Secret weapon is lurking in UVa's backfield
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
May 2, 2004

Perhaps lost amidst all the hype this spring about the battle for Virginia’s starting quarterback job was the transformation of Michael Johnson.
You can call him the Roadrunner - beep, beep - because he’s that fast. In this columnist’s humble opinion, he just might be Virginia’s secret weapon this fall.
“Fans haven’t seen the real Michael Johnson,” offered Cavaliers linebacker Darryl Blackstock, who has played the role of Wiley Coyote more than once in trying to catch the speedy Wahoo tailback. “I played with him three years in high school [Heritage High in Newport News] and the last two years in college and he’s still fast, dog. In fact, I think he’s gotten faster ... way faster. And quicker, too.”
Solid resume
In case you need a refresher, Johnson was a Parade All-American coming out of Heritage, where he rushed for 4,394 yards, had 1,678 in receiving yardage and scored 99 touchdowns in three seasons. He was also a gifted return man.
When he backed away from some of the more prominent college football factories and chose Virginia late in the 2002 recruiting process, it surprised many observers. After reporting for duty in training camp that fall, Johnson was caught up in the backfield logjam that featured more tailbacks than playing time.
Still, he managed to play in nine games as a true freshman. Nagged by injuries most of the season, he rushed 26 times for 133 yards. His 5.1 average tied for the team lead. He averaged more than 20 yards per punt return and caught five passes for a 5.0 average.
Because of an ankle and hamstring problem, we never really saw Johnson cut loose with his heralded speed. Not even when he returned a punt 38 yards against Colorado State in the ’02 opener, only his fourth touch of his collegiate career.
Groh’s plan
Coach Al Groh brainstormed about how to make the most of the talent on hand and decided to suggest Johnson redshirt his second year. Not only would it allow the 5-foot-10, 185-pound back to bulk up a little, but it would give him a little separation between some of the other backs.
Now, Johnson is a redshirt sophomore, while his two main competitors for playing time are rising junior Wali Lundy and rising senior Alvin Pearman.
While Johnson wasn’t exactly blown away with Groh’s idea to sit out a season, just run plays on the scout team in practice, and hit the weight room hard, he agreed. Now, he’s glad he did.
Now, the new Michael Johnson is ready to go.
“This year, Michael has made maximum progress,” Groh said.
No brag. Just fact.
“This is a high-profile recruit who was faced with circumstances where a guy could go over and pout after getting redshirted, especially after seeing a little game action as a true freshman,” Groh said. “But instead, he really went to work. He had a good level of trust in us and in what the purpose of [redshirting] was.”
The Virginia coach said that Johnson has not only gained significant strength and size, but an overall comprehension of facets of the offense other than just running the football.
“He trusts his skills a lot and he’s a different runner than he was when he arrived here,” Groh said. “Still with all the speed and more size. I’m sure you’ll see him in games because I’m going to put him in the games.”
That means Virginia will have a three-pronged attack at tailback with three players that can run and catch the football.
Here’s where I think Johnson may be the Cavs’ secret weapon. Not that many opponents remember him from two years ago and those who do, probably don’t have much of a read on his true ability. New opponents may have never heard of him.
Johnson is bigger, up to 200 pounds of muscle now. He can run inside. He can run outside. He is faster than ever, dog, to borrow Blackstock’s phrase.
But Johnson told this columnist during the spring that he worked extensively on learning pass routes, both out of the backfield and split wide. He also is now running deep routes.
Think of it. The Roadrunner split out, turning on the afterburners to go deep. Not many corners this side of Miami and Tallahassee are capable of matching him step for step. Coming out of the backfield, there’s not a linebacker alive who can keep pace.
“I think I got faster over the past year,” Johnson said. “I’m running track. I ran three indoor meets and I’m running some outdoor, the 100 and the
4x100. I ran the fifth-fastest time in the ACC in the 60 meters.”
But this redshirt thing was about more than just speed.
“I don’t want to be known as just a fast guy,” Johnson said. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s a great talent to have and I thank God for it every day. But I want to be able to get inside and then be able to get back out and outrun somebody. I also want to be able to break tackles and make people miss.”
That’s what Groh wanted, too. Being a complete tailback goes a lot deeper than just running the ball. The coach will be the first to tell you that if all a back can do is carry the ball, then he eventually becomes a liability to the team.
That back must have a strong role in pass protection and as a receiver. If you see a talented running back not get the playing time you think he deserves, it probably means he’s lacking in some of those other areas.
Johnson’s added bulk not only allows him to get tough yardage inside and break tackles, but it helps him take on pass rushers when they draw a bead on Virginia’s quarterback on the blitz.
“When I was a freshman, Wali had the jump on me because he had the body for it,” Johnson explained. “My body was cut but I wasn’t as big. I didn’t have the frame that Wali and Alvin had. It was tough to break tackles that way.
“People just grab your jersey and pull you right down,” Johnson said of his first year. “Everybody in college football can probably bench at least 250 pounds and I wasn’t anywhere near that.”
He is now. Working and sacrificing earned him the distinction of winning the Rock Weir Award for most improved offensive player in spring ball.
Johnson credits strength and conditioning coach Evan Marcus for rebuilding his body.
“Michael is going to show us something this year,” predicted teammate Blackstock. “He’s got a killer stiff arm that none of us have seen much of yet. That’s his signature move and he’ll just break you off with it. He takes his game after Barry Sanders, his favorite player. He won’t tell everybody that, but that’s a fact.”
Blackstock said about the only way to negate Johnson’s speed is when the back is tangled up inside or doesn’t see the defender coming.
“Other than that, it’s almost impossible to get him in the open field,” Blackstock said. “It’s crazy how fast he is. I’ve seen him run so fast that he looks like a bobbing head doll flying down the sidelines.”
Now that’s what I’m talking about. A couple of those and the secret weapon won’t be a secret very long.
 

