Former Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall, said to be raising horses in Montana when last heard from, has taken on a new venture.

Mendenhall will be involved in a podcast called "HeadCoachU" in which he will discuss a variety of football-related issues.

Mendenhall said he plans "to be getting in-depth with so many issues beyond the game [and] to really discuss what’s happening in college football, why we’re playing the game and what it’s really intended to do.”

He told ESPN that "most of (the coaches) who’ve called me are saying, ‘Man, we think you’ve got this right.’”

During the summer, ESPN chronicled what Mendenhall has been doing since stepping down at Virginia, which has included he and his wife, Holly, moving to Montana.

“It’s just been breathtaking so far,” Mendenhall told ESPN. “Most of (the coaches) who’ve called me are saying, ‘Man, we think you’ve got this right.’”

Now, his future outside coaching will include talking about the game he spent more than 30 years coaching.

“We’re launching an amazing podcast, HeadCoachU, and (I’m) looking forward to getting in-depth with so many issues beyond the game,” Mendenhall said during a teaser for the podcast.

RECRUITING

New Duke men's basketball coach Jon Scheyer has won a recruiting battle with Virginia, taking a commitment Wednesday from 6-foot-9 T.J. Power from Worcester, (Mass.), Academy.

Power had whittled his list to five -- Duke, UVa, North Carolina, Iowa and Boston College -- on Aug. 5. Duke has commitments from five of the top 21 prospects in the class of 2023, topped by the fifth-rated player overall, Mackenzie Mgbako from Roselle (N.J.)m Catholic.

COMMENTARY

Former NFL quarterback and commentary Mike Glennon on UVa quarterback Brennan Armstrong:

"My favorite QB to watch is Brennan Amstrong. This guy has an extremely high football IQ. He has the answer before the defense even asks the question. On top of that, he has great touch and plays with great anticipation.

"He can really run the football and is tough as nails. Do not be surprised, come December, if this is the 2022 ACC player of the year. If he wants to do that, he needs to do a better job with ball security and have two hands on the ball in the pocket."

MOVING ON

Lyndsey Hunnell, a graduate of Lord Botetourt High School, is the new women's golf coach at High Point University. Hunnell played on the women's golf team at UVa, where she also worked in the football office.

Hunnell also played one season for the Xavier women's golf team as a postgraduate and was an assistant coach at Campbell College for three years. She also picked up a degree from Xavier in sports administration.

A FIRST FOR RAIDERS

When James Jackson started at outside linebacker for Virginia in its season opener against Richmond, it marked the first time in the memory of Stephen Alexander, the football coach at Norh Cross in Roanoke for the past 13 years, that one of his players had stepped on the field for UVa.

Jackson played at Pulaski County before transferring to North Cross.

DOUGHTY COLLEGE NOTEBOOK FOR AUG. 4

New VMI basketball coach Andrew Wilson, who is scheduled to address the Roanoke Valley Sports Club on Aug. 15 at the Salem Civic Center, is a former captain at Florida State, where he was the first athlete in ACC history to participate in six seasons.

That resulted from injuries in back-to-back redshirt seasons at Florida State, where he was a team captain. He also held the Seminoles' record for games played in a career, 130.

Wilson's coaching career has included a stint as at Georgia Southern, where he spent seven years as an assistant to Mark Byington.

When Byington took the head coaching job at James Madison two years ago, he brought Wilson with him.

Byington, a Salem High School basketball standout and graduate, spoke to the Roanoke Valley Sports Club in 2021.

• The associate head coach under Wilson at VMI is Dave Davis, who was the head coach for 14 years at Pfeiffer and for nine years at Newberry. Another assistant, Austin Kenon, is a former VMI player known for his outside shooting who was on the staff of Wilson's predecessor, Dan Earl.

RECRUITING

· The UVa men's basketball staff has entered the picture with Trey Green, a 6-foot-5 guard from Branson, Mo., who also is looking at Kansas State now that his high school and AAU coach has joined the staff at K.-State. Colt Langdon, a 6-8 forward from Raleigh, N.C., has visited UVa unofficially and received an offer last month from Virginia Tech.

· The latest on Patrick Henry football standout Carmelo Taylor, believed to be making a commitment to South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer this past weekend, is that he now has plans to visit West Virginia, Maryland and Penn State (the second time to see the Nittany Lions).

COMMITMENT

Virginia has received a rare commitment from the Danville area in TyL'ric Coleman, a 6-foot-3, 175-pound athlete from Dan River High School. Coleman, a wide receiver and safety, also had been pursued by Virginia Tech and several of the Virginia's more prominent FCS programs.

LEAVING HOME

Of the top five 2003 football prospects from Virginia, as rated by rivals come, Penn State has three, Tennessee has one and Boston College has one. The No. 6 player on the list is committed to Georgia.

TRANSFER

Ashley Owusu, headed to Virginia Tech after averaging 14.3 points last season for Maryland's women's basketball team, was rated the No. 1 point guard prospect in the country in the country by ESPN coming out of Woodbridge High School.

At an annual affair where coaches and players usually attract most of the attention, the ACC Football Kickoff had a somewhat different spin this year in Charlotte, N.C..

It has not been uncommon in recent years for past commissioner John Swofford to address the media, and his successor, Jim Phillips, could have anticipated a rash of questions during his “commissioner’s forum.”

Among the changes that have taken place are a 3-5-5 football scheduling model that will have teams playing the same three teams every year and the other 10 teams twice during a four-year cycle, eliminating the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions.

Phillips’ forum came in the aftermath of reports that Southern Cal and UCLA would be joining the Big Ten and that the Southeastern Conference had its eyes on ACC teams.

