ACCpocalypse, Averted

Huge news on the REALIGNMAGEDDON front yesterday, as fans of the ACC can finally relax a little bit with the conference's 15 members (including Pitt, Syracuse, Notre Dame, and Louisville and excluding Maryland) announcing a Grant of Media Rights.

Here is the announcement:


The Atlantic Coast Conference Council of Presidents announced today that each of the current and future 15-member institutions has signed a grant of media rights, effective immediately.

"This announcement further highlights the continued solidarity and commitment by our member institutions," said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. "The Council of Presidents has shown tremendous leadership in insuring the ACC is extremely well positioned with unlimited potential."

"The ACC has long been a leader in intercollegiate athletics, both academically and athletically," said the collective ACC Council of Presidents. "Collectively, we all agree the grant of rights further positions the ACC and its current and future member schools as one of the nation's premier conferences."

The ACC's current and future 15-member institutions include:
Boston College
Clemson University
Duke University
Florida State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Louisville
University of Miami
University of North Carolina
North Carolina State University
University of Notre Dame
University of Pittsburgh
Syracuse University
University of Virginia
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Wake Forest University

About the Atlantic Coast Conference:
The Atlantic Coast Conference, now in its 60th year of competition, has long enjoyed the reputation as one of the strongest and most competitive intercollegiate conferences in the nation. Since the league’s inception in 1953, ACC schools have captured 127 national championships, including 67 in women’s competition and 60 in men’s. In addition, NCAA individual titles have gone to ACC student-athletes 146 times in men’s competition and 102 times in women’s action. For more information, visit theACC.com.

What does a Grant of Media Rights mean for the conference?  Well, in a nutshell, it means the ACC is now protected from seeing other leagues - the Big Ten and Big XII, specifically - poach its teams.  For the next few decades, no teams will be able to leave the ACC without sacrificing their media rights, hence giving those schools no value to the leagues looking to expand.  So in essence, the ACC has effectively circled its wagons!

The wagon on fire is Wake Forest.

Read more about the Grant and its implications on SI.com, HERE and here:

Rejoice! ACC Grant of Rights Should Halt Conference Realignment

Hoos Reach New Heights

Pretty awesome piece from Jeff White, following up a pretty awesome homestand sweep against Florida State.  Crack it open and take a look.

'Hoos Reach New Heights in Sweep of 'Noles

Some numbers that really stand out to me:

• 4,980 fans in attendance for the Sunday sweepclencher.  That's a great college baseball crowd.  Easily one of the top draws in the nation.
• Brian O'Connor just turned 42.  He's got another 20-25 years doing this, easily.  We need to open up the checkbook and make damn well sure that those two decades are spent at UVA.
• Oak's career record at UVA: 446-155-2.  Like, holy shit.  That's a .742 win percentage.  Wow.
• This was our 1st-ever sweep of Florida State.
• 13,890 fans made it out to Davenport this weekend.  That's more than a typical basketball game can draw.  I love how Charlottesville has embraced this program.  That'll be a huge component to continued success.
• Brandon Waddell, our bulldog freshman Friday starter (usually the spot reserved for the staff ace), went a strong 6 innings in game 1 of the series.  He was battling through some recent ups and downs against ACC competition, but it looks lime he's righted the ship.
• Scott Silverstein went 7 strong innings on Saturday.  I had expressed concern over his injury history and often ineffective pitching last season, but in 2013 he has been fantastic. A real asset to our rotation.  I'm happy and proud to eat crow on this one.
• We are now 35-6 overall, 16-5 in the ACC.  We are cruising toward a top-8 national seed and hosting privileges for the NCAA regional and super regional (if we make it that far).
• 9 saves for Kyle Crockett so far this season.  He has settled into the closer's role, and might be the best in the entire nation in handling 9th inning work.

Tuesday vs. Richmond and Wednesday vs. JMU.  Need to go handle business in those games before laying siege to Blacksburg this coming weekend.

GO HOOS!

Notre Dame @ UVA, 2015

This pretty much says it all.

>goosebumps<

Now we just need to make sure we have a team that's good enough to win that game.

Meanwhile, in case you give a crap*, here's Notre Dame's schedule as they tiptoe into this five-games-a-year arrangement with the ACC:

2014
Louisville
North Carolina
Wake Forest
@ Florida State
@ Syracuse (in MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands)

2015
Boston College
Georgia Tech
@ Clemson
@ Pittsburgh
@ Virginia

2016
Duke
Miami
Virginia Tech
@ NC State
@ Syracuse (in MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands)


* And you should give a crap, because it just might be the thing that saves the conference from oblivion.


