University of Virginia Football Preview for 2008

I am a fan of the University of Virginia Cavalier football team, and as such am wondering how our 2008 team will compare with their 2007 counterpart. 

Here are the people from the two-deep we are losing and an analysis of each position group.

Defensive Line:

Billyk is a serviceable nose tackle, but with Collins and Jenkins returning, we shouldn’t be losing too much there.

Obviously Chris Long will be our biggest loss, though Fitzgerald will be another year older and we’ve heard enough good things about Gottschalk and Fields that we should be able to cope here.

But overall, a step down without Long. 

If the rumors are true that Fitz won’t be on the team because of academic issues, there will be a huge drop in the defensive line.

Secondary: 

Jamaal Jackson and Nate Lyles are both serviceable safeties. They are good in run support, but not quick enough to cover the field in pass coverage.

Lyles is (or at least was) known as a big hitter, but I’d trade that for someone who disallows more passes and stops the long bombs that have been plaguing us.

He’s started a lot of games in his career and only has three picks. 

Our biggest loss will be Chris Cook, who is off the team for the time being because of academic issues. However, he missed several games in 2007 from injuries and Dowling (whom anyone can see has talent) filled in nicely.

I am not sold on Vic Hall at CB, so I’m hoping that he might get moved back to offense and Brown will live up to his four-star recruiting hype at the position.

Because everyone else will have another year experience and we have some talented young guys coming up the pike, I hope our secondary is about the same next year, though that’s probably a bit optimistic.

Linebacker:

Dias is a serviceable LB, but hasn’t lived up to his hype coming out of high school in an injury-plagued career.

Because everyone else will have another year experience and we have some talented young guys working up through the system, our LB corps should definitely be better next year.

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