July 2007 - Posts
I finally got Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 installed correctly on my laptop. I tried Visual Web Developer Express first but realized that didn't give me enough of a preview of the new features. So I downloaded and installed the Team Suite trial.
At first glance, aside from a few little graphical changes, there isn't much different.
But after digging into it, I've started to find some things.
- I like the changes to the settings dialog in ASP.NET applications.
- The ability to change the targeting of an application (between .NET 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5).
- I took one of my applications and upgraded it. Worked flawlessly. I then converted back and forth between 2.0 and 3.5 and it all worked well.
- The new webpage designer is much, much nicer.
- Performance seems on par with VS 2005. Maybe just a tad slower. But not enough that it bothers me.
I've played around with a few of the C# 3.0 features. Its going to take me a while to get used to them, but in generally I'm pretty pleased with them. Extension methods were the ones I was looking forward to the most and they work just as easily as I had expected.
I'll post more thoughts later after I get more time to play with it. But so far - looks good!
Microsoft announced yesterday that they were releasing Beta 2 of their upcoming Visual Studio 2008, the next version of their very popular software development suite.
I've been following Scott Guthrie's blog on the new features that will be in VS2008 and I must admit, I'm excited about it. Scott made the announcement yesterday that Beta 2 was available and I've been trying to get it installed since.
So far, no luck. But I'm not giving up! Right now I've got the Web Developer Express Edition installing on my laptop. That'll let me play with the hundreds of new web-oriented improvements and also get to see the new C# 3.0 features.
I'll post more thoughts after I get it installed (it's current stuck on installing the .NET Framework 3.5).
A shock has gone through the world of the Atlantic Coast Conference today as word spreads that Wake Forest's head basketball coach, Skip Prosser, died today of a heart attack.
Skip was out for a jog when he collapsed from a heart attack. He was taken to Wake Forest's Baptist Medical Center where he later died.
Prosser has been the Wake Forest coach since I came to UVA, so he's a figure I've grown accustomed to seeing on the sidelines.
Such a shame for such a talented man to die at such a young age.
I hope everyone will take a moment to reflect on his achievements and keep his family in mind.
This is Part V of an ongoing series of posts detailing my analysis of the 2007 UVA Football Schedule.
It seems that most of the debate about this game among the fans falls into three categories: the altitude, the Cowboys and the Cavaliers. I'll address each of those three topics in turn.
The Altitude
War Memorial Stadium doesn't really look that imposing to visiting teams when you glance at the first sentence on Wyoming's facilities page for the stadium. It lists the capacity at only 32,580 - which I believe is a little more than half of what Scott Stadium holds.
But then you get to the end of that paragraph (emphasis mine):
A beautiful artificial turf, installed in the summer of '05 sets off this breathtaking stadium, which at an elevation of 7,220 feet is the highest Division I football stadium in America.
Woah. That's a little intimidating.
This has been one of the biggest topics of discussion on the message boards. So how much merit is there to this concern?
Enough.
Every game takes preparation. Every first game of the season takes that much more preparation. But playing that first game of the season under those conditions will put an extra kind of stress on the team and the coaches. The players will need to manage their endurance better than they're used to. This is especially some of the younger players who may not know how to manage their bodies for a full game at the college level yet anyway. I don't see this being a problem for someone like Chris Long as much as it is for someone like Keith Payne.
Then again, this 2007 rendition of the Cavaliers is a team that actually has some depth (relative to last year at least). Not at all positions. But we have depth at enough positions that we shouldn't have a problem with the "Iron Man" syndrome like we did last year. This year's team is also looking like its just going to be plain better than last year's team. We beat Wyoming last year (don't remind me of how close it was, please) and we're better this year. Altitude can only do so much damage.
The conditions of the game are definitely something the staff needs to be very cognizant of. However I don't think its nearly as big of a deal as some people have it out to be. In the end, things like Sewell's production, the offensive line's cohesiveness and the secondary's ability to lock down Wyoming's receivers all game will make much more of an impact than the altitude.
