Friendly wager with Schaub has Johnson sporting Virginia gear
11/15/2007
By KRISTIE RIEKEN / Associated Press

Andre Johnson was wearing a bright orange Virginia T-shirt with matching blue sweat pants on Thursday.

And the proud former Miami standout wasn't happy about it.

Houston's Pro Bowl receiver lost a bet on the Miami-Virginia game with quarterback Matt Schaub and will have to wear the gear until Saturday night. The Cavaliers beat Miami 48-0 Saturday in the Orange Bowl finale.

"You take pride in stuff like that, so nobody wants to be walking around in some other school's clothes you didn't go to," said Johnson, who helped lead the Hurricanes to the 2001 national championship. "Especially the way that they beat us, so that makes it even worse."

Schaub had a different opinion of Johnson's apparel.

"He looks fabulous," said Schaub, the career passing leader at Virginia. "Orange and blue looks good on him."

Schaub bought several pieces of clothing for Johnson to wear throughout the week.

"You don't want him to wearing the same thing every day," Schaub said. "Just give him an option if in case he gets cold he can put a sweat shirt on, some sweat pants."

It was a bit of redemption for Schaub, who had lost several similar bets with a former teammate in Atlanta.

"With Michael Vick, I had to wear Virginia Tech stuff for three years in a row, so that wasn't very fun," Schaub said. "So I figured this was an opportunity to get someone else back."

Schaub's first winning bet had him debating whether to try his luck again.

"Well, we'll see," he said. "Virginia plays Virginia Tech next week in a big game, so we'll see if Andre' Davis wants to get those clothes passed on from Andre Johnson to him so he can wear those."

Coach Gary Kubiak loves how close Schaub and Johnson have become and thinks it has helped their chemistry on the field. Johnson is set to return against New Orleans after missing seven games with a sprained knee.

"It's very important," he said of their relationship. "They spent a lot of time together in the offseason working. They trust each other. Somebody asked me the other day: 'Could they pick up where they left off?' I think that's hard, but they sure have looked good this week."

Johnson and Schaub combined for 262 yards and three touchdowns in the two games before the receiver was injured.

 

U.VA. NOTES
Friday, Nov 16, 2007 - 12:06 AM

Yet another honor for long
To the long list of awards for which Virginia defensive end Chris Long is a candidate, add the Bronko Nagurski trophy.

Long, a senior from Ivy who leads the ACC with 12 sacks, yesterday was named one of five finalists for the Nagurski, which is awarded to a college player deemed the nation's best on defense.

Ohio State linebacker James Laurinaitis, the Nagurski winner in 2006, is a finalist this year, too. The others are LSU tackle Glenn Dorsey, South Florida end George Selvie and Kansas cornerback Aqib Talib.

The Nagurski winner will be announced Dec. 3 in Charlotte, N.C.

Long is also a finalist for the Lombardi Award, and he's probably the front-runner for the Dudley Award, which is given annually to this state's top college player. He's a semifinalist for the Lott and the Bednarik awards.

Kid brother takes different path
Having seen the physical toll that football took on his father, Howie, and having endured injuries and aches and pains himself, Long applauds his brother Kyle's decision to play baseball.

Kyle Long, a 6-7, 280-pound senior at St. Anne's-Belfield in Charlottesville, is one of the nation's top high school football players. He's also a standout baseball player, though, and he signed Wednesday to play that sport at Florida State.

"I just said to Kyle, 'If you're a lefty and you throw 96 [mph], just go be a lefty and throw 96," Chris Long recalled with a smile.

Early signing period is under way
In men's basketball, U.Va.'s recruiting class for 2008-09 consists of big men John Brandenburg and Assane Sene and guard Sylven Landesberg. Brandenburg, a 6-11, 230-pound center, was the first to return his letter of intent this week.

Virginia coach Dave Leitao praised Brandenburg's athleticism and said he has a good shooting touch that, with work, should help him "develop into a pretty good post option on offense."

Brandenburg chose U.Va. over Stanford.

Back to work
Virginia's football players returned to practice yesterday after having the first part of the week off.

The stakes could not be much higher for the Cavaliers, whose next game, Nov. 24 against visiting Virginia, will decide the Coastal Division's representative in the ACC championship game. Still, U.Va. coach Al Groh said, he didn't want his players stopping by the McCue Center for extra film study or workouts during their time off.

