Four and two is nice, sure. Four and two is quite a bit above and beyond anyone's most optimistic predictions, really. Jon Tenuta's sack-line defense is more fun to watch than we had a right to expect, even knowing what we had in our front seven (or six.) Competent quarterback play has returned to Scott Stadium after a hiatus of some time.
But I think folks also understand: Mike London's seat isn't any cooler than it was. Part of this is because being a UVA fan means spending your whole life waiting for the other shoe to drop, but part of it is also the understanding that this team could easily be 2-4, and still working on a winless streak in the ACC, if you change a play or two here and there. We said the same thing in reverse about losing teams of the past, so it's at least nice to watch the bounces go the right way. Still, the only thing that's really been accomplished is to set the team up for the necessary success to keep London behind the wheel of his complementary BMW.
I'm on record as saying that an eight-win season is what it would - or should - take. (Or seven, as long as one comes in Blacksburg.) Halfway there - that's great, but I don't know if we want to see the state of the fanbase or the program if the finish is 1-5. So: it's time to see about the remaining obstacles. Three-quarters of the ACC season remains, and tougher yet, four of the next six are on the road. Here's a broad overview of what UVA will be up against.
DUKE
Offense: Efficient
Defense: Unimpressive
Duke is just about how I had them pegged at the start of the season, except with less of a passing game. The quirk in their stats is that they're excellent in the run game (on offense) and so-so passing the ball, and the very opposite on defense. A lot of this has to be viewed through the prism of their schedule, of course. For example, Anthony Boone appears to have taken a big step back in his accuracy, but his stats are skewed by 51 passes in a monsoon against Miami.
Duke's OOC schedule was an utter embarrassment; the combined record of their four opponents is 6-18. Once they stopped playing joke teams and joined the real world, they promptly lost. They bounced back with a nice win over GT in Atlanta - that said, I'm still not convinced GT is a good team.
Against the backdrop of that schedule, Duke still has one of the worst run defenses (per play) in the league, and they don't even need GT's stat-skewing run game to accomplish that. They came nowhere near shutting down the nonsense they played in the OOC. Bottom line, this is a very beatable opponent whose strengths play right into ours.
NORTH CAROLINA
Offense: Solid, but very reliant on Marquise Williams
Defense: Can heel, roll over, play dead, and even beg
Legend has it that soldiers from North Carolina held their ground in battle so well that it was as if they had tar on their heels. If the current UNC defense had been the one in the legends, North Carolina might today be known as the White Flag State. Carolina can score pretty well, and may even have dropped the idea of platooning Marquise Williams with Mitch Trubisky, which would be the smart thing to do. Williams is a very effective passer and runner in Larry Fedora's up-tempo offense.
Problem is, the defense is incredibly polite, compliant, and eager to accommodate opposing offenses. "Oh, sorry, chap," they'll say. "Didn't mean to stand in your way. Off to the end zone, are you? Jolly good." These guys will not only usher you to your seat, they'll kindly hold your hat and coat as you enjoy the show, and refuse a tip at the end of the night. Week after week, the Heels have been getting mercilessly blown apart. ECU racked up 70 points and 789 yards, both records for a UNC opponent. Notre Dame beat them 50-43, thus putting the highest-scoring game in the history of Notre Dame Stadium into the books. The run defense isn't much to speak of, but Helen Keller could throw for 200 yards on the pass defense and probably never be sacked.
UVA gets to play this shitshow at home. I'm not real convinced of our offensive capabilities yet, but if you can't score on UNC you can't score on anyone.
GEORGIA TECH
Offense: The usual
Defense: The reason I'm not convinced
GT has powered up the run game with the usual brutal efficiency, and their passing game has been working too, which is what drove their rise to the top 25 - prior, of course, to their loss to Duke. There's still a ways to go, though; Justin Thomas against Duke made what might be the single stupidest throw I've ever seen out of a quarterback, which helped Duke out immensely.
That said, GT's OOC was just as jokey as Duke's, and GT's defensive stats stink to high heaven. They almost squandered a huge lead to Georgia Southern, they've been badly susceptible to the big play, and frankly I can't wait for their game against UNC, coming up this Saturday. UVA has to travel to Atlanta for this one, which is usually a tough trip, and all the usual caveats apply about stopping the triple option. But I do not think GT is anything resembling a top-25 team, and should be viewed as just as badly flawed a team as any in the Coastal.
FLORIDA STATE
Offense: Extremely tough to stop
Defense: Up and down, but still really athletic
Still undefeated, FSU hasn't lost since November 24, 2012. But pundits haven't found them as convincing as last year, and indeed, they haven't shown the same unstoppable mojo as the 2013 team that scored a minimum of 41 points in any given conference game. Even in not losing, they've relinquished the top spots in the polls.
Still... I mean, whatever. A loss may or may not be coming this season, but "not quite as national-championship caliber as last year" is praising with faint damnation. UVA has to make another trip to Tallahassee, the toughest of the four remaining road games, even if Jameis Winston ends up suspended between now and then.
MIAMI
Offense: Respectable
Defense: About average
It's hard to peg this Miami squad, because they're one of those teams that loses to good teams and beats bad ones. They weren't competitive against Louisville and couldn't catch up to Nebraska, and barely scored on Georgia Tech. But they did beat Duke and an assortment of crappy OOC teams. They do have one hell of a run game - Duke Johnson remains the real deal - and they really like freshman QB Brad Kaaya, not without reason.
Probably most educational will be their game in a couple weeks against VT; they have two other games between now and their trip to Charlottesville, but UNC and FSU don't tell you much. The one really disappointing thing: this isn't one of UVA's road games this year. Their devilish plan is apparently to lull opponents to sleep, because their sterile pro stadium has all the intimidating atmosphere of an Applebee's. I've played on louder intramural fields.
VIRGINIA TECH
Offense: OK when not turning it over
Defense: Inconsistent
The Hokies stand more or less in the same place UVA does: 4-2 and not real sure about the next six games. Tech pulled out every trick in their bag and knocked off Ohio State in Columbus, lost to ECU and GT, then unconvincingly beat two bad teams in Western Michigan and UNC. Carolina actually slowed down the VT offense quite a bit.
Their defense has been mostly pretty good, which is a drop in standards from what you'd expect. UNC isn't an easy team to shut down, but VT did it, and the same goes for OSU. ECU carved them up, though, and GT mounted two fourth-quarter drives (aided by a Michael Brewer interception) to pull out the win. The Hokies just don't look substantively better than most of the rest of the Coastal. With the game in Blacksburg, it'll of course be tough, but this year is as good a shot as any to stop losing to these guys.
*********************************************
So what do I think? I think we go bowling, that's what. I didn't think so before the season, but I do now, for two reasons. One is defense. The other is that the schedule is mostly full of very beatable teams. UVA could be bowl-eligible ten days from now, but even if not, opportunities abound. The next three games are against teams that can't really defend. Finding out what bowl game you're going to is one of the most fun parts of a college football season; it's even better when you had no expectation of doing so. Being wrong was never so exciting.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
the recruit: Kareem Gibson
Name: Kareem Gibson
Position: CB
Hometown: Johnstown, PA
School: Greater Johnstown
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160
24/7: 84, three stars; #91 CB, PA #24
ESPN: 73, three stars; #92 CB, PA #36, East #189
Rivals: 5.3, two stars
Scout: three stars; #122 CB
Other offers: West Virginia, Pitt, Temple, Toledo, Akron
At first blush, Kareem Gibson looks like one of the most averagely average prospects UVA has had in a while. I don't mean that in an entirely negative way - the idea here is that Gibson is a cornerback of average size and average athleticism (for a D-I prospect, not for a high school player), with a basic set of regional offers, and three-star ratings. (Except Rivals, which plunks him rather inexplicably low; 5.3 isn't even the highest two-star rating they have.)
The interesting thing to me is that Gibson is the sort of two-way athlete that Mike London has historically been unable to resist. Loading up on cornerbacks has been a theme of my bellyaching for a while now, and yet this very large class only has the one dedicated cornerback - Gibson. (There's also Myles Robinson and Juan Thornhill, but they seem likely headed to other positions of reasonable need.) The number of cornerbacks that London offered and then actually pursued in earnest is relatively small.
Gibson's history is interesting. Committing to UVA over more local offers like Pitt and WVU (and a grayshirt one from Penn State), none of which are more than two hours from Johnstown, seems like a bit of a geographical surprise. But Gibson is originally a Maryland native who moved to Johnstown for family reasons, so it's actually a move closer to a comfort zone, in a sense. He also played his whole junior year on a high ankle sprain and roughed-up hamstring, causing a lot of people to go "hm, not impressed" and then "oh."
Further digging into his history reveals some pretty solid camp performances... at Rivals camps, which makes his low rating there all the more puzzling. At their camp in Richmond he was rated more highly than four-star OL Matthew Burrell, and a few days later in Pittsburgh he outperformed four-star Michigan State DB commit Montae Nicholson. Both of these were in April 2013, before the injuries.
Physically, Gibson's pretty skinny, which doesn't help his ratings. Scouting reports on him are a bit lukewarm on his strength - "acceptable" is the word ESPN uses - but that's probably a plus given Gibson's total lack of bulk. Actually put some muscle on him and the results should be interesting. Especially as Gibson is generally considered a pretty fearless hitter. A paywalled guru post on 24/7 offered unsolicited praise along those lines.
Gibson isn't guaranteed to redshirt, because he's the kind of prospect that London sometimes drives fans crazy by using on special teams as a freshman. He'd make a pretty fair member of a coverage team. If he does redshirt, he'll emerge in 2016 with four cornerbacks ahead of him in years, three of whom are entirely unknown quantities at this point. That actually means a lot of opportunity; the coaches have put five different CB's out there at various times because nickel defense, six if you count garbage time, and being the fourth-most senior cornerback should mean playing time by his second year. All he'd have to do is leapfrog one of them and he'll basically be a starter, assuming the nickel defense continues to function as a base package.
Position: CB
Hometown: Johnstown, PA
School: Greater Johnstown
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160
24/7: 84, three stars; #91 CB, PA #24
ESPN: 73, three stars; #92 CB, PA #36, East #189
Rivals: 5.3, two stars
Scout: three stars; #122 CB
Other offers: West Virginia, Pitt, Temple, Toledo, Akron
At first blush, Kareem Gibson looks like one of the most averagely average prospects UVA has had in a while. I don't mean that in an entirely negative way - the idea here is that Gibson is a cornerback of average size and average athleticism (for a D-I prospect, not for a high school player), with a basic set of regional offers, and three-star ratings. (Except Rivals, which plunks him rather inexplicably low; 5.3 isn't even the highest two-star rating they have.)
The interesting thing to me is that Gibson is the sort of two-way athlete that Mike London has historically been unable to resist. Loading up on cornerbacks has been a theme of my bellyaching for a while now, and yet this very large class only has the one dedicated cornerback - Gibson. (There's also Myles Robinson and Juan Thornhill, but they seem likely headed to other positions of reasonable need.) The number of cornerbacks that London offered and then actually pursued in earnest is relatively small.