“All neighborhoods need to be healthy,” he said. “It’s not good for college athletics if we’re not. We understand where those two leagues are. No one is ignoring that. We’re all trying to find ways to close the gap. This is unique [with] what’s happened over the last 12 months”

Another issue dealt with Notre Dame, an ACC member in everything but football.

“I know what independence means to Notre Dame,” he said. “So, you respect it and I know that, if there comes a time that Notre Dame would consider moving to a conference and away from independence, I feel really good about being in the ACC.

“As I look at the next few years, I like where we’re going.”

He’s not wild about the NIL (name, image and likeness) that provides revenue to student athletes and, in some cases, considerable income.

“That has rocked our college athletic world,” Phillips said. “We all have kind of vowed to stay within certain boundaries as it relates to rules and regulations. This is done that doesn’t have any right now.”

POLLS — Virginia and Virginia Tech were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, in media projections for the ACC’s Coastal Division. Miami is picked to win the Coastal Division and Clemson to win the Atlantic.

THE FUTURE — Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren has said he is “100 percent supportive” of an expansion of the College Football Playoff.

“The Big Ten was born out of a desire to be bold,” he added.

CONTENTION — Liberty offensive lineman Brendan Schlittler is the only player from a state of Virginia football program who is listed among 289 candidates for the Outland Trophy, which goes to college football’s top offensive lineman.

TRANSFER — Emma Wyatt, a freshman on UVa’s 2022 women’s NCAA championship team, has elected to transfer to the University of Florida in her home state. She was a silver medalist at the 2020 Olympics in the 400 IM.

LOCAL ANGLE — Former Duke University golfer Brandon LaCroix shot a 9-under-par 61 on Sunday to break the course record at Hunting Hills in Roanoke.

CONNECTION — Sydney McLaughlin, world and Olympic record holder in the 400 meter hurdles, married former UVa wide receiver Andre Levrone in May.

PORTAL — Nick Parker, a left-handed pitcher on the Coastal Carolina team that faced Virginia in the 2022 NCAA Baseball Tournament, is transferring to UVa. Parker, from York, Pa., was 6-3 and had a 4.45 ERA last year for the Chanticleers, who were 39-20-1.

RECRUITING — Four-star point guard Trey Green from Branson, Mo., has indicated on Twitter that he has a basketball scholarship offer from UVa men’s coach Tony Bennett. Another prospect who indicates he has an offer from UVa is 6-5 guard Davin Cosby from Benedictine in Richmond. Virginia Tech took its first 2023 commitment from Brandon Rechsteiner out of Woodstock, Georgia. His father is NWA professional wrestler Scott Steiner also known as Big Poppa Pump.

Credit David Hale of ESPN for answering a question that has confounded many of University of Virginia

football fans since last December.

Whatever happened to Bronco Mendenhall?

Although his original plan was to lead a 6-6 UVa team to play in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl on Dec. 26, the

Cavaliers withdrew from postseason play as the result of a coronavirus outbreak.

A 29-24 loss to Virginia Tech in the final regular season game dropped the Cavaliers to 6-6 and

Mendenhall announced on December 2 that he would be resigning after six seasons as UVa's head

coach.

Days later, (December 10) Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott was named head coach.

Hale reports that Mendenhall and his family have moved to Montana, along with the horses he was

raising in Charlottesville.

At 56, Mendenhall hasn’t written off the possibility of coaching again, according to the ESPN piece.

LOCAL ANGLE

Jen Hoover, a standout basketball player at William Byrd High School in Vinton and at Wake Forest,

where she later became the head coach, has joined the coaching staff at Kentucky,

Hoover, who is in the Wake Forest sports hall of fame, scored 1,728 points in her career and ranks

second on the Deacons'; all-time scoring list. As the head coach, she set a school record for wins with 126

victories over 10 seasons.

"We are thrilled to welcome Jen Hoover to the Big Blue Nation as an assistant coach,” Kentucky head

coach Kyra Elzy said.

Hoover had been an assistant at Virginia, California, James Madison, VCU, Memphis, East Carolina and

Missouri-Kansas City.

MLB DRAFT

Virginia Tech outfielder Gavin Cross was taken in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft with

the No. 9 overall pick, tops among ACC players. Shortstop Tanner Schobel was selected at No. 68

making the pair the first Hokie teammates selected in the Top 100 in the same MLB draft. Both were

juniors in the 2022 season.

Four UVa players were taken, led by left-handed pitcher Nate Savino, selected in the third round by

Arizona with the 82nd pick overall.

He was joined by UVa teammates including left-handed pitcher Brandon Neeck in the ninth round,

outfielder Chris Newell in the 13th round and right-handed pitcher Matt Wyatt in the 20th round. Neeck

was the lone senior and the other three were juniors.

RECRUITING

Football

Virginia Tech has taken a football commitment this week from Krystian Williams, a 6-foot-1, 170-pound

wide receiver from Collegiate in Richmond who is rated the No. 28 prospect in Virginia by 247 Sports.

The Hokies rank 36th on a list of college football commitments for 2022 according to 247Sports, with 16

commitments to date, all of them three-stars. UVa has 11 commitments, all of them three-stars.

Baseball

Virginia has taken an oral commitment for 2024 from William Kirk, a heralded left-handed pitcher from

Ramsey High School in Saddle River N.J. Will Gerdes, who transferred to UVa after two seasons at

Columbia, has signed with San Diego as a free agent. He was 2-0 with a 8.32 ERA this past season.

ACC programs have had seven of the top 25 baseball recruiting classes, according to Baseball America.

Miami was tops among the ACC programs at No. 3. Virginia was rated 15th by Perfect Game and Virginia

Tech was 28th.