I'm glad to see a true rotation here, and not some BS arrangement where ND keeps it's "traditional" rivalries with BC and GT/Miami on an annual basis, with the other ACC teams rotating into the free 2-3 spots each season.  That said, it might have been better for the conference to sort of force more marquee matchups featuring Notre Dame... more games against FSU, namely.

But it's cool, I'm happy.  We are going to see Virginia take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in Scott Stadium in just two years.  Incredible.  If you're any sort of college football fan, there's no way you can avoid being totally PUMPED about this.

Jespy Says Goodbye

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia men’s basketball head coach Tony Bennett announced Monday (April 15) that sophomore guard Paul Jesperson (Merrill, Wis.) is leaving the Cavaliers’ program.

“Paul has decided to leave the Virginia basketball program and transfer to another school,” Bennett said. “We’d like to thank him for the past two seasons and wish him well in the future.”

The 6-6 Jesperson averaged 3.5 points and 1.7 rebounds in 56 career games at Virginia. He started 33 of 35 games in 2012-13, averaging 4.7 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. Jesperson tallied a career-high 12 points in Virginia’s 80-69 win at Maryland on Feb. 10.

“I would really like to thank my coaches, teammates and all of my supporters for the opportunity I had at UVa,” Jesperson said. “They made my time here unforgettable and I’m extremely grateful for that. I wish them the best and I’m looking forward to continuing my college career at my new school.”

Jespy earned solid playing time (25.7 minutes per game) this past season, but the writing was on the wall that he was soon going to see more time on the bench in favor of Brogdon and the two freshmen point guards.  So, in light of an obviously shrinking role, he opted to cut and run.  I don't begrudge him that at all.  In fact, I'm gracious for what he did give us in two seasons of work, and I'm glad he's opening up this scholarship for us to pursue a big man as part of the 2014 class.

I really have two main highlights from Jesperson's time at UVA:

1) His lockdown defensive effort on Scott Wood when we beat NC State in the JPJ this season.

2) His 4-for-4 performance from 3 in our road win over Maryland.  (In fact, did you know that Jespy hit at least one triple in each of our last 12 games prior to the NIT?  He wasn't a good shooter in terms of how the shot looked or how big of an impact he made from a points-per-game perspective, but he dialed up a .370 clip from deep this season.  That's not horrible.  His 4.7 points per game in almost 26 minutes of playing time was pretty horrible.)

Anyway, I wish Paul Jesperson the best of luck in his continued adventures.

Now... what to do with this spare scholarship that just opened up?  

2014 big man recruit, Paschal Chukwu.  He's 7-foot-2.

More Spring Game

Hey!

Hungry for more info about UVA's Spring Game?

Our friends at Streaking the Lawn did a pretty great two-part piece this week.  You are officially encouraged to read it.

Spring Game Review: Offense

Spring Game Review: Defense

You are also officially encouraged to purchase a Streaking the Lawn tee-shirt.

Meanwhile, after a week of reflection on the Spring Game, I have a few more broad thoughts:

• The defense is going to be good.  Probably the best we've fielded under Mike London.  As long as the young linebackers hold up, we'll have a top-5 unit in the ACC, and the D will win us a few football games this season.
• Thanks to Tom O'Brien's presence, we will in fact pick a quarterback and stick with him.  That quarterback will have his warts, for sure.  But continuity from series to series and week to week and game to game will yield a pretty good QB by season's end.
• If there's one unit that will short-circuit our season, it's not the QBs, but the offensive line.  I am officially VERY worried about the OL this fall.  When you start wondering if any of the incoming freshmen can help on the o-line, it's a really bad sign.
• We'll start giving Adrian Gamble and E.J. Scott more playing time over Dominique Terrell and Darius Jennings.  We have to.  We just have to.
• The following players will ensure that this is a successful* season: Tim Smith, Jake Snyder, Eli Harold, Smoke Mizzell, KP, Jake McGee, Tra Nicholson, Ant Harris, Morgan Moses, Voz, Brent Urban, and Henry Coley.  I have a lot of faith in those 12 guys.

* "Successful" being 6-6 and a bowl appearance.

Road to Omaha: Hits a Speedbump

The UVA baseball team dropped only its 4th game of the season last night, 9-8 to Radford when a 9th inning rally fell short. However all is not lost as the Hoos are now 30-4 on the season and ranked 4th in the country. Radford is also a very good team, improving to 20-11. Is this the time to panic? Of course not. That being said, there is something that we should all become very aware of.

