Probably the latest weekend review ever. Blame real-life hobbies. Anyway, we start with the Senior Seasons feature:
Peachtree Ridge 28, Parkview 14 - Jordan Ellis is establishing himself as a workhorse, with 122 yards on 21 carries. Two touchdowns are included, one a run of 35 yards. Peachtree Ridge is 2-0.
Episcopal 30, Father Judge 22 - Playing tight end/H-back, Evan Butts scored on a 75-yard wheel route. Episcopal is 1-0.
Bayside 29, Landstown 10 - Quin Blanding caught a 73-yard pass and existed in the Landstown backfield on defense. Bayside is 1-0.
Mater Dei 44, Upland 13 (Jeffery Farrar) - Upland is 0-1.
Central Catholic 48, Naples Lely 10 (Caanan Brown) - CCC is 1-0.
Eastern Alamance 63, Cummings 28 (Will Richardson) - Cummings is 0-2.
Woodgrove 35, Freedom-South Riding 0 (J.J. Jackson) - Woodgrove is 1-0.
Riverbend 14, Chancellor 0 (Steven Moss) - Chancellor is 0-1.
The recruiting board gets a minor update too. For posterity's sake:
-- Moved DT Derrick Nnadi from green to yellow. A weird recruitment, this: Nnadi's been from yellow to green to blue and all the way back down again.
-- Moved OT Marcus Applefield from yellow to green. Applefield has a top five that includes UVA.
Not much motion here. Give it a few weeks into the season, really.
And in the rest of the world:
-- I'm intrigued by Jeff White's profile of UVA's new swim coach, Augie Busch. Stepping into Mark Bernardino's shoes is a very tall task, especially given the less-than-perfectly-smooth way the transition went down (no fault of Busch's) but there's a certain profile of coach that you'd want for the type of job that UVA is and Busch seems to fit it. Rubber meets the road next February and March at the ACC and NCAA meets.
-- The men's soccer team is off to a decent start, with a win over St. John's and a loss to Louisville, but it's really the ladies who are kicking that ass. Two straight four-goal wins over top-10 teams (Santa Clara and Penn State) have highlighted the opening stretch. UVA (that is, the ladies) has scored 16 goals in four games, with eight players getting on the scoreboard, and sophomore Brittany Ratcliffe leading the way with four goals.
-- Blast-from-the-past Jerton Evans, who played safety for George Welsh and Al Groh, is getting a start on his coaching career as the defensive coordinator at Bishop Ireton, which plays in the WCAC against DeMatha and Good Counsel.
-- On the depth chart, Maurice Canady moves ahead of DreQuan Hoskey at cornerback, and tight end is now a jumble and a half with the order being Burns, McGee, Swanson - but "or" is listed next to everyone. So really, there isn't a tight end depth chart right now. Those are the main changes for the Oregon game, although Mason Thomas now appears as the third free safety as well.
Showing posts with label thomas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thomas. Show all posts
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
the recruit: Divante Walker
Name: Divante Walker
Position: CB
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Salem
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160
24/7: 83; three stars; #89 ATH; VA #32
ESPN: 71; two stars; #186 RB; Atlantic #284; VA #61
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: N/R
Other offers: instate I-AAs only
Almost a year ago to the day since Divante Walker committed on Sunday, UVA took Mason Thomas's commitment, a surprise since Thomas's entire profile (what there was of it) screamed I-AA and nobody had ever heard his name and UVA's in the same sentence. The more things change. Like Thomas, Walker was an uncommitted recruit (this year, he was the only one) at UVA's Verbally Committed Recruit Extravaganza and All-Weekend Party, so he was surrounded by a bunch of guys saying "you're coming too, right?"
Walker is a little bit different though, which means a little bit more optimism. For one thing, he was first-team all-region as selected by the coaches, and made the Virginian-Pilot's first-team all-Tidewater as well. (Thomas was only second-team in the district.) Walker got these honors on the strength of his work at running back, where he totaled nearly 1,400 yards rushing. One recruiting site offers a really high rating for a guy who had no other I-A offers; in fact, 24/7 has him higher-rated than guys like Sean Karl (BC and Syracuse offers), Kye Morgan (Illinois, Cincy, BC), and Demeitre Brim, who Wisconsin and Miami tried to pull away from a UVA commitment. To them he's the #32 prospect in the state, and that's still not as optimistic as it gets; Doug Doughty ranks him 28th, ahead of four UVA commits and three Tech ones.
