineman in the league so far this year.
4. Recently, Bird compared the Atlantic to the Big 12 North. Is this a fair comparison? The Coastal is currently 8-2 against the Atlantic. There are still 8 interdivision games left. Can the Atlantic redeem itself this season?
Let's see, those games would be:
BC-UVA
BC-UNC
Clemson-UVA
Md.-VT
NCSt.-UNC
NCSt.-VT
Wake-GT
Wake-Duke
I count two that should definitely go the Atlantic's way (and you know what those are. Hint: I hate football.) I count three that should definitely be Coastal wins, so that puts the record at 11-4, Coastal, with three tossups (NCSt.-UNC, BC-UNC, Wake-Duke) that frankly don't look too good for the Atlantic.
So no. Only way this goes well for the Atlantic is if they win the ACCCG, which is definitely a loss for the conference at large. Clemson or BC might come out with a pretty good looking record, but they'll just be kings of the mud.
And yes, the comparison is legit. The teams at the top of the B12N aren't as good as in the Atlantic, but the Atlantic's bottom teams are worse.
5. Tailgating is essential to all things football. In Atlanta, the tailgating game of choice is cornhole. What is your game of choice to pass the time?
Drinking. Cornhole's pretty sweet too. Fortunately, they're very complementary.
6. Let's cut to the chase. There are two kinds of people: sheep and sharks. Sharks are winners and they don't look back 'cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep. Is your team full of sharks or is your team full of sheep?
Sharks, but the kind that get eaten by octopuses. They try hard. They'll bite the shit out of you if you're not careful. They just, you know, get eaten by octopuses anyway. Ones named "Duke."
7. Create a cocktail in the spirit of your school and explain it to us. Non-edible ingredients are allowed and encouraged.
Aw, I'm no good at bartending and mixing drinks and what not. TJ was a voice of democracy, a man for the people. The Lawn was designed so that professors would mingle with students. Crack open a beer, there's your cocktail. No drink is more democratic than beer. Then drink it and crack open a whole bunch more, because we like to think that's what we do.
1. Alright fellas, this is your turn to apologize to the Boston College Eagles who went to Hell and back and have now arrived as the 3rd team for the ACC (and only team in the Atlantic) to be bowl eligible. You know you were snickering in the preseason. Also, give a high five to Mark Herzlich for finishing his last treatment of chemo.
High five. As for the apology, like hell. Going bowling is reward enough, isn't it? Chances are pretty excellent that Boston College will be our seventh loss and therefore officially eliminate us from bowl contention. Apologize? They should apologize to us.
But seriously, it's cool that Herzlich looks about done with that whole nasty cancer thing.
2. An Orange Bowl victory over a Boise/ TCU or an Orange Bowl victory over a Penn State/ Cincy team - which means more for the conference? Is there even a difference?
Penn State would mean the most, but only if the ACC rep is Georgia Tech, which right about now is the only ACC team that the national media really takes seriously. (Probably Miami also.) GT/PSU would be a great matchup. The only benefit to beating BSU or TCU is one that I'd enjoy and few others would, because I'm the lunatic that doesn't want a playoff. An ACC win over Boise or TCU wouldn't really elevate the ACC much in the eyes of the world - the message it would send is that the best of the mid-majors still can't hack it even against the lower end of the BCS conferences after all.
3. Enough with the CJ Spillers, the Christian Ponders, and the Jacory Harrises. We wanna talk defense. Who is the defensive POTY thus far in the ACC?
Robert Quinn of UNC and Derrick Morgan of GT are getting plenty of well-deserved press for being quarterback-terrorizing sackmasters, and I really have to throw a nod to BC's Luke Kuechly, leading the ACC in total tackles as a true freshman. That's one recruiting battle I really wanted to win at the time and even more so now.
But guess what. I'm gonna play favorites here and I don't care what anyone thinks. Nate Collins is your DPOY and that is a fact. Collins is the only defensive lineman in the ACC's top ten in tackles, and this in a defense that asks its lineman mainly to occupy offensive linemen and leave the playmaking to the linebackers. Morgan and Quinn don't even sniff the top 50. Not even close. Nice gaudy sack totals, but they're not run-stuffers. Collins is also ACC-top-five in sacks with five, and that's five solo sacks, no cheesy assists. And then there's that interception return for a touchdown. Collins doesn't get the accolades that he should because we kinda suck. But he's the best complete defensive lineman in the league so far this year.
