UVA and Tech not getting it done on the home front
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Was not my intention, just bringing a little, balance, perspective and patience to the discussion.
Neither the evals or rankings can be definitively slammed at this point. Just a matter of age and experience and having to play before ready in most cases, in my opinion. The 5-8 meant that an average of 8 four stars was probably on the high side but, I will check the rankings to see if I was wrong. Stars just like overall class rankings get less meaningful the lower you go. To explain, everybody would agree there is separation generally for 5 stars and top 10 overall classes, however, that separation/delineation becomes more compressed and obscured as you go down the rankings.
What do you think about the new DPS Superintendent hire? Very good IMO.. Still a lot of inepts in decision making positions, but a step in the right direction IMO with Owens.
Way too soon for me to make any comment or evaluation. Maybe you know more than me but, I was under the impression Owens was a designee with an interim to be appointed at July meeting to serve through a more long term search process.
That being said, anybody is probably better than the person formerly holding the position. In his defense there is plenty of blame to be spread around between council, the school board, some other employees and stakeholders( the citizens of Danville, parents and students). Far more guilty parties all around than innocent ones. People often say you get what you pay for, however, in Danville's case I think a far more accurate description is you get what you accept instead of demanding/working to get what you pay for and deserve.
The reason I said it was a great hire is because she has put her time in, she’s good people and she is actually from Danville. Gotta be better than the outsiders they’ve brought in.
@cutnjump so many other things wrong within the leadership positions there, it will take a lot of time and work. I was in town yesterday. Same ole same ole. Same people walking up North Main and standing on the corners. Same ole dead end conversations (we need jobs, the River District this and that, and CASINO).. Sure you have a strong opinion on things. Just not the same thriving place that once made Danville a great place to be and call home.
I stand corrected. I believe Owens or Lancaster are your two best options if you’re DPS right now. They need stability and someone vested in the community.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sideline-story-with-will-and-cody/id1510867651?i=1000479741663
Good podcast with the Edmunds
Good podcast with the Edmunds
No sir! Jason Kamras, Richmond’s superintendent, doesn’t have a doctoral degree.
Dr. Catherine Magouyrk has been named Interim Superintendent for Danville Public Schools, effective July 15, 2020. Dr. Magouyrk was approved by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and by School Board members at the regular School Board meeting held on Thursday, July 9, 2020.
Starting to wonder about UVA recruiting in state (yes, that is a tongue-in-cheek comment).
Madison County is 25 minutes north of UVA. MCHS has a stud lineman (Jacob Sacra, 6’5 295 lbs and only 16 years old) who also won the state heavyweight wrestling championship as a Sophomore this past season.
He just received another D-1 offer, this time from the University of Tennessee. Where is UVA (and VT for that matter). I mean you’ve got a SEC caliber player in your backyard.
Madison County is 25 minutes north of UVA. MCHS has a stud lineman (Jacob Sacra, 6’5 295 lbs and only 16 years old) who also won the state heavyweight wrestling championship as a Sophomore this past season.
He just received another D-1 offer, this time from the University of Tennessee. Where is UVA (and VT for that matter). I mean you’ve got a SEC caliber player in your backyard.
He's got an SEC offer, why would you ever sweat a VT or UVA offer? Not really seeing what you're getting at here. If he actually wants to stay in-state then does it matter who's first to the punch? Like, he can't even put ink to paper for about 18 months, does it really matter this second that UVA or VT haven't offered?
Okay, now I think I remember meeting you this past season at the MC vs Clarke game at MC, am I correct? I don't remember seeing Sacra, was he on the freshman team?
And if it is you I met, please tell our mutual acquaintance hello for me. Still want to meet him someday.
Another out of towner and someone who has already retired. Gotta love DPS
DPS didn't select the interim, the VDOE did. Designee just held the spot for the interim. Now the search for a "permanent" to replace Jones will happen. Can almost guarantee it won't be someone from Danville already in the system. Not sure if they meet the qualifications with the state to be the contracted superintendent.
