Now THAT'S More Like It!

Virginia 74, Wake Forest 51

I have a few quick things to say:

-- I think the drubbing Tennessee gave us [finally] woke us up.  And I'm not just talking about the players, either.  Tony Bennett has tightened up his rotations, and clearly found some things that are working offensively.

-- Beating Florida State in Tallahassee had to have been huge for this team's confidence.  When we reflect back upon this season, we might just mark that game (and the week of practice between the Tennessee game and the FSU game) as the true turning point of the campaign.

-- I'm not sure how good Wake Forest is, but they were #63 in the RPI prior to tonight's game, so I'm chalking this up as at least a "solid" win.

-- Saturday at NC State looms large.  Infinitely winnable, and we could really use a 3-0 start to the ACC season before we head into Cameron Indoor on Monday night.

-- I'm not quite ready to place our NCAA Tournament résumé on the sidebar of the blog, but I will say that I think our magic number for an NCAAT appearance is now 10.  Ten more wins, and we lock up a bid without any consternation.

Some player-by-player notes...

London Perrantes -- Him starting at the 1 with the green light to shoot might just be the key to everything.  He didn't do anything remarkable tonight, but allowing Brog to exclusively play shooting guard improves this team's offense exponentially.

Malcolm Brogdon -- It was a failed experiment, him starting at point guard.  But I think he's fine in short relief at the 1, and he's a revelation as a starter at the 2.  Easily one of our best / most effective players right now.  And did you see him shatter that dude's jaw?

Joe Harris -- Tonight was exactly how Joe needs to play for this team to be the best it can be.  If he can settle into the role of smart, aggressive, confident sniper... well, we'll be in good shape.  He brushed off that concussion like it was no big deal.  Great game from Joey Buckets tonight.  I kinda like this grizzled, jaw-set, goatee-growing, "don't give a fuck" version of Joe that we saw tonight.

Akil Mitchell -- Tonight (like in the 2nd half against FSU), we've seen the real Akil.  Running and athleticism and strong D and authoritative rebounding and opportunistic stickbacks.  When he tries to do more than that is when he (and the team) gets into trouble.

Mike Tobey -- He had a rough game tonight, but I love him as a starter.  He's still learning his way and he's a little too much finesse and not enough power, but those skills are intoxicating.  Tonight, I thought he was a little tentative with his offense.  He's battling through a slump, but things seemed to calm down and come together for him during 2nd half junk time.

Justin Anderson -- He was our best player against FSU, and scored 11 points in 17 minutes tonight.  It was a quiet 11 points (6 from the free throw line), but Simba is the straw that stirs the drink for Virginia these days.  That's an incredibly important role.

Anthony Gill -- "The Janitor" continues taking out the trash and doing the dirty work, and he's quickly growing on me as one of my favorite players on the team.  He's not the world's best rebounder, but he's got real guile in the paint.  Moxie.  Chutzpah.  THE JANITOR!

Evan Nolte -- I'm a little bit surprised that he has bubbled up above Darion Atkins and Teven Jones in the fight for playing time, but he seems to be embracing the "instant offense" role coming off the bench.  He's shooting with confidence, and that perimeter threat was always the upside for him on this [seemingly loaded] team during his sophomore season.

Darion Atkins -- He's now officially the 4th big and the 9th man in the rotation.  It's a little bit disappointing, but he can't seem to work past a penchant for ticky-tack fouls and offensive mistakes.  He mixes in a few great, athletic, savvy plays, but the bright spots are too few and far between.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that he's consistently inconsistent.  How weird will it be when Darion is our only senior next season?

Teven Jones -- I love him, but it's now clear that he's an oil-and-water fit with Bennettball.  He's always incredibly enthusiastic cheering on his teammates, and he always hustles and plays hard when he gets in the game, so he's an easy kid to like.  He's just not really part of the rotation right now, nor should he be.



All in all, I feel about 100x better right now than I did a week ago.  It's awesome what a pair of wins can do, right?

GO HOOS!

L'Ville Coaching Search

IN MY OPINION, Virginia Football will not be successful under Mike London, and it's only a matter of time before we embark upon a head coaching search here at UVA.  We should have dodged a lame duck 2014 season by biting the bullet and eating the big buyout in order to fire London after the Virginia Tech game a month ago, but alas...