It was pointed out on the Wahoos247 message board that Friday night ace Brandon Waddell seems to be hitting some sort of freshman wall. While this is not the end of the world, it is certainly something to pay attention to moving forward. The freshman wall is a real thing everybody, you need to prepare to be able to deal with it. Just like the basketball team would leave you with befuddlingly bad performances this past season, occasionally you are going to see the baseball team do the same. However, the pure talent on the staff should be able to overcome what could turn out just to be a speedbump, rather than a wall.

It's not all bad news though! Kyle Crockett has emerged as a force at the back end of the bullpen. Artie Lewicki is back (though he got roughed up)! Josh Sborz continues to impress. And Nate Kirby continues to show great improvement. This team has a plethora of arms, and is built to handle these kinds of issues. Silverstein and Howard have been rock solid on Saturday and Sunday. And of course the offense continues to surge.

This is the season where Oak earns his money. Having too much talent can often make it difficult to manage. However Coach Oak is handling this beautifully. I suspect you might see attempts to get other pitchers stretched out just in case Waddell continues to struggle, but one thing is certain. This loss to Radford is nothing more than a speedbump on the road to Omaha.

The View from 515: What's the Deal with the QBs?

In some recent conversations I've had, it's stuck out to me that our off-season football coverage could use a little beginner's-level information to break down some of the broader topics surrounding the team and the upcoming season for those who don't scour the internet for deeper info/analysis in all UVA sports. As a result, so begins our "The View from 515" series. These will be a little more introductory towards important topics facing the football team next year - a perfect starter's guide for a fan looking to care a little deeper about what's going on on the gridiron. Don't worry, diehards, there will be plenty of nerding out in other articles to come as well. You can get musings on UVA sports anywhere, but only at Wahooze will we literally write about anything you request.

So! Let's take a look at one of the bigger issues facing the football team this offseason, which will almost certainly play the biggest role in the team's success next year: The Quarterbacks.

Putting it simply, the dual-quarterback rotation that Mike London and Bill Lazor employed in previous seasons has resulted in some terrible performances. Cycling quarterbacks with little plan/warning does a disservice to the whole team, not to mention affecting the confidence of those targeted players. Now, we did win 8 games in one of those years, but I think most would agree that was largely in spite of quarterback play (or at least the QB rotating). Now, could Mike Rocco have secured the position for the rest of his career by playing better? Let's hope/assume yes. So one ENORMOUS goal for London and his new staff (including new offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild and associate head coach/offensive mentor Tom O'Brien) is to stop the insanity and name a starting quarterback for the upcoming season. Woefully, no one sticks out after spring practice as the clear guy for the job, so we likely wont know who it will be until later in the fall.

So, who's the race between? In bulleted digestible format, in order of familiarity:

Phillip Sims

• Junior, from Chesapeake
• Held in VERY HIGH regard in the 757, owns records, god-like status
• Transferred from Alabama, after committing there as the #1 QB recruit in the country out of high school
• Played some behind Rocco last year, did not do anything to convince the coaches that he's the man for the job
• Probably the best arm of the QB group, also probably spends the least amount of time training/studying film (this is some wide-spread hearsay, so take it however you want)
• Currently 3rd on the depth chart. 2 new coaches in charge of the offense looking at all 3 guys with a clean slate, something stuck out in Sims' performance to put him currently clearly 3rd in the race.

David Watford

• Sophomore, from Hampton
• 757 guy from a school that rarely sends players to UVA
• Redshirted last year, after cycling with Rocco throughout his freshman year
• Mobile QB with less-than-good accuracy (at least during his 1st year). Gives the offense a boost with his speed, plus can make up for other weaknesses/broken plays with his scrambling
• Can he make the throws needed in a pro-style offense? Accuracy wasn't the best in the Spring Game, but neither of the other QBs were better
• Seems to be slightly ahead in the race, likely tied with Greyson Lambert as the future starter 

Greyson Lambert

• Redshirt Freshman from Georgia
• Highly regarded recruit, obviously born to break records at UVA, lord all over grounds - his name is freakin Greyson Lambert. Look at that picture and tell me it doesn't scream STAR QB. He's Lance in Varsity Blues before the injury (spoiler alert).
• Good arm, good accuracy. Some say he doesn't look comfortable in the pocket. Do any of the QBs?
• No game experience yet from which to judge
• Not as mobile as Watford, but probably better suited for the intermediate throws that will steady this offense

So there are your choices. Each with risks/benefits. I see no clear answer, and like most fans, just want to see the coaches pick someone and stick with him, no matter who. That said, I'd put my wishlist most likely in reverse order of above. Again, I'll be happy with whoever wins (as long as they play well). Who do you think should start vs BYU?