Not much of a story to tell this week. That's what happens when you take care of business. I think I'll just entertain you instead by talking about what I liked and didn't from Virginia's first game of the season.
The good:
-- Quarterbacks. Mike Rocco was businesslike and efficient and did nothing at all to lose his job. Phillip Sims made his eagerly-awaited debut, looked quite good in limited action, and did nothing at all to let Rocco out of his sights.
-- Receivers. Early on I was a little annoyed that the only one who seemed to ever be getting open was Darius Jennings. And Jennings certainly looked the part of the coveted four-star we expected when we recruited him. E.J. Scott ended up having a nice game for himself, though, and Jake McGee's catch was the highlight of the day. Eventually the ball ended up being spread around among a really wide variety of players; eight of them had at least two catches, and weirdly, one of them wasn't Perry Jones.
-- Khalek Shepherd. Proved he can hang with the big boys in the RB stable.
-- The kicking. There really is no substitute for confidence in your kicker, and Drew Jarrett was calmly perfect on his kicks, and no sneaking just inside the uprights either. New punter Alec Vozenilek averaged 41 yards on three punts. That's solid work, and he put two of them inside the 20.
-- Tre Nicholson. Listed at 155 pounds last year, he's up 15 to 170 now. The difference shows. I don't think he'll look like tank fodder anymore when someone lays a stiff-arm, and it was his turn to deliver the hits on Saturday.
-- Pass protection. I can only think of one time I saw Rocco put on his back, and it was shortly followed by McGee's circus catch. So the only result of Richmond's pressure was to put a highlight on the board. The guilty party was Morgan Moses, and there must've been something very correctible about that mistake because the coaches were spotted instructing him the very next play while Jay Whitmire was sent in for a few snaps.
The bad:
-- The rest of the secondary. It was well-disguised, because Richmond's John Laub is a lousy QB and missed a ton of open receivers. If he hadn't, there might've been a few more drives like the ones that ended up as touchdowns. There's still a ways to go here.
-- The running game. Surprisingly poor. Jones and Kevin Parks combined for an average of 3.6 yards a carry. Was it partly because Richmond crowded the box? Yes, partly, but the interior line was still less impressive than I'd've liked. Failure to convert a 4th-and-1, and inability to run in the red zone were both trouble spots. Virginia's rushing yards came mostly on the outside, which is like the least surprising thing ever given the quality of our tackles. But running up the middle wasn't too fulfilling.
-- The pass rush. But I'll give a pass on this because London talked in his press conference about Richmond's game plan and playcalling having a lot to do with that. Billy Schautz made his presence felt a few times, on at least one of which he should've drawn a holding penalty.
-- The helmets. No, I still don't like these jerseys. Here's why:
Nothing against Clemson's look per se, but Clemson owns the orange helmet. And if you, Mr. random college football watcher flipping through channels, turned on your TV and didn't know who you were watching, and you caught a glimpse of this look, Clemson would be the first thought, not Virginia. Sure, we can change jerseys and pants, but so can they, and besides:
Number of other current or future ACC teams with orange helmets: 2. Number with white, for those of you thinking in that direction: 3. Number with blue: 0. We're the only ones. (Except for Carolina, whose blue will never be mistaken for ours.) If we look like this, you know instantly who it is because it can't be anyone else. (Not only that, but the blue stripes on the pants are there with the assumption we'd have blue helmets on.) Sacrificing our identity for the latest fad is a massive mistake, and the fact that it was the captains who made the decision doesn't make it any better of an idea.
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Prediction summary. In this section I look back at the silly shit I said in the game preview and see if any of it came true. To wit:
-- One of our runners gets 100 yards. Nope. Very disappointing showing in the run game. Although, the carries were a little more spread than I expected; Jones and Parks had 14 each, and they'd had to have averaged over 7 yards a carry to reach 100. Even so, that shouldn't have been a major challenge.
-- Khalek Shepherd gets at least five carries to meet or surpass his 2011 total. Shepherd doubled that up with 10, and one reception as well, which is also his 2011 total. I don't care if it was partly because the coaches held Clifton Richardson out as a precaution; Shepherd's abilities made that decision a lot easier.
-- Mike Rocco averages around 10 yards per attempt. 8.4 ypa is not close enough for me to count this. I expected the coaches to get a little more downfield-pass-happy than they did.
-- Phillip Sims plays most of the fourth quarter, but not before. Nailed it. Sims really only had one drive, plus one play to run out the clock, but he came in with 12:07 left, so it counts.
-- Bill Lazor tries a deep bomb on the first drive. I was prepared to cheat and allow this one if it happened on the second drive, since we had such a short field on the first. But neither Rocco nor Sims was allowed to unleash the dragon all day.
So, 2-for-5 to start the season. Could've been better. Also, 1-0 on straight-up results predictions, but that one was a gimme. The spread turned out to 24 points and the Hoos won by 24, which means I have to spend the whole season with a little 1 hanging off the end of my predictions against the spread. Ties are stupid.
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A quick recruiting board update so it stops looking so damn out of date:
-- Moved RB Taquan Mizzell from blue to orange. Woo and all that.
-- Removed DE Wyatt Teller from blue. Boo and all that.
-- Removed LB Oren Burks from green. Vandy commit. Interesting selection.
-- Moved WR DaeSean Hamilton from yellow to green.
-- Moved CB Priest Willis from red to yellow.
Truthfully these last two moves are made so as to keep having those sections. When the board is at these late stages, you should always kind of forget the usual meanings of the colors and take them as a sort of priority list for who you should keep an eye on.
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High school seasons are underway. I don't get it, but the only ones that aren't (at least for our commits) are in New England. You'd think the northern schools would start first and then the southern ones later, but North Carolina beats everyone to the punch and Sadiq Olanrewaju (in CT) won't start for another two weeks. Guess they're under the (not completely mistaken) impression that football in the cold and snow is the only real football.
This week's results:
Good Counsel 20, Gilman 19: Brendan Marshall was 15-for-23 with a touchdown, 232 yards, and a couple rushing yards of his own in a hard-fought win over Micah Kiser's Gilman. Kirk Garner caught five of those passes for 95 yards. Andre Levrone, by the way, has a broken leg the same as LaChaston Smith, and will miss several weeks. OLGC is 1-1, Gilman is 0-2.
Damascus 41, Clarksburg 6: Zach Bradshaw starred for the Hornets this week, returning a punt for one touchdown and an interception for another.
FUMA 32, Georgetown Prep 24: Malcolm Cook returned two picks for touchdowns. FUMA is 1-1.
Ocean Lakes 51, Princess Anne 0: Corwin Cutler threw three touchdowns and Ocean Lakes had another easy one. Ocean Lakes is 2-0.
A.L. Brown 38, Rocky River 21 (Keeon Johnson - Brown is 3-0.)
South Iredell 41, West Iredell 7 (LaChaston Smith - South Iredell is 2-1.)
Houston Westside 43, Houston Reagan 0 (Hipolito Corporan - Westside is 1-0.)
North Stafford 13, Potomac 8 (Donta Wilkins - Potomac is 0-1.)
St. Christopher's 21, Trinity Episcopal 6 (Jack English - St. Chris is 1-0.)
Salem 37, Bayside 7 (Taquan Mizzell - Bayside is 1-1.)