The other sites, though, are way down on him, dropping mid-to-low two-star ratings. Why the huge discrepancy? I'm willing to bet it's not a coincidence that the optimistic assessments are the ones that think he's 175 pounds (as Doughty does) and the pessimistic ones list him at 157. Somebody, somewhere, made a typo, and it spread, and I don't know which it's supposed to be.
Truthfully, I don't believe either. It's probably in the middle. He doesn't look like 175 pounds in his pictures at all. On the other hand, I'm 5'7" and can't get down to 157 to save my life. Walker is 5'10" or 11", if he weighs 157 pounds he's got no muscle and is strong like mosquito, which would explain all the low ratings.
The problem with those accolades, of course, is that Walker won't be playing RB for us. At this point there's no need for yet another small back. There is a need for athletic bodies with cornerback experience, so toss Walker into that very large mix of incoming freshmen. Walker will redshirt because he's not 175 pounds, and after that.....well, the cornerback shuffle in this class will sort itself out somehow. Walker has a little bit of a disadvantage because he's not as fast as C.J. Moore, not a pure corner who played the position every day like Kelvin Rainey, probably not quite as athletic as Maurice Canady, and not as big as Wil Wahee. Yes, the deck is stacked a little bit against him, but it'll be interesting to see who comes out of that big spin cycle on top.
Position: CB
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Salem
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 160
24/7: 83; three stars; #89 ATH; VA #32
ESPN: 71; two stars; #186 RB; Atlantic #284; VA #61
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: N/R
Other offers: instate I-AAs only
Almost a year ago to the day since Divante Walker committed on Sunday, UVA took Mason Thomas's commitment, a surprise since Thomas's entire profile (what there was of it) screamed I-AA and nobody had ever heard his name and UVA's in the same sentence. The more things change. Like Thomas, Walker was an uncommitted recruit (this year, he was the only one) at UVA's Verbally Committed Recruit Extravaganza and All-Weekend Party, so he was surrounded by a bunch of guys saying "you're coming too, right?"
Walker is a little bit different though, which means a little bit more optimism. For one thing, he was first-team all-region as selected by the coaches, and made the Virginian-Pilot's first-team all-Tidewater as well. (Thomas was only second-team in the district.) Walker got these honors on the strength of his work at running back, where he totaled nearly 1,400 yards rushing. One recruiting site offers a really high rating for a guy who had no other I-A offers; in fact, 24/7 has him higher-rated than guys like Sean Karl (BC and Syracuse offers), Kye Morgan (Illinois, Cincy, BC), and Demeitre Brim, who Wisconsin and Miami tried to pull away from a UVA commitment. To them he's the #32 prospect in the state, and that's still not as optimistic as it gets; Doug Doughty ranks him 28th, ahead of four UVA commits and three Tech ones.
The other sites, though, are way down on him, dropping mid-to-low two-star ratings. Why the huge discrepancy? I'm willing to bet it's not a coincidence that the optimistic assessments are the ones that think he's 175 pounds (as Doughty does) and the pessimistic ones list him at 157. Somebody, somewhere, made a typo, and it spread, and I don't know which it's supposed to be.
Truthfully, I don't believe either. It's probably in the middle. He doesn't look like 175 pounds in his pictures at all. On the other hand, I'm 5'7" and can't get down to 157 to save my life. Walker is 5'10" or 11", if he weighs 157 pounds he's got no muscle and is strong like mosquito, which would explain all the low ratings.
The problem with those accolades, of course, is that Walker won't be playing RB for us. At this point there's no need for yet another small back. There is a need for athletic bodies with cornerback experience, so toss Walker into that very large mix of incoming freshmen. Walker will redshirt because he's not 175 pounds, and after that.....well, the cornerback shuffle in this class will sort itself out somehow. Walker has a little bit of a disadvantage because he's not as fast as C.J. Moore, not a pure corner who played the position every day like Kelvin Rainey, probably not quite as athletic as Maurice Canady, and not as big as Wil Wahee. Yes, the deck is stacked a little bit against him, but it'll be interesting to see who comes out of that big spin cycle on top.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
the recruit: Mason Thomas
Name: Mason Thomas
Position: S
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Kempsville
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 195
ESPN: 63; one star; #272 WR
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: two stars
Other offers: Kent State, Delaware, Old Dominion, Norfolk State
Huh.