Terry Kirby was one of the premier football prospects to sign with Virginia during the George Welsh coaching era and now the Cavaliers have landed a commitment from his son, Tekai Kirby, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound tight end from St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Not surprisingly, UVa staff members who recruited the younger Kirby included Chris Slade, a prime UVa recruit who was a teammate of Terry Kirby’s at Tabb High School near Yorktown and at Virginia when the Cavaliers were No. 1 in the country in 1990.

Quarterback Shawn Moore from Martinsville was a Heisman Trophy finalist on that 1990 team and, like Kirby, had a son, Mike, who was a defensive lineman for the Cavaliers. Shawn Moore currently is an associate athletic director at UVa.

The Cavaliers received two more commitments over the past weekend, running back Noah Vaughn from Maryville, Tenn., and defensive end KeAndre Walker from Denver, N.C.

Earlier in the week, they had landed 6-foot-4, 270-pound defensive tackle Rodney Lora from Woodberry Forest, a prep school outside Charlottesville where former UVa lineman Jackson Matteo is the head coach. Lora had offers from seven ACC programs, including Virginia Tech.

• DJ Toliver, a 6-foot-5, 270-pound offensive lineman from Lord Botetourt, has offers from UVa, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Liberty for the Class of 2024. Toliver’s father, Elton, played at UVa.

MORE RECRUITING

Virginia and Virginia Tech are both in contention for Caleb Woodson, a 6-3, 200-pound safety from Battlefield High School in Northern Virginia. Wake Forest and Florida State are also under consideration for Woodson.

Arch Manning, a top quarterback prospect who has family ties to Virginia and had a stopover at UVa during the spring, has made an oral commitment to Texas as many had expected. Jay Woolfolk is the obvious successor to back-up Brennan Armstrong, who is in his fifth year at UVa.

The highest-ranked player among in-state quarterback prospects is Khristian Martin of Highland Springs High School. Martin is rated the No. 24 prospect in the state by rivals.com.

• Of the nation’s top 100 baseball recruits on Baseball Factory’s site, Virginia and Virginia Tech had a combined one player, right-handed pitcher Bradley Hodges from Fleming Island, Fla., who was 68th on the list and a Virginia commit.

STAFFING

Torian Gray, a highly regarded defensive back at Virginia Tech during his playing days, is prepping for his second season at South Carolina with Frank Beamer’s son, Shane. Gray also has been an assistant coach at Tech, Florida, Maine and Connecticut, as well as two stints with the Washington Redskins.

SCHEDULING MODEL

Virginia and Virginia Tech will continue to play annually as part of the 3-5-5 scheduling model that has been agreed upon by the ACC. UVa will also face Louisville and North Carolina annually, while the Hokies are slated to meet Pittsburgh and Wake Forest. (Under a 3-5-5 schedule, each team has three permanent opponents, then plays five other ACC teams that year and the other five the following year).

The ACC is eliminating Atlantic and Coastal Divisions and will require every football program to play every conference opponent at least once at home over a four-year period. Every ACC team will play a conference opponent at least once on the road over a four-year program.

TRANSFER PORTAL

In its ranking of the Division I men’s basketball programs with the most success in using the transfer portal, CBS has Miami, Illinois, Providence, Butler and Creighton at the top of its list. Of the six “losers” on the list, none were from the ACC.

In women’s basketball, Virginia will be without seven players who left the program and headed to the Transfer Portal. Virginia Tech had six players head into the Transfer Portal.

The mere thought of golfer Callum Tarren ranking among the first-day leaders at the men’s U.S. Open has to rank among the memorable accomplishments by a Radford University athlete.

What’s more impressive is, he didn’t fade. After registering a 3-under par 67 in the first round at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., Tarren finished with a 69 and a tie for 38th.

He finished ahead of such PGA Tour notables as Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.

Mike Grant, named men’s golf coach of the year in the Big South Conference this year in his 18th season, had the pleasure of overseeing Tarren’s development.

Tarren, 32, is from Great Britain, not exactly a Highlander haven.

“It’s kind of a funny story,” said Grant, who is from Radford. “Our soccer coach at the time was recruiting a kid from Darlington [in England] and, somehow, Callum’s name ended up in my office and it was like, ‘Hey, this is a kid who’s been overlooked.’

“We took a chance on him and he was a super kid to have in the program.”

Tarren has played on a variety of tours in the U.S. and elsewhere, hopefully making good use of a Radford marketing major.

“It seems he’s gotten better every year,” Grant said. “Callum has exceptional length. He’s one of the longest players I ever saw in college. Until this day, I’ve never seen anybody who could hit the ball as far as he does.

“That’s a huge bonus for him on the tour and I think he’s learned how to control that length and use it more to his advantage.”

“He’s got enough experience now where you might see his name on any given week. He missed the cut a week before [the U.S. Open] so beware of the guy who missed the cut the week before a major.”

There’s no question that Callum ranks among the PGA Tour’s powerful hitters.

“I just found out that he leads the tour in coming out of the rough,” Grant said. “Callum is really, really strong and was really athletic. Another thing is, he has one of the fastest clubhead speeds on the tour.”

More golf

Grant played at VCU, where he was a 1991 graduate, before returning to Radford, where he had grown up. This was his 19th year with the men and he has coached the Highlander women for the past two seasons.

Grant played professionally for a while. He was an outstanding player in high school in the New River Valley.

Lanto Griffin, who moved from California to Blacksburg at an early age, played collegiately at Virginia Commonwealth. He shot 72-75 and missed the cut at the recent U.S. Open but has earned $1.71 million to this point. Griffin is looking for his first win of the season.

