Welp. Didn't take long. It hardly seems worth writing about the latest chapter in the Mike London story because it's so uncannily similar to most of the other ones. Talk up the latest new schemes, surprise with some swaggy hype-azz uniformz, lose by the book, chapter and verse. OK, sure, it lacked a little something in the clock-management dumbassery department, but London did burn at least two timeouts that I can remember just because of play-call confusion. So let's check that box.
Other boxes to check: annoying playcalling, offensive line depth biting us in the ass again, undisciplined penalties committed by seniors, crappy special teams, red zone ineptitude. The list goes on. A whole offseason and literally nothing has changed. I sound surprised here, which I guess I am a little, because this time I'm really gonna get to kick that football.
I really hated those helmets, by the way, which you can chalk mostly up to my reflexive get-off-my-lawnism about uniforms. UVA seems to be working on building a pretty solid brand identity. You can instantly recognize those gorgeous home whites the baseball team wears, and the school uses a uniform wordmark across most other teams, if not all of them.
Football? There's no brand identity anywhere. The navy blue helmets would work at least to anchor the zillion other looks they think are wonderful attention getters. Naw, let's ditch 'em and go with the marshmallow look. And the look on Saturday was a horrible mishmash. The pants are pure throwback - literally, because they come from the 1960s throwbacks they wore a while ago. The jerseys are a clean, unadorned, modern take on a classic look. And the helmets were $WAGGY HYPPPEEE, Oregon $tylez. Pick a look. (Preferably not swaggy hype.) There's absolutely no attempt at a brand, an identity, a foundation, it's just "hey this would be a cool idea," and they slap it up there and there's no reason to do it or even any connection with the rest of the athletic program.
I wouldn't usually spend two paragraphs on the uniforms, but if by now you can't get the connection to the actual state of the program then we'll just have to leave you here.
Notre Dame comes to town next weekend. Of the three difficult OOC games this is the one I expected to be toughest. They just got done steamtrucking Texas, so I think I'm still thinking that. If UVA is to steal an OOC win in one of those three games, Boise State is the place to look.
Some player-focused observations:
-- I was surprised Kelvin Rainey was credited with only five tackles. He seemed to be all over, making tackles in front of the secondary and generally being much more visible than you'd expect from a first-year starter. I liked it. And it looks clear too that Micah Kiser is the real deal.
-- I was much less pleased with the defensive ends. Mike Moore didn't look like a senior. Kwontie Moore was hardly visible. Trent Corney showed off his athleticism by actually juking his blocker, but then looked surprised that Josh Rosen actually moved away from the pressure. Fortunately, he kind of moved toward the rest of the defensive line, but Corney's tackle attempt on that particular play looked like he still hasn't picked up a lot of fundamentals.
-- Matt Johns reminds me of a youngish NASCAR driver who clearly can drive in the lower series but moves up to the big time and is stuck on an underfunded team with an uncompetitive car, which he can't crash because they can't afford replacements. He might compete for the winner's circle if he was allowed to drive aggressively into the corners, but he's just being asked to circle the track. That's Steve Fairchild's playbook in a nutshell. Johns can play quarterback, it's clear, but too often, he's not really allowed to. Sure, he threw a pick when he cut loose, just like the driver might find a wall or two the hard way. But in reading up about UCLA, one quote I saw was along the lines of Josh Rosen being handed the keys to a Ferrari, he just had to not crash it. Well, Rosen took a shot downfield the very first chance he got, and it's obvious he's not just driving the Ferrari around the block. Johns needs to be cut loose more too. He's capable of making it work.
Until then we'll just keep throwing screen passes on every third-and-long of the game which they totally won't be expecting this time.
-- One game in and the offensive line is already a smoking wreck. Eric Tetlow and Jake Fieler, out for the year. Ryan Doull and Sadiq Olanrewaju, no telling when they'll be back. Jay Whitmire, not ready to go full speed yet or he'd be out there at one of those positions somewhere. The interior line was absolutely owned; UCLA's DTs were exactly the problem I thought they'd be, and the "power running game" went exactly as far as I thought it would. I was openly skeptical of the power running thing; if I'd known we'd be missing four linemen going into the first game, I'd have been downright derisive.
That's OK, I'm sure we'll just recruit us a few more cornerbacks to make up for it.
It's pretty much official, I've skipped the optimistic, maybe-things-gonna-be-OK phase of the season and gone straight to snark. With any luck that'll last the next eleven (or twelve, if Lucy doesn't pull that football away again) games and we can minimize the burning apathy, which is all that's left at the end.