The Cowboys
For all the volumes of information I have available to me on the Virginia Cavaliers, It's amazing how little information I have on our opponents. Wyoming is no exception. Here's what I do know.
The Cowboys run a 3-4 defense. Their front seven is very deep - last year's team had 17 linebackers; this year's has 14. Their coaches tend to make good use of the depth with lots of rotations. I get the impression that their defense will be a stiff first test for our [hopefully] improved offensive line.
Their offense is a different story. From what I can tell, they lost at least three starters on the offensive line alone. That should be making Chris Long and Jeffrey Fitzgerald smile.
Even though the QB that we saw last year (Jacob Doss) is still on the team as a senior, it appears he's fallen to third string. Sophomore Karsten Sween looks to be the starter after taking over for Doss last year. Another QB we might see depending on how fall camp goes is Ian Hetrick, a transfer from Santa Rosa JuCo in California. Sween is a lefty so I'd think it'll be useful that our defense has been practicing against the lefty Sewell. From the accounts that I've read, their running backs and tight ends will be the same as last year while their receiving corps is a bit younger.
Overall, it sounds like this must be somewhat of a zero-sum proposition. Their defense should be better, but their offense might be a little worse than what we saw last year.
The Cavaliers
So how do the Cavaliers match up against the Cowboys?
I think I've got two different answers depending on who has the ball.
When the Cowboys have the ball, I'm pretty excited to see what an extra year of practice has done for our defense, particularly the front seven. I have a feeling that Long and Fitz will be able to expose Wyoming's relatively inexperienced line and open things up for the linebackers to put some serious pressure on the quarterback. That stacks up well for allowing our shaky secondary to ease into the season - if the quarterback isn't given time to get the ball in the air, he likely won't be able to make very good throws.
It's when Virginia has the ball that I'm a little more interested to see what happens. If you read Part II of this series, you'll know that I'm just not sure what to think about the offense. We should be better than last year. But how much better? The depth of the Cowboys' defense and their frequent substitutions won't be giving the offense much room to learn as they go, so Dave Borbely and the other offensive coaches had better have this team very well prepared.
Summary
I'm not sure what to think about the Cavaliers' offense against the Cowboys' defense. But I just don't think the Cowboys' offense is going to be able to put up many points on our defense. I also don't think the altitude issue is going to be as much of a problem as some are making it out to be. I'm not going to make a score prediction yet (I'll save that for a later article) but I'm counting this game as a W.
I managed to bug Tiki (a friend from college, not Tiki Barber) into blogging and using my site for it.
We spend enough time talking about UVA sports that I figured it'd be good for him to write some of it down from time to time. He knows most sports better than I do, so you'll probably want to read his season preview instead of mine!
He just made his first post, and says he's working on more already.
Don't get me wrong. I love my current phone. Except for the lack of 802.11x wireless. But it definitely has its problems.
First, the joystick in the middle of the phone has some serious issues. About 90% of the time I can't click down on it. That's a pretty serious problem for a phone. About 40% of the time I can't click right on it. That also is a pretty serious problem.
The next problem was that when I take the battery out, even for just a second, it loses track of the date and time. Resets itself back to May 26, 2006 at midnight. My girlfriend has reported that as well.
The latest problem, which has only happened once - yesterday, is that the battery seemed to run dead VERY fast. Without hardly using the phone at all, the battery died completely within about 8 hours. It was constantly hot as if I had been using it... but I hadn't been.
I don't really feel like buying a new phone yet. But I've been looking around. The HTC S710 looks very promising. But of course its expensive... so we'll see.
Does anyone have any comments on the S710?
This is Part IV of an ongoing series of posts detailing my analysis of the 2007 UVA Football Schedule.
This article probably could have been more aptly named "Al Groh and Mike London" as they're the main coaches I wanted to talk about. But I'll try to give the other coaches a mention as well.
Al Groh
Is he on the hot seat? I don't know. Do I care? No, not right now. What I care about right now is what he's doing with this team in preparation for this season and the next few seasons. As far as I can tell, most of what he's doing is very positive.