UVa’s top representative on the tour is Denny McCarthy, who is 40th on the money list, with earnings of $2.38 million for the year. He tied for seventh at the U.S. Open and a fifth in the Memorial Tournament in June was his best finish for the year. His sister, Michaela, plays lacrosse for Virginia Tech.

Commitment

Virginia has taken a football commitment for 2023 from Amare Thomas, a 5-foot-10, 180-pound wide receiver from Pinson Valley (Ala.) High School.

Thomas is the fifth player to commit to UVa, whose class ranks 70th in the country at this point. The most recent commitment to Virginia Tech, which is ranked 43rd by the same service, is Layth Ghannam, a 6-foot-5, 280-pound offensive lineman from George Washington High School in Charleston, W.Va.

Basketball

Already committed to North Carolina and second-year coach Hubert Davis is 6 foot-9 G.G. Jackson from Columbia, S.C., who is rated the No. 1 prospect in the 2023 class.

Duke has two of the top 10-rated players in the class, 6-8 Mackenzie Mgbako from Gladstone, N.J., and 6-8 Sean Stewart from Orlando, Fla.

A riser among the state’s top boys’ basketball prospects is Jaime Kaiser, a 6-foot-6 small forward from Bishop Ireton in Alexandria.

Kaiser has offers to date from Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Wisconsin and Boston College. He’s been called the fastest rising prospect in America prior to a visit to Virginia this past Wednesday.

* * *

John Rudzinski, new to the Virginia men’s football staff, is rated the No. 16 defensive coordinator in the country by the Big Game Boomer Twitter account. First among ACC defensive coordinators is N.C. State’s Tony Gibson at No. 5.

Notre Dame’s new defensive coordinator is Al Golden at No. 42. Golden is a past Temple and University of Miami head coach who had been the defensive coordinator under Al Groh at Virginia.

* * *

Todd Grantham, a former assistant coach at Virginia Tech and more recently the defensive coordinator at Florida before head coach Dan Millen was relieved after the 2021 season, has caught on with Alabama as an offensive analyst.

* * *

Transfer portal:

Andrew Canelas, an offensive lineman who originally signed with Lehigh, announced that he is transferring to Virginia. Canelas, a three-star prospect out of Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, N.C, did not play at Lehigh.

Virginia Tech’s current football recruiting class is ranked 32nd by rivals.com and Virginia’s is 69th. AtoZsports.com out of Nashville, Tenn., contends that UVa is still in the picture for the nation’s No. 1 quarterback prospect, Arch Manning, whose mother and sister have gone to UVa.

* * *

Basketball

One of two transfers to Duke, Max Johns, is a graduate of Woodberry Forest in Orange, his home before he spent four years at Princeton, where he played in 72 games.

A more notable transfer for the Blue Devils is Jacob Grandison, who began his college career at Holy Cross before transferring to Illinois, where he averaged 13.9 points as a sophomore

Two other grad transfers on the Duke roster are Kale Catchings from Harvard and Ryan Young from Northwestern. … Michael Savarino, the grandson of retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, has transferred to New York University after spending three years as a non-scholarship player for Duke.

* * *

Ratings

CBS Sports has rated Nijel Pack, headed to Miami from Kansas State, as the No. 2 prospect in the country among transfers. Rated first is Kendric Davis, headed to Memphis from SMU.

* * *

Football

Jacob Finn, a respectable punter on Virginia’s 2021 football team after transferring from Florida, has been replaced by Daniel Sparks, a transfer from Minnesota.

Sparks, a 6-foot-5, 200-pounder from Alabama, started his college career at Louisiana Monroe before he transferred to Minnesota, where he did not see playing time last season. He averaged 44.5 yards per punt at Louisiana-Monroe.

* * *

Honors

The newest Radford University Hall of Fame class includes Salem High School graduate Mike Ashley, who went on to work in the Highlanders’ sports information office. He wrote for Radford’s student newspaper, the Tartan., and also worked toward formation of the Highlanders’ first baseball team

An early read on the 2023 college football recruiting classes shows Virginia Tech and new head coach Brent Pry at No. 28 and Virginia, with Tony Elliott at the helm, at No. 76.

The Hokies are listed with eight three-star recruits, four from the state of Virginia, including wide receiver-defensive back Marcell Taylor from Radford and and offensive lineman Hannes Hamner from North Cross in Roanoke. (For more on Hamner, who is from Germany, see this previous column.)

Duke and Connecticut were two of the teams pursuing Cole Surber, a 6-foot-6, 275-pound offensive lineman from Nokesville in the Patriot League. Surber is rated the No. 24 in-state prospect for 2023.

Earlier this week, the Cavaliers took a commitments fron Donte Hawthorne, a running back from Massaponax High School who is transferring to Colonial Forge in Stafford for his senior year.

The Cavaliers earlier had landed Delaney Crawford, a quarterback from California, where he was a state champion in the 300 hurdles.

Transfers

Malachi Poindexter, a walk-on for the Virginia men’s basketball team over the past two seasons, has transferred to Illinois State. He played in 19 games for UVa over the past two seasons.

Brian Edgington, a right-handed pitcher for Elon, says he will be transferring to UVa for his final season of eligibility. Edgington, from Hatboro, Pa., was 6-4 this past season and had a team-leading 86 strikeouts in 82 innings.

More players could become available with word that Clemson has fired baseball coach Monte Lee after seven seasons. Lee had a 242-136 record. It followed two seasons in which the Tigers did not make the NCAA Tournament.

On the way back

A dropoff for Virginia after back-to-back national championships in men’s lacrosse isn’t likely to last very long. The Lacrosse Playground lists Virginia with the No. 1 recruiting class in the country, with three of the top 10 players overall. National champion Maryland had the No. 7 class.