So while I wait for countdown clock to hit zero, I have set my football energies toward exploring possibilities for our December 2014 coaching search.  You can see The List and The List, Part II by clicking the links.  Unfortunately, those posts are already a bit outdated.  Meanwhile, I have been doing a little bit of living vicariously through Wake Forest fans (they hit it out of the park with the Dave Clawson hire, I think)

With news breaking this weekend that Louisville's Charlie Strong (the guy I really wanted when UVA hired Mike London without giving anyone else an interview) had accepted the job at Texas, the Louisville job popped open.  Now the Cardinals are embarking on their own coaching search, giving me another chance to live vicariously.  The L'Ville job is not the same as the UVA job, but I sincerely believe the two are in the same ballpark.  L'Ville is the more attractive post, but it's close, given the fact that both teams are in the ACC, both sit outside of the fertile recruiting territory of the Deep South / California, both have great financial backing behind the football programs, and both have similar facilities (actually, UVA's facilities might even be better, when you consider the new IPF and the size of Scott Stadium).  Louisville obviously has more recent on-field success, but the football history is pretty similar between these two programs.  Anyway, I don't think it's totally crazy to believe that some of L'Ville's candidates might end up being some of Virginia's candidates a year from now.

So here's some reading for you to tackle, knowing that there are true and obvious overlaps between what Louisville is doing now and what we're going to be doing in 11 months.

Coaching job evaluation: Louisville

Louisville coach search coverage: Who's replacing Charlie Strong?

Search for next Louisville football coach 'wide open'

Coaching Football At The University Of Louisville Is A Stepping Stone Job

And finally, for those keeping track at home, here's the 2013 coaching carousel overview.  It's not done spinning just yet, with more trickle-down positions popping open, potentially at Miami and/or Vanderbilt, among others.

2013-14 FBS head-coaching changes

327 more days, Hoofans...

One last thing:

I want to go ahead and put pen to paper on this.  I have a short list of four guys that I'm most interested in as *realistic* possibilities for UVA in December 2014...

• Ball State's Pete Lembo
• Fresno State's Tim DeRuyter
• Louisiana-Lafayette's Mark Hudspeth
• and Michigan State's Defensive Coordinator Pat Narduzzi

I love football...

...and I love UVA and the Cincinnati Bengals.  Maybe that dooms me to a future of never-ending disappointment and despair, but I've gone on too long (26 years and counting) to jump ship now.

Dark times for the Virginia Football program, trying to maintain interest amid what is a near certainty to be a lame duck season for Mike London.  But here I am, tracking the coaching changes, following recruiting, set to renew my season tickets for God knows what reason.  2014 is sure to be a complete fucking disaster, but there's always the next coach, the next QB, the next chance to rise from the ashes like a glorious phoenix and write the best football story ever told.

Today feels like a funeral for the Bengals.  8-0 at home in the regular season, stars aligned to face what appeared to be [by far] the NFL's weakest playoff team in the Chargers, and then shit the bed in Paul Brown Stadium.  Now, after what has to be considered a wildly successful regular season, there is very real, very scary existential debate over our head coach and "franchise" quarterback.  That loss is on Andy Dalton (well, maybe a little bit on Gio Bernard for that fumble and A.J. Green from that drop.)  But it's just like with UVA -- we have no choice but to embrace what we have at quarterback, because there are no real alternatives.  I'm ride or die with the Red Rifle just like I'm about to be ride or die with Greyson Lambert.  (And if the starting quarterback is David Watford, well, I guess that's a fate worse than death.)

Today, I'm just trying to recover.  I wish I didn't wager so much of my own personal happiness on the success or failure of two football programs I have zero impact upon, but that investment is no longer within my sphere of control.  Guess I'll just set my chin for the furneral in Cincinnati and the next 11 months of lame duckness in Charlottesville.

who dey

Perhaps it's due to recency, but I just absorbed the most painful football loss in my long and sordid history of absorbing painful football losses.

San Diego Chargers defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 27-10

I just don't even know what to say anymore.  My kingdom for a quarterback, I guess.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

Dex to UConn

I have it on *very* good authority that Anthony Poindexter is headed to UConn to serve as the Defensive Coordinator under Bob Diaco.

(I also have it on similar authority that Vincent Brown will be joining Dex in Storrs.)

This is bad news for Virginia Football, but it makes perfect sense.