Showing posts with label ucla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ucla. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
game preview: UCLA
Date/Time: Sat., September 5; 3:30
TV: Fox
Record against the Bruins: 0-1
Last meeting: UCLA 28, UVA 20; 8/30/14, Charlottesville
Last weekend: N/A
Line: UCLA by 20
Injury report: N/A
Here we go. I have to admit, when this series was scheduled, I was really happy about it. UVA was coming off a bowl season, one of the best in a while, and the London era was at its peak. UCLA was stashed in a holding pattern of mediocrity. They looked like exactly the kind of opponent UVA should be scheduling on the regular: a name brand that would provide a challenge without being a threat to establish a dynasty any time soon.
Now the Bruins are sort of like the LA Clippers with tradition. They're the new "it" program in So-Cal, while their more acclaimed neighbors get used to the back seat. UVA's program has all the it factor of Ball State, except people are trying to hire Ball State's coach.
This is a rematch of the game in which Matt Johns set in motion his own ascendance to the starting QB job. Johns almost succeeded in pulling off a comeback last year against a UCLA team expected to roll. That hasn't changed the sharps' expectations for this one; UVA is a massive underdog out in the storied Rose Bowl. It's an uphill climb for UVA right from the get-go.
-- UVA run offense vs. UCLA run defense
(all stats 2014)
Top backs:
Taquan Mizzell: 64 carries, 280 yards, 4.4 ypc, 2 TDs
Daniel Hamm: 17 carries, 75 yards, 4.4 ypc, 1 TD
UVA offense:
137.75 yards/game, 3.67 yards/attempt
102nd of 128 (national), 11th of 14 (ACC)
UCLA defense:
147.92 yards/game, 3.81 yards/attempt
34th of 128 (national), 4th of 12 (Pac-12)
We've heard the noise about how Steve Fairchild wants to establish a "power running game." I'll be Doubting Thomas on that one til I see it. The offensive line does appear improved over last year; it's more experienced and, because it's early in the season and nobody's had the chance to blow anything out, deeper. (Plus, you have people like Jay Whitmire back.)
Still, the personnel we have doesn't favor power running. Taquan Mizzell isn't going to lay the hammer down, and neither is Daniel Hamm, who's more of a one-cut-to-the-hole back - which implies a hole. Albert Reid isn't exactly fullback-sized, but he's probably the best bet to fit in the power game. Could Jordan Ellis contribute along those lines, too? Wouldn't rule it out, but we haven't seen his game plan meet the enemy yet.
UCLA's personnel is set up to fit a 3-4 scheme, because that's what Jim Mora has been running. The Bruins hired Tom Bradley to run the defense this year, and Bradley is a long, long-time 4-3 guy. You might remember him as Penn State's interim choice to replace Joe Paterno in the wake of their scandal. Bradley had been at Penn State for thirty-jillion years and got very, very entrenched in the 4-3.
That said, he's got the personnel he's got, so UCLA will probably not make that switch immediately. Two absolutely massive D-linemen - Eddie Vanderdoes and Kenny Clark - anchor the front-seven, both weighing in at well over 300 pounds. They're not just there to occupy space; both had at least 50 tackles last year.
UCLA is otherwise a bit inexperienced on the D-line, and has a pretty solid plethora of experienced linebackers, another reason the 3-4 front is worth preparing for. They're led by veteran linebacker Myles Jack, taking over leadership of the defense from second-round NFL pick Eric Kendricks.
The biggest concern though, no pun intended, is the presence of Vanderdoes and Clark. Is Steve Fairchild planning on trying to slam right into that front with offensive linemen who've shown time and again they struggle with straight-ahead power blocking? Fairchild has a dilemma - he can either try that, or, after an offseason of touting his "power running" focus, abandon it in game one and set a waffling tone for the season. I'm guessing the latter. I don't see it working if UVA tries the hammer; they'll find the nail unwilling to move.
-- UVA pass offense vs. UCLA pass defense
(all stats 2014)
Quarterback:
Matt Johns: 89/162, 54.9%; 1,109 yards, 8 TDs, 5 INTs; 6.85 yards/attempt, 122.6 rating
Top receivers:
Canaan Severin: 42 rec., 578 yards, 5 TDs
Taquan Mizzell: 39 rec., 271 yards, 0 TDs
Andre Levrone: 15 rec., 248 yards, 2 TDs
UVA offense:
236.4 yards/game, 6.6 yards/attempt
91st of 128 (national), 10th of 14 (ACC)
UCLA defense:
250.6 yards/game, 6.6 yards/attempt
32nd of 128 (national), 3rd of 12 (Pac-12)
The Hoos catch a break here. Senior cornerback Ishmael Adams, who'd started 26 straight games before losing his starting job in fall camp, decided it was a good idea to steal a cellphone belonging to an Uber driver, and was promptly arrested. It leaves a big hole in UCLA's nickel defense. Adams is a heck of an athlete - he totaled 115 return yards on two picks last year and was a kick returner too.