4. Recently, Bird compared the Atlantic to the Big 12 North. Is this a fair comparison? The Coastal is currently 8-2 against the Atlantic. There are still 8 interdivision games left. Can the Atlantic redeem itself this season?
Let's see, those games would be:
BC-UVA
BC-UNC
Clemson-UVA
Md.-VT
NCSt.-UNC
NCSt.-VT
Wake-GT
Wake-Duke
I count two that should definitely go the Atlantic's way (and you know what those are. Hint: I hate football.) I count three that should definitely be Coastal wins, so that puts the record at 11-4, Coastal, with three tossups (NCSt.-UNC, BC-UNC, Wake-Duke) that frankly don't look too good for the Atlantic.
So no. Only way this goes well for the Atlantic is if they win the ACCCG, which is definitely a loss for the conference at large. Clemson or BC might come out with a pretty good looking record, but they'll just be kings of the mud.
And yes, the comparison is legit. The teams at the top of the B12N aren't as good as in the Atlantic, but the Atlantic's bottom teams are worse.
5. Tailgating is essential to all things football. In Atlanta, the tailgating game of choice is cornhole. What is your game of choice to pass the time?
Drinking. Cornhole's pretty sweet too. Fortunately, they're very complementary.
6. Let's cut to the chase. There are two kinds of people: sheep and sharks. Sharks are winners and they don't look back 'cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep. Is your team full of sharks or is your team full of sheep?
Sharks, but the kind that get eaten by octopuses. They try hard. They'll bite the shit out of you if you're not careful. They just, you know, get eaten by octopuses anyway. Ones named "Duke."
7. Create a cocktail in the spirit of your school and explain it to us. Non-edible ingredients are allowed and encouraged.
Aw, I'm no good at bartending and mixing drinks and what not. TJ was a voice of democracy, a man for the people. The Lawn was designed so that professors would mingle with students. Crack open a beer, there's your cocktail. No drink is more democratic than beer. Then drink it and crack open a whole bunch more, because we like to think that's what we do.
Monday, November 2, 2009
weekend review. also, i hate football.
One of my favorite things about Al Groh is his answers to media questions that he doesn't want to answer. Some people call this a negative. Perhaps, they say, the program's image would be better (at least, it would have been better pre-W&M - these days all bets are off) if he wasn't so cantankerous with the media. Myself, I don't agree. There's no more useless aspect of the media's coverage of football than the halftime sideline interview, and those people ask some of the dipshittiest questions known to man. My day is always brightened when Groh plays the crabby old man and hilariously refuses to answer. It's an endearing quality.
But I digress. Doug Doughty at the Roanoke Times asked one of those questions on Sunday that Groh didn't want to answer, and the result was vintage Groh, with a twist.
Doughty writes that there was a "cryptic tone" to Groh's answer. Tone schmone. That answer is dripping cryptic-ness. The Windtalkers would be proud. Of course, what with the pauses and such, it could be that Groh is just simply tired of hearing about all this. No doubt that's the case anyway. It has to take a toll on a man.
Then again, it doesn't take a great deal of curiosity or biting insight to be able to read a lot more into that. "Maybe someday I'll say what that is." Given everything we've heard out of Groh in the past, it's easy to conclude that's just him being cranky as usual. And what situation? The one that got us where we are today and that Groh rather justifiably believes he knows more about than most of his loudmouth critics? Again, that would be vintage Groh. Or maybe "the situation" is Groh's actual job situation and there's actual information to be had on this and he doesn't feel like sharing, or has been instructed not to. If you're not so much a Groh supporter, it's easy to read that and hope he means he's already been privately axed and is being allowed to play out the string.
