No conflict of interest for Jobes in Gator
Parents, Texas Tech grads, proudly support U.Va. son
Monday, Dec 24, 2007 - 12:06 AM 
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE Staton Jobe's parents learned about the Gator Bowl pairing from their good friend Kent Hance, who also happens to be chancellor at Texas Tech. Before hanging up the phone, Hance promised not to forget the Jobes during the Jan. 1 game in Jacksonville, Fla.

"He said he was going to wear orange boxers out of respect for Staton and the Jobe family," Dr. Jeff Jobe recalled with a laugh.

Virginia (9-3) will play Texas Tech (8-4) in the Gator. For the Jobes of Austin, Texas, the matchup has elicited mixed emotions.

"Out of all the teams in Division I, we were thinking, 'How bizarre that it came to this,' " Jeff Jobe said. "All through the year, I follow Texas Tech as well as Virginia."

Staton, who starts at wide receiver for U.Va., said the matchup is "definitely a little strange. [With] Texas Tech being the team I grew up with as a kid, I never really thought coming all the way to Virginia to play football that I'd ever be playing against them."

His parents, Jeff and Connie, are Tech graduates, as is his brother, Taylor, and the family has many relatives in the Lubbock area. Jeff, who's now a vascular surgeon, started at receiver for the Red Raiders in the 1973 Gator Bowl. Connie, now an attorney, was a cheerleader. Taylor is another former Red Raiders wideout.

As a boy, Staton watched countless Texas Tech games: sometimes in Austin, against the hometown Longhorns, but usually in Lubbock, about a seven-hour drive from Austin.

"Red and black ran deep in our family," Jobe said, "so it's kind of fun to be able to face them."

Had he taken another route out of Westlake High, Jobe might be preparing to face Virginia instead. As a lightly recruited 12th-grader, he received an invitation from Texas Tech to join the football program as a walk-on.

"I was offered the same thing here," Jobe recalled, "and Virginia was always my No. 1 choice."

He's still not on scholarship at U.Va., but the 6-0, 181-pound redshirt freshman has caught 15 passes for 156 yards and one touchdown, and he's proven to be an effective blocker in the open field.

"Wish he was here," Texas Tech coach Mike Leach said, "but it isn't all bad to be at the school Thomas Jefferson invented, either. He got a good opportunity for himself there."

About a dozen family members are planning to attend the game in Jacksonville.

"I would say most of them will be rooting for Virginia," Jeff Jobe said, "but a couple of them probably will not tell me who they're rooting for."

Staton said he's confident his parents will "be in their orange and blue. As for my brother, he won't really give me a straight answer. I know he's rooting for me, but it's also hard for him to root against the team he was playing for for five years, and he still knows some of those guys."

Jobe became familiar with U.Va. through his godsisters Paige and Shannon Davis, who played volleyball there. His sister, Hadyn, attends the University of Texas, and Jobe's parents have never questioned his decision not to follow his brother to Lubbock.

"I think they kind of wanted me to come to U.Va.," Jobe said. "It's a great school. It was too great an opportunity to pass up. They really wanted me to do what I wanted to do."

For the Cavaliers, this has been an extraordinary season. They've already set an NCAA record by winning five games by two or fewer points. Jobe, however, hasn't always been pleased with his performance.

"I think that at times I played like a rookie, like a first-year player," he said. "It's just about maturing as a player. I had a couple drops this season, which I wasn't too happy about, because I'm usually not used to dropping the ball. But I think that's all just maturing as a player, and I'm just looking forward to getting better."

 

Branden's big decision
UVa's mammoth offensive lineman Branden Albert is considering the option of jumping to the NFL early.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129 "Why wouldn't I be looking at it seriously ... who wouldn't?"

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Quick feet are one of the best attributes an offensive lineman can have, even when he isn't blocking.

When the media came at Virginia junior Branden Albert with a blitz of another sort, Albert was ready for it last week.

"I'm on my toes today," he said.

Albert is putting the finishing touches on the best season of his UVa career and now faces a choice between returning to college for a fourth season and turning professional.

"Why wouldn't I be looking at it seriously?" Albert asked. "If the opportunity is there, who wouldn't?"

But when a reporter suggested that Albert's tone suggested he was "leaning" toward a jump to the NFL, Albert wouldn't let it slide.

"I didn't say that," he replied good-naturedly but firmly. "I go back and forth."

Albert is in his third season at Virginia and, while he has never been redshirted, he already has turned 23. He originally signed with Virginia in 2004, but spent the 2004-2005 school year at Hargrave Military Academy.

"I think it's a factor if you let it be a factor," Albert said of the age issue. "I don't understand all that. It could be a positive. Teams might say, by me staying next year, 'He's a mature young man.'"

The NFL offers a service to players interested in learning their draft status, but Albert hasn't inquired about it and says he probably won't.

"I would rather go off coach [Al] Groh than anybody because he's a great resource," Albert said.

"I feel like he cares about me and will tell me what I need to know and not just consider his own selfish interests."

Groh spent more than a decade in the National Football League as an assistant coach and was the head coach of the New York Jets for one season before coming to Virginia in 2001.

At a late-November news conference, Groh said he already had begun talks with UVa underclassmen who might view themselves as NFL prospects.

