Look for QB reps for Tech TE

Expect QB reps for TE

Virginia Tech reintroduced Greg Boone as a quarterback last season in its Wild Turkey offense - a package of plays that allowed Boone, a tight end, to run, hand off or throw. With the graduation of backup quarterback Sean Glennon, Tech has no experienced backups for junior Tyrod Taylor.

Except, of course, Boone. Though redshirt freshman Joseph "Ju-Ju" Clayton, a Hermitage High graduate, was named the backup quarterback coming out of spring practice, Boone expects to practice at quarterback this fall. (He said he had five practices there in the spring.)

"[The coaches] haven't told me anything, but I'm sure I'll probably get some reps at quarterback," said Boone, a senior who played quarterback at Oscar Smith High in Chesapeake.

If Taylor got injured in the Sept. 5 season opener against Alabama, Boone said he wouldn't need a lot of reps during preseason practices to feel ready to step in, because tight ends must know the same routes and reads in Tech's offense as quarterbacks.

Early signings backed

ACC Commissioner John Swofford said the league continues to advocate an early signing period for recruits. Currently, football's only signing period begins in early February.

Swofford believes a fall signing period - similar to the one basketball has in addition to its spring period - would prevent coaches from having to continue recruiting players who have already orally committed, for fear that they might change their minds before February. This would keep coaches off the road and on campus, "rather than having to baby-sit commitments who have already taken place," Swofford said.

But he doesn't believe an early signing period is likely to be established soon.

"We have not been able to get the kind of support for it [from other conferences] to get much movement from a national perspective," he said.

Friend happy for Sewell

E.J. Wilson is a 6-3, 280-pound defensive end for the University of North Carolina. And he's happy Jameel Sewell is back to play quarterback for the University of Virginia.

It's not that Wilson believes Sewell is a bad QB. It's that Wilson and Sewell are friends.

Wilson played at Brunswick County High School, and before he blossomed into an outstanding football player, he thought his future was on the basketball court.

He and Sewell, from Hermitage High School in Henrico County, were AAU basketball teammates.

"I'm happy he's back," Wilson said. "I've been talking to him ever since that mishap, trying to give him encouraging words."

Sewell sat out last season because of academic problems.

"He loves football so much that's the one thing I did not want to see taken away from him." - Darryl Slater and Paul Woody