The team managed to redshirt all but one player from last year's recruiting class and appears poised to do the same with this most recent class. That alone gives a lot of promise to this year's team as well as, at least, the next two years.
Groh was not completely to blame for all of the problems the team had last year. But as the captain of the ship, he must deal with taking the blame for most of it.
Hot seat or not, he needs a winning season and a bowl game, at least, to keep even the most forgiving fans involved in the program. Personally I think he'll be fine. But the performance on the field will dictate that.
Mike London
Mike London was probably the most important addition Groh made to the team last year. London is consistently mentioned by recruits as being one of the reasons they are staying involved with the Virginia program. He brings excitement to the program. And, it appears, he's a very good defensive coach.
Every few weeks someone mentions London as a possible successor to Groh down the road. No one has any idea where London will be when Groh is no longer our coach. And no one knows what London wants to do. But its nice to know we've got such a solid coach and great recruiting in the fold no matter what.
Mike Groh
Speaking of hot seats... When Al named his son as the offensive coordinator, there was a bit of an outcry. That's rather expected, I'd say. Everyone was already clamoring for daddy Bowden to can son Jeff, so it seemed like a tricky choice to name Mike to that high of a position.
In 2006, it was hard to tell how good of a job Mike was doing. The offensive line couldn't give the quarterback or running backs enough time to actually get anything done.
The one positive thing I can say is that at least we didn't run the stretch play as many times in a single game as we did against UNC in 2005...
This year the offense should be cohesive enough for us to get an idea about the play calling and the job Mike is doing. To be honest, I don't know what to expect...
Dave Borbely
Borbely is a coach I don't know too much about and honestly haven't heard enough about since his hiring. Ironically, he may have been the most important coach over the last six months and may be the most important coach over the next six months.
Why? He's the offensive line coach. They're the unit where most of our problems started last year, and they're the unit that has the potential to show the most improvement this year. If he's done a good job preparing the line for the season, I have confidence that we'll be a solid team this year. If that unit falls short again... we may be in for another tough season.
Up Next: The season opener, September 1st, @ Wyoming.
This is Part III of an ongoing series of posts detailing my analysis of the 2007 UVA Football Schedule.
My analysis of the defense is going to be significantly more simplistic. I'll cover the defensive line, the linebackers and the secondary. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the secondary to go too in-depth into the corners versus the safeties. Maybe I'll get a guest writer to take care of that. There are also a lot less concerns at most of the positions than there are on the offensive side of the ball.
Linemen
I must admit, I'm excited about the defensive linemen this year. Something about having Chris Long anchoring one end of the line and Jeffrey Fitzgerald anchoring the other end. Our depth isn't terrific on the line, but we do have enough options that we'll be able to spell the starters from time to time and keep them fresh. Not that they'll want to be spelled!
If Long and Fitz have progressed at all since last year, the d-line is going to be very formidable.
Linebackers
Groh is a linebackers kinda guy. He's had an emphasis of one kind or another on the linebacker position ever since he arrived at U.Va.. He managed to bring in solid LB recruits like Ahmad Brooks and Kai Parham very early in his career. But there have always been problems of one kind or another with the recruits he's brought in. Whether it was their health, their depth or their speed, they haven't met the standards Groh wanted.
Now, with Mike London leading the defense, Groh may have his best overall linebacker unit he's ever had. The starters this year will be familiar names - they're the same as the starters last year: Jon Copper and Antonio Appleby at inside linebacker and Clint Sintim and Jermaine Dias at outside linebacker.
If we can assume that they're all improved from last year, that's a great start as it is. But add into that the fact that we'll have a terrific crop of backups, including some redshirt freshmen that can bring some much-needed speed to the defense.
As with the linemen, this is going to be a formidable unit.
Secondary
And now we get to the questions on the defensive side of the ball.