It would have been foolish not to take a proactive approach, Groh said, "because there are a lot of other people, who, for their own agendas, are in their ears."

Ah, the agents.

When they aren't calling Albert, they're calling his brother, Ashley Sims, a former University of Maryland football player who works as a probation officer in the Baltimore area.

"Whatever calls he gets, he handles," Albert said. "Whatever calls I get, I handle. I don't tell everybody, 'Talk to my brother.' This is my decision.

"It hasn't been a distraction. My brother keeps me fairly grounded. I keep myself grounded."

If the draft process were going to be distracting, that probably would have occurred before now. Instead, he made first-team All-ACC for the first time and was selected third-team All-American by The Associated Press.

Albert, a 6-foot-7, 310-pound guard who had a two-game stint at tackle, had been largely overlooked following his first two years.

"I was bent out of shape a little bit, but what can I say?" Albert said. "What can I do about it? When you think about it, a lot of things go into it. If your team is winning, you're going to get accolades. If your team is losing, you're not."

The Cavaliers finished 5-7 in Albert's sophomore year, then jumped to 9-3 this season.

"I felt like I could compete [and] I could be dominant at the end of the season last year," Albert said. "Coming in this year, a lot of people were talking about me but I felt I had a lot of things to prove still. I haven't proved everybody wrong yet but a lot more people recognize what I can do."

Virginia jumped from 257.2 yards per game in total offense last year to 329.2 this year, but the Cavaliers will need to do better than that against a Texas Tech team that ranks No. 2 in Division I-A in total offense (537.0 yards per game) and throws more than 57 passes per game.

Albert isn't envious.

"I'm the type of guy who wants to run the ball, and throwing the ball 70 times is not my thing," he said.

One of his favorite moments from the 2007 season came on a goal-line block of hard-hitting Virginia Tech linebacker Cam Martin in the Cavaliers' 33-21 loss at Scott Stadium.

"For a person at my position, you need to make big blocks to be recognized," he said. "People were calling me about that one."

The two games that Albert spent at tackle while Eugene Monroe was injured have only served to improve his marketability. When they entered the program together in 2005, Monroe and Albert were projected as bookend tackles.

"Tackle might be my natural position," said Albert, who was a skilled basketball player before turning to football. "I didn't feel awkward. As one of the leaders of the offensive line, I need to know what everybody is doing. Who knows what my future might be? I was happy to [move], mostly because we were winning games."

The Cavaliers are likely to win more games with Albert in 2008 than without him, and don't think he hasn't thought about that.

He also could expect to make at least some of the pre-season All-America teams, which often is the clearest path to postseason honors. It could mean a trip to Arizona for a photo shoot that awaits the Playboy All-American team.

"I don't think a certain somebody would like that," he said, referring to longtime girlfriend Lauren Santana.

"The main factor is if I want to come back. If you think about it, if a guy doesn't want to come back for his senior year, he's not going to work out as hard, he's probably not going to play as hard, which means his stock is going to go down."

Class schedules limit the media accessibility of some UVa players and Albert hasn't done much talking this season, either about his season or the draft. Maybe that's a good thing, as he made clear when a TV reporter asked him, "What's next?"

"What's next for me is blocking whoever the '3' technique is for Texas Tech," he said.

"Whatever decision I make, I'm just thinking about Texas Tech right now. I'll worry about my future after the game."
 

Young Cavs filling in at the post
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
December 24, 2007

If there has been a silver lining to Virginia playing without the injured Tunji Soroye, Ryan Pettinella and Lars Mikalauskas, it is the fact that Mike Scott and Jerome Meyinsse have had an opportunity to show what they can do.

In UVa’s 91-61 win over Elon on Saturday, the two big men once again looked solid.

Scott, who was in the starting lineup for the second straight game, had six points, nine rebounds and a block in 17 minutes. Meyinsse had 12 points and two rebounds in 21 minutes off the bench.

“I was happy the other night with them,” said Leitao, referring to the duo’s performance on Wednesday against Hampton, “[and] I was equally happy with their progress [versus Elon].

“Mike was a little bit sluggish. I thought he was a little bit winded, but he didn’t hurt us in any way. He kind of helped us in protecting

the paint, rebounding and keeping the ball alive. He just didn’t finish as well.”

Meyinsse, on the other hand, was a finishing machine. The sophomore was 5 of 5 from the field. That included a couple of dunks and some pretty post moves in the lane.

“Jerome is not only a smart guy,” said Leitao, alluding to the Baton Rouge native’s excellence in the classroom, “but a smart basketball guy. He learns quickly. I think he’s putting the things he’s learned to good use.”

Scott was only 2 of 8 from the field, but showed some nice hops in the first half when he took a pretty pass from Calvin Baker and threw down a one-handed dunk.

“We hadn’t seen a lot of that,” Leitao said. “I think that gives him the kind of confidence to know that part of his explosion is coming back.”

Just before the

intermission, Scott, who battled an ankle injury in the preseason, played great help defense when he flew over from the weak side and swatted a layup attempt by Elon’s Chris Long.

Now, the question is what will Leitao do when all of his injured post players return?

“We’re not going to play five ‘5’ men obviously,” he said. “We’ll probably play some of those guys together at different points in time.

“Hopefully that means we have more depth because Adrian [Joseph] will move back to some ‘3’ man.”