UCLA still has all sorts of talent and experience in the secondary, though, and some guys who really hurt UVA last year. Not least is linebacker Myles Jack, who broke up Matt Johns's fourth-down pass in the red zone that could've set up the tying score.
It remains to be seen how Tom Bradley will change the defense, but UCLA wasn't very aggressive against the pass last year. They were effective, but they didn't register a lot of pressure on quarterbacks. They didn't get a sack on UVA (partly because in one instance Greyson Lambert managed to heave the ball into a defender's hands as a sack-avoidance tactic, but still.) Plus most of their sack-masters graduated, the only returning threat being linebacker Deon Hollins.
Matt Johns did have something figured out against this defense last year, though. I expect he'll still have time to operate; the Bruins lack a proven pass-rush threat from the front three (or four.) If this game is going to go anywhere good, Johns has to be sharp all day long. UVA's pass offense - with Lambert at the helm, mostly - generated most of UCLA's scoring last year. The Bruins will definitely take advantage of mistakes, and the run game will be of little help, so the only path to victory here is for Johns to make none.
-- UCLA run offense vs. UVA run defense
(all stats 2014)
Top backs:
Paul Perkins: 251 carries, 1,575 yards, 9 TDs
Nate Starks: 31 carries, 141 yards, 2 TDs
UCLA offense:
209.54 yards/game, 4.89 yards/attempt
34th of 128 (national), 2nd of 12 (Pac-12)
UVA defense:
120.67 yards/game, 3.36 yards/attempt
19th of 128 (national), 4th of 14 (ACC)
UCLA loses a major dimension to their run game with the graduation of Brett Hundley. It doesn't make a lot of difference in comparing to last year; the Hoos bottled up Hundley quite well and their doing so was what kept them in the game. Without Hundley, UCLA will have to open up the depth chart a bit because Paul Perkins, workhorse that he is, won't be carrying the ball 500 times, and Josh Rosen isn't going to get those carries.
Perkins, though, is a tough customer. He'll get a whole bunch of carries, and runs behind a very experienced offensive line. Four starters return along the line for UCLA, most especially center Jake Brendel, who's a fifth-year senior and has only missed one start in all the games his team has played the past three years. Perkins was effective in last year's game, averaging five yards a pop against UVA's perfectly good run defense. It may help that the Hoos can just gear up to stop him and not worry about the quarterback, but UCLA is happy to put strength on strength here. It won't be spectacular; Perkins can break an occasional big one, but most games his longest run was like 15 yards. But he's certainly a test for a reloaded linebacker corps.
-- UCLA pass offense vs. UVA pass defense
(all stats 2014)
Quarterback:
Josh Rosen: (no stats)
Top receivers:
Jordan Payton: 67 rec., 954 yards, 7 TDs
Devin Fuller: 59 rec., 447 yards, 1 TD
Thomas Duarte: 28 rec., 540 yards, 4 TDs
UCLA offense:
258.3 yards/game, 7.7 yards/attempt
38th of 128 (national), 5th of 12 (Pac-12)
UVA defense:
232.5 yards/game, 7.1 yards/attempt
71st of 128 (national), 10th of 14 (ACC)
Interesting to see what happens here. Josh Rosen was probably recruiting's biggest deal last year, as a no-shitter of a five-star QB. He's being handed the keys to an offense that doesn't need much of a spark. Besides that veteran offensive line, UCLA returns receivers galore. Jordan Payton's stats speak for themselves up there, and the Bruins have multiple big play threats. Thomas Duarte averaged almost 20 yards a catch last year, and three different receivers - Payton, Devin Fuller, and Eldridge Massington - had catches of at least 80 yards.
I've seen lots of UVA fans with a really simplistic approach to this: "Oh, he's a freshman, we'll just get some heat on him and rattle him." It's not going to work quite like that. Tenuta will certainly try, and probably succeed at times, but Rosen isn't the starter by just default, and most of our own pass rush from last year has hit the road too.
The good news is that all these returning receivers means they're the same receivers UVA covered with some success last year. Payton burned the UVA defense with eight catches, and the Bruins pulled off some big plays, but UVA isolated those plays and they accounted for most of UCLA's passing yards. And there is something to be said for the fact that it's a freshman and not a senior looking for the open guy. All in all, I see this as a pretty balanced matchup. UVA has a deep enough secondary to cope with the weapons UCLA brings to the field, and UCLA's line should be able to cope with the UVA pass rush.
