U.Va.‘s invisible man

AUBURN AT VIRGINIA

Today:4 p.m.
Radio:WRVA (1140) 3:30

By Jeff White
Published: December 20, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Through seven games this season, he's played 205 minutes, second only to freshman Sylven Landesberg among University of Virginia men's basketball players.

He's averaging 9.7 points, which is tied for third on the team, and is shooting 55.8 percent from the floor, the best of any Cavalier who's attempted at least eight shots.

Yet forward Mike Scott has taken only 52 shots, a total surpassed by Landesberg (89), Sammy Zeglinski (65), Mamadi Diane (58) and Calvin Baker (57) on a U.Va. team that hosts Auburn (5-4) today at John Paul Jones Arena.

In Virginia's most recent game - a 90-61 victory over Longwood - Scott rarely touched the ball on offense. He was efficient when he did, making 4 of 5 shots in 27 minutes. The lone miss was a 3-pointer.

His teammates may be overlooking him in the offense, but Scott declined to complain after the game Wednesday night. The 6-8, 233-pound sophomore, who leads the Cavaliers (4-3) in rebounding, said simply that he needed to work on "getting better position" down low on offense.

Virginia's perimeter players need to look for Scott more, Dave Leitao agreed. But the Cavaliers' fourth-year coach added, "I think he's got to run the floor a little more, attack the glass a little bit more. Just be as well-rounded as you can, and when you are, then you get the ball more down low."

Leitao wants to see the ball near the basket more when U.Va. is on offense. And why not? The Wahoos have been taller than most of the teams they've faced this season, and they'll have a height advantage again today. Of the players who have started for Auburn this season, only Johnnie Lett is taller than 6-7.

Lett, a 6-8, 210-pound junior, needs no introduction to Leitao. Lett signed with the Cavaliers in November 2005. He wasn't prepared academically to enter U.Va. in 2006, though, and landed instead at Okaloosa-Walton College. After two years at the junior college, he transferred to Auburn, where he's averaging 3.2 points and 4.1 rebounds in about 13 minutes a game.

"He's a pretty athletic big guy," Tigers coach Jeff Lebo said. "He doesn't score a lot for us. His role is to defend and run the floor for us."

A Division I newcomer who's had a greater impact is Landesberg. The 6-6 swingman from Queens, N.Y., leads U.Va. in scoring (19.1 ppg) and is second in rebounding (6.1). Landesberg has shown an uncanny knack for drawing fouls. He's attempted 55 free throws. No other Cavalier has shot more than 21.

Landesberg was 8 for 8 from line against Longwood and finished with 20 points.

"I think we did a good job guarding him," Lancers coach Mike Gillian said, "but he's a good player, and he's going to find ways to do what he does, and one of those things is get to the foul line."

 

Same old story: Tigers look for way to play bigger
By Andrew Gribble
Published: December 19, 2008

Korvotney Barber has been at Auburn four years now and everything’s pretty much remained the same.

He’s tall — relatively — and the rest of his team — collectively — is not.

Don’t bother offering the Tigers’ most predominant big man any sympathy. He’s used to it.

“That’s no excuse,” Barber said. “We just got to get everybody on the same page and just get going. We can’t make any excuses now.”

Preemptive excuses could be completely understood heading into today’s game at Virginia, where the Tigers will face a significantly taller Cavaliers team.

As they have pretty much throughout the entire Jeff Lebo era, the Tigers will have to find ways to overcome the height adversity, which can make life difficult in the post and, usually as a result, rough on the rebounding category of the stat sheet.

It’s been an area where the Tigers have struggled throughout the season. Even Tuskegee, whom Auburn was comparably bigger than, held a
rebounding advantage after the first half of Wednesday’s game at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum.

“I think we’re still not great boxing out, we still have to have a better nose for the ball,” Lebo said. “I think Lucas (Hargrove) is a guy that needs to help us more with defensive rebounding. I think our guards have to get down there and rebound the basketball a little bit because we’re still
small back there.”

Barber isn’t the lone Tigers’ big man, but he’s the only post player who has shown the ability to consistently score.

Junior-college transfer Johnnie Lett has emerged as a reliable backup to Barber and, when the time is right, an amicable companion in the paint. But Lett, admittedly so, isn’t in the game for points, as he’s averaging just 3.2 points per game.