The only starter that the defensive unit lost from 2006 was Marcus Hamilton. Drafted by the Bucs, he was a solid, steady presence in the secondary. So who will take his place? Unfortunately, I don't know. Our secondary is young and inexperienced. It will definitely be the weak point of the defense. And opponents will definitely try to exploit it.
Mike Brown's injury at cornerback lessened our depth at the position. Chris Cook and Vic Hall will hopefully be able to handle the load. Safety Byron Glaspy remains one of my favorite players on the team - he's an engineering student like I was (or at least he was when he joined the team) - and feel-good story Nate Lyles will handle the other safety spot.
That's definitely some solid talent we've got listed there. It's just very unproven. This should be an interesting group to watch over the next season.
Summary
The defense was a very solid unit last year. If they had an offense that stayed on the field for more than 3 plays at a time, they could have been in the top 15 in the nation in most important statistics.
This year, they return almost the same starters, a year more experienced, and several new (and helpful) names on the 2 deep. We can expect, at least, similar results from last year. I'm hoping for something significantly better though, and I'm sure Groh and London are as well.
Up Next: The Coaches
Raymond Chen's blog oldnewthing is one of my favorites. My work copy of Outlook 2007 pulls down his posts every day and I read them religiously.
One of his posts today struck me as interesting just because of how it pertained to my blog post I had just finished writing before I read his. Here's the relevant portion of his post:
This is a sneaky trick that people try to pull occasionally. They'll say something while I happen to be present (either physically in person or virtually by adding me to an email conversation) and see what my reaction is. If I don't say anything, then they assume that I agree with whatever it is they said.
Just to make it official: Just because you say something in my presence and I don't raise an objection doesn't mean that I agree. I can usually tell when people are trying to pull this stunt and I refuse to play along.
I tried to think back over the number of times this has happened to me - both in the office and while I was in the settings that produced my previous post. I'd just have to say its a lot. Some of it stems from having been so vocal for years in one of those settings (not the office setting). People got used to me speaking my mind, so if I don't, then I must agree, right? Well, no.
Raymond says he sometimes doesn't say anything because he's not playing along. That's a valid reason for keeping quiet when you disagree. But it's not usually the reason for me. For me it tends to be "letting them learn on their own." I use this tactic when I've voiced my disagreement in the past (but perhaps not recently enough for those around me to remember) and now I choose to be able to say "I told you so."
That might sound a bit mean... but that's really not how it is intended. You'd have to understand the setting. Think about it like telling your little brother not to touch the oven because it's hot. After you do it a few times and he keeps trying, you might let him touch it - just for a second* - so he learns his lesson. That too, is my reasoning here.
* - Note that I don't advocate letting your little brother burn himself. This can be done by turning the oven way down to a safe temperature, but one that will still startle the kid. Perhaps it was a bad example. But it made sense to me. I'll probably end up smacking myself in the forehead for having written this when I have kids and prefer not to have them burn their little fingers...
Over the last few days I've had some discussions with some friends about a situation we are involved in. The specific scenario is not important, but many of you will recognize the general one:
Person A has an agenda. Person A views Person B as a threat to Person A's ability to accomplish that agenda. Person A makes comments to Person C (and D and E and...) in an attempt to "discredit" Person B's viewpoint before Person B has even had the opportunity necessarily form a viewpoint. Person A takes this stance so solidly and so frequently that they actually appear to believe it.
I'm curious about this effect.
On the one hand, it might be as simple as I made it sound above - Person A is just trying to complete and agenda and alienating Person B is part of that.
On the other hand, its actually possible that Person A actually believes what they are saying about Person B. Even though to an outsider (Persons C, D and E), Person A is completely off base.
At the same time I'm just curious about what causes people to do this. In the long run, isn't it better to recognize things for what they are and try to work with them? Like in this instance, wouldn't it be better for Person A to talk to Person B and try to get them to understand their position? I suppose we have to assume that Person B is an upstanding citizen and not working within their own agenda for that scenario to play out fairly. But you see what I'm getting at.