-- Favorability ratings
(on a scale from 0 to 10 - the higher the better)
UVA run offense: 2.5
UVA pass offense: 4.5
UVA run defense: 6
UVA pass defense: 5
Average: 4.5
-- Outlook
UVA is a 20-point underdog, which sounds like a hell of a lot. And it is, but there's a catch, too - last year, they were 21-point underdogs at home. That's a seven-point swing in the right direction when you figure in the assumed three-point margin for the home team.
Then you have the London factor, which actually is a positive for UVA early in the season. September is his month, and most of UVA's best wins have happened in the first month of the season. That's a damning thing to say 11 months of the year and a pretty good thing when you're actually in September. Is it enough to overcome the talent UCLA brings to the table? Probably not. They're also on the road, facing one of the Pac-12's top offenses and a defense pretty well-equipped to handle their own attack. This game will be very interesting, but not quite interesting enough., and UCLA pulls away in the second half.
Final score: UCLA 27, UVA 14
-- Rest of the ACC
North Carolina vs. South Carolina - Thurs. 6:00 - First game of the I-A season.
Wake Forest vs. Elon - Thurs. 7:00 - Fighting Christians vs. Demon Deacons is exactly why that school should still be called the Fighting Christians.
Georgia Tech vs. Alcorn State - Thurs. 7:30 - Eh.
Duke @ Tulane - Thurs. 9:30 - People who say Duke "schedules for success" forget that they do that because they have to drop down to Tulane before they find a school that will give them a home-and-home.
Syracuse vs. Rhode Island - Fri. 7:00 - Would make a much better basketball matchup.
Clemson vs. Wofford - 12:30 - Clemson smash.
Boston College vs. Maine - 1:00 - Would make a much better hockey matchup.
Pittsburgh vs. Youngstown State - 1:00 - There's a Rust Belt joke here somewhere, but I'm not going to be the one to make it.
Louisville vs. Auburn - 3:30 - Games like this - in the Georgia Dome - are why Louisville was so keen on joining the ACC - and why the southern portion of the conference was so keen on picking them over UConn.
Miami vs. Bethune-Cookman - 6:00 - Eh again.
NC State vs. Troy - 6:00 - Eh one more time.
Florida State vs. Texas State - 8:00 - Eh yet again boy I can't wait til UVA schedules these teams all the time can you.
Virginia Tech vs. Ohio State - Monday 8:00 - The Hokies get the chance to relive the greatest win in program history.
Monday, December 15, 2014
twenty-one
National champ-peen-ship, y'all. I'm long since on the record as admitting I don't get around to watching nearly as much UVA soccer as I'd like. (I've considered remedying this next year by ignoring football, but that'd be all talk and no action on that front.) In fact this season I've seen exactly two soccer games: the women's semifinal against Texas A&M and the men's national title against UCLA. I had to miss the men's semis and women's finals for reasons of State.
It didn't take me long to decide I hated the announcers. I wasn't even paying attention to them in the A&M game so I have no idea, but it was only about 20 minutes into the UCLA game before I decided the announcing was a zero on a scale of Pam Ward to Keith Jackson. Their contempt for UVA's game plan was plain as day and got plainer as the first half wore on. Although I did enjoy their description of the UVA strategy as "cynical."
You can't totally fault them, if the idea is that games should always be exciting shootouts. But UVA came into the game 111th in the country in scoring average. One-hundred and eleventh, it's not an extra-1 typo. In only one tournament game did the Hoos score more than once. UCLA came in with only one tournament game of fewer than three goals. So it should be no surprise that Gelnovatch decided not to run 'n' gun with the Bruins. "The beautiful game" it was not, but Gelnovatch isn't paid to entertain the pundits.
And frankly, it worked to almost complete perfection. Actual perfection would've been a 1-0 win with the one goal probably coming off of some kind of set piece. You don't counterattack to try and score, because that would expose you; you counterattack with the aim of getting a corner kick. If it doesn't go in, which it usually doesn't but it's more than worth a try, bunker back down and try again. I laughed when halftime rolled around and the announcers said UCLA had to be very pleased with the first half and then both coaches said the first 45 went completely UVA's way. I might've considered it a Bruin domination, if UCLA had generated more than the occasional chance, but UVA's keeper Calle Brown was barely tested. Owning the possession battle 45 yards out is one thing; it's another thing entirely to dictate the game. UVA did so without having the ball.
