Scattershooting: The South’s oldest rivalry, UVA self-scouts during bye, and golden nuggets

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Scattershooting in an abbreviated gameday version this week in anticipation of tonight’s continuation of “The South’s Oldest Rivalry,” the 128th meeting of the Virginia-North Carolina game, which began in 1892 (tonight, 6:30, The CW Network) … 

A couple of the things I will be anxious to see is what offensive changes were made during the bye week when Virginia self-scouted, an opportunity to tweak some things, add a new wrinkle or two and eliminate some things that haven’t worked.

Offensive coordinator Des Kitchings said the extra week and the self-scouting helped.

“You can work on protections, do we need to chip to help the right side? Or, looking at penalties, like it’s third-and-19. That’s not a good situation and an obvious pass, right? So what was the cause of that? Well, it was a penalty on second down or a holding call. Things we have to eliminate because those are drive-killers,” Kitchings said.

“Turnovers. So that impacts your scoring offense as well. The point made to the guys was that it’s not our opponents. It’s really self-infliction. We have to eliminate those things that have derailed us.”

Kitchings believes that if Virginia can eliminate a lot of those mistakes, it could give the Cavaliers another 10 to 14 points per game.

During the self-scouting, did Kitchings find plays that didn’t work and eliminate those from game plans going forward?

“Oh yeah,” Kitchings said. “I’d be the first to tell you, and I told the guys, that there’s some calls on some third downs that were bad calls and didn’t give you a chance. So, it’s a combination of that and the execution piece of it as well.”

This week’s golden nuggets

• The ACC conducted its meetings this week but didn’t settle on a future model for scheduling football for a new 17-team league (plus Notre Dame), which starts next year. However, the three new members, SMU, Stanford and Cal, all participated in the meetings but are not allowed to vote on anything until next summer’s meetings. One good thing resulted in the expansion. The three permanent rivals for each school that was announced last year is no longer a thing. So Wahoo fans unhappy that Louisville was one of their permanent rivals don’t have to worry about that any longer.
• Danny Neckel with this gem: most men’s college basketball conference wins over the past 10 years among major conference programs: Virginia 144; Villanova 140; Kansas 139; Arizona 134; Kentucky 133.
• In UVA men’s tennis news, Keegan Rice has committed to the Cavaliers. The 17-year-old, with an ITF juniors career-high ranking of No. 32 and an ATP doubles career-high of No. 1051, won one $25,000 title. He is ranked No. 1 in Canada’s U18 rankings. Rice will be a freshman in the fall of 2024.
• Our longtime friend Jeff Gravley, known to us as “Digger,” and formerly the sports anchor at WRAL in Raleigh, has been working on a video project for several months about the David Thompson statue and the 50th anniversary of NC State’s national championship in 1974 when the Wolfpack stopped UCLA’s run on titles in triple overtime in Greensboro. Digger flew out to San Diego for a great interview with Bill Walton. Can’t wait to see what he produces.
• Virginia men’s hoops is scrimmaging the same two teams in the preseason as it did last year, UConn and Maryland. UConn will come to Charlottesville, and no, you can’t go. Not open to the public.
• D1 Baseball produced a list of the top 100 assistant coaches in the country, and both of Brian O’Connor’s coaches — Kevin McMullan and Drew Dickinson — were on that list.
• Maybe UVA should give the ball more to Perris Jones on first down. On first-down carries, Jones is averaging 7.75 yards per attempt.
• Michigan State’s Tom Izzo said recently “One of us (Big 10) has got to win a national championship.” Why? Since the Spartans won it all in 2000, here’s the list of national titles by conference: ACC 8; Big East 7; SEC 3; Big 12 3; American 1; Pac 12 0; Big 10 0.
• This one is for Rob Daniels, one of my best hires during my lengthy newspaper career. Some of the guys who made college football’s All-Name Team this year: Oklahoma QB General Booty; Louisiana WR Decoldest Crawford; Defiance College WR Da’Realyst Clark; FIU tight end Rowdy Beers; Auburn lineman Jaden Muskrat; UNLV lineman Tiger Shanks; Louisville DB Storm Duck (formerly a Tar Heel); LSU DB Major Burns; Central Arkansas DB Dude Person; USTA DB Pig Cage; Alabama DB Kool-Aid McKinstry; Sam Houston DL Meatball Smith; Arizona State DL Blazen Lono-Wong; Charlotte DB Comanche Francisco; UCF kicker Colton Boomer; Syracuse punter Maximilian Von Marburg. Enjoy, Rob!
• Mario Cristobal has not yet won an ACC home game (heading into today) at Miami. He has lost to UNC, Duke, FSU, Pitt and Georgia Tech, all at home.
• Duke signed basketball coach Jon Scheyer to a restructured six-year contract this week.
• If you haven’t joined up for “The Jerry & Jerry Show,” live every Tuesday morning at 10:15 from our studio in downtown Charlottesville, you’re missing out. Thousands of Wahoo fans from at least 14 states and every corner of the Commonwealth tune in as we discuss Wahoo football and basketball.