Blue Ridge star helps Williams' team take title
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
May 2, 2004

It took two tries, but AAU coach Boo Williams managed to walk away with a team title at the Southern Invitational on Sunday at University Hall.

After his 15-and-under squad lost in the championship game to the New Jersey-based Playaz squad, Williams’ 17-and-under team scored the final six points of the game to defeat the 17U Playaz team, 72-64.

Virginia commitment Laurynas Mikalauskas scored a game-high 17 points and North Carolina commitment Marcus Ginyard added 16 points in the win for Boo Williams.

“The game was nip and tuck,” Williams said. “The [Playaz] are a good team and they play hard.”

Mikalauskas, a local standout who attends Blue Ridge, wasted little time in showing his dominance in the paint, scoring 10 of the team’s first 21 points. The junior center could have scored more in the opening session but missed a good portion of the final eight minutes after getting in foul trouble.

Thanks in part to a desperation long-range 3-pointer that banked in at the halftime buzzer by Scotty Reynolds, the Boo Williams team took a

37-33 lead into halftime.

In the opening half, Reynolds connected on three 3-pointers but his coached made light of his failure to call the backboard on his heave attempt at the end of the half.

“Nah, he didn’t call glass. I am going to tell him that too,” chuckled Williams after the game. “He can flat out shoot though.”

In the second half, both teams battled back and forth with Williams’ squad maintaining the lead thanks in part to the strong play of Ginyard.

The future Tar Heel scored 10 of the teams’ second-half points, including a runner in the lane with 4:22 left that ended a 6-0 run by the Playaz.

With Williams’ team leading 66-64 and with less than a minute to play, it became a free-throw shooting contest for Williams’ squad and reserve guard Eric Hayes was the winner.

The 10th-grader from Woodbridge nailed all four of his attempts down the stretch to seal the win.

While the most valuable player and the All-Invitational teams will not be announced until today on www.hoopgroup.com, Mikalauskas was pleased with his performance in the event.

“We got a chance to play against real players and I hope people could see me and improve me in the rankings,” Mikalauskas said. “I am proud of my team. It is always good to win in U-Hall.”

Ginyard also walked away from the tournament feeling good and said that playing on campus at an ACC-school added to his drive on the court.

“I think I really took a big step in my game becoming more aggressive offensively and becoming the leader of this team,” said Ginyard, who attends Bishop O’Connell High in Arlington. “I am just happy with the teammates and the way they supported me.

Knowing that he will be playing for UNC, Ginyard said he has a feeling that UVa will be a place that he and his future teammates visit often.

“It feels good winning here at [Virginia], hopefully it will not be the last time I win here,” said Ginyard with a big smile.

For the Playaz, Jordan Fowler and Brandon Costner scored 19 and 16 points, respectively.

As far as the tournament as a whole, one of the event directors, John Yablonski, said it was a major success.

“It was a great tournament. Every time we come here they treat us with great hospitality,” Yablonski said. “The facilities are great. It will be good next year when they build the other three courts over next to the football field. That will help us get more teams and everybody likes to come here because it is an ACC school. It is big-time basketball.”
 

Cook will play for Cavaliers
Heritage star is Virginia's 11th early commitment
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
April 30, 2004
 

When Chris Cook turned in the eighth-fastest time in the 40-yard dash out of more than 200 recruits at last week’s Nike Camp in Charlottesville, it obviously turned a few heads.

One of those heads belonged to Virginia coach Al Groh, who promptly called the Heritage High School (Lynchburg) cornerback and offered him a scholarship this past Monday. After a couple of days of thinking about it, Cook announced Thursday afternoon that he will become a Cavalier.