The second half - a little more pressure, the Bruins clearly took their coaching to heart and were less patient, more attacking, but also a great deal more frustrated. UCLA's Edgar Contreras ought to have been red-carded for a head-butt, but I can't completely fault the refs as the camera was right on it in real time and I still missed it until the replay. But it was a clear sign that UCLA was used to being able to break down a defense, and UVA's brick wall was getting to them.
The game is likely to attract precisely zero new fans to the game of soccer, but just look at all the bothers I give. You know I love me some pack-line defense, and so, apparently, does George Gelnovatch. Tony Bennett wins basketball games 45-26, but he wins basketball games. At the end of the day, here's the stat that matters most: 21. And the one that matters second-most is 0.
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The first major bit of football attrition hit last week when Eli Harold declared for the draft. That makes two; David Watford also decided to transfer, but the effect of that will be almost nil. Except to eliminate bizarre message board posts wondering why he's on the field in any capacity at all, as if not being a good quarterback is the same as not being a good receiver.
UVA dodged a bullet when Max Valles announced that he'd be returning next year, quashing rumors to the contrary. Smart - Valles would've been going almost entirely on physical attributes. A year of opening some scouts' eyes would help him. Harold, though he could benefit from another year, is probably in good shape anyway. He showed this year that he can defend the run and isn't just a one-dimensional pass rusher. Once he gets in front of scouts at the combine, he should make an appearance on draft boards and could easily be a second or third round pick; his ceiling, if the workouts look good, would be the low first.
As for our defense, it's a fairly major hit, but there's a long-run silver lining: next year, Harold and the Moores (Michael and Kwontie) would once again have dominated the playing time. Great, because they'll do well, but no experience for the boatload of guys behind them. Trent Corney should start off as the third DE, but there's a trio of redshirt freshmen who will get a chance to make a wave or two as well.
*******************************************
And the second major bit of football attrition is on the coaching staff, as Scott Wachenheim is off to VMI to play head coach. Good for him - it's his first head-coaching gig, though he did have the title of OC and assistant HC at Liberty for a few years. There can't be a tougher place in the world to win at football than VMI, except maybe the Citadel. From his perspective, this is definitely striking while the iron is hot - the chances that most of this staff is out of a job next year are awfully high, and you might as well grab a promotion while it's there. Even if London was on rock-solid ground, I think he'd go anyway, but still.
Wachenheim leaves with one of the most mixed legacies I've ever seen for an assistant coach. He was vilified at times for the play of the O-line, and I think at least partially deservedly so. But he leaves on a positive note, having gained a lot of credit for making the O-line not be a total black hole of suck despite being held together with Scotch tape and having to use 260-pound converted DE (or TE or whatever) Jack English as a left tackle. And I think also deservedly so.
It leaves UVA with two openings to fill, including the impending (or already-occurred) retirement of Tom O'Brien, whose UVA career was basically a dud. There's an inexplicable level of support for Ron Mattes, who was here like, a year, and performed no miracles. He'll be here as soon as Bill Musgrave comes back, I'm sure. A much more likely name, and these tea leaves sure read awfully clearly, thanks to Streaking the Lawn's Tweety account, is current Edmonton Eskimos O-line coach Jonathan Himebauch.
*******************************************
For lack of anything to do in this basketball wilderness, I put together another season sim, since it had been a couple weeks and stuff happened. You can find it below and on the original season sim post, for easier comparison to the previous version.
NC State and Notre Dame are on the rise; both won an early-season ACC game against Wake and FSU, respectively, and ND has been handling a lot of business as well. NC State, not so much, but then, Wofford is actually awfully highly-ranked for a SoCon team.
Being as UVA has also been handling business, the Hoos leapfrogged Louisville, which itself didn't exactly fare badly, just not as well as UVA. Maryland and VCU are both higher-ranked than all but five ACC teams, and UVA crushed both on the road. It's becoming clear that there's a top three in this league, and as such, the race for the top seed has obvious huge implications.
It didn't take me long to decide I hated the announcers. I wasn't even paying attention to them in the A&M game so I have no idea, but it was only about 20 minutes into the UCLA game before I decided the announcing was a zero on a scale of Pam Ward to Keith Jackson. Their contempt for UVA's game plan was plain as day and got plainer as the first half wore on. Although I did enjoy their description of the UVA strategy as "cynical."
 |
| Guess which strategy UVA went with? |
You can't totally fault them, if the idea is that games should always be exciting shootouts. But UVA came into the game 111th in the country in scoring average. One-hundred and eleventh, it's not an extra-1 typo. In only one tournament game did the Hoos score more than once. UCLA came in with only one tournament game of fewer than three goals. So it should be no surprise that Gelnovatch decided not to run 'n' gun with the Bruins. "The beautiful game" it was not, but Gelnovatch isn't paid to entertain the pundits.