Around the ACC

Wake Forest junior Jake LaRavia has decided to stick with his plans to enter the NBA Draft after averaging 14.6 points and 6.6 rebounds this past season. He is projected as a late first-round pick or second-rounder.

Other likely underclassmen from the ACC would be Duke’s Paolo Banchero, Mark Williams and A.J. Griffin, as well as Notre Dame’s Blake Wesley. Auburn’s 7-foot-1 Walker Kessler, appears to be bound for the pros after beginning his career at North Carolina.

Word Wednesday was that Justyn Mutts will be returning to Virginia Tech for another year, same as N.C. State’s Dereon Seabron.

Coaching change

Tiffany Pins is the new women’s soccer coach at Washington and Lee, where predecessor, Neil Cunningham, stepped down to become the athletic director at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Del. Pins previously was the women’s coach at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

New AD

Blake James is the new athletic director at Boston College after a previous stint at Miami.

“To be certain, it will be terrific to have him back around our ACC table,” ACC commisioner Jim Phillips was quoted.

While the Silver Wave media website may not be well-known among college basketball fans, former Salem High School and University of Virginia standout Richard Morgan might want to consider a subscription.

Silver Wave has come out with a list of the 100 most impactful head coaches in men’s NAIA basketball, including Morgan, who has been the head coach since 2009 at Bluefield University.

Requirements for the most impactful NAIA list include at least five seasons as an NAIA head coach who has had an average of at least 11 wins per season.

The list includes the likes of Montana Tech, Hope International, Dordt, Talladega and the Drovers of Multnomah in Oregon.

Bluefield, who sits on the Virginia side of the line, was 16-13 this past season under Morgan, also an assistant athletic director.

Morgan has an older brother, Charlie, who won more than 350 games before retiring as the coach at Dobbyns-Bennett High School in Kingsport, Tenn. At an earlier point in his career, he led Salem High School to a pair of state championships.

Richard Morgan said it was likely that one of his assistants was responsible for the placement on the Silver Wave site.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Morgan said. “I just do my job. I don’t worry about stuff like that. Now, everybody’s going crazy because I got it. I’m on my way right now to go get a [recruit].”

“The people at my school did an article. They didn’t show you where the info came from. I’ve trained them up from boys to men. I’m hard on my guys but I’m fair.

“I think I teach them more than just basketball. I don’t lie to them. I don’t sugar-coat stuff. Some of them can take it; some of them can’t. I tell them, ‘You have a false sense of security because of what people told you before you got here.’ “

Morgan played at Virginia from 1986-89 and was a captain as a senior. He played in 124 games, including 91 starts, and finished with 1,540 points, good for 15th place in school history.

TRANSFER PORTAL

Miami has landed Norchad Omier, a 6-7, 232-pound forward from Nicaragua who averaged 17.9 points and 12.2 rebounds per game last year for Arkansas State, for whom he shot 63.2 percent from the field. Omier will join Nijel Pack who is joining the Hurricanes after scoring 12.7 points per game at Kansas State.

Virginia has taken a commitment from defensive tackle Devontae Davius, a graduate transfer from South Carolina. … Pittsburgh has a commitment from Kedon Slovis, a transfer from Southern Cal who will help fill the void left by the selection of the Panthers’ Kenny Pickett in the NFL Draft.

When Pickett was selected with the 20th overall pick, it marked the latest in the first round that a quarterback had been picked since Virginia Tech’s Jim Druckenmiller went 26th to San Francisco in 1997.

FAMILY TIES

• Sprinter Carmelo Taylor from Patrick Henry in Roanoke reports that he has a scholarship offer to play football at Virginia Tech. Taylor, the nephew of former Patrick Henry quarterback and NFL linebacker Shannon Taylor, also has been offered by Liberty.

• D.J. Toliver, a 6-foot-5, 265-pound offensive lineman from Lord Botetourt in Daleville. is rated the No. 11 prospect in Virginia by rivals.com for the 2024 incoming class. Both his father and his uncle played for UVa. … Elijah Rainer and Zahir Rainer of Trinity Episcopal in Richmond also have family ties to UVa.

BASEBALL

Virginia Tech outfielder Gavin Cross is rated the No. 5 Major League baseball prospect among collegians by D1 Baseball. Hokies’ catcher Cade Hunter is 44th on that list, ending the second round. UVa left-handed pitcher Nate Savino is 48th.

Virginia teams didn’t fare well in computer rankings

If it seems that 2021-2022 was not a great year for men’s basketball in Virginia, consider the final rankings calculated by computer analyst Jeff Sagarin for USA Today.

Virginia Tech, which won the ACC championship but lost to Texas 81-73 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, was ranked No. 25 on Sagarin’s list.

There was not another Virginia team in Sagarin’s top 50, with Virginia Commonwealth closest to the Hokies at No. 59. Virginia was 61st and Richmond was 75th.

Fifth on Sagarin’s list among the Commonwealth teams was Longwood at No. 167. After winning the Big South championship, Longwood was an 88-56 loser in a first-round NCAA Tournament game with Tennessee.

VMI and Old Dominion, at No. 180 and 181, at least finished in the top 200. James Madison had the distinction of knocking off visiting UVa in the season opener, but finished 214th in the Sagarin rankings, 11 spots behind Norfolk State. Hampton and William and Mary were in the 300s.

* * *

The portal

After taking a commitment from Nijel Pack, a first-team All-Big 12 transfer from Kansas State, Miami coach Jim Larranaga picked up Nicaragua-bred Norchad Omier, a 6-7 transfer from Arkansas State, where he was the Sun Belt Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year averaging 17.9 points and 12.2 rebounds.