It is preferred...however you do have to have a division superintendent's license, just as a principal needs to have an administrative license, and a teacher has to have the same.
The instate programs struggle up front a lineman that size would help them both out dramatically
No problem at all. We want to see Danville flourish, everyone plays a role in it, and all have to be invested to do it.
Everyone's OL is that size now. All of Tech's scholarship guards and centers are 6'3 or taller, all their tackles are 6'5 or taller.
I'm sure he will garner more offers and among them will likely be VT and UVA. If this is what spurns him, the notion that they didn't offer him when he was 12 years old or something, then so be it because he was never going to go to VT or UVA anyway. If he actually wants to stay home and play for an in-state school then those schools not being the first to offer won't matter to him and he'll make a rational decision based on where he wants to spend the next five years of his life and what coaching staff he wants to do it under.
Also, VT will have one of the best OL in the conference this year and Christian Darrisaw is one of the best OTs in the entire country and has first-round potential when he goes into the draft in two years.
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Yes the kid is prototypical size of a power 5 college lineman I don’t think that was debatable. He already is bigger than some of the kids in both programs as a sophmore, and as a sophomore to have a SEC offer speaks volumes. In reality both OL rooms at UVA and VT aren’t elite. PFF ranks Tech as 84/130 in returning OL grades and yes the OT is elite but the remainder of the unit is lackluster. He is eligible to leave after this year so we will see where he goes but that’s one player out of a unit or 5. UVA ranks a little higher but still is below top 50 at 66. Which shows that the depth and talent on the field isn’t yielding the results where an elite OL prospect would consider the instate institutions for pro development unless they have an affection for them before.
no one is saying that the schools have to offer first/early but the fact a kid is getting a UT (SEC) offer first and is in the backyard of UVA as a sophomore maybe the instate programs could do more to identify these prospects before rather than recruit outside the state for the same positions. Both in state schools are letting Virginia get picked apart for recruits and they’re getting the kids who are left. If you increase the presence and the on field results keep showing up in the Top 25 rankings you’ll stop the exodus out of the state. Where they want to spend the next 5 years will come down to comfort, playing time, development and more but the point of all this is just to highlight that UVA and VT aren’t getting marquee VA talent anymore and it’s because they aren’t recruiting the state and building those relationships. If you’re getting less than 5 instate kids a year that’s atrocious. Maybe the kid will get these offers, I’m sure they will roll in as he continues to grow and play but right now the staffs missed identifying a prospect and getting a strong first impression by offering early.
Yeah, the point is well-made that UVA especially not showing adequate interest is not a positive. But it’s also true that some coaching staffs don’t like to project too far down the road with offers.
People in Virginia will need to deal with the reality of having one in-state program coached by a staff mainly from out West and another from the Midwest so don't expect this massive effort from either staff on "reclaiming" a state neither really held to begin with anyway. VT spent plenty of time in the top 10, that didn't stop tons of kids from leaving either, trying to big time a Hall of Fame coach (most of these kids busted at big schools anyway) so this notion that the exodus will stop if they win more is also a bit of bunk. People have overhyped VA kids and all the kids coming up now don't care about getting in-state offers anymore, they only think Bama or OSU is what matters. It doesn't matter that for every kid who leaves the state and lives up to his ranking there's easily five who ride pine and transfer to some no-name FCS, they only see what they want to see and these kids all think they're too good for VT or UVA so the staffs aren't going to waste time on most of them and they'll seek out kids who actually want to go to VT and UVA.
Like I said, if a player thinks VT or UVA is an inferior school then why sweat an offer? If they think they're a good school then if the offer comes in a reasonable timeframe i.e. not a week before NSD then it's all good because getting the offer is what matters compared to when you got it. This kid in particular has already visited VT and UVA, both schools are obviously aware of him, and if they want to offer I'm sure they will.