Gibson's history is interesting. Committing to UVA over more local offers like Pitt and WVU (and a grayshirt one from Penn State), none of which are more than two hours from Johnstown, seems like a bit of a geographical surprise. But Gibson is originally a Maryland native who moved to Johnstown for family reasons, so it's actually a move closer to a comfort zone, in a sense. He also played his whole junior year on a high ankle sprain and roughed-up hamstring, causing a lot of people to go "hm, not impressed" and then "oh."
Further digging into his history reveals some pretty solid camp performances... at Rivals camps, which makes his low rating there all the more puzzling. At their camp in Richmond he was rated more highly than four-star OL Matthew Burrell, and a few days later in Pittsburgh he outperformed four-star Michigan State DB commit Montae Nicholson. Both of these were in April 2013, before the injuries.
Physically, Gibson's pretty skinny, which doesn't help his ratings. Scouting reports on him are a bit lukewarm on his strength - "acceptable" is the word ESPN uses - but that's probably a plus given Gibson's total lack of bulk. Actually put some muscle on him and the results should be interesting. Especially as Gibson is generally considered a pretty fearless hitter. A paywalled guru post on 24/7 offered unsolicited praise along those lines.
Gibson isn't guaranteed to redshirt, because he's the kind of prospect that London sometimes drives fans crazy by using on special teams as a freshman. He'd make a pretty fair member of a coverage team. If he does redshirt, he'll emerge in 2016 with four cornerbacks ahead of him in years, three of whom are entirely unknown quantities at this point. That actually means a lot of opportunity; the coaches have put five different CB's out there at various times because nickel defense, six if you count garbage time, and being the fourth-most senior cornerback should mean playing time by his second year. All he'd have to do is leapfrog one of them and he'll basically be a starter, assuming the nickel defense continues to function as a base package.
Monday, October 13, 2014
weekend review
Nothing happened and yet it was a great weekend. Duke made some history by winning in Atlanta, which they hadn't done since 1994, so that's one streak gone; in doing so, they helped UVA make a little history too. GT was the last other unbeaten team that was tied with the Hoos, which, as probably didn't escape your notice, gives UVA top billing in the Coastal Conference, and nobody to share it with.
Little history quiz: Last time that was the case, by my best guess (which I think is pretty good) the standings looked like this:
UVA 3-1
GT 3-2
Miami 2-2
UNC 2-2
VT 2-2
Duke 1-2
Guess the date? Take your time...
.....
.....
If you picked 2008, grab a cookie. October 25, 2008, to be exact, a month which cemented this month's temporary reputation as Groh-tober, and following an upset win over then-ranked GT. The calendar would flip to November the next week, and UVA wouldn't win a game til the next Groh-tober (the last-gasp 2009 version) nor return to this particular perch until, erm, just now.
This year actually marks the third time for this - the Hoos briefly held the top spot in 2007 as well, after beating Maryland to go 4-0 and then watching VT lose to BC to drop to 3-1 the following Thursday. That lasted two days; UVA lost to NC State that Saturday.
The path to the ACC championship is clear and obvious. Start this week by beating Duke, which is coming off an emotional high and ripe for a letdown. Then knock off Carolina, whose defense deserves to be an MST3K special feature. Miami should be no problem; the school claimed 44,000 in attendance this week against Cincinnati, probably by counting each fan 20 times. I figure the Canes will be thoroughly intimidated once they see a crowd of more than 5,000 or so. ESPN says this is as good a year as any for VT to finally go down. Then a massive upset in the ACC CG against a Jameis Winston-less FSU - the guy has so many investigations going on from sexual assualt to autographs that I give it an honest 50/50 chance he's still playing for the Noles by the end of November. Might be less, but FSU only levels any discipline when they're dragged to it kicking and screaming.
Or we can just take it one at a time and see what happens against Duke before scheduling any parades. Boring.
******************************************
Senior Seasons continues for now, with every one of UVA's commits in action this weekend.
Hun School 46, Blair Academy 14: Chris Sharp had a 99-yard touchdown run to give his team a 32-0 halftime lead. Hun is 3-1.
Greater Johnstown 48, Westmont Hilltop 24: Kareem Gibson's 35-yard TD reception gave Johnstown a 21-17 lead that they never relinquished. Johnstown is 5-0.
Kettle Run 38, Fauquier 14: David Eldridge caught a 27-yard touchdown, Kettle Run's first of the game. Kettle Run is 4-2.
American 29, Charlotte 12 (Grant Polk) - Charlotte is 4-1.
West Orange 63, Cypress Creek 6 (Brandon Wilson) - West Orange is 7-0.
Buford 56, North Hall 0 (David Curry) - Buford is 6-0.
Barnegat 24, Manasquan 14 (Tanner Cowley) - Manasquan is 3-2.
Lakota West 27, Sycamore 13 (C.J. Stalker) - Lakota West is 4-3.
Cathedral Prep 49, St. Francis 14 (James Trucilla) - Prep is 7-0.
Upper Dublin 34, Plymouth-Whitemarsh 28 (Ryan Bischoff) - P-W is 4-3.
St. Joseph's Prep 35, La Salle 31 (Olamide Zacchaeus) - St. Joseph's is 3-3.
Philadelphia Northeast 38, Abraham Lincoln 0 (Gladimir Paul) - Northeast is 1-5.
River Bluff 23, South Aiken 13 (Rasool Clemons) - South Aiken is 2-5.
Gonzaga 49, Archbishop Carroll 8 (Nick Johns) - Gonzaga is 5-1.
Woodrow Wilson 44, Calvin Coolidge 6 (Kareem McDonald) - Wilson is 3-4.
Liberty 45, Culpeper County 6 (R.J. Proctor) - Liberty is 5-1.
Good Counsel 45, Bishop McNamara 21 (Myles Robinson) - OLGC is 5-1.
Patrick Henry 27, J.R. Tucker 13 (Eli Hanback) - Patrick Henry is 2-4.
Ocean Lakes 55, Cox 21 (Jahvoni Simmons) - Ocean Lakes is 6-0.
Indian River 34, Hickory 0 (Richard Burney) - Hickory is 1-5.
Altavista 14, Dan River 0 (Juan Thornhill) - Altavista is 6-0.
Little history quiz: Last time that was the case, by my best guess (which I think is pretty good) the standings looked like this:
UVA 3-1
GT 3-2
Miami 2-2
UNC 2-2
VT 2-2
Duke 1-2
Guess the date? Take your time...
.....
.....
If you picked 2008, grab a cookie. October 25, 2008, to be exact, a month which cemented this month's temporary reputation as Groh-tober, and following an upset win over then-ranked GT. The calendar would flip to November the next week, and UVA wouldn't win a game til the next Groh-tober (the last-gasp 2009 version) nor return to this particular perch until, erm, just now.
This year actually marks the third time for this - the Hoos briefly held the top spot in 2007 as well, after beating Maryland to go 4-0 and then watching VT lose to BC to drop to 3-1 the following Thursday. That lasted two days; UVA lost to NC State that Saturday.
The path to the ACC championship is clear and obvious. Start this week by beating Duke, which is coming off an emotional high and ripe for a letdown. Then knock off Carolina, whose defense deserves to be an MST3K special feature. Miami should be no problem; the school claimed 44,000 in attendance this week against Cincinnati, probably by counting each fan 20 times. I figure the Canes will be thoroughly intimidated once they see a crowd of more than 5,000 or so. ESPN says this is as good a year as any for VT to finally go down. Then a massive upset in the ACC CG against a Jameis Winston-less FSU - the guy has so many investigations going on from sexual assualt to autographs that I give it an honest 50/50 chance he's still playing for the Noles by the end of November. Might be less, but FSU only levels any discipline when they're dragged to it kicking and screaming.
Or we can just take it one at a time and see what happens against Duke before scheduling any parades. Boring.
******************************************
Senior Seasons continues for now, with every one of UVA's commits in action this weekend.
Hun School 46, Blair Academy 14: Chris Sharp had a 99-yard touchdown run to give his team a 32-0 halftime lead. Hun is 3-1.
Greater Johnstown 48, Westmont Hilltop 24: Kareem Gibson's 35-yard TD reception gave Johnstown a 21-17 lead that they never relinquished. Johnstown is 5-0.
Kettle Run 38, Fauquier 14: David Eldridge caught a 27-yard touchdown, Kettle Run's first of the game. Kettle Run is 4-2.
American 29, Charlotte 12 (Grant Polk) - Charlotte is 4-1.
West Orange 63, Cypress Creek 6 (Brandon Wilson) - West Orange is 7-0.
Buford 56, North Hall 0 (David Curry) - Buford is 6-0.
Barnegat 24, Manasquan 14 (Tanner Cowley) - Manasquan is 3-2.
Lakota West 27, Sycamore 13 (C.J. Stalker) - Lakota West is 4-3.
Cathedral Prep 49, St. Francis 14 (James Trucilla) - Prep is 7-0.
Upper Dublin 34, Plymouth-Whitemarsh 28 (Ryan Bischoff) - P-W is 4-3.
St. Joseph's Prep 35, La Salle 31 (Olamide Zacchaeus) - St. Joseph's is 3-3.
Philadelphia Northeast 38, Abraham Lincoln 0 (Gladimir Paul) - Northeast is 1-5.
River Bluff 23, South Aiken 13 (Rasool Clemons) - South Aiken is 2-5.
Gonzaga 49, Archbishop Carroll 8 (Nick Johns) - Gonzaga is 5-1.
Woodrow Wilson 44, Calvin Coolidge 6 (Kareem McDonald) - Wilson is 3-4.
Liberty 45, Culpeper County 6 (R.J. Proctor) - Liberty is 5-1.
Good Counsel 45, Bishop McNamara 21 (Myles Robinson) - OLGC is 5-1.
Patrick Henry 27, J.R. Tucker 13 (Eli Hanback) - Patrick Henry is 2-4.
Ocean Lakes 55, Cox 21 (Jahvoni Simmons) - Ocean Lakes is 6-0.
Indian River 34, Hickory 0 (Richard Burney) - Hickory is 1-5.
Altavista 14, Dan River 0 (Juan Thornhill) - Altavista is 6-0.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
midseason report card
Pretty good season so far. That's the kind of cutting insight you've come to expect, I know. Maybe I'm just speechless, because if you'd offered 3-3 before the season began, I'd've taken it.** Four wins offers a lot of hope, as does the rest of the ACC itself. A lot has gone right to make that happen.
The halfway-point bye week is a perfect time to take stock. For no other reason than I feel like it, we'll do a basic report card and grade the team A to F. Small spoiler: nobody gets an F. Passing grades for all, which we certainly wouldn't have said after 12 games last season.
**In the sense of trying to maximize our wins, that is. 3-3 actually would've been more likely to put us on a path for a middle-of-the-road season, which as we know is really the worst case. Either let's have a really good season or let's have a coaching change, as you know.