While we're on the subject of local writers, Jerry Ratcliffe thinks the lack of a run game was our downfall. Good lord, the man couldn't be more wrong if he told you Virginia Poly's uniforms were stylish. Take away Jameel Sewell's stats against Duke (in other words, throw out the sacks which really were pass attempts and stick with just the running backs plus Vic Hall's reverse) and we averaged 5.1 yards a carry. That's actually pretty good! Outstanding, Private Pyle, I think we finally found something that you do well! And it makes sense. There are four units on any offense: quarterbacks, receivers, running backs, and line. Three of those four are lousy, and they're the three required for a passing game. The problem is not that our running game is bad, the problem, obviously, is that we don't use it. The passing game is so pathetic and yet used so frequently that we actually averaged more yards per run play than per pass play. That's absurd. Stop passing the ball so damn much. It'll help the defense out, too.
I'd have had this link up sooner, but I didn't. Last week's ACC roundtable roundup is posted at the now officially defunct 850 The Buzz blog, which is now 620 The Buzz and doesn't really have a blog any more.
You might have noticed I'm just skipping all the usual weekend review stuff. This is because there's nothing worth bothering with on the recruiting front. But I think we will go ahead and take our usual spin around the ACC, only we'll just take a look at the losing teams, I think. Winning is for snobs.
- Wake got stomach-punched just like we did. And their loss might even have been worse because they were much better-positioned for a bowl bid than we were, and poised for a major upset that would have made that bowl thing happen. And then bam. And it turns out Blogger So Dear is also a Cleveland Browns fan, which is about the only NFL fanbase that is allowed to lord it over Lions fans in the misery department. At least the Lions only lose games. Cleveland once lost its whole team and needed two years to find it.
- YANCSTSB is chock-full of misery this week, and who can blame him? NC State is "where defense goes to die:"
- I couldn't do this without talking about Va. Poly. You know you enjoyed watching that game. You know you loved it. You know it was the best part of your weekend and that really sucks because it wasn't even our own game and it didn't even happen on the weekend. Losing to UNC took it out of College Game Balls pretty hard: he goes into what he calls a semi-angered rant in which the strongest word up to that point is "miffs." This from the guy who wrote this. That is a rant.
As for Gobbler Country, his game recap consists of a picture of a turtle. Your guess is as good as mine. I guess that's what they call art. Either the turtle represents the long, slow march to death that we all must take in our lives and therefore speaks to the futility of our efforts, or he thinks that's the particular ACC team the Hokies looked like on Thursday. Your call.
- It's hard to stand out in the misery-filled ACC this week, but I seem to have managed it. Thank God I waited to post until after I was done with my SEC-fan-on-Youtube stage or who knows what words of mine might have been broadcast for the wide, wide audiences of Greater Internetia. Actually, I do know what words I'd have used. All of them have four letters and I wasn't allowed to say them growing up.
So. Basketball season in eleven days. I'm excited for that, and with any amount of luck, February 1 will get here and I won't already be similarly counting down the days til baseball and lacrosse.
But I digress. Doug Doughty at the Roanoke Times asked one of those questions on Sunday that Groh didn't want to answer, and the result was vintage Groh, with a twist.
"What would you say to the people who are calling for a coaching change?"
After about a four-second pause, Groh responded, "I don't have anything to say."
He paused for another 4-5 seconds and then added, "I know a lot more about the situation than probably anybody. Maybe some day I'll say what that is."
Doughty writes that there was a "cryptic tone" to Groh's answer. Tone schmone. That answer is dripping cryptic-ness. The Windtalkers would be proud. Of course, what with the pauses and such, it could be that Groh is just simply tired of hearing about all this. No doubt that's the case anyway. It has to take a toll on a man.
Then again, it doesn't take a great deal of curiosity or biting insight to be able to read a lot more into that. "Maybe someday I'll say what that is." Given everything we've heard out of Groh in the past, it's easy to conclude that's just him being cranky as usual. And what situation? The one that got us where we are today and that Groh rather justifiably believes he knows more about than most of his loudmouth critics? Again, that would be vintage Groh. Or maybe "the situation" is Groh's actual job situation and there's actual information to be had on this and he doesn't feel like sharing, or has been instructed not to. If you're not so much a Groh supporter, it's easy to read that and hope he means he's already been privately axed and is being allowed to play out the string.