* * *

Roanoke College’s Blair named ODAC offensive player of the year

Lilly Blair, a junior attackman on the Roanoke College women’s lacrosse team, finished the season with 90 points (71 goals, 19 assists) and was named Old Dominion Athletic Conference offensive player of the year, as well as ODAC scholar-athlete of the year.

Blair is a 4.0 student with a triple major including mathematics, economics and actuarial science.

Roanoke’s women were 8-0 in the ODAC and 18-2 overall. The Maroons lost to fourth-seeded

Gettysburg in the second second round of the Division III NCAA Tournament.

Emory & Henry’s Taylor named finalist for the NFCA Division II National Freshman of the Year

Emory & Henry College freshman shortstop Lydia Taylor has been selected as one of eight finalists for the NFCA Division II National Freshman of the Year, NFCA officials announced Wednesday. The NFCA is the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.

The award honors the outstanding athletic achievement among freshman softball student-athletes throughout NCAA Division II.

Taylor, who is from Salem, was named a NFCA Division II All-Southeast Region Second-Teamer last week. Additionally, Taylor earned All-Southeast Region Second-Team accolades from the Division II Conference Commissioners Association.

Taylor started all 42 games in which she played, batting a team-leading .417 while also leading the squad with 53 hits and 13 doubles. Her 15 home runs, 113 total bases, 54 RBI and .890 slugging percentage not only led the Wasps but also set new Emory & Henry single-season records.

She hit safely in 37 games, starting the year with a 12-game streak and added a 13-game span between March 19 and April 7. Taylor posted 15 multi-hit contests and drove in multiple runs on 15 different occasions over the course of the season.

The NFCA Division II National Freshman of the Year will be announced on May 26

* * *

Streaks

An ACC women’s rowing championship was the Cavaliers’ 12th in a row, all with Kevin Sauer as head coach. It was UVa’s 21st title in 22 chances.

An earlier championship for the Cavaliers had occurred in women’s swimming and diving, where the women won their second straight NCAA title under coach Todd DeSorbo.

* * *

Prediction

Jeff Borzello of ESPN has a preseason men’s basketball poll that includes NCAA champion North Carolina at No. 1, Houston at No.2, Kentucky at No. 3, UCLA at No.4 and Creighton at No. 5. Other ACC teams in his top 25 are Duke at No. 7, Virginia at No. 21, and Miami at No. 22.

An ESPN list shows that 56 Division I men’s basketball programs have changed head coaches since the end of the 2021-22 season, topped by the unforeseen retirement of Villanova’s Jay Wright.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski had let it be known that the 2021-22 season would be his last and that he would be succeeded by John Scheyer off his own staff. Wright’s successor is former Wildcats assistant Kyle Neptune, recently the head coach at Fordham and a former player at Lehigh.

Louisville named former Cardinals player Kenny Payne to replace Chris Mack, who was dismissed in January after four seasons at the helm. The Cardinals finished the season with former assistant Mike Pegues as interim coach.

Pegues subsequently joined the staff at Butler, where Thad Matta has returned to coaching after a medical condition sidelined him for five years.

Matta, previously the head coach at Ohio State, also was the head coach at Xavier after an earlier stint as the head coach at Butler.

Payne, an assistant with the New York Knicks over the previous two seasons, earlier had served as an assistant at Kentucky, where he was the associate head coach, and Oregon.

Transfer portal

The latest player to join UVa’s football program off the transfer portal is Cody Brown, a four-star running back from Miami, where he played in 10 games last year as a freshman. He replaces Wayne Taulapapa, who transferred to Washington

Brown, who previously had committed to Tennessee, played in 10 games for Miami last year and had 34 carries for 139 yards and three touchdowns. Returning quarterback Brennan Armstrong had a team-high 98 carries for UVa last season, with Mike Hollins second among the returnees with 49.

In Basketball

After 11 seasons as head women’s basketball coach at Wake Forest, Roanoke-bred coach Jenn Hoover lost her job Wednesday.

Hoover, was a standout at William Byrd in Vinton before heading to Wake, where she was a three-time All-ACC player, as well as the leading career scorer and rebounder.

She leaves the program with a 142-170 coaching record after putting up back-to-back 20-win seasons at High Point.

• Kerwin Walton, who hit a team-high 58 3-pointers for North Carolina this past season, is transferring to Creighton. Walton, who is from Hopkins, Minn., played in 31 of 39 games, with one start.

• Additions to the Virginia women’s basketball staff include Mariah White, who played for new UVa women’s coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton at Missouri State. White began her career at Cleveland State.

Tech Additions

New to the Virginia Tech basketball teams are 6-9 Grant Basile from Wright State, where he averaged 18.4 points and 8.5 rebounds for the men this past season, and 6-foot guard Ashley Owusu, a Woodbridge product who was a three-year starter for Maryland’s women and a 1,000-point scorer.

ACC baseball

Virginia Tech is fourth and Virginia is 11th in the Baseball America poll going into the final week of the regular season. Six ACC teams are in the top 13, including Miami at No. 6, Louisville at No. 7, Notre Dame at No. 8 and Florida State at No. 13.

The regular season ends May 21 with Virginia at Louisville and Duke at Virginia Tech.

The ACC Tournament is scheduled for May 24-29 at Truist Field in Charlotte, N.C. It will have a 12-team pool play format.

Rising swiftly

Andrew Abbott, a former Virginia pitcher from Halifax County struck out 40 batters in 27 innings over five games for the Cincinnati Reds’ High-A Dayton affiliate. He was promoted to AA Chattanooga on Tuesday. Abbott, a second-round draft pick in 2021, is 3-0 with an 0.67 ERA.