And frankly, it worked to almost complete perfection. Actual perfection would've been a 1-0 win with the one goal probably coming off of some kind of set piece. You don't counterattack to try and score, because that would expose you; you counterattack with the aim of getting a corner kick. If it doesn't go in, which it usually doesn't but it's more than worth a try, bunker back down and try again. I laughed when halftime rolled around and the announcers said UCLA had to be very pleased with the first half and then both coaches said the first 45 went completely UVA's way. I might've considered it a Bruin domination, if UCLA had generated more than the occasional chance, but UVA's keeper Calle Brown was barely tested. Owning the possession battle 45 yards out is one thing; it's another thing entirely to dictate the game. UVA did so without having the ball.
The second half - a little more pressure, the Bruins clearly took their coaching to heart and were less patient, more attacking, but also a great deal more frustrated. UCLA's Edgar Contreras ought to have been red-carded for a head-butt, but I can't completely fault the refs as the camera was right on it in real time and I still missed it until the replay. But it was a clear sign that UCLA was used to being able to break down a defense, and UVA's brick wall was getting to them.
The game is likely to attract precisely zero new fans to the game of soccer, but just look at all the bothers I give. You know I love me some pack-line defense, and so, apparently, does George Gelnovatch. Tony Bennett wins basketball games 45-26, but he wins basketball games. At the end of the day, here's the stat that matters most: 21. And the one that matters second-most is 0.
*******************************************
The first major bit of football attrition hit last week when Eli Harold declared for the draft. That makes two; David Watford also decided to transfer, but the effect of that will be almost nil. Except to eliminate bizarre message board posts wondering why he's on the field in any capacity at all, as if not being a good quarterback is the same as not being a good receiver.
UVA dodged a bullet when Max Valles announced that he'd be returning next year, quashing rumors to the contrary. Smart - Valles would've been going almost entirely on physical attributes. A year of opening some scouts' eyes would help him. Harold, though he could benefit from another year, is probably in good shape anyway. He showed this year that he can defend the run and isn't just a one-dimensional pass rusher. Once he gets in front of scouts at the combine, he should make an appearance on draft boards and could easily be a second or third round pick; his ceiling, if the workouts look good, would be the low first.
As for our defense, it's a fairly major hit, but there's a long-run silver lining: next year, Harold and the Moores (Michael and Kwontie) would once again have dominated the playing time. Great, because they'll do well, but no experience for the boatload of guys behind them. Trent Corney should start off as the third DE, but there's a trio of redshirt freshmen who will get a chance to make a wave or two as well.
*******************************************
And the second major bit of football attrition is on the coaching staff, as Scott Wachenheim is off to VMI to play head coach. Good for him - it's his first head-coaching gig, though he did have the title of OC and assistant HC at Liberty for a few years. There can't be a tougher place in the world to win at football than VMI, except maybe the Citadel. From his perspective, this is definitely striking while the iron is hot - the chances that most of this staff is out of a job next year are awfully high, and you might as well grab a promotion while it's there. Even if London was on rock-solid ground, I think he'd go anyway, but still.
Wachenheim leaves with one of the most mixed legacies I've ever seen for an assistant coach. He was vilified at times for the play of the O-line, and I think at least partially deservedly so. But he leaves on a positive note, having gained a lot of credit for making the O-line not be a total black hole of suck despite being held together with Scotch tape and having to use 260-pound converted DE (or TE or whatever) Jack English as a left tackle. And I think also deservedly so.
It leaves UVA with two openings to fill, including the impending (or already-occurred) retirement of Tom O'Brien, whose UVA career was basically a dud. There's an inexplicable level of support for Ron Mattes, who was here like, a year, and performed no miracles. He'll be here as soon as Bill Musgrave comes back, I'm sure. A much more likely name, and these tea leaves sure read awfully clearly, thanks to Streaking the Lawn's Tweety account, is current Edmonton Eskimos O-line coach Jonathan Himebauch.
*******************************************
For lack of anything to do in this basketball wilderness, I put together another season sim, since it had been a couple weeks and stuff happened. You can find it below and on the original season sim post, for easier comparison to the previous version.
NC State and Notre Dame are on the rise; both won an early-season ACC game against Wake and FSU, respectively, and ND has been handling a lot of business as well. NC State, not so much, but then, Wofford is actually awfully highly-ranked for a SoCon team.