That’s OK, Lebo said. Lett, who is one of the team’s best offensive rebounders and defenders, impacts the game in plenty of other ways.

“He’s never going to be a guy that scores a lot of points, that’s not what he does,” Lebo said. “We’re trying to get him to defend and rebound and be physical in there.”

Lett’s ineffectiveness on offense doesn’t hamper Auburn’s offense, which is usually made or broken by its perimeter shooters. Lett does things on the offensive end, Lebo said, that don’t directly appear on the stat sheet, but directly effect others’ abilities to score.

“You can be a great screener, a great offensive rebounder, and not turn the ball over,” Lebo said. “We’re trying to find a niche for him to be effective other than just throwing the ball to him flat back in the post.

“We’ve still got to tinker with different things to make him effective to put him in the best area to be successful.”

agribble@oanow.com| 737-2561

Auburn vs. Virginia
Where: John Paul Jones Arena; Charlottesville, Va.
When: 3 p.m.
TV/Radio: Fox Sports South (Channel 33 in Lee County)/WXMA 97.7 FM
Scouting report: The road has not been friendly to the Tigers so far this season, and John Paul Jones Arena will certainly be loud for this matchup between two similarly average basketball teams. Rebounding and post play will be key here, as the Cavaliers have a significant height advantage and consider rebounding to be one of their strengths. Free throws could be key, as this appears to be a game that will come down to the wire. If history holds, Auburn will have to find a way to overcome its woes at the line.
Projected starters Auburn: F Lucas Hargrove (7.7 ppg, 4.8 rpg), F Korvotney Barber (13.6 ppg, 6.3 rpg), G DeWayne Reed (11.8 ppg, 4.0 apg), G Quantez Robertson (6.7 ppg, 5.1 rpg), G Tay Waller (12.2 ppg, 2.2 rpg)
Projected starters Virginia: F Jamil Tucker (8.0 ppg, 4.7 rpg), F Mike Scott (9.7 ppg, 9.7 rpg), G Calvin Baker (9.7 ppg, 3.3 apg), G Sammy Zeglinski (13.3 ppg, 3.6 rpg), G Sylven Landesberg (19.1 ppg, 6.1 rpg)

 

UVa continues non-conference play against Auburn
By Whitey Reid
Published: December 20, 2008

Earlier this week, during a rant about his alma mater’s hiring of Gene Chizik as its new football coach, Charles Barkley managed to get in a poke at current Auburn basketball coach Jeff Lebo.

The former NBA All-Star revealed that he was against the hiring of Lebo back in 2004. In fact, Barkley said he served on a search committee and suggested, among others, UAB’s Mike Davis (formerly of Indiana) and Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel (formerly of Virginia Commonwealth).

“Out of all the basketball coaches they interviewed, they picked the only one who hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament,” Barkley told ESPN.com.

This afternoon, Lebo — who probably won’t be sending Barkley a Christmas card — brings his 5-4 squad into John Paul Jones Arena for a game that tips off at 4 p.m.

Auburn is coming off laughers over Tuskegee and Louisiana-Monroe, while Virginia (4-3) is coming off an easy win of its own over Longwood that snapped a three-game losing streak.

“It’s going to be a big test for us since they’re a good ACC team and are a lot bigger than we are,” said Auburn senior Korvotney Barber, “so we have to use our quickness to our advantage.”

Lebo, who is 62-68 with just one winning season in his four-plus years at Auburn, said one of his team’s focuses will be putting the clamps on UVa freshman Sylven Landesberg, who is coming off a

20-point effort versus Longwood — the fourth time this season he has scored 20 or more.

“You’ve got to try and keep him out of [the lane] the best you can,” said Lebo, whose team finished sixth in the SEC West last season. “It’s easy to say, but hard to do. You have to be able to defend him in multiple ways. He’s very good at going off the bounce one way and then changing, making two or three multiple moves.

“You can’t rely on defending him with one guy. I think you’ve got to have a team defense to try and keep him out of the paint area.”

Lebo has been extremely impressed by Landesberg.

“I love his skill level,” said the North Carolina alum. “I love his ability to put the ball on the floor — he’s very smooth with it and excellent in the open court. He can get to the basket, gets to the foul line, is a good foul shooter…you can see why he was a McDonald’s All-American.

“He’s going to be a tremendous player at Virginia for the next three or four years or however long he decides to stay there.”