It also seems to be the same few people that do this repeatedly. Everyone does it on occasion (yes, even me!). But there appears to be a select few that do it over and over again. What makes them act that way? What makes them choose that route over the alternative? Is it a lack of understanding of the proper "rules of engagement" for a discussion? Is it a lack of confidence in their opinion?
I'll probably never understand, but I just wanted to toss that out there.
This is Part II of an ongoing series of posts detailing my analysis of the 2007 UVA Football Schedule.
Before I start into the actual schedule analysis, I wanted to give my thoughts on UVA's offense going into the season. I'll break this discussion up into 5 parts: Quarterback, Running Backs, Tight Ends, Linemen and Receivers.
Quarterback
For most teams, Virginia's situation at quarterback would probably be considered the question heading into the season for the offense. Unfortunately for Virginia, its only one of many. But the ball will be in the quarterback's hands every offensive play we run, so I'll start there.
Some prognosticators have had Jameel Sewell as one of the top players on our team. He showed progression throughout the 2006 season. There's no doubt about that. But I was not convinced by his play that he is one of our best players. As one friend put it, we might have 5 players on defense that are better than anyone on offense. However, we now know something we didn't know during the season - that Sewell was hampered by a wrist injury for a significant portion of the 2006 season. If we assume that he stays healthy and we assume that his progression as continued through the off-season (which may be a big assumption given his lack of playing time during the spring), then Sewell may very well be a solid quarterback for us this season. But since the 2006 season is really all we have to go on so far, I'm not holding my breath.
Behind Sewell we have a stable of capable, though not spectacular, backups. Scott Deke was hand-picked for a reason and Marc Verica has shown flashes of promise during the off-season. But neither of them is ready to be a starting Division I quarterback. I have some confidence from some things I've heard recently that, if Sewell was injured in some minor way (a cramp, for instance), one of these two would be able to step in and handle the team for a series or two. We may not get a touchdown out of these drives, but I'm confident they'll get us some yardage, eat clock and not make mistakes.
And what discussion of Virginia quarterbacks would be complete without mention of Peter Lalich. I save him for the end, and only a brief mention, because I don't want him to play any noticeable role in 2007. I want him to be on the sidelines paying attention to every detail. I want him traveling with the team like the heir apparent should (I've heard it said that Groh took Sewell with the team in 2005 for this same purpose). But I do not want him stepping on the field.
As long as Sewell stays healthy, we'll be fine at quarterback. He may not be an all-ACC quarterback, but he'll be plenty sufficient.
Running Backs
Speaking of a stable of capable backs, our running back corps has a ton of potential. The apparent starter, Cedric Peerman, may not have had many carries in the past but I like what I've seen of him so far. Keith Payne has been labelled a superman because of some of the flashes of power he's shown in practice, but Raynard Horne may turn out to be just as impressive - only time will tell. Mikell Simpson will likely get more play at WR but may line up as a running back as well. I don't have much to say here because I don't think much needs to be said. There's a lot of potential, but not a lot of guarantees. In this case, though, I can't see us not finding one back in this bunch that can get us yardage. My money is on Peerman with Horne and Payne providing quality extra yardage. But I could see either of them taking over the starting role if need be.
Tight Ends
I was going to group the tight ends in with the receivers since that's the role I am interested in seeing them in more of this year. But then I remembered the role they played last year - undersized linemen. Because of that, I figured they deserve their own category.
When Virginia fans reflect on the 2006 season, one of the negatives they probably think about is all of the drops the tight ends had. What most casual fans will never think about is the fact that the tight ends spent such a large portion of their time acting as offensive linemen. While our tight ends are a capable blocking unit as a whole, they are not meant to go against the larger defensive linemen they were facing. If you're spending your time in the trenches, its unlikely that you'll be getting out in the open to make many receptions. And if yo'ure spending time practicing in the trenches, you might find that your receiving skills are a little rusty when you do get the opportunity.