Being as UVA has also been handling business, the Hoos leapfrogged Louisville, which itself didn't exactly fare badly, just not as well as UVA. Maryland and VCU are both higher-ranked than all but five ACC teams, and UVA crushed both on the road. It's becoming clear that there's a top three in this league, and as such, the race for the top seed has obvious huge implications.
Monday, September 1, 2014
worst-case scenario
Last week I wrote about best-case and worst-case scenarios for the season, albeit summarily. Good thing, too, because if I'd wasted too many words talking about worst-case, I'd have just been reminded how much more elegantly it can be said by moving pictures. This weekend was designed purely to make UVA fans go insane.
Play well enough to win, but lose? Check. Fire up the quarterback shitstorm all the way to 11? Check. Throw in one hair-pulling mistake, and the only thing missing is a season-ending injury to some really important player. But don't give anyone any ideas. Henry Coley's knees thank you in advance.
(As a substitute, we can just go ahead and go 5-7 this season now, so that the schedule-for-success crowd is given a whole free offseason to never shut up. That should complete my trip to the nuthouse.)
The real way to see this game, though, is however you damn well please. If you're the Kool-Aid type, the defense was fantastic against a hyped-up quarterback and the quarterbacks at least provided a reason to believe someone will be worth a damn; plus, our offense outscored UCLA's. If you're more the Eeyore persuasion, we beat a pretty damn good team last year to start the season and then watched every other coach actually coach the season while our staff bumbled around and forgot to make any adjustments; plus, the game was more a reason to crash-sell all your UCLA stock than to start buying UVA's. You wouldn't be the only one thinking that.
I'm pretty confident in saying UVA will get its first win next week. Beyond that, we learned nothing whatsoever about this team, mainly because most every unit performed about as expected. The D-line was a terror and the linebackers made hell of plays. The O-line was a steaming pile of.... yeah. The receivers looked good sometimes and lousy sometimes. About the only unexpected thing was the QBs, which of course answered nothing either.
So, check back, I guess, in two weeks, after the game I'm dubbing The World's Most Artificial Rivalry. We'll have to wait that long to find out who the quarterback really is. If we still don't know, watch out, because the season is then likely to be one full-bore controversy.
*************************************************
-- I could probably devote a full post and a half to what happened under center the other day, but let's see if I can make this compact enough to read. Having read about the game before I saw it (I was traveling, and my limit for keeping away from the score before I can get to my Tivo is overnight) I wasn't surprised to see Matt Johns come in. I was surprised that Greyson Lambert didn't suck. I mean, that's why you'd pull a quarterback, right? Here's my theory, actually: London did this to fire up the offense, not because of anything in particular that he saw or didn't see out of Lambert, and the move having worked beyond his wildest dreams, he was left with no choice but to keep this going.
I mean, only one of those three UCLA touchdowns can even remotely be pinned on Lambert (although the third one is 100% his.) Lambert played just fine. I wish the playcalling would've asked more of him, but he was fine.
The reason this is now a problem is that Johns was way more than "fine." Johns was actually good. Really good, sometimes. I mean, those touchdown throws. Give a ton of credit to Andre Levrone and Darius Jennings for fine catches in tough coverage, but those throws were professional throws. Johns just plain looked comfortable - more so than Lambert, even with the O-line failing to protect either one of them. The one thing that makes this not really a fair fight is the playcalling, which got a lot gutsier with Johns in the game, and I don't just mean deeper throws. Johns also rolled out of the pocket at least once, which Lambert was not asked to do.
I fully expect to see both of them against Richmond. There's no way the coaches can make a proper decision now. Johns clearly outplayed Lambert; in fact, Johns outplayed UCLA's Brett Hundley (though Hundley was let down by his receivers quite a bit.) and there's no way to toss that aside and hand Lambert the ball without a qualm now. But there's no way to throw away all of spring and fall camp without a qualm either. It's the last thing I ever wanted to see, but we're just gonna have to fire up the competition again. And they'll probably both play very well against Richmond, because Richmond.
-- It's amazing how one team can have such a terror for a defensive line and such a flimsy offensive line. The only decent running plays came on misdirections and from Kevin Parks's YAC-generating thunder thighs. But the D-line - wowz. David Dean was double-teamed almost the whole game, I think, and Hundley was flustered not just because he was pressured, but because he could never be too sure where the pressure would come from. Some of that is the mad blitzer in the coaches' box, but the line didn't really need the help to make a collapsy mess of Hundley's pocket.
-- I know player safety is important and all but a 15-yard penalty for putting your helmet back on and continuing to play is a truly fart-brained rule.