January 21 through the 23 was a big deal for UVA recruitniks; all but a couple of the committed recruits, as well as some of the biggest uncommitted ones, were on an official visit. People had their ears to the ground hoping for a pleasant surprise from someone like Dominique Terrell or even, bless my soul, Curtis Grant. So when word came out Sunday that there was indeed a commitment, it was big news.
Excitement turned to puzzlement when the name actually got out, though. Nobody'd ever heard of Mason Thomas. Seriously. Seems the coaches had been recruiting him silently for quite some time, and nobody knew it. In fact, Thomas was reportedly a silent UVA commit since January 7, or even earlier - according to someone who works at Kempsville - and still nobody knew it. Or almost nobody. It was a they-must-know-what-they're-doing moment, since the numbers were getting awfully crunchy. It was, of course, before Jordan Lomax uprooted himself for Iowa, which was probably one of those things the coaches were expecting when they took Thomas's commitment.
Thomas was committed to ODU for about a month, and truthfully has the full profile - offers, ratings, and all - of a I-AA talent. Our last profile, Demetrious Nicholson, was the state POY; Thomas, from just across town, was no higher than second-team all-District. It's not all two stars and I-AA - at least one writer ranked him the #9 player in Hampton Roads, above Ross Burbank and Tech signee Dewayne Alford, and just behind Kameron Mack.
You have to assume the coaches agree. If Thomas was a March or April commit, he might be looked at as taking up space. Someone that the coaches liked early, offered early, and jumped at the first scholarship he got. Sometimes that's a road to disaster - the first five commitments of the 2006 class came in June '05, and three of them had zero other offers and all three of them, I don't even think any of them even made it to UVA. The coaches took Mason Thomas at a time when scholarships were at their absolute most premium. A desperate need for defensive backs helps explain it, but there must be something about Thomas that the coaches just love - as much as they loved what they saw in someone like Jeremiah Hendy, whom they recruited until the eleventh hour. Plus, the only service that rates Thomas as a safety - his intended position - is the one that ranks him highest. (Not that high at all, but still.) Scout and ESPN evaluate him as a receiver.
Still, how much playing time can there be in the future? Rodney McLeod, Corey Mosley, and Dom Joseph are entrenched at the top three safety spots. Also the only three safety spots, at least in February. Freshman safeties scare the everloving bejeebers out of me, but if we're gonna use four over the course of the season - which seems perfectly likely - at least one will be a freshman. Who exactly is ticketed for safety is a bit hazy, but I don't think any of them are the real blue-chippers of the class. Guys like Anthony Harris and Kameron Mack - talented yes; surefire stars, no. Thomas isn't likely to be as physically talented as his competition at the position, but safety requires at least as much brains as brawn, so he's as likely as anyone to end up playing a role.
***************************************************
I did promise a recruiting board update and here it is. It's loaded with additions. The staff has locked and loaded the offer gun and is spraying it in all directions. If I put on here every prospect that listed a UVA offer on every site it'd be three pages long; as I mentioned in the original post I limit it to players listed on multiple sites. Also, ones whose offer seems solid enough to commit to today, and there are some I left off because yes they have an offer but their eyes are obviously elsewhere.
You might also notice the addition of an extra column; someone decided there was room for a fourth recruiting site on the scene, so since they exist, why the hell not: I added a column for the rating from 24/7 Sports as well. Eventually it'll even have stars in it.
Changes:
- Added OLB Mark Hall to orange. Recruiting profiles begin in June or Julyish, but for now, here's the basics on Hall: He plays linebacker and tight end for Green Run in Virginia Beach, the same place David Dean came from, and he's probably an OLB for UVA. I expect three stars across the board; I'd guess a 5.6 from Rivals and maybe a 77 or 78 from ESPN, though they're less predictable. Solid, solid pickup and a good way to start the class.
- Moved RB J.C. Coleman and LB Kwontie Moore from green to blue.
- Added WR Mario Nixon to blue.
- Added WR Eugene Lewis to green.
- Added ATH Corey Coleman, ATH Canaan Severin, DE Eli Harold, and S Alex Carter to yellow.
- Added ATH Germone Hopper to red.