Virginia coach Dave Leitao certainly hopes it will be four years. It’s pretty hard to imagine where UVa would be right now had the New York native stayed home to play at St. John’s.

Landesberg, who is averaging 19.1 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, is looking forward to today’s matchup.

“They’re a pretty good team and have played some good competition,” said Landesberg, alluding to Auburn’s seven-point loss on the road to No. 7 Xavier. “They either won their games or lost close ones, so we’re in for a good one.”

Like Virginia, Auburn has also had a couple of head-scratching losses — to Northern Iowa and Mercer.

Leitao is hoping his team can build on the Longwood win, a much-improved performance in which the Wahoos dominated the glass.

“I hope everything works well for us — that we play well, our bench is excited, guys are excited, our crowd is [into it],” Leitao said. “It’s going to take that kind of effort from everybody to beat a good team like that.”

Added guard Sammy Zeglinski: “We just need to focus on what we need to do. We don’t want to beat ourselves. I think earlier in the season, especially against Liberty, we beat ourselves, and even against Syracuse we had the game won. We just made too many mistakes at the end.

“So we’re just going to concentrate on us and stick to our principles and fundamentals.”

Dunks

Virginia will complete the two-game series with Auburn when it travels there next season…UVa leads the all-time series, 3-2. The Cavs won the last meeting, 89-87, in a game played at the Siegel Center in Richmond. … The UVa coaching staff will see a familiar face in Auburn forward Johnnie Lett, who committed to UVa in 2006 before electing to attend junior college in Florida. Lett has started seven of the team’s nine games and is averaging 4.1 points and 3.2 rebounds. “He’s a pretty athletic big guy,” said Auburn coach Jeff Lebo. “He doesn’t score a lot for us. His role is just to defend. He can run pretty well and rebound the basketball.”

 

UVa's new OC praised by ex-Colorado coach
Gary Barnett credits Gregg Brandon as a key innovator of the modern spread offense.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

The common thread for Virginia football coach Al Groh and new offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon is former University of Colorado coach Gary Barnett.

When Groh was defensive coordinator at Air Force Academy for two seasons in the late 1970s, Barnett was the coach at nearby Air Academy High School -- a public school located just off the military academy's vast campus.

Bill Parcells had resigned as Air Force head coach following the 1978 season, leaving assistants Ken Hatfield and Groh as the leading candidates to replace him.

"I think they flipped a coin and Kenny Hatfield got it," Barnett said. "Al would come down and actually use my office and talk to some other colleges."

If it had been five years earlier, Groh might have run into Brandon, who played for Barnett and the Kadets.

Since then, Groh and Barnett have crossed paths intermittently and, following the 2005 season, Barnett recommended ex-Buffaloes offensive-line coach Dave Borbely for an opening at UVa.

Borbely and Brandon never worked with each other at Colorado, and Barnett said he was not involved in promoting Brandon for the offensive coordinator's job at Virginia.

Barnett and Brandon spoke as recently as Tuesday on an unrelated matter, but Brandon subsequently let Barnett know that he had accepted Groh's offer.

Brandon was the head coach at Bowling Green until he was fired two days after the Falcons' final game in November.

"I think it's a great move for Al," Barnett said, "and I think it's a great move for Gregg. I had encouraged him to jump back into it as fast as he could.

"This is sort of a move away from the middle for Al, I think. It's probably going in a little more wide-open direction than he's been for a while."

Brandon's influences include Mike Price, the head coach at Texas-El Paso after a successful tenure at Washington State. Brandon got his start as a college coach when he was a volunteer assistant to Price at Weber State in Utah.

"Between Mike and Dennis Erickson, they sort of developed the one-back stuff that everybody uses right now," Barnett said. "So, Gregg was on the cutting edge of all that. Then, when he went to Bowling Green with Urban [Meyer], he and Urban sort of created what everybody uses now as far as the spread offense.

"Urban was more oriented toward running the quarterback. Gregg was inclined not to run the quarterback so much and to use more of the throwing game. They were a good combination. He's [Brandon] got a great concept of offense and how it all works."

Brandon played wide receiver and primarily has coached wide receivers as an assistant. However, UVa already has another receivers coach on staff, Wayne Lineburg, and is interviewing another target, Latrell Scott, who coached wide receivers at Richmond and Tennessee.