QUARTERBACKS
Grade: B-
I've been very anti-platoon, for the most part, but truth is, I think this one's over once Greyson Lambert is healthy. The reason I have to qualify that is because Matt Johns hasn't played like a guy just keeping the seat warm. Both these guys are redshirt sophomores, and let's not get carried away, they're not lighting the stadium on fire. They can be a little slow in their progressions, and there are the occasional head-scratcher throws, as with any rookie QB. But they both look good under pressure - both the game-on-the-line kind and the oh-crap-the-defense-is-here kind. And they've done a fantastic job of making the split time work out, keeping things harmonious, and the team follows the lead of both because of it. We've seen more QB platoons, swaps, and occasional straight-up indecision in the last decade and a half than anyone would consider healthy; this is the first one that actually seems to be working.
RUNNING BACKS
Grade: B
With the QBs, it's easy because they both get the same grade. Here, it's more a question of how to weight the entrants. Kevin Parks doesn't need any introduction. The UVA run game puts out about 4.2 yards a carry, and it'd be a lot less without Parks's post-contact abilities. At the end of the Louisville game, for example, when UVA could either clinch the win with a first down or kick a field goal and have to give the ball back to the Cardinals, Parks unleashed a manly-man run and dragged the whole pile three yards when two would've sufficed.
Parks plays big-boy football. I also like Khalek Shepherd, who probably wouldn't distinguish himself much as a feature back but is just quick enough to provide an effective change of pace to Parks, and who knows how to find the holes. I just wish we could see the five-star abilities that Taquan Mizzell supposedly brought. In an effort to get him the ball in space, the playcalling has provided him with 21 receptions, enough to tie for the team lead, but he's not even averaging 5 yards a catch. I'm not grading individual players, and further I wonder if it's fair to grade based on expectations, but Mizzell brings down the unit's GPA a notch.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Grade: B-
There's nobody you look at here and think, "that's the go-to guy, right there." Yet someone's usually open regardless. There's a general lack of explosiveness; you'd have thought Darius Jennings should be that X-factor guy, but he hasn't been a gameplanning threat, with only 11 catches. Actually, the most consistent deepish-ball guy is Andre Levrone; only nine catches, but most of them over 18 yards.
Still, most of these guys are pretty big, and the size has worked in their favor. The quarterbacks spread the ball around a lot, so nobody's putting up huge stats, but Canaan Severin is having a breakout season all the same, and Miles Gooch is the offense's feel-good story of the year. And there are times when I think to myself, man, we are really going to like Doni Dowling in the future. Consistency escapes him, but c'mon, he's a true freshman.
Lack of speed and a true go-to player holds the grade for this unit back, but despite that, they get the job done. Most of the players on the unit will have the chance to develop along with their quarterback(s), so the future is fairly bright as well.
TIGHT ENDS
Grade: D
I don't know how their blocking is, but as I'm about to talk about being unimpressed by the run-blocking, it's probably not any great shakes. There's no production at all in the passing game; Zach Swanson has probably dropped at least as many passes as he's caught, and he and Rob Burns have combined for all of four catches. Swanson is a particular disappointment because he looked like a useful player last year.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Grade: C
On the one hand, you have to give the line credit for even playing as well as they have with the constant shuffling. The first three games saw three different starting lineups. And the pass-blocking has been undeniably decent. Only decent, because one, our QBs are much better at avoiding a rush than Watford was last year, and two, Steve Fairchild's short passing game and relative tilt toward the run really limit the chances for the rush to produce a sack. UVA has allowed just five sacks in six games, an average that's good for 16th in the country. I don't think the pass-blocking is as good as that stat shows, but you can't deprive the line of a fair share of credit, either.
Still, the run-blocking problems have carried over from last year. It's the same deal - the line generates little if any push. They're not bad at steering a lineman out of the way, but they can't shove him out of the way. (I've also grumbled to myself about the quality of blocks from pulling guards, who simply miss them too often.) The way Kevin Parks runs, if the line could get half a yard of push it'd probably boost his average by a yard, and he'd be on pace for another 1,000-yard season.
DEFENSIVE LINE
Grade: A-
Only held back from a straight A because there are usually only three of them; it's a lineman and not a linebacker that comes out for the nickel package. That and there's less rotation than I'd like.
Picky picky, though. Eli Harold is beastly, and the scary thing for ACC offenses is that he's become an every-down lineman instead of a pass-rush specialist. David Dean's development curve has taken off nicely, and he's made quite a few more tackles than a team should be able to expect out of an interior lineman. And Mike Moore has blossomed after a slow start to his career; he's the defense's Canaan Severin. P.S. - none of those guys are seniors. The ACC is invited to come and get some next year.
LINEBACKERS
Grade: A+
So good. Such sweet goody goodness. On a scale from 1 to 10, these guys go all the way to Tony Bennett. Daquan Romero has 48 tackles, 5 for loss, 2 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and 2 recoveries, an interception, and the least flashy stat line of the three starting linebackers, which is mind-boggling. Romero's specialty is sniffing out screen passes. This is a guy that can blow them up like nobody else.
Henry Coley is going to play on Sundays. Ask people around the program and they'll tell you who quarterbacks the defense on the field. Jon Tenuta likes to get all blitzy, as per his reputation, so Coley has six sacks to go along with the rest of the good stuff he does, but he's found his way into the backfield on run plays too. Two years ago I did a midseason review and called Coley "decent, but not, like, amazing or anything." Exact words to describe how I felt about his backup work with Steve Greer playing in front. Last year at the same time I was duly impressed. This year, I mean, damn.
And then we come to Max Valles - the Justin Anderson of football. Last year he rushed the passer and had a lot to learn about the rest of linebacking. This year he's playing both defensive end and actual linebacker, and the results: five sacks, one pick-six, seven swatted passes, a fumble recovery. And this is a true sophomore (albeit also with a FUMA-shirt season.) We've been told since last fall that Valles was the most freakish guy on the team; watching him channel that into actual football skills makes me drool with anticipation.
CORNERBACKS
Grade: C+
The only thing on the defense that's been a disappointment. And even then, not a huge disappointment. Statistically, things aren't terrible. The only regular CB without a pick is DreQuan Hoskey, who was a pleasant surprise but has probably hit his development ceiling. Maurice Canady has two, and five breakups as well, not bad. Brandon Phelps looks like he's playing his natural position now; he's a better cornerback than safety.
Still, sometimes the unit just misses on the eye test. Tim Harris in particular looks overmatched. Phelps and even Canady get beat more often than should've been expected. The quality of play can change series to series and even play to play. Like many things with this UVA team, a little consistency would go a long way.
SAFETIES
Grade: A
I had this idea a while ago that you could evaluate the play of defenders, particularly safeties and linebackers, by the average gain of plays on tackles they made. If a safety has a ton of tackles but on average they're pretty far from the line of scrimmage, it's not that he's a fantastic safety, it's just that the defense in front of him probably blows. I never followed through on it because it turns out it takes a really long damn time to put together.
I bring this up because I'm fairly sure it's a metric where Quin Blanding and Anthony Harris would shine. Harris is another player who's going to the big leagues next year. The eight interceptions from last year aren't getting repeated and never were, but he's showing off a lot of instinctiveness in run support.
Same goes for Blanding, only, Blanding is a true freshman. True freshmen at free safety are scary, because that's where wrong decisions become touchdowns instead of four extra yards. And UVA has allowed nine pass plays of 30 yards or more (what I consider the threshold for "long"), which is a high-ish number. On the other hand, have we ever watched the offense chuck to some guy who's all kinds of open with nary a soul behind him? No. Blanding was an absolutely elite recruit, and he's playing like it.
KICKERS
Grade: A
Let's stop and give some credit to the footy part of football, too. Alec Vozenilek is averaging 44 yards per punt, an excellent number for college that would put UVA a shade outside the top-20 in average if not for the blocked one that went nine yards (and was attributed to "team" rather than Voz's average.) Ian Frye has only missed one FG, a 46-yarder, and is 4-for-5 from beyond 40 with a season long of 47 so we forgive him for that. College teams don't always have dependable placekicking and solid punting like this.
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So, like I said - pretty good. Last year I gave the receivers an F and the quarterback a D+; it's that drastic improvement in the passing game that's as responsible as anything for the turnaround from 2-4 (and clearly on the way to 2-10, which was noticeable even then) to 4-2.
There's still work to be done. This team could easily be 2-4 and winless in the ACC right now, because they did a poor job in both games of holding onto leads. They led Louisville 20-7 and Pitt 24-3 (and for that matter, led BYU at halftime), and failed to finish the chokehold. Louisville took a 21-20 lead and then gift-wrapped a muffed punt; Pitt simply ran out of time.
That said, the Hoos didn't lose; they might've done a few things wrong, but they did more things right, and closed out when they had to. They didn't stumble into 2-0 by accident. The second quarter against Pitt was as good as they've looked at any time in years.
So - because there's a little bit of duct tape and wishes in the equation that holds the winning record together, this team could conceivably drop right out of bowl eligibility. And because the defense is so full of NFL-y goodness (and I have decreed that we will call it the sack-line defense) and the Coastal just as flawed as it looked before the season, this team could conceivably play in the ACC CG. (I mean, North Carolina's defense is a freak show, and not in a good way.) Next week, bring on the Dookies.
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Also, thanks to everyone who offered feedback on the upcoming format change; I'm compiling and sorting the responses - really - so if you haven't put in your two cents, feel free to do so, as it's a great help in deciding what exactly the future of the blog will look like.
The halfway-point bye week is a perfect time to take stock. For no other reason than I feel like it, we'll do a basic report card and grade the team A to F. Small spoiler: nobody gets an F. Passing grades for all, which we certainly wouldn't have said after 12 games last season.
**In the sense of trying to maximize our wins, that is. 3-3 actually would've been more likely to put us on a path for a middle-of-the-road season, which as we know is really the worst case. Either let's have a really good season or let's have a coaching change, as you know.
QUARTERBACKS
Grade: B-
I've been very anti-platoon, for the most part, but truth is, I think this one's over once Greyson Lambert is healthy. The reason I have to qualify that is because Matt Johns hasn't played like a guy just keeping the seat warm. Both these guys are redshirt sophomores, and let's not get carried away, they're not lighting the stadium on fire. They can be a little slow in their progressions, and there are the occasional head-scratcher throws, as with any rookie QB. But they both look good under pressure - both the game-on-the-line kind and the oh-crap-the-defense-is-here kind. And they've done a fantastic job of making the split time work out, keeping things harmonious, and the team follows the lead of both because of it. We've seen more QB platoons, swaps, and occasional straight-up indecision in the last decade and a half than anyone would consider healthy; this is the first one that actually seems to be working.
RUNNING BACKS
Grade: B
With the QBs, it's easy because they both get the same grade. Here, it's more a question of how to weight the entrants. Kevin Parks doesn't need any introduction. The UVA run game puts out about 4.2 yards a carry, and it'd be a lot less without Parks's post-contact abilities. At the end of the Louisville game, for example, when UVA could either clinch the win with a first down or kick a field goal and have to give the ball back to the Cardinals, Parks unleashed a manly-man run and dragged the whole pile three yards when two would've sufficed.