The Roanoke College men’s lacrosse team was awaiting an Old Dominion Athletic Conference playoff game with Shenandoah on Tuesday at 7 p.m. when word circulated that the Shenandoah bus had broken down on Interstate 81 near Harrisonburg.

It would take more than an hour before a new bus arrived from the Manassas area. According to Shenandoah sports information director Scott Musa, team parents, who had travelled on their own, were able to make overnight accommodations in the Roanoke Valley.

“They probably had a traveling party of 40 to 50 kids and coaches that have spent money to get there and they’re ready to play, even though they’re late,” Roanoke athletic director Scott Allison said. “You do everything you can to try to get the game in until it appears you’re in unsafe territory.”

The opening faceoff was moved back to 9 p.m. and the game had been in play for several minutes until lightning flashes could be seen in the distance and players from both sides were directed to leave the field and take cover.

The game subsequently was moved to noon Wednesday and the Maroons, who were leading 4-1 at the time the of the suspension, went on to win 20-8 heading into a date with Lynchburg in a Friday night ODAC semifinal in Lexington.

“We tried to pick a drop-dead time [Tuesday] where we thought we could get back out on the field and still finish the game without playing till 4 o’clock in the morning,” Allison said. We set it at 11:30 and it became clear, with the continuing lightning strikes, that we couldn’t do it.

“Poor kids. Earlier in the year, a [Shenandoah] bus on the way to Lynchburg caught on fire. Your premise is always to get [a game] in but you have to be reasonable. We had turned off all the music at 10 o’clock and if we had played past 11 o’clock, we would have shut off all the announcements.

“In my career, I don’t ever remember playing beyond midnight, but [now] we’ve had teams that had to play after midnight to get games in.”

* * *

New faces in Charlottesville

The transformation of Virginia women’s basketball isn’t limited to new coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, previously of Missouri State.

Augugua-Hamilton, who goes by Coach “Mox,” almost immediately landed 2018 Virginia Player of the Year Samantha Brunelle, who played at nearby William Monroe High School in Greene County.

Brunelle, who, began her college career at Notre Dame, has two years of remaining eligibility.

Augugua-Hamilton subsequently added Cady Pauley, who averaged 33 points and 9.6 assists as a senior at Milan (Mo.) High School, where she finished her career with more than 3,000 points.

Pauley, who previously was committee to Missouri during the Augugua regime, also was the state champion in the girls’ shotput and two-time runner-up in the discus.

The UVa women added a second transfer Tuesday, Alexia Smith from Minnesota, a five-star recruit coming out of high school in Columbus, Ohio, who played in 33 games last year, only one as a starter.

Most of Augugua’s staff was on her staff at Missouri State, including Alysiah Boyd, who was a TV sports anchor during one stretch and worked as an assistant at a variety of schools, including a stint under Tennessee’s celebrated coach, the late Pat Summit.

Another coach Mox assistant, Tori, Jankoska, is the all-time leading scorer at Michigan State.

* * *

Homecoming

Kim Record, a UVa graduate who subsequently spent 11 years as a UVa administrator, has returned to Virginia with a title of deputy director for external operations.

Reacord, who grew up in Fluvanna County, graduated from UVa in 1984 and served under UVa athletic directors Dick Schultz, Jim Copeland and Terry Holland., rising to the position of athletic director for administration.

Record spent 13 years on the staff at Florida State and was the director of athletics at UNC Greensboro, where she had responsibility for 17 programs.

“It’s not often that you have the chance to come full circle professionally,” Record said. “I knew that returning to Charlottesville was an opportunity to give back to the university that gave so much to me.”

* * *

Transfers

Jon Bonham, who started 29 games and averaged 13.6 points for VMI men’s basketball this past season, is transferring to Florida. Bonham had a team-high 115 assists for the Keydets, as well as 38 steals, and he was 100 of 121 at the free-throw line.

After transferring from Marquette, Dawson Garcia is out at North Carolina after playing in 16 games as a sophomore, including 12 starts. He was a McDonald’s All-American coming out of high school.

Justin McKoy, who transferred to North Carolina after one season at UVa, played in 30 games this past season but averaged just under seven minutes and one point per game.

Roots of the current Roanoke College men’s lacrosse team go back to 1989 and not just because Bill Pilat was making his debut as head coach.

One of his first recruits was James Kammerman out of Norwalk (Connecticut) High School.

More than 30 years later, Pilat is still enjoying the rewards.

The leading scorer on this year’s team is Kammerman’s son, Luke, a Roanoke sophomore who has a team-high 100 points on 46 goals and 54 assists heading into the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championships.

Third-seeded Roanoke is slated to play Tuesday against the winner of an earlier meeting between the Nos. 6 and 7 seeds.

One way or another, the future is bright for the Maroons, who will be adding another Kammerman son, Julian, who is scheduled to enroll at Roanoke in the fall.

Speed is an attribute for both Kammerman brothers, each of whom took a postgraduate year before heading to their dad’s alma mater.

“He wanted them to come, which made me feel really proud because he wanted them to have the same experience here that he had,” Pilat said. That’s the first time that I’d had the son of a player I’d coached.”

Luke Kammerman hit the ground running when he was a freshman for the Maroons in 2020-21, when he started each of Roanoke’s nine games during a season that was virtually cut in half by the coronavirus. He finished with 40 points, broken down into 15 goals and 25 assists.

“I had been down there around 2008 or 2010 for an alumni weekend,” said Luke Kammerman, whose family resides in Trumbull, Connecticut, “and ever since then, I’ve wanted to try and come down here. I think I saw a game with Randolph-Macon and said, ‘This is really cool.’