VT and UVA would both be better served if they were doing a better job in state as it is a more efficient use of recruiting resources provided they can get talent that can actually play. Virginia has had kids like Hand, Allen, Sweat, Nnadi, etc. that would have helped either program, however, for each "impact" guy there are multiple kids that were thought to be able to play at the FBS level that clearly could not. The quality and, just as important from a program development standpoint, the quantity of talent in VA HS football, as a whole, that is capable of playing at the FBS level has been on the decline over the last decade, if not longer. A look at Top 25/50 composite rankings would seem to bear this out. That is not to say there are not some good players, there are, or that some areas have not seen increased talent, they have, but, the totality of the state is a different story.
Big agree.
Nobody was zeroing in on VA kids much on a national level until Beamer & Co. blew up the scene. Everyone saw him winning with VA kids and said "why not me?" and that begin the process that got us to where we are today, where all in-state kids expect/demand offers from VT or UVA but have virtually no intention of attending them because they think this state on a talent level matches your top 10 states (FL/TX/CA/GA/OH/PA/etc) and then they get there, realize there's five other RBs even better than them and before you know it they're just hoping for two good years at Eastwest State College U when they could have been a 200 carry a season back at VT or UVA.
The talent level by state can be ranked by various criteria and might vary slightly from year to year as well but, over time depending how someone may choose their criteria there are pretty distinct tiers. The top tier is Florida, Texas, California and Georgia and it is a big drop to the next level. The second level has Louisiana and Alabama slightly ahead and a bunch of states NC, SC, Ohio, Michigan, NJ , Md, Va, Pa, Tenn, maybe 1 or 2 more, and then everybody else is the third level. Virginia has historically been solid trending closer to the top of the 2nd tier at the start of the century and now trending closer to the bottom of the second tier in the last decade.
I like it when VT and UVA go elsewhere to find players. I'm a Penn State fan and since Franklin has taken over there are quite a few names on that roster with VA as their home state. Penn State has become good once again in recent years with annual top 10 rankings. Hahahahha
Franklin and Ped State are a perfect fit for one another. They are better now than in the waning years of Joe Pa and his successor but, until they can actually win their own conference more than once in a blue moon exactly how good they really are is definitely a subject open for debate.
I think Franklin is turning things around. I believe things like that can be slow to change but can happen. Ohio State is a real juggernaut. Remember, Penn State has beaten Ohio State numerous times over the years just not as much lately. Some of the recent games have been real nail bitters, except last year, and that was not a blow out. I grew up in PA and remember how good they were in the 70s, 80s and 90s. There were also numerous players that came from VA that had a tremendous impact on those teams.
I agree with you about Paterno. He did them no favors in his last years and I am not referring to the Sandusky scandal necessarily. He lingered and the recruiting suffered. Interestingly it was at that time that VT started to become very good. Probably taking key athletes from VA that Penn State was not able to get. That is a theory of mine.
Also want to point out that Penn State needs to do better at the QB position. Not a cut on McSorely because I really liked him. He was a winner. Penn State needs more qb's like him. He was a big reason they were successful. I am referring throughout their history. When they have a quality QB they do well.
Here is one for you: What do Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino and Jeff Hostetler all have in common? All grew up in western PA and were successful quarterbacks that led NFL teams to a Super Bowl. Montana and Hostetler won Super Bowls. Paterno was never able to land them at Penn State. Wow!!
Lot of truth in what you say. I think Franklin is a snake oil salesman and his approach grows stale over time if he is unable to meet expectations or promises he makes. For every Matos you get a Slade. Franklin is a great recruiter but, over time he loses that new car smell and people will actually look under the hood to see the substance of what is there. PSU has always got some Va. kids going back to D.J. Dozier or earlier and VT has arguably beat out PSU for one kid(Kevin Jones) that if truth be told fell in to their lap. They have gotten other PA kids that were good but, most were not heavily pursued by PSU for whatever reason. Finally, Joe Willie Namath and even a few other QBs came out of PA in addition to those you listed. Seems like both PA and VA do not produce QBs nowadays as they have in the past.
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