Parks plays big-boy football. I also like Khalek Shepherd, who probably wouldn't distinguish himself much as a feature back but is just quick enough to provide an effective change of pace to Parks, and who knows how to find the holes. I just wish we could see the five-star abilities that Taquan Mizzell supposedly brought. In an effort to get him the ball in space, the playcalling has provided him with 21 receptions, enough to tie for the team lead, but he's not even averaging 5 yards a catch. I'm not grading individual players, and further I wonder if it's fair to grade based on expectations, but Mizzell brings down the unit's GPA a notch.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Grade: B-
There's nobody you look at here and think, "that's the go-to guy, right there." Yet someone's usually open regardless. There's a general lack of explosiveness; you'd have thought Darius Jennings should be that X-factor guy, but he hasn't been a gameplanning threat, with only 11 catches. Actually, the most consistent deepish-ball guy is Andre Levrone; only nine catches, but most of them over 18 yards.
Still, most of these guys are pretty big, and the size has worked in their favor. The quarterbacks spread the ball around a lot, so nobody's putting up huge stats, but Canaan Severin is having a breakout season all the same, and Miles Gooch is the offense's feel-good story of the year. And there are times when I think to myself, man, we are really going to like Doni Dowling in the future. Consistency escapes him, but c'mon, he's a true freshman.
Lack of speed and a true go-to player holds the grade for this unit back, but despite that, they get the job done. Most of the players on the unit will have the chance to develop along with their quarterback(s), so the future is fairly bright as well.
TIGHT ENDS
Grade: D
I don't know how their blocking is, but as I'm about to talk about being unimpressed by the run-blocking, it's probably not any great shakes. There's no production at all in the passing game; Zach Swanson has probably dropped at least as many passes as he's caught, and he and Rob Burns have combined for all of four catches. Swanson is a particular disappointment because he looked like a useful player last year.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Grade: C
On the one hand, you have to give the line credit for even playing as well as they have with the constant shuffling. The first three games saw three different starting lineups. And the pass-blocking has been undeniably decent. Only decent, because one, our QBs are much better at avoiding a rush than Watford was last year, and two, Steve Fairchild's short passing game and relative tilt toward the run really limit the chances for the rush to produce a sack. UVA has allowed just five sacks in six games, an average that's good for 16th in the country. I don't think the pass-blocking is as good as that stat shows, but you can't deprive the line of a fair share of credit, either.
Still, the run-blocking problems have carried over from last year. It's the same deal - the line generates little if any push. They're not bad at steering a lineman out of the way, but they can't shove him out of the way. (I've also grumbled to myself about the quality of blocks from pulling guards, who simply miss them too often.) The way Kevin Parks runs, if the line could get half a yard of push it'd probably boost his average by a yard, and he'd be on pace for another 1,000-yard season.
DEFENSIVE LINE
Grade: A-
Only held back from a straight A because there are usually only three of them; it's a lineman and not a linebacker that comes out for the nickel package. That and there's less rotation than I'd like.
Picky picky, though. Eli Harold is beastly, and the scary thing for ACC offenses is that he's become an every-down lineman instead of a pass-rush specialist. David Dean's development curve has taken off nicely, and he's made quite a few more tackles than a team should be able to expect out of an interior lineman. And Mike Moore has blossomed after a slow start to his career; he's the defense's Canaan Severin. P.S. - none of those guys are seniors. The ACC is invited to come and get some next year.
LINEBACKERS
Grade: A+
So good. Such sweet goody goodness. On a scale from 1 to 10, these guys go all the way to Tony Bennett. Daquan Romero has 48 tackles, 5 for loss, 2 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and 2 recoveries, an interception, and the least flashy stat line of the three starting linebackers, which is mind-boggling. Romero's specialty is sniffing out screen passes. This is a guy that can blow them up like nobody else.
Henry Coley is going to play on Sundays. Ask people around the program and they'll tell you who quarterbacks the defense on the field. Jon Tenuta likes to get all blitzy, as per his reputation, so Coley has six sacks to go along with the rest of the good stuff he does, but he's found his way into the backfield on run plays too. Two years ago I did a midseason review and called Coley "decent, but not, like, amazing or anything." Exact words to describe how I felt about his backup work with Steve Greer playing in front. Last year at the same time I was duly impressed. This year, I mean, damn.
And then we come to Max Valles - the Justin Anderson of football. Last year he rushed the passer and had a lot to learn about the rest of linebacking. This year he's playing both defensive end and actual linebacker, and the results: five sacks, one pick-six, seven swatted passes, a fumble recovery. And this is a true sophomore (albeit also with a FUMA-shirt season.) We've been told since last fall that Valles was the most freakish guy on the team; watching him channel that into actual football skills makes me drool with anticipation.
CORNERBACKS
Grade: C+
The only thing on the defense that's been a disappointment. And even then, not a huge disappointment. Statistically, things aren't terrible. The only regular CB without a pick is DreQuan Hoskey, who was a pleasant surprise but has probably hit his development ceiling. Maurice Canady has two, and five breakups as well, not bad. Brandon Phelps looks like he's playing his natural position now; he's a better cornerback than safety.
Still, sometimes the unit just misses on the eye test. Tim Harris in particular looks overmatched. Phelps and even Canady get beat more often than should've been expected. The quality of play can change series to series and even play to play. Like many things with this UVA team, a little consistency would go a long way.
SAFETIES
Grade: A
I had this idea a while ago that you could evaluate the play of defenders, particularly safeties and linebackers, by the average gain of plays on tackles they made. If a safety has a ton of tackles but on average they're pretty far from the line of scrimmage, it's not that he's a fantastic safety, it's just that the defense in front of him probably blows. I never followed through on it because it turns out it takes a really long damn time to put together.
I bring this up because I'm fairly sure it's a metric where Quin Blanding and Anthony Harris would shine. Harris is another player who's going to the big leagues next year. The eight interceptions from last year aren't getting repeated and never were, but he's showing off a lot of instinctiveness in run support.
Same goes for Blanding, only, Blanding is a true freshman. True freshmen at free safety are scary, because that's where wrong decisions become touchdowns instead of four extra yards. And UVA has allowed nine pass plays of 30 yards or more (what I consider the threshold for "long"), which is a high-ish number. On the other hand, have we ever watched the offense chuck to some guy who's all kinds of open with nary a soul behind him? No. Blanding was an absolutely elite recruit, and he's playing like it.
KICKERS
Grade: A
Let's stop and give some credit to the footy part of football, too. Alec Vozenilek is averaging 44 yards per punt, an excellent number for college that would put UVA a shade outside the top-20 in average if not for the blocked one that went nine yards (and was attributed to "team" rather than Voz's average.) Ian Frye has only missed one FG, a 46-yarder, and is 4-for-5 from beyond 40 with a season long of 47 so we forgive him for that. College teams don't always have dependable placekicking and solid punting like this.
******************************************
So, like I said - pretty good. Last year I gave the receivers an F and the quarterback a D+; it's that drastic improvement in the passing game that's as responsible as anything for the turnaround from 2-4 (and clearly on the way to 2-10, which was noticeable even then) to 4-2.
There's still work to be done. This team could easily be 2-4 and winless in the ACC right now, because they did a poor job in both games of holding onto leads. They led Louisville 20-7 and Pitt 24-3 (and for that matter, led BYU at halftime), and failed to finish the chokehold. Louisville took a 21-20 lead and then gift-wrapped a muffed punt; Pitt simply ran out of time.
That said, the Hoos didn't lose; they might've done a few things wrong, but they did more things right, and closed out when they had to. They didn't stumble into 2-0 by accident. The second quarter against Pitt was as good as they've looked at any time in years.
So - because there's a little bit of duct tape and wishes in the equation that holds the winning record together, this team could conceivably drop right out of bowl eligibility. And because the defense is so full of NFL-y goodness (and I have decreed that we will call it the sack-line defense) and the Coastal just as flawed as it looked before the season, this team could conceivably play in the ACC CG. (I mean, North Carolina's defense is a freak show, and not in a good way.) Next week, bring on the Dookies.
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Also, thanks to everyone who offered feedback on the upcoming format change; I'm compiling and sorting the responses - really - so if you haven't put in your two cents, feel free to do so, as it's a great help in deciding what exactly the future of the blog will look like.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
less is more
There's gonna be some changes around here.
Some lengthy background: For, oh, I'd say about a year and half now, I've been kicking around the idea of retirement. That accelerated starting early this spring, and about a month ago I made the big decision that This Is It. Here's how that was gonna go: I would keep on plugging away until around February, and then announce the big goodbye to take effect in the summer; spring sports coverage would've been intermixed with retrospectives like my top ten favorite posts and so on. I don't like the idea of just abruptly stopping, you see.
The reasons for this might well be obvious to anyone who's been a long-time reader. I've let all kinds of stuff that I intended to do just fall by the wayside. I've skipped quite a few days that should've been posting days. Far too often I've caught myself saying, "oh jeez, I still have to write something today." And then sometimes I'd be like "screw it, I'll just do it tomorrow." When it becomes "have to" instead of "really, really want to," that's a sign. And the fact is, real life is simply catching up, and catching up hard. From 2008 to 2010 I had a job with insanely nice hours and a 10-minute commute. From 2010 to 2013 I was either doing nothing at all or going to school. Now I have a job, more to do outside the job (mostly involving sailing, which is fair to call my passion) and at the same time, less inspiration for ideas, which was always the toughest part of this gig anyway. Writing has been filling up much too much of my leftover free time.
Naturally, it sort of bummed me out, once I'd made that decision. I've always been kind of bad at quitting stuff, but, every athlete that's ever retired probably didn't want to stop playing, they just wanted to not play more than they wanted to play, and of course I was going to be conflicted about something like that. That's how I was thinking about it, and I figured, well, what I will do is, after some period of time, look for a place, not just any place but the right kind of place, where I could write part-time, once a week or so. And leave this site open as a portal to the game highlights I used to make, which is one of those things that fell completely off the wagon and I wish hadn't.
So that takes you from about 18 months ago to about one month ago. Further into present day, more like, oh, two hours ago, I had an epiphany: dude, if you only want to write once a week, just write once a week. It's not like you have to find someone to let you do that.
So that's what I'll do. Starting at the end of football season (no abrupt stops, remember. Until the VT game is over, things will go as they have been, as I prefer not to just jump into anything midstream) I'm switching the format of this blog to once a week, on Mondays. It'll probably be a pretty long post. I plan on using the whole week to write it, not just sitting down on Mondays and banging it out. Just type in stuff as it comes to me. See something I like, spend 15 minutes on it, move on. See a game, throw a thought onto e-paper, move on. And then publish the results on Mondays. It'll probably be less coolly analytical and more about the tao of Virginia, but hell if I know, really.
It means the end, of course, of some regular features. I doubt I'll do full regular game previews (I might do really big ones like NCAA tournament games....or I might not.) Probably no more recruit profiles (except that I'll finish up this season's.) I may actually be able to bring the recruiting board back (another thing that I would've liked to not have dropped.) I don't think I'll do Senior Seasons anymore. I really like doing lacrosse bracketology and will probably continue. I hope this lets me find the time to gin up more highlights, because I'm sitting on a huge passel of games. And I'll definitely still be doing Cavalier of the Year.