The 6-foot-2, 181-pound athlete became the 11th high school junior to commit to the Cavaliers for the recruiting class of 2005.

“The Virginia coaches liked my speed and my size,” said Cook. “I liked the Virginia coaching staff and what really convinced me to choose Virginia was that Coach Groh called me up personally and offered me. Only an assistant coach from Virginia Tech called me.”

Virginia Tech was the only school to extend an offer to Cook prior to Groh’s call. Notre Dame had shown some interest as well.

About that speed, the Lynchburg product turned in a 4.49 in the 40 at the Nike camp. He is a consistent sub 4.5 guy and has strong closing speed.

He is tall for a corner at 6-2 and has at least a 30-inch vertical leap according to Heritage coach Chris Jones.

“Chris has great hands and he plays wherever we need him,” Jones said. “I think Chris really has great potential.”

Cook, who played cornerback, running back and wide receiver for Heritage as a junior last season, picked off eight interceptions and recorded 45 tackles to earn Group AA first-team All-State honors as a cornerback.

“That’s my favorite position,” Cook said. “I love to cover people. The last part of the season, opposing teams wouldn’t throw my way. I didn’t like it because I wanted to get more picks.”

He shook off an early season injury to help lead Heritage to a 10-0 regular-season record. He also amassed more than 1,000 yards combined rushing and receiving. He had 20 catches.

Cook was recruited by Virginia running backs coach Anthony Poindexter, who rose to legendary status during his playing days as an All-American Cavalier safety. Poindexter is a well known figure in the Lynchburg area after starring at Jefferson Forest High School.

“I’m excited because I feel I made the right decision,” Cook said.
 

Beathard compares Hall to Darrell Green
Pulaski's Hodge impressive at Nike
By Doug Doughty
Exclusive to roanoke.com by 5 p.m. Fridays

The Atlanta Falcons' staff was so impressed by cornerback Angelo Hall's “athletic arrogance” that two officials used that term in talking about the Falcons' first-round draft choice.

"What that means is, he doesn't feel that anybody on the football field can beat him,” new coach Jim Mora Jr. said, "and that is what you want in a corner because there are going to be some plays that happen where they give up some stuff and yet this guy is going to be the kind of guy that is looking at his shoes or looking, 'What happened? It wasn't me.'

"We call that athletic arrogrance and that's what you want out on the edge because it is a lonely position out there.”

Former Washington Redskins and San Diego Chargers general manager Bobby Beathard is a senior advisor to Falcons president and general manager Rich McKay and has compared Hall to former Redskins cornerback and soon-to-be Hall of Famer Darrell Green, who retired following the 2002 season.

“Bobby Beathard was just amazed by the comparisons in watching [Hall] in the way that he moves and the way that he talked about him," Falcons assistant general manager Tim Ruskell said. "If we get a career like that out of him, that will be superb. That'll be a '10.' "

The Falcons' website was full of interesting nuggets about Hall and quarterback Matt Schaub, Atlanta's third-round pick out of Virginia.

"We were sick and tired of mock drafts and mocking the draft a hundred thousand times and we were pretty focussed on DeAngelo and hoping he'd be available," said McKay, who said he received one call from a team that was interested in a trade.

"When [quarterback] Phillip Rivers moved off the board at four, then the majority of the calls we thought we would get and we had discussions with over the past couple of days, were not going to commit.

"So, there was only only one team we knew would come up and they would come up for DeAngelo, and we weren't going to come back."

McKay said he thought Schaub would be selected by the end of the second round and was surprised to find him available six spots from the end of the third round.

"We thought we might be able to get one or two of the teams who drafted quarterbacks to consider trading their quarterbacks, which did not occur and would not occur," McKay said. "Our contingency plan was, we would take Schaub if he was there. We did not think he would be there.

"We had him on our trade-down, round-two list. It's hard to take a quarterback in the second round when you have a quarterback named Michael Vick. I wouldn't have said in the mocks that we thought we were going to end up with [Schaub]. I would be shocked if, in most mock, if he wasn't in the bottom of the second or somewhere in the second [round]."

PULASKI COUNTY’S Ernie Hodge wasn't rated one of the top 10 "performers" at the recent Nike All-America camp in Charlottesville but he couldn’t have been too far down the list.

In the position ratings compiled by studentsports.com and Nike, Hodge was second among linebackers, behind only Darryl Gresham from William Fleming in Roanoke.

The term "performer" was misleading because Hodge (6- 1/2, 226) finished ahead of Greshan in most of the physical testing. Hodge did 23 consecutive lifts at 185 pounds, compared to eight "reps" for Gresham, and Hodge had a slightly higher vertical jump. Gresham's 40-yard time (4.78) was only slightly higher than Hodge's 4.81.

