Thursday, October 26, 2006
2005 recruiting class offers reason for hope
Groh no foreigner to 1970s music
Doug Doughty
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Only rarely do I tape the televised University of Virginia sporting events that I cover, mostly because I have not made the effort to keep my taping skills current.
I will concede that there’s much to be learned from watching a sporting event for a second time, even for a layman, and sometimes it’s not all about X’s and O’s.
In the ESPN broadcast of last Thursday’s Virginia-North Carolina game, announcers Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit noted that UVa football coach Al Groh had “Foreigner” on his CD player when they stopped by his office.
Prior to the digital age, I had the cassette of “Foreigner 4,” a revelation that sent Newport News sportswriter David “Ol’” Teel into a lengthy rant.
Teel felt I should have been ashamed to have anything by Foreigner in my possession, but I don’t think I was alone in my appreciation of Foreigner and its lead singer, Lou Gramm.
At first Thursday, I confused Lou Gramm with Lou Reed, described as “one of the most influential artists of the rock era” on one website I visited. Henry County deputy administrator Tim Hall corrected me.
“Lou Reed was an iconoclastic solo artist in the ‘70s and ‘80s for whom I never cared,” Hall said Thursday.
Teel notwithstanding, I have fond memories of driving through Atlanta one night in the mid-1980s, with “Jukebox Hero” blasting on the radio and former Charlottesville sportswriter and one-time Teel protégé Kevin Record singing along in gleeful accompaniment.
Now, Record, there was a guy who knew his music!
“I remember standing outside Godwin Hall at JMU in the late ‘70s listening to a Foreigner concert because I was too cheap to buy a ticket and go inside,” said Hall, whose father was a radio icon in Martinsville.
. “ ‘Jukebox Hero’ was a great song, along with ‘Blue Mornin' ‘ and ‘Cold As Ice.’
“Teel is a musical snob.”
On a teleconference, Groh said Thursday that he had been listening to “Best of Foreigner,” but I can’t find any compilation that meets that description. Perhaps it was the 1992 work, “The Very Best and Beyond,” or the 2002 release, “Complete Greatest Hits.”
It must have been the latter. You wouldn’t want to miss all the monumental stuff that Foreigner turned out between 1992 and 2002.
BUT, BACK TO football. What does it say about Groh that he was playing Foreigner or, more than that, that he was listening to Foreigner with an ESPN crew in his office? That he’s comfortable in his own skin?
Of course, we knew already that.
Actually, I think Groh has gotten progressively comfortable with his football team, which doesn’t mean I’m sure that they will beat visiting North Carolina State this Saturday, although I did pick the Cavaliers.
I can’t see Virginia (3-5 overall, 2-2 ACC) finishing this season with a winning record, but if the Cavaliers can get back on an eight- or nine-win track, I think you can trace it to the 2005 signing class that was ranked 14th in the country by SuperPrep.
Roanoke talk-show host Greg Roberts, who frequently has an anti-Virginia agenda and thinks that most UVa recruiting classes are overhyped, likes to espouse a third-third-third theory. One third of any class is good, one third is serviceable and the other third bombs.
Consider the following members of Virginia’s 23-member 2005 class: Brandon Albert, Antonio Appleby, Will Barker, Chris Cook, Jeffrey Fitzgerald, Kevin Ogletree and Jameel Sewell. Those seven are starting as either sophomores or redshirt freshman..
Then, there’s Eugene Monroe, rated the No. 1 prospect in the country by SuperPrep. Monroe began the season as a starter and, had he not dislocated his kneecap in the spring, he probably would be starting now. He’s been playing a lot in recent games and still has the potential to be an impact player.
Three other members of the 2005 class – cornerback Mike Brown, defensive lineman Kevin Crawford and tight end John Phillips – all have started at least one game. So, before the end of two seasons, nearly half of the players in the recruiting class have been a starter at some point.
That doesn’t include players like Vic Hall and Rashawn Jackson and Mikell Simpson, former SuperPrep All-Americans who could become major contributors at some point. There are two other points worth making about the players who made up the 2005 class – none failed to qualify and none have dropped out of school.
Olu Hall, also a 2004 signee before spending the 2004-2005 season at Hargrave Military Academy, is not practicing with the team this season but remains enrolled in school while taking advantage of a redshirt opportunity. When he signed with Virginia the first time, Hall was rated the No. 1 prospect in the state.
AS I CONTINUE to see Virginia mentioned with uncommitted prospects this year, particularly wide receivers, it makes me wonder how the Cavaliers are going to have enough scholarships.
I’ve got the Cavaliers with 20 commitments, not counting 2005 signee and Fork Union Military Academy defensive lineman Asa Chapman. Looking at scholarship players with remaining eligibility, I can’t see UVa coming up with 20 scholarships, much less the 25 or so they need to fill the offers they’ve got outstanding.
Of course, they could do what they did last year, signing 24 but knowing that 7-8 weren’t going to qualify. However, I can’t imagine the Cavaliers employing that strategy again, particularly because most of the players already committed are known to have good academics.
What you might see is a few defections. Virginia lost four players last year who had made oral commitments (Brent Carter, Cedric Jeffries, Mark Herzlich and Kordell Young) and three the year before (Darryl Greshman, Matt Lowry and Lamont Robinson).
Groh lost at least one committed player in each of his first five recruiting campaigns, although 2004 defector Andrew Pearman later transferred to Virginia after spending one season at Hawaii.