Along these lines, the mic is open for suggestions, specifically about what you'd really miss if I stopped doing it. Whether I used to do it and stopped, or still do; anything from the game preview graphics to the previews themselves to other team season previews, whatever. I'll try and work it in if feasible, meaning, if it doesn't turn me back into a semi-daily and if it doesn't turn the actual weekly post into a compilation of repetitive stuff.
I have to admit, I'm rather looking forward to the change - it'll give me more of my life back and let me continue being opinionated on the Internet, minus the annoyance and tiny guilt twinge of having skipped yet another day where someone might've been looking for something they didn't get. I can put my own hobby back on my own schedule, and hopefully improve the product as well.
P.S. the promised midseason review goes tomorrow.
Some lengthy background: For, oh, I'd say about a year and half now, I've been kicking around the idea of retirement. That accelerated starting early this spring, and about a month ago I made the big decision that This Is It. Here's how that was gonna go: I would keep on plugging away until around February, and then announce the big goodbye to take effect in the summer; spring sports coverage would've been intermixed with retrospectives like my top ten favorite posts and so on. I don't like the idea of just abruptly stopping, you see.
The reasons for this might well be obvious to anyone who's been a long-time reader. I've let all kinds of stuff that I intended to do just fall by the wayside. I've skipped quite a few days that should've been posting days. Far too often I've caught myself saying, "oh jeez, I still have to write something today." And then sometimes I'd be like "screw it, I'll just do it tomorrow." When it becomes "have to" instead of "really, really want to," that's a sign. And the fact is, real life is simply catching up, and catching up hard. From 2008 to 2010 I had a job with insanely nice hours and a 10-minute commute. From 2010 to 2013 I was either doing nothing at all or going to school. Now I have a job, more to do outside the job (mostly involving sailing, which is fair to call my passion) and at the same time, less inspiration for ideas, which was always the toughest part of this gig anyway. Writing has been filling up much too much of my leftover free time.
Naturally, it sort of bummed me out, once I'd made that decision. I've always been kind of bad at quitting stuff, but, every athlete that's ever retired probably didn't want to stop playing, they just wanted to not play more than they wanted to play, and of course I was going to be conflicted about something like that. That's how I was thinking about it, and I figured, well, what I will do is, after some period of time, look for a place, not just any place but the right kind of place, where I could write part-time, once a week or so. And leave this site open as a portal to the game highlights I used to make, which is one of those things that fell completely off the wagon and I wish hadn't.
So that takes you from about 18 months ago to about one month ago. Further into present day, more like, oh, two hours ago, I had an epiphany: dude, if you only want to write once a week, just write once a week. It's not like you have to find someone to let you do that.
So that's what I'll do. Starting at the end of football season (no abrupt stops, remember. Until the VT game is over, things will go as they have been, as I prefer not to just jump into anything midstream) I'm switching the format of this blog to once a week, on Mondays. It'll probably be a pretty long post. I plan on using the whole week to write it, not just sitting down on Mondays and banging it out. Just type in stuff as it comes to me. See something I like, spend 15 minutes on it, move on. See a game, throw a thought onto e-paper, move on. And then publish the results on Mondays. It'll probably be less coolly analytical and more about the tao of Virginia, but hell if I know, really.
It means the end, of course, of some regular features. I doubt I'll do full regular game previews (I might do really big ones like NCAA tournament games....or I might not.) Probably no more recruit profiles (except that I'll finish up this season's.) I may actually be able to bring the recruiting board back (another thing that I would've liked to not have dropped.) I don't think I'll do Senior Seasons anymore. I really like doing lacrosse bracketology and will probably continue. I hope this lets me find the time to gin up more highlights, because I'm sitting on a huge passel of games. And I'll definitely still be doing Cavalier of the Year.
Along these lines, the mic is open for suggestions, specifically about what you'd really miss if I stopped doing it. Whether I used to do it and stopped, or still do; anything from the game preview graphics to the previews themselves to other team season previews, whatever. I'll try and work it in if feasible, meaning, if it doesn't turn me back into a semi-daily and if it doesn't turn the actual weekly post into a compilation of repetitive stuff.
I have to admit, I'm rather looking forward to the change - it'll give me more of my life back and let me continue being opinionated on the Internet, minus the annoyance and tiny guilt twinge of having skipped yet another day where someone might've been looking for something they didn't get. I can put my own hobby back on my own schedule, and hopefully improve the product as well.
P.S. the promised midseason review goes tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
the recruit: James Trucilla
Name: James Trucilla
Position: DT
Hometown: Erie, PA
School: Cathedral Prep
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 265
24/7: 85, three stars; #58 DT, PA #21
ESPN: 74, three stars; #85 DT, PA #32, East #165
Rivals: 5.5, three stars
Scout: two stars
Other offers: Ball State, Akron, Miami (OH), Eastern Michigan
If it's even possible, James Trucilla is a more important recruit than the OL that I've been bellyaching about, because of this: there are four scholarship DTs on the roster. If the OL is thin, DT is even worse. For reasons we'll get into shortly, it's not as big a disaster as it sounds, but it's still critical to collect some more. Trucilla is the only DT recruit in the already-large recruiting class.
Trucilla also committed in the middle of a stretch that started to make UVA fans a little uneasy. When a guy commits, nobody wants to be the one going, "really? we're competing with the MAC for recruits now?" and coaches are always given leeway with a few of those guys in the class. But starting in mid-to-late June, the commitment list started looking awfully bottom-heavy, and people started thinking it'd be nice to leave some room for the big fish, too.
So, we look for what the coaches were looking for, and figure out why the offers didn't roll in. In Trucilla's case, size is the obvious answer to the latter. There's nothing wrong with Trucilla's height; David Dean is 6'1" and starting to look like an all-conference tackle. But 265 pounds is just big enough to get blown off the middle of the line like a leaf, and Trucilla looks as though putting on a lot of weight could be tough. He doesn't really have room for 30 more pounds; 280-285 seems like his limit, though he may not be asked to go that high.
But there's always a tradeoff, and Trucilla's appeal is in his quickness. Watching his highlight, that's the one trait that stands out, and ESPN agrees, deploying the word "quick" four times in his scouting report. In this case, his relative lack of height is actually an asset, because he can start off low and get underneath and around a blocker. He's probably doomed on the plays where a bigger guy can create any leverage on him and stay in front, but if he gets an angle he's gone. And, you know how announcers are always talking about running backs who "keep their legs moving" as if some of them run without doing so? Trucilla does this, at least on plays where he's successful (and they don't show the other ones, you know?) Some DTs can put down roots and you might as well try to block an elm tree; Trucilla, though, is a three-tech, gap-penetrating DT all the way, not the space-eating kind at all.
His production is a little less than elite, even for a DT; last year and this he's been pulling down about a TFL and half a sack per game. 52 tackles in 13 games last year, not bad at all, it's just that you'd like to see a few more of them behind the line. That's what he'll be asked to do in college, after all, not clog up a line of scrimmage.
Remember I said that DT depth isn't a supercritical thing - it's because most of the time, Tenuta has the defense in a nickel package, and in that alignment, Max Valles plays DE and a DE (usually Mike Moore) moves inside. So UVA actually lines up with two DTs, maybe a quarter of the time. Moore doesn't have a lot of tackles this year, but he does get into the backfield, and that's what Trucilla would be asked to do too. Or, remember John-Kevin Dolce, who was used as an absurdly light DT when London arrived, and was comically bad against the power run game but sometimes exploded someone in the backfield. Trucilla, if he develops to his potential, is a less-extreme version of Dolce, probably a bit less athletic a version of Moore.
Since Chris Brathwaite moved to OL and got buried, UVA doesn't graduate any DTs next year, and the coaches can probably be counted on to redshirt Trucilla. Donte Wilkins and Andrew Brown should be able to hold down DT for a while after Dean graduates, and Trucilla will also have to contend with someone like Michael Biesemier, as an example of someone who might take over Moore's DE/DT role. (Trucilla won't be moving to end himself; his quickness is much more useful against interior linemen, and he'd get swallowed up by long-armed, fancy-footed offensive tackles.) Redshirt sophomore year (2017) is probably the earliest that Trucilla projects to see real playing time; what happens in 2017 and beyond depends on his ability to pick up the defense and develop moves that maximize his natural quickness.
Position: DT
Hometown: Erie, PA
School: Cathedral Prep
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 265
24/7: 85, three stars; #58 DT, PA #21
ESPN: 74, three stars; #85 DT, PA #32, East #165
Rivals: 5.5, three stars
Scout: two stars
Other offers: Ball State, Akron, Miami (OH), Eastern Michigan
If it's even possible, James Trucilla is a more important recruit than the OL that I've been bellyaching about, because of this: there are four scholarship DTs on the roster. If the OL is thin, DT is even worse. For reasons we'll get into shortly, it's not as big a disaster as it sounds, but it's still critical to collect some more. Trucilla is the only DT recruit in the already-large recruiting class.
Trucilla also committed in the middle of a stretch that started to make UVA fans a little uneasy. When a guy commits, nobody wants to be the one going, "really? we're competing with the MAC for recruits now?" and coaches are always given leeway with a few of those guys in the class. But starting in mid-to-late June, the commitment list started looking awfully bottom-heavy, and people started thinking it'd be nice to leave some room for the big fish, too.
So, we look for what the coaches were looking for, and figure out why the offers didn't roll in. In Trucilla's case, size is the obvious answer to the latter. There's nothing wrong with Trucilla's height; David Dean is 6'1" and starting to look like an all-conference tackle. But 265 pounds is just big enough to get blown off the middle of the line like a leaf, and Trucilla looks as though putting on a lot of weight could be tough. He doesn't really have room for 30 more pounds; 280-285 seems like his limit, though he may not be asked to go that high.
But there's always a tradeoff, and Trucilla's appeal is in his quickness. Watching his highlight, that's the one trait that stands out, and ESPN agrees, deploying the word "quick" four times in his scouting report. In this case, his relative lack of height is actually an asset, because he can start off low and get underneath and around a blocker. He's probably doomed on the plays where a bigger guy can create any leverage on him and stay in front, but if he gets an angle he's gone. And, you know how announcers are always talking about running backs who "keep their legs moving" as if some of them run without doing so? Trucilla does this, at least on plays where he's successful (and they don't show the other ones, you know?) Some DTs can put down roots and you might as well try to block an elm tree; Trucilla, though, is a three-tech, gap-penetrating DT all the way, not the space-eating kind at all.
His production is a little less than elite, even for a DT; last year and this he's been pulling down about a TFL and half a sack per game. 52 tackles in 13 games last year, not bad at all, it's just that you'd like to see a few more of them behind the line. That's what he'll be asked to do in college, after all, not clog up a line of scrimmage.