"Really, we've encouraged them to stay away," Groh said. "We've been at it here continuously since Aug. 5, and it's a good opportunity for the players to kind of get recharged and get renewed and ready to go."

Thrice as nice
Senior point guard Sean Singletary is only the second men's basketball player in U.Va. history to serve as a team captain for three consecutive seasons. The first was guard Donald Hand, whose final season was 2000-01.

- Jeff White

 

O'Connor looks to the future
Cavs sign 11 recruits for Class of 2009
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
November 16, 2007

After having six players selected in last year’s MLB Draft and anticipating the departure of others in the same fashion this season, Virginia’s baseball staff placed intensified efforts on the recruiting classes for 2008 and 2009.

That revolving-door policy in college baseball, a process that routinely sees players leave with a year of eligibility remaining, can be an unforgiving process.

And when Virginia takes the diamond in February, the program may resemble the youngest unit in coach Brian O’Connor’s era. The skipper knows it could get worse when the calendar is flipped.

With that in mind O’Connor’s staff signed 11 players to National Letters of Intent on Wednesday for the Class of 2009.

“As young as people think we might be this season, we will be even younger the following season,” O’Connor said, “so we felt it was very important to sign players that we really thought could make an impact.

“Twenty-seven of our 35 guys on our roster in 2009 will be guys that have joined the program in the last two years. That’s amazing.”

The 11-player class, which includes six on Perfect Game’s national top 300 list, has a balanced mix of pitching and position players, the coach said.

“It is very similar to last year’s 16-player class in that it’s balanced between impact pitchers and athletic position players that I think can come in and contribute for us right away,” O’Connor said.

Virginia, which went 45-16 last year, has three infielders and a starting pitcher in its junior class that could be drafted high enough to forego their senior season.

“This year there is a chance that we could lose four underclassmen to the draft: David Adams, Jeremy Farrell, Greg Miclat and Jacob Thompson,” O’Connor said. “The ability to recruit high-level guys that can make an impact is very, very important. I think we got that in this last recruiting class.”

The newest class includes five pitchers - LHP Danny Hultzen (Bethesda, Md.), RHP Chad O’Connor (Chesapeake), RHP Will Roberts (Richmond), LHP Scott Silverstein (Olney, Md.) and RHP Justin Thompson (Danville), the younger brother of Virginia ace Jacob Thompson.

Based on his high school accolades, Silverstein could be the best of the bunch. As a junior at St. John’s College Prep in Washington, D.C., Silverstein fanned 68 batters in 44.2 innings with a 1.81 ERA and was ranked the No. 29 prospect in the country by Baseball America.

“Usually guys that are 6-foot-5 and left-handed have projection to them,” O’Connor said, “and Silverstein not only has great projection to him, but he is ready right now. He is a guy that has the ability to step in and make an impact like Jacob Thompson did as a first-year.”

The crop of position players includes a number of athletes with a football background, a plus in O’Connor’s eyes.

That group includes OF Shane Halley (Burke), C John Hicks (Goochland), OF Peter Hissey (West Chester, Pa.), IF Jared King (Radford), 1B/OF Tyler Massey (Chattanooga, Tenn.) and IF Steven Proscia (Suffern, N.Y.).

Virginia landed Massey by beating out several SEC powers, but O’Connor called Hissey the “sleeper” in the class.

“This group is very talented but, most importantly, they are the right fit for the University of Virginia,” said O’Connor, praising the work of his assistant coaches for landing what should be a top-15 class nationally. “We have set high goals for our program and I believe this class is going to have a major impact.”


 

Cavalier player pool big enough for Brandenburg
UVa-Miami revisited
By Doug Doughty

As of Wednesday night, minutes after Virginia’s 92-53 victory over Howard, John Brandenburg was the only recruit whose letter-of-intent had arrived in the Cavalier men’s basketball office.

That didn’t mean there was any concern about the commitments made by Sylven Landesberg and Assane Sene, but NCAA guidelines prohibited coach Dave Leitao from discussing anybody but Brandenburg on the first day of the fall signing period.

Brandenburg is a 6-foot-11 post player from St. Louis who had modest statistics last year but has a promising upside and was recruited by the likes of Florida and Kentucky. Brandenburg picked UVa over Stanford.