-- No major new wrinkles in the offense, which isn't surprising when breaking in a new quarterback, but I did like the changing tempo. Maybe that counts as a major wrinkle. I think that'll be a plus going forward, though; there's no need to try to be Oregon, and race race race around the field, but a little unpredictability helps.
-- I'm not actually kidding. Please solve this quarterback thing soon.
Play well enough to win, but lose? Check. Fire up the quarterback shitstorm all the way to 11? Check. Throw in one hair-pulling mistake, and the only thing missing is a season-ending injury to some really important player. But don't give anyone any ideas. Henry Coley's knees thank you in advance.
(As a substitute, we can just go ahead and go 5-7 this season now, so that the schedule-for-success crowd is given a whole free offseason to never shut up. That should complete my trip to the nuthouse.)
The real way to see this game, though, is however you damn well please. If you're the Kool-Aid type, the defense was fantastic against a hyped-up quarterback and the quarterbacks at least provided a reason to believe someone will be worth a damn; plus, our offense outscored UCLA's. If you're more the Eeyore persuasion, we beat a pretty damn good team last year to start the season and then watched every other coach actually coach the season while our staff bumbled around and forgot to make any adjustments; plus, the game was more a reason to crash-sell all your UCLA stock than to start buying UVA's. You wouldn't be the only one thinking that.
I'm pretty confident in saying UVA will get its first win next week. Beyond that, we learned nothing whatsoever about this team, mainly because most every unit performed about as expected. The D-line was a terror and the linebackers made hell of plays. The O-line was a steaming pile of.... yeah. The receivers looked good sometimes and lousy sometimes. About the only unexpected thing was the QBs, which of course answered nothing either.
So, check back, I guess, in two weeks, after the game I'm dubbing The World's Most Artificial Rivalry. We'll have to wait that long to find out who the quarterback really is. If we still don't know, watch out, because the season is then likely to be one full-bore controversy.
*************************************************
-- I could probably devote a full post and a half to what happened under center the other day, but let's see if I can make this compact enough to read. Having read about the game before I saw it (I was traveling, and my limit for keeping away from the score before I can get to my Tivo is overnight) I wasn't surprised to see Matt Johns come in. I was surprised that Greyson Lambert didn't suck. I mean, that's why you'd pull a quarterback, right? Here's my theory, actually: London did this to fire up the offense, not because of anything in particular that he saw or didn't see out of Lambert, and the move having worked beyond his wildest dreams, he was left with no choice but to keep this going.
I mean, only one of those three UCLA touchdowns can even remotely be pinned on Lambert (although the third one is 100% his.) Lambert played just fine. I wish the playcalling would've asked more of him, but he was fine.
The reason this is now a problem is that Johns was way more than "fine." Johns was actually good. Really good, sometimes. I mean, those touchdown throws. Give a ton of credit to Andre Levrone and Darius Jennings for fine catches in tough coverage, but those throws were professional throws. Johns just plain looked comfortable - more so than Lambert, even with the O-line failing to protect either one of them. The one thing that makes this not really a fair fight is the playcalling, which got a lot gutsier with Johns in the game, and I don't just mean deeper throws. Johns also rolled out of the pocket at least once, which Lambert was not asked to do.
I fully expect to see both of them against Richmond. There's no way the coaches can make a proper decision now. Johns clearly outplayed Lambert; in fact, Johns outplayed UCLA's Brett Hundley (though Hundley was let down by his receivers quite a bit.) and there's no way to toss that aside and hand Lambert the ball without a qualm now. But there's no way to throw away all of spring and fall camp without a qualm either. It's the last thing I ever wanted to see, but we're just gonna have to fire up the competition again. And they'll probably both play very well against Richmond, because Richmond.
-- It's amazing how one team can have such a terror for a defensive line and such a flimsy offensive line. The only decent running plays came on misdirections and from Kevin Parks's YAC-generating thunder thighs. But the D-line - wowz. David Dean was double-teamed almost the whole game, I think, and Hundley was flustered not just because he was pressured, but because he could never be too sure where the pressure would come from. Some of that is the mad blitzer in the coaches' box, but the line didn't really need the help to make a collapsy mess of Hundley's pocket.
-- I know player safety is important and all but a 15-yard penalty for putting your helmet back on and continuing to play is a truly fart-brained rule.
-- No major new wrinkles in the offense, which isn't surprising when breaking in a new quarterback, but I did like the changing tempo. Maybe that counts as a major wrinkle. I think that'll be a plus going forward, though; there's no need to try to be Oregon, and race race race around the field, but a little unpredictability helps.
-- I'm not actually kidding. Please solve this quarterback thing soon.
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