"I could have moved [Brandon] to quarterback coach at any point in time," Barnett said. "He's always been involved with the quarterbacks and, as the receivers coach, they've always been in the same meetings together.

"That isn't necessarily an issue. In fact, coming from a receiver's perspective, it's probably going to help the quarterbacks as he tutors them."

Before returning to his native Colorado, Brandon had served as Barnett's recruiting coordinator at Northwestern.

"Gregg recruited very well, especially Chicago for us," Barnett said. "He really did a great job."
 

More on Gregg Brandon
Jeff White
Dec 19, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE – Gary Barnett, former football coach at Northwestern and Colorado, goes back a long way with U.Va.’s new offensive coordinator. Way back.

In 1973, when Barnett became head football coach at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., one of his first targets was a 12th-grader named Gregg Brandon.

“I had to recruit him out of the halls,” Barnett recalled this morning by phone from Arizona. “He was a basketball player.”

Brandon proved to be a standout in football, too, playing wide receiver and defensive back for Air Academy. He stuck with the sport in college, first at Mesa State and then at Northern Colorado. And he and Barnett have stayed close through the years.

Barnett helped Brandon land his first head-coaching job, at Ellicott High in Colorado. When Brandon decided to move into college coaching, Barnett assisted him again. Barnett knew Mike Price well and recommended Brandon to Price, then the coach at Weber State.

“Then we always stayed in contact,” Barnett said.

Barnett took over at Northwestern in 1992 and hired Brandon to coach the team’s wide receivers. Brandon also was the Wildcats’ recruiting coordinator in 1997 and ’98, then moved to Colorado with Barnett. Brandon was the Buffaloes’ receivers coach and recruiting coordinator in 1999 and their receivers coach and passing-game coordinator in 2000.

Brandon’s trademark is the spread offense, to which he was first exposed in the early ‘80s.

“Gregg was fortunate because he got on with Mike Price,” Barnett said. “Mike and Dennis Erickson had started doing all the one-back stuff, and no backs, and Gregg was in on that at the beginning as a young coach.”

Later, when Brandon joined Urban Meyer’s staff at Bowling Green in 2001, “they short of defined that package – the spread – that everybody’s running now,” Barnett said.

Brandon was officially Meyer’s offensive coordinator in 2001 and ’02, but “Gregg sort of ran the passing piece and Urban sort of ran the running piece. They sort of melded them together,“ Barnett said. “I think Urban’s a little more running [than Brandon].”

Ultimately, Barnett noted, how much a team runs its quarterback out of the spread depends on its depth at that position and the skill sets of its QBs.

Meyer left for Utah after the 2002 season, and Brandon was named his successor at Bowling Green. In six seasons under Brandon, who was fired last month, the Falcons went 44-30 – 31-17 in the Mid-American Conference – and were known for their offensive productivity.

Asked about Brandon’s philosophy, Barnett said, “Gregg doesn’t coach defensively. He coaches very offensively. A lot of offensive coaches will look at all the percentages. They’ll look at all the defenses, and it’s more, ‘How do I attack this defense, and how do I attack that defense?

“Gregg, and I think he’d be the first one to tell you, is more, ‘Here’s what we do. You stop us.’ “

Still no word about when U.Va. will officially announce Brandon’s hiring. My attempts to reach Al Groh and Brandon for comment have been unsuccessful.

 

No doubting Thomas Jones now
BY RICH CIMINI
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Friday, December 19th 2008, 10:17 AM

It sounded like an Oscar acceptance speech. Commenting on his first Pro Bowl selection in nine seasons, Thomas Jones thanked his offensive linemen, the tight ends, his fullback, his parents and his running-back brother Julius, whom the Jets will face Sunday in Seattle.

But Jones forgot to mention someone very important: Al Davis.

Yes, that Al Davis, the aging patriarch of the Raiders.

If Davis hadn't selected Arkansas running back Darren McFadden with the fourth pick in last spring's draft, the Jets almost certainly would've taken him at No.6. That would've changed a lot.

Imagine: Linebacker Vernon Gholston would be sitting on someone else's bench and Jones would be sharing the ball with McFadden and Leon Washington. Jones insists he never let the McFadden speculation enter his thoughts, but his brother hinted this week that it came up in family conversations. The specter of McFadden made no sense to Julius, who called it "crazy talk."