“Obviously, we’re extremely happy to have a guy like that for a number of reasons,” Leitao said. “Last year, we needed to address our backcourt. This year, we needed to address our frontcourt.”

The first thing that Leitao mentioned about Brandenburg as a player was his athleticism.

“He’s got bounce,” Leitao said. “He’s got a pretty good touch, which, if he works real hard, which I think he will, will develop into a pretty good post option on offense.”

Brandenburg is an outstanding student who “matches perfectly the Virginia student-athlete [model], a guy who’s dedicated to being the best he can be in the classroom,” Leitao said. “He’s been terrific in preparation that way.”

As a player, Brandenburg sounds a little bit like Jason Cain, a senior post player on the Cavaliers’ 2006-2007 NCAA Tournament team. Leitao didn’t agree with that.

“He’s [Brandenburg] more of a 5-man,” Leitao said. “Jason was a guy who grew late, so he had some perimeter ability. John is more of a back-to-the-basket guy right now.”

AFTER WATCHING VIRGINIA’S first two games, the obvious question in my mind was, how does Leitao play all these players?

Virginia has 13 scholarship players but, actually, it’s more like 15 because, while Ryan Pettinella and Calvin Baker don’t count against the Cavaliers’ total, they have been Division I scholarship players at one point, Pettinella at UVa and Baker at William and Mary.

It’s been difficult for Leitao to find time for everybody in the first two games and that’s with Tunji Soroye and Solomon Tat sitting on the bench while recuperating from injuries. In a 39-point blowout, scholarship players Jamil Tucker, Jerome Meyinsse and Will Harris played three, five and nine minutes, respectively.

Players like freshman Mike Scott (two minutes in the opener) and Harris are coming off injuries and Leitao has had the luxury of bringing them along slowly, but what’s going to happen when everybody gets well?

First of all, on a 17-man roster, which in Virginia’s case includes walk-ons Andy Burns and Will Sherrill, it’s almost impossible for everybody to be able-bodied and healthy at the same time.

Winning helps but Leitao’s going to face some tough decisions in upcoming games. You look at some of the Virginia teams that have overachieved – such as Pete Gillen’s first team in 1998-1999 and Leitao’s first team in 2005-2006 – and they had very little depth. Nobody was looking over his shoulder because there was nobody behind him.

My guess is that the three veteran perimeter players – Sean Singletary, Adrian Joseph and Mamadi Diane – will get consistent minutes. As for the rest, it’s important to repeat something Leitao said in the preseason.

"If anybody wants minutes, significant minutes, 25 [or] 30 minutes a game, well, be the best rebounder on the team," Leitao said.

“Get a dozen or 15 rebounds. Or, become a defensive force. If you really want to play, that'll surely get you on the court."

GIVEN THE RESPONSBILITY for meeting deadlines after the Virginia-Miami football game, I had 15 minutes of tape to which I’d never listened, much less transcribed. Here are some of the highlights as I listen to it now.

From quarterback Jameel Sewell:

“I don’t remember what game it was – I think it was Duke – but our tight ends caught almost 20 passes and, ever since then, people have been locked up on them and dragging them and not letting them get off the line, just holding them all the way down the field.”

Beating Miami 48-0 “says a lot for us but we’ve got to stay focused and take advantage of this window we’ve got. We’ve got a good team coming in to play us and they want our blood.”

“There was a lot of opportunity for our playmakers to make play because [the Hurricanes] play a lot of man defense. I don’t know how many people know, but we’ve got a lot of playmakers on this team.”

“It’s really unforgettable. Just having this crowd out here and booing [Virginia], I was just trying to feed off that. The negative energy, we just turned it into positive energy.”

From defensive end Chris Long:

“We have to be careful of not being satisfied and not sitting on our butts for a couple of days and listening to the ‘Oh, you guys or this,’ or ‘you guys are that.’ We didn’t listen to them when they were dogging us.

“This [Virginia win] didn’t take away from the history of this university playing football and this building. The history is undeniable [as are] the feelings you get when you walk in this stadium. It’s real. I’m just honored to be a part of it.

“There’s still areas we can improve in, believe it or not, after tonight.”

From coach Al Groh:

“If somebody asked to sign up for nine and that would be the end right now, we probably wouldn’t have taken the deal. If it was deal-or-no-deal for nine but it had to end right now, we probably wouldn’t have taken the deal.”