Position: S
Hometown: Virginia Beach
School: Kempsville
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 195
ESPN: 63; one star; #272 WR
Rivals: 5.3; two stars
Scout: two stars
Other offers: Kent State, Delaware, Old Dominion, Norfolk State
Huh.
January 21 through the 23 was a big deal for UVA recruitniks; all but a couple of the committed recruits, as well as some of the biggest uncommitted ones, were on an official visit. People had their ears to the ground hoping for a pleasant surprise from someone like Dominique Terrell or even, bless my soul, Curtis Grant. So when word came out Sunday that there was indeed a commitment, it was big news.
Excitement turned to puzzlement when the name actually got out, though. Nobody'd ever heard of Mason Thomas. Seriously. Seems the coaches had been recruiting him silently for quite some time, and nobody knew it. In fact, Thomas was reportedly a silent UVA commit since January 7, or even earlier - according to someone who works at Kempsville - and still nobody knew it. Or almost nobody. It was a they-must-know-what-they're-doing moment, since the numbers were getting awfully crunchy. It was, of course, before Jordan Lomax uprooted himself for Iowa, which was probably one of those things the coaches were expecting when they took Thomas's commitment.
Thomas was committed to ODU for about a month, and truthfully has the full profile - offers, ratings, and all - of a I-AA talent. Our last profile, Demetrious Nicholson, was the state POY; Thomas, from just across town, was no higher than second-team all-District. It's not all two stars and I-AA - at least one writer ranked him the #9 player in Hampton Roads, above Ross Burbank and Tech signee Dewayne Alford, and just behind Kameron Mack.
You have to assume the coaches agree. If Thomas was a March or April commit, he might be looked at as taking up space. Someone that the coaches liked early, offered early, and jumped at the first scholarship he got. Sometimes that's a road to disaster - the first five commitments of the 2006 class came in June '05, and three of them had zero other offers and all three of them, I don't even think any of them even made it to UVA. The coaches took Mason Thomas at a time when scholarships were at their absolute most premium. A desperate need for defensive backs helps explain it, but there must be something about Thomas that the coaches just love - as much as they loved what they saw in someone like Jeremiah Hendy, whom they recruited until the eleventh hour. Plus, the only service that rates Thomas as a safety - his intended position - is the one that ranks him highest. (Not that high at all, but still.) Scout and ESPN evaluate him as a receiver.
Still, how much playing time can there be in the future? Rodney McLeod, Corey Mosley, and Dom Joseph are entrenched at the top three safety spots. Also the only three safety spots, at least in February. Freshman safeties scare the everloving bejeebers out of me, but if we're gonna use four over the course of the season - which seems perfectly likely - at least one will be a freshman. Who exactly is ticketed for safety is a bit hazy, but I don't think any of them are the real blue-chippers of the class. Guys like Anthony Harris and Kameron Mack - talented yes; surefire stars, no. Thomas isn't likely to be as physically talented as his competition at the position, but safety requires at least as much brains as brawn, so he's as likely as anyone to end up playing a role.
***************************************************
I did promise a recruiting board update and here it is. It's loaded with additions. The staff has locked and loaded the offer gun and is spraying it in all directions. If I put on here every prospect that listed a UVA offer on every site it'd be three pages long; as I mentioned in the original post I limit it to players listed on multiple sites. Also, ones whose offer seems solid enough to commit to today, and there are some I left off because yes they have an offer but their eyes are obviously elsewhere.
You might also notice the addition of an extra column; someone decided there was room for a fourth recruiting site on the scene, so since they exist, why the hell not: I added a column for the rating from 24/7 Sports as well. Eventually it'll even have stars in it.
Changes:
- Added OLB Mark Hall to orange. Recruiting profiles begin in June or Julyish, but for now, here's the basics on Hall: He plays linebacker and tight end for Green Run in Virginia Beach, the same place David Dean came from, and he's probably an OLB for UVA. I expect three stars across the board; I'd guess a 5.6 from Rivals and maybe a 77 or 78 from ESPN, though they're less predictable. Solid, solid pickup and a good way to start the class.
- Moved RB J.C. Coleman and LB Kwontie Moore from green to blue.
- Added WR Mario Nixon to blue.
- Added WR Eugene Lewis to green.
- Added ATH Corey Coleman, ATH Canaan Severin, DE Eli Harold, and S Alex Carter to yellow.
- Added ATH Germone Hopper to red.
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