This year, with the offensive line being more capable (I'll discuss that shortly), hopefully the tight ends will be able to work to their potential. Tom Santi and Jonathan Stupar will be the starters. They're both more than capable when allowed to do their job instead of someone else's. The backups - Joe Torchia, Crutcher Reiss, etc - will have the opportunity to show what they're made of and what we as fans can look forward to in the starting role next year after both Santi and Stupar graduate.
I'm really looking forward to seeing our tight ends thrive in our offensive system. If the line holds up like I think it will, Santi could have a big receiving year (remember his Music City Bowl performance?!?).
Linemen
The offensive line has to take at least some of the blame for almost all of our offensive woes last year. They were not solely at fault, but a lot of parts of the offense depended on them and there were just too many breakdowns. Because of the youth and inexperience of the line, the tight ends had to become "pretend" linemen. Because of the breakdowns, Sewell had to scramble more than he should have and was unable to find open receivers while standing in the pocket. This lead to many poor throws by the young quarterback. If Sewell can't get the throws off in time, then we know the receivers aren't going to be making many catches either. And obviously if the line can't open up running lanes, the running backs aren't going to get past the line of scrimmage very often. All of these things happened last year, so it's no surprise that most people consider the line to be mostly to blame for our 5th to last in the country ranking of our offensive production.
There's good news here though. That entire line is back. And they're ready to go. Having a whole extra season under each of their belts is important. Having another offseason behind them is equally as important. I have a feeling that Dave Borberly is finally getting these guys into his system and we'll be seeing the fruits of that labor very soon. Tackle Eugene Monroe and guard Branden Albert are going to be huge forces on the line and I'm looking forward to seeing them dominate some opposing defenses.
Receivers
As I mentioned earlier, the receivers were very limited in their production last year by the fact that Sewell could rarely get them the ball. Even when he did, it was often a bad pass after being forced out of the pocket too quickly. So this year, with the better offensive line in place, we should see their production skyrocket, right?
Well, not so fast. The Cavaliers are suffering (for the second consecutive year) from losing their number one wide receiver to injury in the offseason. Last year it was Deyon Williams, who managed to return part of the way through the season but was never really as effective as he could have been. This year, we learn that Kevin Ogletree, Sewell's favorite target by the end of the 2006 season, has a knee injury and will likely miss the entire season. Bummer.
So the key questions for the receiving corps are 1) who steps up and fills the "top receiver" role (Maurice Covington is a common answer) and 2) which receivers can make up the best receiving package on the field at once. MoCo was a nice complement to Kevin Ogletree. Different types of receivers, and good to have both on the field at the same time. Unfortunately, Covington can't just slide into 'tree's role. We need to add another player who can complement him like he did 'Ogletree. Who will that player be?
To be honest, I'm not sure. None of the other receivers really seem to fit that role very well in my opinion. And some of them (newcomers to the WR role like Chris Gorham and Mikell Simpson), I'm not sure at all what kind of receiver they will be. I think we have a good group of receivers on this team right now, but I'm not sure how it'll play out on the field.
Summary
There are a lot of words like "if" and "potential" and "possibly" thrown about up there. I'm aware of that. This team is a bit of an enigma. Hopefully this gave you some indication why I said in Part I of this series that this team could go anywhere from 6-6 to 10-2. If all of the things above work in our favor and if the ball bounces our way a few times, this offense could do some real damage on the field. If we get some bad breaks, however, or things just don't go our way (injuries, academic attrition, etc) then the offense might be in some deep water yet again.
Next up: The Defense.
I've decided to write a quick series of posts on the 2007 football schedule for U.Va..
Before I get too far into this, I have to mention that I'm no football analyst. I'm no guru either. I'm just a fan who happens to spend too much of his time thinking about football. Much of the analysis and many of the predictions that come from that analysis will have a lot of "gut feeling" mixed in with actual facts. I'm not ashamed of that. I can't see into the future so sometimes, when things are more or less even, you've gotta use something to differentiate between two teams.