While we're on the subject of local writers, Jerry Ratcliffe thinks the lack of a run game was our downfall. Good lord, the man couldn't be more wrong if he told you Virginia Poly's uniforms were stylish. Take away Jameel Sewell's stats against Duke (in other words, throw out the sacks which really were pass attempts and stick with just the running backs plus Vic Hall's reverse) and we averaged 5.1 yards a carry. That's actually pretty good! Outstanding, Private Pyle, I think we finally found something that you do well! And it makes sense. There are four units on any offense: quarterbacks, receivers, running backs, and line. Three of those four are lousy, and they're the three required for a passing game. The problem is not that our running game is bad, the problem, obviously, is that we don't use it. The passing game is so pathetic and yet used so frequently that we actually averaged more yards per run play than per pass play. That's absurd. Stop passing the ball so damn much. It'll help the defense out, too.
I'd have had this link up sooner, but I didn't. Last week's ACC roundtable roundup is posted at the now officially defunct 850 The Buzz blog, which is now 620 The Buzz and doesn't really have a blog any more.
You might have noticed I'm just skipping all the usual weekend review stuff. This is because there's nothing worth bothering with on the recruiting front. But I think we will go ahead and take our usual spin around the ACC, only we'll just take a look at the losing teams, I think. Winning is for snobs.
- Wake got stomach-punched just like we did. And their loss might even have been worse because they were much better-positioned for a bowl bid than we were, and poised for a major upset that would have made that bowl thing happen. And then bam. And it turns out Blogger So Dear is also a Cleveland Browns fan, which is about the only NFL fanbase that is allowed to lord it over Lions fans in the misery department. At least the Lions only lose games. Cleveland once lost its whole team and needed two years to find it.
- YANCSTSB is chock-full of misery this week, and who can blame him? NC State is "where defense goes to die:"
When you watch your team rally to score a go-ahead touchdown with 3:50 and yet are convinced that the game is lost, that's the essence of N.C. State fandom these days.Funny, we have the exact opposite problem. It's eerie. Duke scored to go up 18-17 with basically exactly that much time left on the clock. And I felt exactly the same way. When you have 3:50 to drive approximately 60 yards in order to score just one measly field goal and yet are convinced the game is lost, that's the essence of UVA fandom these days. I have an idea. We don't play NC State this year. Let's team up. Our defense, their offense. We'll be the North Virginia State CavPack (or Wolvaliers, that sounds kinda cool) and get ourselves bowl eligible. We can send our offense and their defense to go compete in the D-III playoffs.
- I couldn't do this without talking about Va. Poly. You know you enjoyed watching that game. You know you loved it. You know it was the best part of your weekend and that really sucks because it wasn't even our own game and it didn't even happen on the weekend. Losing to UNC took it out of College Game Balls pretty hard: he goes into what he calls a semi-angered rant in which the strongest word up to that point is "miffs." This from the guy who wrote this. That is a rant.
As for Gobbler Country, his game recap consists of a picture of a turtle. Your guess is as good as mine. I guess that's what they call art. Either the turtle represents the long, slow march to death that we all must take in our lives and therefore speaks to the futility of our efforts, or he thinks that's the particular ACC team the Hokies looked like on Thursday. Your call.
- It's hard to stand out in the misery-filled ACC this week, but I seem to have managed it. Thank God I waited to post until after I was done with my SEC-fan-on-Youtube stage or who knows what words of mine might have been broadcast for the wide, wide audiences of Greater Internetia. Actually, I do know what words I'd have used. All of them have four letters and I wasn't allowed to say them growing up.
So. Basketball season in eleven days. I'm excited for that, and with any amount of luck, February 1 will get here and I won't already be similarly counting down the days til baseball and lacrosse.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
textbook
Most lessons from yesterday's game are pretty obvious and you don't need me to tell you them and I'm not going to insult your intelligence by doing so. "We Suck" is the general gist of all of them, and you can get that from the media and everyone else. One thing ESPN won't mention, though, is the page from the textbook on How To Get Yourself Fired As Head Coach that we got to see written afresh yesterday. It's a huge book, by the way. Massive. Coaches are writing new entries every year. Dennis Franchione has a whole chapter. Al Groh's new entry was on display on 3rd and 9 near midfield.
