kickoff

ACC media days are going on, so I think it’s time to say goodbye to the offseason.  Not that it lasted very long.  What would you rather be, a UVA fan where the offseason lasted a month, or a Tech fan where it lasts eight?

I can start writing football previews as soon as the last piece of media days comes out – the preseason all-ACC team.  So I think the first one will be Wednesday.  Being that I save UVA’s for last, the football kickoff around these parts will only be a few odds and ends of thoughts today.

– The football roster is out.  It came out after the basketball roster, which would be a bit odd except I’m never fully capable of accounting for the behavior of the athletic department, especially when it comes to football and/or public relations.  (I’d guess the football roster release is timed for media days, but hell if I know.)

Anyway, the main thing to check for: Missing names.  And there are a few.  We knew of some transfers already: Jake McGee, Kye Morgan, and Demeitre Brim, to Florida, Stony Brook, and Central Florida, respectively.  Not seen on the roster, with no explanation as yet: Tyrell Chavis, C.J. Moore, Marco Jones, and Anthony Cooper.

The impact to UVA’s roster is mainly theoretical, as none had ever played much if at all.  Chavis’s career was imperiled from the word go, for reasons which have been purposely kept out of the public eye.  Moore fell out of favor with the new defensive staff.  Cooper and Jones represent a fair bit of missed opportunity, particularly Cooper, about whom fans will always wonder why he got immediately moved to safety, buried, and never got a shot at receiver.

That much attrition puts the roster at 81 scholarship players, so, with 18 seniors and a smallish 2014 class (i.e. plenty of room to work in some early enrollees from ’15) it’s possible, in an ideal non-hot-seat-coach world, to barrel past the limit of 25 players with no problem.  The actual problem might be finding enough players – good players, not guys we stole from Liberty – to fill the class.  Between attrition, plenty of room, and the difficulties of the trail, any coaching change this year will crush our depth something fierce.

– As if there weren’t enough attrition, this little gem came out of media days too: “Mike London says LT Jay Whitmire will “likely” miss the start of the season due to back issues.”  Oh, goody.  Can’t wait to see what the O-line looks like without its best veteran.  There’s a reason I harangue on the depth issues there.

– You’ve also got the preseason team poll coming out today.  Florida State took 109 of 112 first-place votes in the Atlantic Conference; guess which was the only team not to get any first-place votes in the Coastal?

It’s easy to say we’re really blowing a big opportunity here, what with such parity existing in the Coastal, but I’m looking a little deeper.  There are 112 voters and we got 142 points in the poll.  Math skillz tell me that somewhere between 5 and 30 voters picked UVA not-last in the division – and five would mean those five picked us second, so it’s probably much closer to 30.  Another step or two of logic tells us this about the ballots of those that didn’t put UVA in the cellar: those people think a 2-10 team is better than another team that somebody thought is the best in the division.  Pitt and Georgia Tech are both someone’s champion, and likely enough, someone’s worse-than-UVA.  That’s parity alright.

Also, UNC got the second-most #1 votes but is 4th; VT got the 4th-most #1 votes but also is the only Coastal team picked to unseat FSU as ACC champ.

– I’ve updated the depth chart by class and will do so again if and when a fall-camp depth chart is published.