"Make no mistake about it, Gresham is a player," Pulaski coach Jack Turner said. "Gresham has great film. Ernie doesn't have the film yet. Everybody knows our strength program. I told him, "Just show it on the field.' "
Another in-state linebacker who has atracted some Division I-A interest, Gretna's 6-3, 223 Horace Hubbard, did not fare as well in the testing. Hubbard was timed in 5.22 seconds for 40 yards and did only five "reps." He'll have to show improvement in those areas to join quarterback and UVa-bound teammate Vic Hall as a Division I-A signee.

HERITAGE HIGH SCHOOL defensive back Chris Cook was measured at 6-1 1/2 and 181 pounds at the Nike camp, as opposed to the 6-3, 192 at which he was listed in some accounts after he committed to Virginia this week.

There was no mistaking Cook's speed after he was timed in 4.49 seconds, tied for ninth at the Nike camp. His future teammate, the above-mentioned Hall, had the best clocking among quarterback prospects at 4.52.

Among the top players who ran 4.53 or better was 5-6 wide receiver Mijuan Curtis from Fleming and 5-7 1/2 running back Ronnie Edwards from Franklin County, whose 4.34 c locking in the 20-yard shuttle was the best in Charlottesville and one of the best at any of the Nike camps nationally.

IF THERE WAS any confusion about the offer that Cook reportedly received from Virginia Tech, coach Chris Jones was more than eager to address it Friday.

"[Tech assistant] Kevin Rogers offered a scholarship to him, through me, over the phone,” Jones said. "He said, 'You tell Chris Cook we're offering him a scholarship and we're the first team to offer him.'

"He was supposed to call back the next week with coach [Frank] Beamer but we didn't hear back from them."

CENTREVILLE COACH Mike Skinner said Friday that Virginia and Virginia Tech are still the teams to beat for 6-6, 265-pound offensive lineman Pat Sheil, who has been getting scholarship offers daily following his performance at Nike.

Sheil was at Virginia Tech last weekend for the Hokies' spring game as well as a photo shoot conducted by Tom Lemming. Sheil also has received offers from Miami, Florida, Nebraska, Boston College and Wake Forest.

While some of the schools may have based their offers on reports from studentsports.com and Nike, there were coaches from the Washington, D.C., metro area who said they recognized a University of Florida assistant who previously worked at the University of Maryland. If so, that would have been a violation because no college coaches -- not even UVa coaches -- were allowed at the camp.

FOR THE TECH fans who might have become antsy as Virginia has gotten seven commitments in April, there may be good news on the horizon. North Stafford's 6-3, 305-pound Antonio North, rated the No. 2 offensive lineman behind Sheil, told rivals.com that he has the Hokies in his top two with North Carolina State and that Tech is leading.
 

Groh to handle incident quietly
Tynes was suspended for part of'03, his time with Cavs could be up
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Apr 30, 2004

CHARLOTTESVILLE - University of Virginia football coach Al Groh may well take disciplinary actions against the three players charged with misdemeanors this week, but don't expect him to announce his punishments publicly.

"We have already, to some degree, and will continue to address the issue internally," Groh said yesterday. "It's easy for the coach to jump and do something for public consumption in order to make himself look good. We've had other circumstances over the course of three-plus years that we've dealt with that no one ever knew was going on, and we've dealt with them appropriately."

Former U.Va. defensive back Jamaine Winborne was shot in the leg early Wednesday morning on campus near Klockner Stadium. Within an hour of the shooting, police arrested three football players who weren't involved in the shooting but, upset that their teammate had been hurt, had refused to leave the crime scene: quarterback Marques Hagans and defensive backs Kenneth Tynes and Brandon Lee, a walk-on.

Hagans, the Cavaliers' probable starter in 2004, and Lee were charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Tynes, whom Groh suspended for part of the 2003 season and who didn't participate in spring practice, was charged with vandalism, also a misdemeanor.

Tynes is accused of throwing a chair through a dormitory window near the shooting scene, and sources indicate that his troubled U.Va. career may be over.

In a statement released Wednesday night, Athletic Director Craig Littlepage addressed the arrests of Hagans, Lee and Tynes, saying U.Va. needs "to wait until the investigation is complete and the legal process has run its course."

Citing the wishes of Winborne's family, Groh declined yesterday to disclose details of Winborne's condition. Sources, however, indicate that the fourth-year student is expected to make a full recovery and should be able to take his final exams at U.Va.

Winborne, who started for the Cavaliers in 2001,'02 and'03, agreed to a free-agent deal with the New York Giants early this week. The Giants' minicamp for rookies starts one week from today. Asked if Winborne might still be able to take part, Groh said, "I really don't have enough details of the recovery time to know that."

The alleged shooter, Aaron Joshua Robinson, turned himself in to U.Va. police yesterday morning. He's been charged with one count of malicious wounding.