Now, mind you, normally I refrain from nitpicking Groh's decisions. Lord knows you can go to almost any ol' website devoted to UVA football and find more than enough of that. I happen to like Al Groh and so I keep my fat mouth shut - often on purpose, just to try and balance out the tsunami of vitriol that cascades from on high everywhere else. There's plenty else to yak about. But - rrrrggghh. I'm not lying when I say that when I saw Cam Johnson streaking toward the line of scrimmage at the snap of the aforementioned play, I did not like what I saw one bit, and naturally would continue hating everything I saw for the rest of the game.
Want to know how to get yourself fired as head coach, then? Keep certain facts in mind. We had six sacks and all of them were spread among the three defensive linemen: Dolce, Parr, and Collins. No blitzing linebackers had gotten to the quarterback all day. Thaddeus Lewis had, at least twice already in my recollection, burned us by throwing directly at the blitz and picking up huge yardage. There were four minutes left in the game, or just under; a fourth down would not have guaranteed an attempt to go for it. Not with nine yards to pick up. Many coaches would have punted. Indeed, given our own offensive brilliance, if I were Cutcliffe, punt is exactly what I'd have done on 4th and 9 from the 42. So the way to get yourself fired as head coach of UVA is to dial up a big ol' blitz on 3rd and 9 that leaves practically no help at all for the cornerbacks in man coverage. ARGH.
This whole thing has been weird for me to write, by the way, because if there's one concept I hate in all of football it's the prevent defense. In this case, though? A nice standard, non-prevent, non-blitz, four-man rush would have sufficed. When our linemen are eating theirs for lunch all day, I like our chances. That blitz was the last thing I wanted to see, except for what happened next.
So there go the bowl hopes, and there goes Al Groh. Hell, I've already got the official farewell post half written. We're probably not going to win another game all year. We won't see a worse defense than Duke all year, so don't expect to see us score any more than the 17 points we just managed, because we cannot pass and can barely run. Not unless the defense and special teams help out, and the latter won't, because we have no clue how to return a kick.
If you ask me, it's time now to forget all about Miami, BC, and Clemson. Punt the season. Practice, for the next four weeks, exclusively against VPI. If you can't beat William & Mary at home, and you can't beat Duke at home, you can't go to a bowl game, and at the end of the day there's no difference between 5-7 and 0-12. So, might as well put all our chips on the only game that matters any more. Practice a few new looks and don't use any of 'em in the next three games. Riko Smalls is Tyrod Taylor from now til November 28. Pull out all the stops and try to end this season with a bang.
Meantime, I'm going to see if I can get my money back for this weekend. UVA loses to Duke, Michigan loses to Illinois, the Lions lose to the Rams, and both my fantasy teams get crushed. I hate football.
Now, mind you, normally I refrain from nitpicking Groh's decisions. Lord knows you can go to almost any ol' website devoted to UVA football and find more than enough of that. I happen to like Al Groh and so I keep my fat mouth shut - often on purpose, just to try and balance out the tsunami of vitriol that cascades from on high everywhere else. There's plenty else to yak about. But - rrrrggghh. I'm not lying when I say that when I saw Cam Johnson streaking toward the line of scrimmage at the snap of the aforementioned play, I did not like what I saw one bit, and naturally would continue hating everything I saw for the rest of the game.
Want to know how to get yourself fired as head coach, then? Keep certain facts in mind. We had six sacks and all of them were spread among the three defensive linemen: Dolce, Parr, and Collins. No blitzing linebackers had gotten to the quarterback all day. Thaddeus Lewis had, at least twice already in my recollection, burned us by throwing directly at the blitz and picking up huge yardage. There were four minutes left in the game, or just under; a fourth down would not have guaranteed an attempt to go for it. Not with nine yards to pick up. Many coaches would have punted. Indeed, given our own offensive brilliance, if I were Cutcliffe, punt is exactly what I'd have done on 4th and 9 from the 42. So the way to get yourself fired as head coach of UVA is to dial up a big ol' blitz on 3rd and 9 that leaves practically no help at all for the cornerbacks in man coverage. ARGH.