So to get things rolling, I'll just start off by saying that we have a schedule this year with 12 winnable games. There's not a single game on the schedule that I think we are guaranteed to lose. The two games that come closest to that are November 10th @ Miami and November 24th versus Virginia Tech - the two games that happen to close out our season. At first glance, those do look like losses. We'll see what I have to say about that when I get to the real analysis.
Now, on the other side of the same coin, we also have 12 losable games on the schedule. There are at least two that I want to chalk up as wins without much thought (September 8th versus Duke and October 6th @ Middle Tennessee State). I hope those are wins... but like the Miami and VT games, we'll see what I have to say when we get to the real analysis.
The other 8 games that I haven't mentioned? Who knows! Seriously, the rest of the games could go either way. With so many games that look like 50/50, perhaps it would be best to just pick a 6-6 record as my prediction. That seems pretty safe.
But that would be ignoring my gut feeling about this season. When I throw my gut feeling into the mix, my prediction is a 9-3 season.
Stay tuned to find out how I came up with that prediction.
Today I went to my first Washington Nationals game in a couple of years. I forget when I actually went to the first one, but MP says it was sometime around Katrina time because she remembers the Armory being very busy.
I was hoping to get to see Ryan Zimmerman do something amazing - either in the field or at the plate - but unfortunately that was not to be.
The game was rather boring for the most part (0-0 through 7.5 innings) until the Rockies decided to intentionally walk Zimmerman (to set up the force out since there was already a runner on second) and then gave up a 3-run home run to the next batter (I can't remember who that batter was).
That 3-run homer ended up being the only scoring of the game, so the Nationals beat the Rockies 3-0.
I haven't been paying attention to baseball that much yet (I rarely pay attention to the pro sports until they get close to the playoffs) but I knew the Nationals weren't winning much. So it was nice to see them pull off a win when I was in attendance!
I mentioned in a previous post that Ed Davis committing to UNC was one of the reasons I wanted to start posting again. There was another underlying reason as well.
Vandy Hoo mentioned on his blog another blog by a fellow sabre-ite WESTENDHOO. WESTENDHOO had a nice first post on his blog about Ed Davis, the committment and what it meant to U.Va. athletics overall. I wanted to follow up on that a bit, bu ttake it in a different direction from where he did.
I want to preface this by saying that no, I'm not one of those naysayers that he refers to in his blog. The ones who think the sky is falling every time something goes wrong and that can never see the silver lining, no matter how brightly it shines. I'm actually quite the opposite. I tend to think that in any given year, any given U.Va. team can produce a national championship team. Yes, I realize how unlikely that is in football, softball, volleyball, etc. But one magical season is all it would take. I'm not holding my breath, but I do keep watching every game/match that I can.
Here's the relevant part of WESTENDHOO's post (emphasis mine):
Now, undoubtedly the doomsday posters will be out in full force over on my homebase thesabre.com. But here is what the guys can not seem to understand. Rome was not built in a day. Our hoops program is coming off a horrible decade of subpar seasons, attrition, and overall bad play. We have a new man in place that is righting the ship, but do you really think that one NCAA tourney appearance and a new building is going to bring a string of commitments from McDonalds All-Americans? That kind of ignorance is what sets up a lot of our fans for their constant dissapointment. Check the facts. Guys that are top 5 players at their positions go to schools that have crazy tradition and past successes that include national titles and final four runs. Sure, every now and again a 5 star player will feel a special fit somewhere and break the mold. It can not be something we expect at this level in our programs development.
Dave has done an outstanding job. We have had our name in the hat with more top level players over the past two seasons than we have had in the previous six or seven. Im worried some fans will see the offers we have out to other big time players and feel Dave had a bad class if he doesn't land the big fish. Let the recruiting play out and judge his performance when the roster is set next season.
The Rome quote is nice. It's true and makes for some nice copy as well. Vandy Hoo already picked it as his Quote of the Day.But Rome was going to be built. Whether it happened in Rome or it happened elsewhere in the young world, there was going to be a "Rome" built. Virginia is not necessarily destined to be Rome. My current conundrum is trying to figure out whether it will happen at all.