Remember I said that DT depth isn't a supercritical thing - it's because most of the time, Tenuta has the defense in a nickel package, and in that alignment, Max Valles plays DE and a DE (usually Mike Moore) moves inside. So UVA actually lines up with two DTs, maybe a quarter of the time. Moore doesn't have a lot of tackles this year, but he does get into the backfield, and that's what Trucilla would be asked to do too. Or, remember John-Kevin Dolce, who was used as an absurdly light DT when London arrived, and was comically bad against the power run game but sometimes exploded someone in the backfield. Trucilla, if he develops to his potential, is a less-extreme version of Dolce, probably a bit less athletic a version of Moore.
Since Chris Brathwaite moved to OL and got buried, UVA doesn't graduate any DTs next year, and the coaches can probably be counted on to redshirt Trucilla. Donte Wilkins and Andrew Brown should be able to hold down DT for a while after Dean graduates, and Trucilla will also have to contend with someone like Michael Biesemier, as an example of someone who might take over Moore's DE/DT role. (Trucilla won't be moving to end himself; his quickness is much more useful against interior linemen, and he'd get swallowed up by long-armed, fancy-footed offensive tackles.) Redshirt sophomore year (2017) is probably the earliest that Trucilla projects to see real playing time; what happens in 2017 and beyond depends on his ability to pick up the defense and develop moves that maximize his natural quickness.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
senior seasons
Just that and nothing more.
West Orange 45, Apopka 31: Again there's no mention of Brandon Wilson, but you're nuts if you think we're not going to keep up with the exploits of one Eddie McDoom**, just 'cause. McDoom blew the game open with a KO return for a touchdown to open the second half. West Orange is 6-0.
Hun School 42, Germantown Academy 21: Chris Sharp had a big day carrying the ball with 122 yards and four touchdowns on 14 attempts. Hun is 2-1.
Kettle Run 27, Handley 13: David Eldrige had a renaissance-man game, picking off two passes, returning a punt to the end zone, and catching three balls for 27 yards, including one 21-yarder. Kettle Run is 3-2.
Altavista 38, Gretna 0: Juan Thornhill ran for two touchdowns, passed for one, and caught one. Altavista is 5-0.
Charlotte 46, Riverdale 21 (Grant Polk) - Charlotte is 3-1.
Buford 54, Chestatee 7 (David Curry) - Buford is 6-0.
Manasquan 14, Ocean Township 7 (Tanner Cowley) - Manasquan is 3-1.
Lakota West 49, Hamilton 21 (C.J. Stalker) - Lakota West is 3-3.
Plymouth-Whitemarsh 33, Upper Moreland 20 (Ryan Bischoff) - P-W is 4-2.
St. Joseph's Prep 49, Malvern Prep 28 (Olamide Zacchaeus) - St. Joseph's is 2-3.
Martin Luther King 50, Phila. Northeast 49 (Gladimir Paul) - Northeast is 0-5.
Cathedral Prep 35, Central Tech 8 (James Trucilla) - Prep is 6-0.
Greater Johnstown 15, Richland 7 (Kareem Gibson) - Johnstown is 4-0.
Colleton County 38, South Aiken 7 (Rasool Clemons) - South Aiken is 2-4.
Ballou 16, Woodrow Wilson 10 (Kareem McDonald) - Wilson is 2-4.
Good Counsel 21, DeMatha 14 (Myles Robinson) - OLGC is 5-1.
Liberty 28, Sherando 14 (R.J. Proctor) - Liberty is 4-1.
Hermitage 38, Patrick Henry 0 (Eli Hanback) - Patrick Henry is 1-4.
Great Bridge 28, Hickory 7 (Richard Burney) - Hickory is 1-4.
Ocean Lakes 56, Kempsville 0 (Jahvoni Simmons) - Ocean Lakes is 5-0.
**McDoom, by the way, is a junior wide receiver, already rated a high three-star by Rivals, with a pair of ACC offers (BC and Clemson) to his name, not to mention a towering high-top. He's a legit prospect who'll definitely be heard from in the future. Which is good; obscurity would be an unfair fate for a name like that.
West Orange 45, Apopka 31: Again there's no mention of Brandon Wilson, but you're nuts if you think we're not going to keep up with the exploits of one Eddie McDoom**, just 'cause. McDoom blew the game open with a KO return for a touchdown to open the second half. West Orange is 6-0.
Hun School 42, Germantown Academy 21: Chris Sharp had a big day carrying the ball with 122 yards and four touchdowns on 14 attempts. Hun is 2-1.
Kettle Run 27, Handley 13: David Eldrige had a renaissance-man game, picking off two passes, returning a punt to the end zone, and catching three balls for 27 yards, including one 21-yarder. Kettle Run is 3-2.
Altavista 38, Gretna 0: Juan Thornhill ran for two touchdowns, passed for one, and caught one. Altavista is 5-0.
Charlotte 46, Riverdale 21 (Grant Polk) - Charlotte is 3-1.
Buford 54, Chestatee 7 (David Curry) - Buford is 6-0.
Manasquan 14, Ocean Township 7 (Tanner Cowley) - Manasquan is 3-1.
Lakota West 49, Hamilton 21 (C.J. Stalker) - Lakota West is 3-3.
Plymouth-Whitemarsh 33, Upper Moreland 20 (Ryan Bischoff) - P-W is 4-2.
St. Joseph's Prep 49, Malvern Prep 28 (Olamide Zacchaeus) - St. Joseph's is 2-3.
Martin Luther King 50, Phila. Northeast 49 (Gladimir Paul) - Northeast is 0-5.
Cathedral Prep 35, Central Tech 8 (James Trucilla) - Prep is 6-0.
Greater Johnstown 15, Richland 7 (Kareem Gibson) - Johnstown is 4-0.
Colleton County 38, South Aiken 7 (Rasool Clemons) - South Aiken is 2-4.
Ballou 16, Woodrow Wilson 10 (Kareem McDonald) - Wilson is 2-4.
Good Counsel 21, DeMatha 14 (Myles Robinson) - OLGC is 5-1.
Liberty 28, Sherando 14 (R.J. Proctor) - Liberty is 4-1.
Hermitage 38, Patrick Henry 0 (Eli Hanback) - Patrick Henry is 1-4.
Great Bridge 28, Hickory 7 (Richard Burney) - Hickory is 1-4.
Ocean Lakes 56, Kempsville 0 (Jahvoni Simmons) - Ocean Lakes is 5-0.
**McDoom, by the way, is a junior wide receiver, already rated a high three-star by Rivals, with a pair of ACC offers (BC and Clemson) to his name, not to mention a towering high-top. He's a legit prospect who'll definitely be heard from in the future. Which is good; obscurity would be an unfair fate for a name like that.
Monday, October 6, 2014
pitt stop
When you have a crappy football team (or any kind of crappy team, I guess) the smallest things turn into "not since" stats. This past basketball season was crammed to the gills with not-since stats, and most of them ended up being Ralph Sampson-related. Now it's football's turn. Baby steps first - did you know, the last time UVA was 2-0 in the ACC was 2009? Frightening, because that season sucked so bad it got a coach fired. Also frightening, because it means Mike London's never done it. (In fact, he'd never been so much as 1-0.)
So, for once, the bye week (well, the first of two) comes at a fantastic time: we get to be 2-0 for two whole weeks. See, fanhood belies the old saying about second place being the first loser. Nobody really believes that. If they did, most would find something else to do. The behavior of fans means we actually subscribe to the notion that it's not the destination, it's the journey. Winning championships is great, but fanhood is really about the belief that you might do so later.
So, halfway through the season, here we sit with two whole weeks to enjoy a zero. I can definitely live with that. I'm perfectly willing to accept that this team could start throwing large crooked numbers into that column pretty quickly, but what keeps you and me and the rest of this fanbase going is that they might not. And if this sounds like what I wrote last week and maybe the week before that and before that, well, yeah.... because the simple fact that it continues to be the truth is enough to keep the whole program afloat.
Bullety points:
-- UVA is the only Coastal team that got no votes for first place, and Georgia Tech was my own personal choice for dead last. So of course those are the only two conference-undefeated Coastal teams. I want us to win for all the obvious reasons but also because the no-first-place-votes thing is funny.
-- A 2-10 team that starts the next season 4-2 is full of surprises, but how about Matt Johns's wheels as one of the biggest? Even if you take away his 42-yard scamper against Kent State, he's still averaging more yards per carry than any of the running backs, and that's with sacks included.
-- I had enough time during the Miles Gooch WR pass to realize that the pass was headed for Zach Swanson and to think, before it nestled into his hands, "please please catch this one." Tight End U is not what it once was. Impressively, that play worked even though the whole damn stadium and every eye on TV knew Gooch was going to pass the ball as soon as it hit his hands.
-- A huge, huge pet peeve of mine is plays like regular options and toss sweeps that go to the short side of the field. When you're trying to get wide, why cut the play off before it has a chance to develop? That's entirely on the OC. On Saturday, one play in particular stood out in this regard - but for once, in a good way. That was a Kevin Parks pitchout on the second touchdown drive; Parks picked up an extra 5-7 yards because the play went wide side, and it was during those extra yards that he delivered the stiff-arm to Pitt's Terrish Webb that pissed Webb off enough to hand UVA another 15 yards, post-whistle. Stop going short side, OC's. You'll thank me.
Edit: I just went back and read my review of this same Pitt game last year, which had nothing nice to say about the offense and deployed Ian Malcolm and triceratops poop. And the phrase, "God kills a baby angel every time an offensive coordinator runs a toss sweep or option play to the short side of the field." We can has.... progress from the coaching staff? I was never as down on Steve Fairchild as most people, but neither was I wildly impressed; regardless, he's really starting to earn his pay these days.
-- I think I'm getting officially disappointed in Taquan Mizzell. The play just before that one was a screen to Mizzell, and a pretty well-executed one that ought to've picked up the first down and about 12-14 yards. But Mizzell went the wrong side of Andre Levrone's excellent block, which he's been far too prone to doing. Smoke'll never be a five-star running back unless he improves his vision.
-- Helmetzz. I didn't hate them - in fact, they were awfully unobtrusive (though, probably wouldn't have been with the regular blue unis) which made me ask, what's the fuss? OK, I guess the players like them, they got to see them up close and handle them and all that, but they also generated a lot of "wow, really sharp!" comments on message boards, which I don't get. They just looked kinda.... there. The lights set them off, which was kinda cool, probably better than in the daytime, but I don't think anyone would've known these were different unless they looked real close or were told about them. And no, this is not an entreaty to do something even nuttier and wilder next time.
-- I don't know if "learning to win" is a thing, but if it is, it sure as hell applies to this team. As in, it's something they'll need to do. Pitt is a huge maybe of a bowl team and most ACC squads won't let you go dry for the whole second half and walk away with a win.
Prediction review time!
- UVA plays only one quarterback, barring injury or blowout. True that. It's getting so we might not ever know when Greyson Lambert's ankle is healed. Johns is doing awfully well. He only completed nine passes, which I was shocked to see because the eye test said he played great. But then, the run-pass balance was incredibly skewed - 43 run plays to 17 pass attempts. And why not, when Kevin Parks can pile up almost 170 yards? (Another not-since stat, by the way; the last Hoo RB to top 150 was Ced Peerman in 2008.) At any rate, Johns might've only completed a handful of passes, but you look, for example, at the swing pass that scored Khalek Shepherd. Anything other than a perfect, in-stride throw, and UVA is kicking a field goal there.