This whole thing has been weird for me to write, by the way, because if there's one concept I hate in all of football it's the prevent defense. In this case, though? A nice standard, non-prevent, non-blitz, four-man rush would have sufficed. When our linemen are eating theirs for lunch all day, I like our chances. That blitz was the last thing I wanted to see, except for what happened next.
So there go the bowl hopes, and there goes Al Groh. Hell, I've already got the official farewell post half written. We're probably not going to win another game all year. We won't see a worse defense than Duke all year, so don't expect to see us score any more than the 17 points we just managed, because we cannot pass and can barely run. Not unless the defense and special teams help out, and the latter won't, because we have no clue how to return a kick.
If you ask me, it's time now to forget all about Miami, BC, and Clemson. Punt the season. Practice, for the next four weeks, exclusively against VPI. If you can't beat William & Mary at home, and you can't beat Duke at home, you can't go to a bowl game, and at the end of the day there's no difference between 5-7 and 0-12. So, might as well put all our chips on the only game that matters any more. Practice a few new looks and don't use any of 'em in the next three games. Riko Smalls is Tyrod Taylor from now til November 28. Pull out all the stops and try to end this season with a bang.
Meantime, I'm going to see if I can get my money back for this weekend. UVA loses to Duke, Michigan loses to Illinois, the Lions lose to the Rams, and both my fantasy teams get crushed. I hate football.
Blogpoll ballot Week 9
I still hate football.
Quite a shakeup in both the top and bottom section of the rankings. That's because Oregon's win over USC made me decide to apply the scientific method to the top half too. It ended up pretty good for the most part. Pittsburgh was too high after the science did its thing, and they still might be. Boise State's schedule doesn't look too good these days, because that's what their conference is like.
As for the bottom half, well, I really, really hate putting those bottom four teams in there. They don't deserve a ranking. But the alternatives are CMU, Idaho, BYU, Rutgers, and WVU, which deserve rankings even less. I could maybe throw Auburn or South Carolina in there, but I'm not going to unless someone shows me a good reason.
Good reasons for changing anything are always welcome, by the way, because the science isn't perfect. It churned out Virginia Tech as my #15 team. Nobody with three losses, one being UNC, is gonna get ranked that high. They can stay, but they're right where they belong.
| ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | 1 |
| 2 | Florida | 1 |
| 3 | Alabama | 2 |
| 4 | Oregon | 7 |
| 5 | Cincinnati | 1 |
| 6 | Iowa | 2 |
| 7 | Georgia Tech | 1 |
| 8 | Boise State | 3 |
| 9 | TCU | |
| 10 | LSU | |
| 11 | Pittsburgh | 5 |
| 12 | Houston | 2 |
| 13 | Penn State | 1 |
| 14 | Southern Cal | 7 |
| 15 | Miami (Florida) | 4 |
| 16 | Wisconsin | 6 |
| 17 | Oklahoma State | 2 |
| 18 | Ohio State | 1 |
| 19 | Notre Dame | 1 |
| 20 | Arizona | |
| 21 | Virginia Tech | 8 |
| 22 | California | |
| 23 | South Florida | |
| 24 | Utah | |
| 25 | Boston College | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: South Carolina (#21), West Virginia (#23), Central Michigan (#24), Mississippi (#25).
Quite a shakeup in both the top and bottom section of the rankings. That's because Oregon's win over USC made me decide to apply the scientific method to the top half too. It ended up pretty good for the most part. Pittsburgh was too high after the science did its thing, and they still might be. Boise State's schedule doesn't look too good these days, because that's what their conference is like.
As for the bottom half, well, I really, really hate putting those bottom four teams in there. They don't deserve a ranking. But the alternatives are CMU, Idaho, BYU, Rutgers, and WVU, which deserve rankings even less. I could maybe throw Auburn or South Carolina in there, but I'm not going to unless someone shows me a good reason.
Good reasons for changing anything are always welcome, by the way, because the science isn't perfect. It churned out Virginia Tech as my #15 team. Nobody with three losses, one being UNC, is gonna get ranked that high. They can stay, but they're right where they belong.
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