If it does work out, I'm really happy for Dex.  Dodging the mass firings that are coming in 11 months is cause enough, but to do it while also taking a step up in the coaching ranks? Pretty awesome.

Seeing Poindexter exit stage left via accepting a job at another school allows us to avoid the unseemly business of firing him (along with the rest of the staff) after the 2014 season, or from feeling the need to force him onto the staff of the new coach we hire a year from now.

Anthony Poindexter is a UVA legend.  He had some ups and downs as a coach at Virginia, but he showed promise and improvement.  I'm happy for him, and also sad to see him go.

Best of luck at UConn, Coach Dex!

White Meat

"Virginia? That's the white meat of our schedule."

~ Clemson Coach Frank Howard

During his time at Clemson (1940 to 1969), no Howard-led team ever lost to Virginia.  Nor did the teams of all the coaches before him, or after him all the way through the Danny Ford era, as Clemson won the first 29 meetings in the series.

I have no doubt that Howard isn't the only opposing coach who found Virginia football to be soft, supple, succulent, and ripe for the picking.  In fact, I'd say "soft" is probably the prevalent adjective that opponents attribute to Virginia football.  That's what "White Meat" means --- soft.

Here's the now-famous Colin Cowherd rant.  Please, humor me and listen to it - really listen to it - from start to finish.

Wanna know why that hurts so much to hear?  I mean, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?  It hurts, because it's true.

Deep down, I've known it all along.  But this week, I've had a new, startling, extremely painful realization:  It's not just football.  It extends to basketball, too.

Hoofans, our teams are the White Meat on everybody's schedule.

There's absolutely nothing we can do about it, other than refuse to accept the product UVA is putting on the field and on the court.  [Please note that I just said "refuse to accept," not "fail to support."  There is a subtle yet important difference there.]

Our fanbase has a terrible rep, as well.  His take was fat with hyperbole, but Cowherd nailed it.  It's unrealistic to think that anything will change with our fanbase until they see a sustained period of winning on the field and on the court.  So I won't touch this one right now.  But know -- if you are a UVA fan, you're off the hook for now.  Once we start winning, however... well, you've got to do better.  We've all got to do better.

Meanwhile, football needs to find another version of George Welsh, the only guy who was able to make us not-soft.  He was a Navy man, military-bred, hard-nosed to a fault.  That's what our next coach needs to be.  No more rah-rah players' coach candyassed clown college mickeymouse bullshit.  Mike London is the polar opposite of what we need to turn things around.  His coaching style epitomizes White Meat.

Basketball...?  The crew-cut Bennett-style packline system might be what we need in order to be able to achieve an acceptably high floor for performance.  But we [very obviously] lack a streetball-type edge to our game that can take us over the top.  There's no killer instinct.  There's no ability to deliver a proper curb-stomp, nor is there firepower for proper woodshedding of opponents.  Our players don't play with any sort of swagger, and just like all other Virginia teams, we have a glass jaw.

White Meat, baby.

I will say this: There's a little bit of chicken and egg with Bennettball, and by extension the packline. Do we run this system because we can't get the athletic 5-star recruits to run and go pressure man to man? Or do we run this system because it's just what Bennett runs, and we recruit [less athletic players but who maybe have more size / skill / shooting ability] into it, making our style of play a never-ending self-fulfilling prophecy? I suspect it's the latter, and I suspect that's the REAL reason for the frustration some UVA fans are experiencing (maybe myself included).  We currently have too much substance, not enough style.  We currently have too much thunder, not enough lightning.  We currently have too much math, not enough art.

But here's the thing. Just like Hoos500 so excellently pointed out on the 247 message board, Packline : UVA :: Flexbone : GT. As in, the Bennettball packline's what we run, and under this coach we will not run anything else, ever. We're going to have substance, style be damned.  Thunder will rumble, but lightning never strikes.  Numbers get crunched, but the canvas never gets colorful.

So we have a choice -- embrace the coach and his system, or reject the coach and his system completely. There's no in-between. Tony Bennett won't suddenly say "holy crap" and start mixing up defenses and allowing the team to run and gun, just like Paul Johnson won't ever start throwing the ball all over the field via no-huddle shotgun spread.

Tony Bennett is our coach. If you want to support him as our coach, you have to embrace the slow pace and methodical play inherent to his system and scheme. Otherwise (and at risk of oversimplification of my point), you cannot support this coach.