- James Conner averages between four and five yards a carry. Dammit, the defense was just slightly better than I gave them credit for; Conner ended up with 3.95. I could round and call it four, but I won't.
- The UVA passing game generates more than 6.5 yards per attempt. Thank you, Gooch to Swanson. And thank you me for remembering I was evaluating the whole matchup and not just one quarterback. Matt Johns came nowhere near 6.5, but the passing game got a boost to 6.7 thanks to that one trick play.
- The UVA defense gets no more than two non-sack TFLs, matching or setting a new low for the year. Again I just slightly underestimate the defense, which got three.
- Whoever starts at QB for UVA completes at least 65% of his passes. Nope.
Two out of five this week, which brings the updated totals to:
13-for-29 on specifics (44.8%)
4-1 straight up
2-1-1 ATS
Lots of bettors watching that two-point conversion, I'm thinking.
Senior Seasons gets pushed to tomorrow. No game preview this week, duh, so it'll be replaced with a midseason review, being as we have perfect timing for it.
So, for once, the bye week (well, the first of two) comes at a fantastic time: we get to be 2-0 for two whole weeks. See, fanhood belies the old saying about second place being the first loser. Nobody really believes that. If they did, most would find something else to do. The behavior of fans means we actually subscribe to the notion that it's not the destination, it's the journey. Winning championships is great, but fanhood is really about the belief that you might do so later.
So, halfway through the season, here we sit with two whole weeks to enjoy a zero. I can definitely live with that. I'm perfectly willing to accept that this team could start throwing large crooked numbers into that column pretty quickly, but what keeps you and me and the rest of this fanbase going is that they might not. And if this sounds like what I wrote last week and maybe the week before that and before that, well, yeah.... because the simple fact that it continues to be the truth is enough to keep the whole program afloat.
Bullety points:
-- UVA is the only Coastal team that got no votes for first place, and Georgia Tech was my own personal choice for dead last. So of course those are the only two conference-undefeated Coastal teams. I want us to win for all the obvious reasons but also because the no-first-place-votes thing is funny.
-- A 2-10 team that starts the next season 4-2 is full of surprises, but how about Matt Johns's wheels as one of the biggest? Even if you take away his 42-yard scamper against Kent State, he's still averaging more yards per carry than any of the running backs, and that's with sacks included.
-- I had enough time during the Miles Gooch WR pass to realize that the pass was headed for Zach Swanson and to think, before it nestled into his hands, "please please catch this one." Tight End U is not what it once was. Impressively, that play worked even though the whole damn stadium and every eye on TV knew Gooch was going to pass the ball as soon as it hit his hands.
-- A huge, huge pet peeve of mine is plays like regular options and toss sweeps that go to the short side of the field. When you're trying to get wide, why cut the play off before it has a chance to develop? That's entirely on the OC. On Saturday, one play in particular stood out in this regard - but for once, in a good way. That was a Kevin Parks pitchout on the second touchdown drive; Parks picked up an extra 5-7 yards because the play went wide side, and it was during those extra yards that he delivered the stiff-arm to Pitt's Terrish Webb that pissed Webb off enough to hand UVA another 15 yards, post-whistle. Stop going short side, OC's. You'll thank me.
Edit: I just went back and read my review of this same Pitt game last year, which had nothing nice to say about the offense and deployed Ian Malcolm and triceratops poop. And the phrase, "God kills a baby angel every time an offensive coordinator runs a toss sweep or option play to the short side of the field." We can has.... progress from the coaching staff? I was never as down on Steve Fairchild as most people, but neither was I wildly impressed; regardless, he's really starting to earn his pay these days.
-- I think I'm getting officially disappointed in Taquan Mizzell. The play just before that one was a screen to Mizzell, and a pretty well-executed one that ought to've picked up the first down and about 12-14 yards. But Mizzell went the wrong side of Andre Levrone's excellent block, which he's been far too prone to doing. Smoke'll never be a five-star running back unless he improves his vision.
-- Helmetzz. I didn't hate them - in fact, they were awfully unobtrusive (though, probably wouldn't have been with the regular blue unis) which made me ask, what's the fuss? OK, I guess the players like them, they got to see them up close and handle them and all that, but they also generated a lot of "wow, really sharp!" comments on message boards, which I don't get. They just looked kinda.... there. The lights set them off, which was kinda cool, probably better than in the daytime, but I don't think anyone would've known these were different unless they looked real close or were told about them. And no, this is not an entreaty to do something even nuttier and wilder next time.
-- I don't know if "learning to win" is a thing, but if it is, it sure as hell applies to this team. As in, it's something they'll need to do. Pitt is a huge maybe of a bowl team and most ACC squads won't let you go dry for the whole second half and walk away with a win.
Prediction review time!
- UVA plays only one quarterback, barring injury or blowout. True that. It's getting so we might not ever know when Greyson Lambert's ankle is healed. Johns is doing awfully well. He only completed nine passes, which I was shocked to see because the eye test said he played great. But then, the run-pass balance was incredibly skewed - 43 run plays to 17 pass attempts. And why not, when Kevin Parks can pile up almost 170 yards? (Another not-since stat, by the way; the last Hoo RB to top 150 was Ced Peerman in 2008.) At any rate, Johns might've only completed a handful of passes, but you look, for example, at the swing pass that scored Khalek Shepherd. Anything other than a perfect, in-stride throw, and UVA is kicking a field goal there.
- James Conner averages between four and five yards a carry. Dammit, the defense was just slightly better than I gave them credit for; Conner ended up with 3.95. I could round and call it four, but I won't.
- The UVA passing game generates more than 6.5 yards per attempt. Thank you, Gooch to Swanson. And thank you me for remembering I was evaluating the whole matchup and not just one quarterback. Matt Johns came nowhere near 6.5, but the passing game got a boost to 6.7 thanks to that one trick play.
- The UVA defense gets no more than two non-sack TFLs, matching or setting a new low for the year. Again I just slightly underestimate the defense, which got three.
- Whoever starts at QB for UVA completes at least 65% of his passes. Nope.
Two out of five this week, which brings the updated totals to:
13-for-29 on specifics (44.8%)
4-1 straight up
2-1-1 ATS
Lots of bettors watching that two-point conversion, I'm thinking.
Senior Seasons gets pushed to tomorrow. No game preview this week, duh, so it'll be replaced with a midseason review, being as we have perfect timing for it.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
game preview: Pittsburgh
TV: ESPN3, RSN
Record against the Panthers: 2-4
Last meeting: Pitt 14, UVA 3; 9/28/13, Pittsburgh
Last weekend: UVA 45, KSU 13; Akron 21, Pitt 10
Line: UVA by 5
Injury report:
Virginia:
OUT: C Jackson Matteo, OT Jay Whitmire
DOUBTFUL: None
QUESTIONABLE: QB Greyson Lambert, CB Demetrious Nicholson
PROBABLE: OT Sadiq Olanrewaju
Pittsburgh:
OUT: DL Duke McLean, OL Aaron Reese, DL Ejuan Price, LB Devon Porchia, OL Artie Rowell
DOUBTFUL: None
QUESTIONABLE: None
PROBABLE: None
Last year's game against the Panthers was, unbeknownst to us at the time, a full-blown cariacature of the season. The UVA defense was astoundingly good, piling up three turnovers and seven sacks and limiting Pitt to exactly eight rushing yards. The offense and special teams were even more astoundingly inept; turnovers in our own red zone led to the two Pitt scores. It also happened to be the first of nine losses in a row, ten if you count overlapping seasons.
This year the meaning of the game is known beforehand. It's a big one. UVA has a bye week on the way, which means a chance to sit awfully pretty at 2-0 in the conference and get two weeks of practice for a high-powered Duke offense. There are two other 1-0 teams in the Coastal, and since one of them is Pitt, a win here would help make the top a little lonelier place. It's a night game, the team is wearing special helmetzz, and temporary control of the Coastal Conference is on the line.
-- UVA run offense vs. Pitt run defense
Top backs:
Kevin Parks: 75 carries, 258 yards, 3.4 ypc, 2 TDs
Taquan Mizzell: 39 carries, 164 yards, 4.2 ypc, 2 TDs
UVA offense:
167.4 yards/game, 4.02 yards/attempt
79th of 128 (national), 9th of 14 (ACC)
Pitt defense:
106.8 yards/game, 3.16 yards/attempt
30th of 128 (national), 4th of 14 (ACC)
As usual, the UVA run game continues to be minimally adequate, which is probably its identity for the rest of the year. Kevin Parks will continue to do occasional feats of badassery, like scoring a touchdown while his head is twisted the wrong way thanks to a vicious facemasking, but he doesn't get the blocking he needs.
Pitt's run defense has been schizophrenic. They did a very nice job limiting Boston College's powerful run game, mostly suppressing the Eagles except for one 51-yard burst. Last week, though, featured a piteous effort against the Akron Zips; no rushing powerhouse, they, yet Akron's running back Conor Hundley piled up 148 yards on 19 carries for a 7.8 average.
The Panthers don't have a defensive star this year; very fortunate for the Hoos' offense given the way Aaron Donald dominated everything within sight last year. They've replaced stardom with pretty good. As in, Anthony Gonzalez and Todd Thomas are pretty good linebackers, Darryl Render is a pretty good DT, and so forth. Nobody you'll have nightmares about, but UVA's inability to find a permanent solution on the O-line is still not a good enough situation to consistently take advantage.
So, expect the Hoos to spin their wheels a little, which is sort of the usual deal. I'm more inclined to think the Akron game was an aberration than the standard. If the UVA coaches find something on film the Zips were doing, great, but it's hard to assume that game defines the Pitt defense when they've also flexed some muscle against Boston College. I don't expect anything spectacular to happen here for either offense or defense, and this matchup is unlikely to determine anything at all.
-- UVA pass offense vs. Pitt pass defense
Quarterbacks:
Greyson Lambert: 63/97, 64.9%; 564 yards, 2 TDs, 4 INTs; 5.81 yards/attempt
Matt Johns: 51/86, 59.3%; 594 yards, 6 TDs, 4 INTs; 6.91 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Canaan Severin: 20 rec., 225 yards, 2 TDs
Taquan Mizzell: 19 rec., 86 yards, 0 TDs
Miles Gooch: 14 rec., 178 yards, 1 TD
UVA offense:
240.6 yards/game, 6.40 yards/attempt
89th of 128 (national), 10th of 14 (ACC)
Pitt defense:
158.4 yards/game, 6.0 yards/attempt
24th of 128 (national), 5th of 14 (ACC)
Once again we're left in the lurch in the quarterback situation. Chances are Mike London already knows what's going to happen, and the "questionable" label for Greyson Lambert is just so he can have plausible deniability about it being labeled a "game-time decision." I don't know what he's thinking this week, but I'll start off by guessing there still won't be a platoon.