The second bolded part is what really got me thinking. 5* players that are in the top 5 (top 10? top 20?) want to play at the schools that already have the reputation for being solid schools. They want to play where they're guaranteed to get the exposure they need to make it to the NBA. They don't want to be a building block. They want to be on top of the building blocks. Is that selfish? No! Not at all. They've got the talent (or the potential) to pick and choose, so they should be able to. But what does this mean for Virginia?
As far as I can tell, it means we need to find a lot of kids like Sean Singletary, Solomon Tat, Will Harris, Mike Scott and Jeff Jones. The ones that aren't locks for the top 5 or 10 programs in the country. The ones more willing to look at the whole package. These are all solid players.That's three 4* players and two 3* players (one of which - Mike Scott - may be better than 3 of the others). Thats a solid foundation on which to build. And Leitao has brought in four of those five players and managed to keep the fifth - Singletary, a Pete Gillen recruit - around to get his degree and lead this team in his 4th year. Only time will tell how productive those last four are, but its a solid, though not spectacular group.
So how do we reach the next level? How do we land Patrick Patterson, Solomon Alibi, Ed Davis? In a word? "Win." If we can put on a performance similar to last year again (even if we don't win the ACC regular season again, but top 3) and make it deep into the dance again (maybe making the Sweet 16 this year?) that'll go very far in showing the country that we're a force to be reckoned with. It will not however immediately land us a recruiting class full of top 5 players. We need to do this consistently. We need to be in the dance every single year. The occasional first or second round upset is ok as long as it is paired with some final four appearances mixed in.
If we continue to get recruits on par with what Leitao has done so far, I think we can achieve that level of consistency pretty easily. Sure, we need a post player. Sure we need to find someone to replace Sean's minutes next year (maybe we already have, who knows). But I think Dave will fill those holes appropriately. Will any of this guarantee that we can rake in the recruits like a UNC or a Duke does? Nope. There are no guarantees. But...
I think Dave's got us headed in the right direction.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) gave a stirring 20 minute speech to the senate today, nearly breaking down in tears as he talked about the atrocities of dogfighting.
"How dastardly!" he said. "...simply barbarc. Barbaric. Barbaric! Barbaric!!" he said.
Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) joined into the fray by calling on the NFL to suspend Michael Vick immediately. He also claims that he will be proposing new anti-dogfighting legislation.
Now... I'm just as against dog-fighting as the next guy is. Its cruel. Very very cruel.
I'm also no fan of Michael Vick. He's a Hokie (gross) and he's been a scar on the NFL (albeit a much smaller scar than he may become) for years.
But please, can we calm down a little bit?
Byrd's statements seemed truly inspired. The man was angry. And so he should be. So should we all. But his speech was over the top. One can make an impassioned plea without going that far. He made himself look silly and I can only imagine the youtube videos that will spring up of him saying "Barbaric" with various fist pumps and speech page wags. It detracts from his argument rather than supporting it.
And Kerry... Oh John Kerry... how far you have fallen. He sounds like a "me too!" little kid. There's a major headline? You can be sure that John Kerry will make some statement to try to get himself into the spotlight. He's not running for PotUS again, but he sure does act like he forgets that. Calling for the suspension of a man who has not been found guilty yet (granted, a federal indictment is pretty close to being guilty, but that's another blog post)? New dogfighting laws? If you're such a supporter of our canine friends, why weren't you proposing those laws 6 months ago? Oh? What's that? It wasn't a topic that "the people" were noticing 6 months ago? That's right, I thought so.
If Vick is guilty, I want him banned from the NFL and I want him to serve his time in jail. If he does his time, comes back and proves himself worthy, the NFL can lift the ban (their "indefinite bans" tend to be more finite then definite anyway). He should pay the price for what he's done - if he did it. If it turns out that he was being fed money while he was still in college (as some reports are saying) then Virginia Tech should have to face NCAA sanctions as well. But if none of that turns out to be true? He should be free to do as he pleases.
I'm watching this story closely and I'll likely have plenty more posts later.
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