"He's having a career year and he deserves it," Julius said in Seattle, alluding to his big brother's Pro Bowl nod. "He's been through a lot in his career. He's been to the Super Bowl. Things didn't work out in Chicago for some odd reason. Arizona. Tampa. Then last year he had a really good year, and there was crazy talk about drafting somebody this year.

"This really just proves you can't hold him down," Julius continued. "He's been through a lot and he always seems to rise to the top."

Taken by the Cardinals with the seventh pick of the 2000 draft, one spot ahead of Plaxico Burress, Jones was labeled a bust after four seasons in which he failed to rush for more than 627 yards. There was a renaissance with the Bears, but they traded him to the Jets, where a 1,119-yard performance last season was overshadowed by his touchdown total:

One.

Jones didn't have much blocking, but one touchdown in 310 carries, including 25 inside the 10-yard line, raised eyebrows. The organization was smitten with McFadden's big-play ability, but that was the best move it never got a chance to make.

Getting better at an age when many backs start to decline, Jones, 30, leads the AFC with 1,222 yards and his 13 rushing touchdowns are a team record. Another honor came Thursday: His teammates voted him the Curtis Martin Award, given to the team MVP.

"I'd say it's one of the best seasons I've had," said Jones, only 113 yards shy of his career high.

Jones always guards his emotions in public, but he projects a different persona away from the media. Some teammates say he's the heart and soul of the offense, the player who delivers rousing pregame pep talks. They recognized that passion, voting him the most-inspirational player award.

In the weight room, they ogle his commitment and intensity. Displaying his lunchpail mentality, Jones always works out with the linemen, scoring major points with the big fellas. He also can pump iron like a lineman, evidenced by his body-builder biceps.

"One of the hardest-working guys I've ever seen," said linebacker David Bowens, who has played 10 years in the league.

"He's the only guy who can carry guns legally in New York State," Washington cracked.

SLOW DOWN: Brett Favre is on a limited throwing regimen in practice, according to Eric Mangini, who called it a routine measure to prevent wear and tear late in the season. ... Gholston wasn't upset by last week's deactivation. "It's all about making our run for the playoffs," he said. "Whatever decisions need to be made to achieve that goal, I'm all for it."... OT Damien Woody was voted by the media as the winner of the good-guy award.

 

Plenty of possibilities for Hokies at QB in 2009
Phoebus coach discusses Boyd and the ‘Hoos
By Doug Doughty

There probably won’t be 10 Division I-A football teams that will go into the 2009 season with as few as three scholarship quarterbacks.

Can we say that Virginia Tech will be one of them?

With the decision by ex-Hargrave quarterback Kevin Newsome to accept a grant-in-aid from Penn State, it looks like junior Tyrod Taylor will have a pair of redshirt freshmen, Ju Ju Clayton and Marcus Davis, as his 2009 back-ups.

Other than Taylor, the Hokies won’t have a quarterback who has taken a snap from center.

Or, will they?

How soon we forget.

Greg Boone, nominally the Hokies’ 280-pound starting tight end, took about 30 direct snaps as the quarterback in Tech’s “Wild Turkey” formation and had 19 rushing attempts for 57 yards. He also attempted one pass that fell incomplete.

Obviously, Tech would prefer to have Boone catching passes from Taylor, but what if Taylor suffered a sprained ankle in the first quarter of Tech’s opener against Alabama? Do you send in Clayton or Davis, or do you have a slightly slimmed-down Boone ready to go with a few additions to his 2008 package?

“I’m getting ready for Cincinnati [in the Orange Bowl] and you want to talk about next year?” Tech offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring said this week. “Get back to me in the middle of spring practice.”

It’s a pertinent question now because there are still quarterbacks on the market for 2009.

Phoebus High School quarterback Tajh Boyd and Newsome were No. 1 and 2 on The Roanoke Times’ preseason list of the top prospects in Virginia (and probably on some other lists). Newsome is off the table, but Boyd is available after decommitments to West Virginia and Tennessee.

Could the Hokies get in on Boyd? They’ve had favorable relations with Phoebus in the past.

“I just know there’s no dialogue and they’re not recruiting him,” Phoebus coach Bill Dee said Friday morning. “I think they’ve moved on to some other kids. I know they’re recruiting a kid up in Richmond, aren’t they?”