Pitt's safeties are the core of their pass defense, as Terrish Webb and Ray Vinopal have each intercepted two passes this year. The cornerbacks aren't real fearsome, and Pitt has managed 11 sacks this year - not bad - but as with the rest of the aspects of defense, those are spread out among a lot of players, without one real terror in the group. Pitt has solid-looking yardage stats on defense, but that's largely a function of having played mostly passing offenses that don't crack the top 90 in the country. The best offense they've played is 83rd-ranked Iowa, and they let C.J. Beathard come in off the bench and go 7-for-8 - and Beathard followed that up with a 17-for-37 performance against powerhouse Purdue.
Point is, Pitt will basically let you be who you are in the passing game. UVA doesn't light anything up, but the Hoos are improving in this area as Steve Fairchild gets a little more comfortable with his quarterbacks, and the QBs get more comfortable with the playbook and their receivers. The Hoos should be able to continue slowly climbing the rankings ladder here. As with the run game, nothing spectacular, but in this case, probably effective.
-- Pitt run offense vs. UVA run defense
Top backs:
James Conner: 135 carries, 791 yards, 5.9 ypc, 9 TDs
Chad Voytik: 33 carries, 185 yards, 5.6 ypc, 1 TD
Pitt offense:
269.2 yards/game, 5.56 yards/attempt
26th of 128 (national), 6th of 14 (ACC)
UVA defense:
86.6 yards/game, 2.59 yards/attempt
7th of 128 (national), 2nd of 14 (ACC)
This is where the fun starts. James Conner is a sledgehammer. Win or lose, nobody's really stopped him, though Akron slowed him down considerably. No longer splitting carries, the 250-pound Conner has relegated all competitors to the sidelines and almost equaled his yardage from last year in just five games. Pitt lost starting center Artie Rowell to a torn ACL in the BC game, but it hasn't really slowed Conner down much.
So there's not a whole lot of analysis required here. Pitt's not very deceptive. They do have a few changes of pace, but mostly, the backups got their stats in the laugher against Delaware that opened up the Panthers' season. The one wrinkle is that Chad Voytik is a reasonably mobile quarterback and can hurt you with his legs a little bit, but UVA's played that game before too.
The main idea is that Pitt will just line up Conner and see what you've got. He's bigger than most linebackers, has to be gang-tackled, and falls forward all the time, and Pitt's content to let him just to do his thing. That makes this a pretty interesting matchup for UVA, because that could go one of two ways - either it neutralizes the decision-making skills of our linebackers and turns the game into a physical rather than mental matchup, or else it turns the Pitt offense into child's play for such veteran players to defend. I lean toward the latter, and think Conner's ypc average dips into the fours.
-- Pitt pass offense vs. UVA pass defense
Quarterback:
Chad Voytik: 68/113, 60.2 %; 754 yards, 6 TDs, 4 INTs; 6.67 yards/attempt
Top receivers:
Tyler Boyd: 27 rec., 365 yards, 4 TDs
Manasseh Garner: 12 rec., 139 yards, 1 TD
Ronald Jones: 6 rec., 59 yards, 0 TDs
Pitt offense:
154.8 yards/game, 6.62 yards/attempt
84th of 128 (national), 9th of 14 (ACC)
UVA defense:
248.2 yards/game, 6.82 yards/attempt
58th of 128 (national), 8th of 14 (ACC)
This isn't a big part of the game, because Pitt's play-calling is slanted like crazy toward the run. That's part of the reason that UVA has five players who have more catches than Pitt's second-most productive receiver, Manasseh Garner. The other reason is that other than Tyler Boyd, Chad Voytik's options aren't that appealing. Garner's not bad, but other than that - shrug.
Voytik, for his part, is awfully similar to UVA's quarterbacks: a redshirt sophomore still getting up to speed. He hasn't been bad, but he's also thrown one interception in each of the last four games, and too often in the Pitt passing game it's Boyd or nothing. Boyd, granted, is a really tough cover, and you generally have to double-team him, permanently shade a safety, whatever you feel like doing to help out the cornerback assigned to him. Quin Blanding will probably have that responsibility. But the point is, you can do that, and you don't have to worry too badly about the rest of the gang.
The question for UVA is Demetrious Nicholson, who remains banged up and not out of the question to just shut 'er down and try again next year. I'd love to have a healthy Nicholson for defending Boyd, but we can't always get what we want. Our actual advantage will come in the pass rush, because Voytik hasn't seen one like UVA's. His mobility will mitigate that, but not completely.
Favorability ratings
UVA run offense: 4
UVA run defense: 5.5
UVA pass offense: 5.5
UVA pass defense: 6
Overall: 5.25
Outlook
I did say the BYU game would be low-scoring, and then it got kind of out of hand, so the anything-can-happen caveat applies, but this too looks like a defensive struggle. It obviously was last year, and the betting sharps agree, setting the over/under to one of the lowest around the country.
The game will probably hinge on whether UVA can stop James Conner, because Voytik isn't likely to win this without help from the run game unless Boyd breaks free for a huge long score or two. I think you have to like the odds of that - but without being too cocky. These are pretty evenly matched teams. I expect Pitt to be nice and pissed off after losing to Akron, and as long as UVA can respond to that - the night-game atmosphere should help - the Hoos have a small but tangible upper hand in the game.
Predictions
- UVA plays only one quarterback, barring injury or blowout.
- James Conner averages between four and five yards a carry.
- The UVA passing game generates more than 6.5 yards per attempt
- The UVA defense gets no more than two non-sack TFLs, matching or setting a new low for the year.
- Whoever starts at QB for UVA completes at least 65% of his passes.
Final score: UVA 20, Pitt 14
Rest of the ACC
Byes: Duke, Boston College
Louisville @ Syracuse, 7:00 Fri - Syracuse is the only team not to have played an ACC game yet, and Louisville is the only team to have played three.
Virginia Tech @ North Carolina, 12:30 - This should be fun - VT can't move the ball on anyone and UNC can't stop anyone.
NC State @ Clemson, 3:30 - Classic hangover game for NC State, which had a chance to pull off the upset last week and couldn't finish.
Wake Forest @ Florida State, 3:30 - FSU has been hearing lately how maybe it shouldn't be the #1 team, and will take it out on poor Wake.
Miami @ Georgia Tech, 7:30 - Let's see if Georgia Tech's 4-0 start is for real.
the recruit: R.J. Proctor
Name: R.J. Proctor
Position: OT
Hometown: Bealeton
School: Liberty
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 315
24/7: 85, three stars; #102 OT, VA #34
ESPN: 71, three stars; #159 OT, VA #49, East #220
Rivals: 5.4, two stars; VA #48
Scout: three stars; #122 OT
Other offers: ODU, JMU, VMI
The intervening months since R.J. Proctor's June commitment have made me begin questioning again Mike London's commitment to recruiting offensive linemen; with the class size we have, we should be bringing in at least five and probably six given the need. Back when Proctor committed, though, it made two linemen in a row, for a total of three, and things weren't looking too bad.
Part of the problem, of course, is that the state of Virginia hasn't produced a lot of O-linemen lately. And this year, with the numbers looking better, London's hot-seat status scared off a lot of the good ones. London had to dig a little deeper to find Proctor, who never earned an out-of-state offer and rates at high-two, low-three stars.
Based on that, you'd be excused for thinking we might be reaching here. Competing with JMU for a top-50 recruit in the state isn't the usual standard. But then, reaching and digging aren't necessarily the same thing. Proctor follows the same script as a lot of London recruits, which starts with him being a late bloomer. Sort of. Actually, what he did was get an early start on preschool, so he's still only 16 years old, and he hit his growth spurt(s) right around when you'd expect. As a sophomore, he was 6'2, 260. If he were a junior now, at 6'4" and well over 300 pounds, he'd probably attract plenty of attention. And he's probably not done; doctors have told him he'll hit 6'7" before he finishes.
At that rate, even after turning fat into muscle, his playing weight could be more like 330. Throw in a seven-foot wingspan (which at 6'4" of height is utterly freakish and another reason another growth spurt is expected) and you have NFL-prototype size for a left tackle. I always wanted to see Morgan Moses played at guard, because his enormous size and strength would've done wonders for the inside run game, but part of the reason to play him at tackle was getting him ready for the League. Proctor may be put in a similar place - certainly, at least his size and arm length would indicate it, though we don't know much about how his footwork and technique will develop, as that was always Moses's main limitation.
With Eli Hanback looking like a probable OG, Proctor's main competition within the class right now is Grant Polk. As discussed last week with Polk, the current crop of tackles will graduate in plenty of time to give the next generation a long stint on the field. Proctor will need to redshirt - his young age more or less demands it - and he should emerge with a strong chance for playing time. He strikes me as a very boom-or-bust type of player, as his size could make him utterly dominant if his skills develop well.
Position: OT
Hometown: Bealeton
School: Liberty
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 315
24/7: 85, three stars; #102 OT, VA #34
ESPN: 71, three stars; #159 OT, VA #49, East #220
Rivals: 5.4, two stars; VA #48
Scout: three stars; #122 OT
Other offers: ODU, JMU, VMI
The intervening months since R.J. Proctor's June commitment have made me begin questioning again Mike London's commitment to recruiting offensive linemen; with the class size we have, we should be bringing in at least five and probably six given the need. Back when Proctor committed, though, it made two linemen in a row, for a total of three, and things weren't looking too bad.
Part of the problem, of course, is that the state of Virginia hasn't produced a lot of O-linemen lately. And this year, with the numbers looking better, London's hot-seat status scared off a lot of the good ones. London had to dig a little deeper to find Proctor, who never earned an out-of-state offer and rates at high-two, low-three stars.
Based on that, you'd be excused for thinking we might be reaching here. Competing with JMU for a top-50 recruit in the state isn't the usual standard. But then, reaching and digging aren't necessarily the same thing. Proctor follows the same script as a lot of London recruits, which starts with him being a late bloomer. Sort of. Actually, what he did was get an early start on preschool, so he's still only 16 years old, and he hit his growth spurt(s) right around when you'd expect. As a sophomore, he was 6'2, 260. If he were a junior now, at 6'4" and well over 300 pounds, he'd probably attract plenty of attention. And he's probably not done; doctors have told him he'll hit 6'7" before he finishes.
At that rate, even after turning fat into muscle, his playing weight could be more like 330. Throw in a seven-foot wingspan (which at 6'4" of height is utterly freakish and another reason another growth spurt is expected) and you have NFL-prototype size for a left tackle. I always wanted to see Morgan Moses played at guard, because his enormous size and strength would've done wonders for the inside run game, but part of the reason to play him at tackle was getting him ready for the League. Proctor may be put in a similar place - certainly, at least his size and arm length would indicate it, though we don't know much about how his footwork and technique will develop, as that was always Moses's main limitation.
With Eli Hanback looking like a probable OG, Proctor's main competition within the class right now is Grant Polk. As discussed last week with Polk, the current crop of tackles will graduate in plenty of time to give the next generation a long stint on the field. Proctor will need to redshirt - his young age more or less demands it - and he should emerge with a strong chance for playing time. He strikes me as a very boom-or-bust type of player, as his size could make him utterly dominant if his skills develop well.
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