Meanwhile, is Tony Bennett and his system only going to perpetuate the lack of toughness that feeds into the White Meat persona that is Virginia Athletics?  Personally, I think the jury's out.  How the team bounces back from the sputtery start to this season amid great expectations is going to tell me a lot.  I do, however, have faith in this coach.  I have faith in the defense-first mentality.  And as much as I find it aesthetically unpleasing, I have faith in Bennettball.  I think we need that substance, I think thunder can give a nice rumble, and I trust the math.

White Meat?

At the end of the day, I think it's healthy to be self-aware, because only then can you begin working toward change.  Guys, our football team, basketball team, and fanbase are White Meat.  No need arguing that point.  Our mission now is to find ways to set our jaws and begin adding a little gristle to the White Meat mix.

How Tony Bennett Can Fix Things:

1) Play Brogdon at his position -- shooting guard.  Stop playing Brog at point guard.  Tony was wrong, I was wrong, Brog can't handle the 1.

2) Find a way, any way, whatever works, but find a way to fix Joe Harris.  Maybe funnel every single offensive play through him against Florida State.  Encourage him to jack up shots and even celebrate the misses.  Being unselfish is a good thing, but he has grown way too unselfish, and we really need him to be an assertive sniper.  We won't win without it.  So even if it means blowing smoke up his ass until he figures out this funk, just find a way to fix Joe Harris.

3) Settle on a starting lineup and tighten the rotation.  Here's who should be starting: Perrantes, Brogdon, Harris, Mitchell, Atkins.  Traditional lineup, with a true 1, a true 2, a true 3, a true 4, and a pogostick 4/5 big at center.  Bring Teven Jones off the bench for 8-12 minutes per game to spell Perrantes at the 1 (again, no more Brog running the point, ever).  Justin Anderson off the bench to spell both Brog and Harris (and as such, he gets starter's minutes).  The Janitor (Anthony Gill) and Tobey off the bench for scoring punch, and keep them in if they are generating points.  I like this plan because it brings the "energy" guys - Anderson, Gill, Jones - off the bench, and Tobey's ability to score can give us a boost if things start to stagnate.

4) Feed the post, feed the post, feed the post, feed the post, feed the fucking post.  Attack the rim whenever possible and feed the post.  If it's not a layup, a Joe Harris 3, or a Mike Tobey bunnyhop jumper, then it's a bad shot.

5) Actually, I take that back.  There's one more shot I want to add to the list of acceptable shots.  GIVE THE GREEN LIGHT TO LONDON PERRANTES.  Kid's a shooter, let him shoot.

6) Recommit to defense.  As in, the best packliners should play.  I know this directly contradicts what I said above (Brog at the 1 is probably our best defensive option and Justin Anderson is definitely one of our better defensive players), but we're a system-based team, Bennett is a system-based coach, and we can't win without that system taking us there.  A poster named Hoos500 on the 247 board made a great comparison: "I think we're the equivalent of GT's football team in basketball right now." To me, that's spot on.  GT doesn't win if the flexbone isn't sharp, we don't win if the packline doesn't slow the game down and force the opponent into bad, impatient shots.  Our system works, but it's not necessarily fun to watch and it can't cure all ills.  However, the system is all we really have, so we have to win with it because we'll surely lose without it.  Put the best packliners out there and totally commit to defense, embrace the fact that we have some fatal offensive flaws.  It's the only path to success this season, unless a guy like Perrantes and/or Brogdon experience mercurial in-season improvement.

7) Find a way to locate and recruit to fill our glaring missing ingredient --- a guy (or a few guys) like [2014 recruit we just barely missed out on] Nate Mason.  What I'm talking about is small, quick, CONFIDENT guards with some swagger, who know how to score.  Back off on the size and pure shooting ability of the guards and wing players, and pursue more pure athleticism, more instinctive scorers, and a bit more dribble-drive ability.  This is more of a long-term fix, I guess.

I like Tony Bennett a lot.  I don't really like watching his system on the court, but I do acknowledge that it can be extremely effective, and can help us overcome recruiting limitations that otherwise would doom us.  However, nights like last night simply cannot happen.  Yes, Tennessee went unconscious from deep, and without a few jets added to the roster, we'll struggle to score against any set defense.  But look, we can't make defense our calling card and then give up 87 points to an average team like that.  We just can't.

Every season will have its hiccups.  But that was a pretty fucking big hiccup.  It was more like a vurp.