Dee’s reference was to Antone Exum, an uncommitted quarterback from Deep Run High School in Richmond. Exum, rated the No. 21 prospect in the preseason, has been projected as a wide receiver or defensive back in college.

And, let’s not forget that Logan Thomas, who made an oral commitment to the Hokies last month, played quarterback this year for Group AA Division 4 runner-up Brookville High School in Lynchburg. Most recruiting analysts list Thomas (6-6, 225) as a tight end, but he was a wide receiver as a sophomore at Brookville and has said that the Hokies plan to split him out.

So, the Hokies should have plenty of options behind Taylor next year. There’s Clayton, Davis, Boone, Thomas and Exum. Aside from Taylor, there’s one thing they have in common. All were recruited initially by Tech to play a position other than quarterback.

If I’m not mistaken, there were some people who weren’t sure Taylor was a quarterback coming out of high school. He originally was slotted as a defensive back in workouts at the U.S. Army All-America Bowl, where he eventually received some time – sparingly – at quarterback.

Pending some work on a hitch the Hokies have discovered in his throwing motion, most observers would agree that Taylor is a bona fide college quarterback, capable of leading a Top 25 program, but it will be interesting if anything happens to him next year.

NOW THAT VIRGINIA has settled on spread advocate Gregg Brandon as its new offensive coordinator, is Phoebus’ Boyd more likely to consider the Cavaliers?

Earlier this week, an Oregon fans’ site indicated that Boyd was saying that Virginia was fourth in a race that included the Ducks, Ohio State and Boston College.

(Wouldn’t that be priceless? Boyd and fellow Virginia-bred quarterback Peter Lalich playing for rival programs in Oregon)?

Dee said Friday that Boyd has indicated he will save a visit for Virginia. Whether he takes it is another matter.

“This thing changes day to day,” Dee said. “I know there was a genuine interest in Virginia a couple of weeks ago. But, you know, things might have changed.

“I’m hoping he’s still considering Virginia because they’re an in-state school and I tell all my kids, to be honest with you, that I like them to consider the in-state schools. They have set a visit, but I don’t know what’s going to transpire in that time.”

Boyd took official visits to West Virginia and Tennessee, which left him with only three more paid visits he could take. He was at Ohio State last weekend and reportedly will be at Oregon this weekend.

The perception is that Ohio State will be hard to beat “but, I’ve talked to Tajh about this,” Dee said. “You’ve got to look at the [Terrelle] Pryor factor. I think Ohio State is a great school but if Pryor stays three [more] years, that doesn’t give you much playing time.

“I know they’re going to say that they’re looking at the possibility of him coming out in two years, but there’s no guarantee. If [Pryor] stays around for three more years, Tajh would be a redshirt junior then.”

Boyd backed out of his commitment to West Virginia but Dee indicated that he was pressured to decommit to Tennessee.

“As soon as they hired Lane Kiffin, I knew what was coming,” Dee said. “[Kiffin] was a West Coast guy looking for a West Coast-type of quarterback. He wanted a guy who was 6-4 or 6-5. I knew that about him.

“He said, ‘At least I’m being honest.’ What I told him was, ‘It’s like guys who cheat on their wives and say that they’re just being honest.’ I said, ‘That doesn’t make it a good thing.’ “He didn’t say to the kid, ‘I’ll give you a chance to compete.’ Honoring a scholarship to me is like, ‘Hey, you come in, we’ll give you a chance to compete.’ Telling him a kid he can come but he’s not going to play, to me that’s not honoring a scholarship. I’m not going to give [Kiffin] but so much credit.”

A PLAYER WHO WILL be following the Boyd recruiting with considerable interest is 6-3, 221-pound Oakton High School senior quarterback Chris Coyer, who accounted for 2,688 yards and 32 touchdowns.

Coyer, a left-hander, was named Concorde District Player of the Year. That’s the same district that produced Westfield High School quarterbacks Sean and Mike Glennon, who became Division I-A signees for Virginia Tech and North Carolina State.

Coyer has offers from Temple and Ohio University but is waiting to hear from Ohio State and Oregon. Both schools have indicated they will bring him to campus depending on developments with Boyd.

Curious has been a lack of interest from Virginia and Virginia Tech as both schools continue to court other quarterbacks. Coyer completed 67 percent of his passes this year while throwing 17 touchdown passes, compared with three interceptions. He rushed for 1,401 yards and 15 touchdowns out of a spread offense.