“As I progressed through my high school career, I got some pretty good looks, [including] some Division I looks but I knew in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t have an impact as quickly as I could here.”

It’s been more than that.

“I had set my goals for myself coming in here that were pretty high,” he said. “I told my coaches and they definitely pushed me to achieve them. I’ve achieved some of them already and I’m looking to achieve more.”

Roanoke has to be delighted about the prospects of two Kammerman brothers being on the field together, although that wasn’t always the plan.

“He had looks from other schools,” Luke said of his younger brother, “but with me going here and our dad having played here, it was sort of a no-brainer. I knew Coach Pilat before I even came here.”

The Kammerman brothers’ father was known for his quickness. Luke Kammerman is known for his left-handed howitzer.

“Not too many people say, ‘Leave it your left hand as much as you can,'” he said, “The reason I think I’m more successful with my left hand, rather than using both, is because I’ve found ways to set up my left hand without making it look as if I’m using my left hand.”

Listen to him for any length and it’s easy to see he’s a technician.

In high school, he was contacted by Division I schools such as Vermont and Bryant in the Connecticut area where he lived but he made a conscious decision to go the D-III route. One of Roanoke’s rivals, Christopher Newport, was among the first programs to pursue him.

“I don’t think it was a lack of confidence,” he said of possible Division I overtures. “It was just the quantity of kids at the D-I level. Although I thought I was good enough to play, I wanted to be good enough to have a great impact.”

Given his numbers to this point, almost anything is possible.

“As for predictions for the future, we have a pretty young team now,” he said. “We’re junior and sophomore heavy and that’s actually pretty good for the future because we’re going to be junior and senior heavy next year, which is what veteran teams are all about.

“It was our goal to finish in the top 25 before the season. I don’t think we’re going to do that but we’re definitely making a name for ourselves.”

Just because he came to North Cross School in Roanoke County from Germany, college football programs haven’t shied away from Hannes Hammer.

Hammer has been recruited by a host of in-state programs, most notably Virginia Tech after visiting Blacksburg last weekend, where he was extended a full scholarship offer.

Hammer, listed at 6-foot-6 1/2 and 272 pounds, said he has developed a bond with Joe Rudolph, listed as the Hokies’ run-game coordinator and offensive line coach.

Other offers have come from Elon, Eastern Michigan, Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Pennsylvania, William and Mary and Richmond. Tech would be the highest level at this point, he agrees.

“I would like to [commit] early so I would have some more security,” he said Wednesday. “I’m obviously not a big, big-time recruit so the wait would be gone.

“We’ll see what the next week holds and maybe that will help me decide.”

Although he has been in the U.S. for less than a year, his acclimation to football has been steady.

He played American-style football in Germany but he was a quarterback, tight end and defensive back.

“This was his first year on the line and he really worked hard to absorb all these is about the position,” North Cross coach Stephen Alexander said Wednesday. “We’ve had some momentum with international kids over the last couple years. We had a German student come to us two years ago and had a really good experience and things have really snowballed since then.”

* * *

The future

A younger North Cross player who has raised eyebrows is Kwalei Carter, a wide receiver and defensive back for a 10-2 Raiders team last year.

Carter has a bond with North Cross defensive coordinator Shannon Taylor, who played with Carter’s father in high school at Patrick Henry.

“I’ve coached [Kwalei Carter] through rec league and before he got to North Cross when he was real young,” said Taylor, noting that Carter played on the Patrick Henry Middle School team in 2020. “He had a great season last year for North Cross and helped us get to the state championship [final].”

Carter was described as the state’s premier cornerback at one point, but that was for freshman.

“I’ve told him to stay away from that kind of stuff,” said Taylor, a quarterback at Patrick Henry before going to Virginia, where he played on defense before a six-year NFL stint as an outside linebacker.

“Some things have to happen where he has to grow up physically. He’s getting good feedback but I feel this is all kind of premature for him right now.”

With the revelation earlier this week that he would be returning for the 2022-2023 men's basketball season, Virginia point guard Kihei Clark practically assured that his name will be all over the Cavaliers' record book.

Clark has played in 128 games which puts him behind Mike Tobey and London Perrantes, both of whom played in 138 games during their UVa careers.

Just behind them was Malcolm Brogdon at 137. Joe Harris had the most career starts, 128, followed by Perrantes with 124.

Clark was one of three UVa players to start all 35 games this year, along with Jayden Gardner and Reece Beekman. Armaan Franklin started 34 games.

Clark had 153 assists this season, which trailed Reece Beekman's team high of 181 assists. They will share ball-handling and distributing responsibilities again this coming season.

CONTINUITY

John Freeman, the guest speaker at the Roanoke Valley Sports Club this past Monday, is wrapping up his first season as the radio voice for UVa football and men's basketball.

His predecessors as voice of the Wahoos have included Dave Koehn, who left during the football season to do commentary for the Milwaukee Bucks, as well as Mac McDonald Warren Swaim, and the late Chris Cramer.

Cramer was sports editor of the Daily Progress at the same time as he was handling radio responsibilities.

Freeman, a UVa graduate from nearby Western Albemarle High School whom is the son of two UVa graduates, was a good fit on a night Monday when winter athletes were heralded at the Salem Civic Center.

Former Virginia Tech basketball coach and ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg is involved in discussions about speaking to the sports club in the fall.

TRANSFER PORTAL

There's no question that Virginia is interested in Ben Vander Plas, a 6-foot-8, 232 pound redshirt senior from Ohio University, who could have an extra season of college ball as a result of the coronavirus.

Vander Plas, from Ripon, Wis., got his first name from Dick Bennett, the father of UVa head coach Tony Bennett. Dick Bennett coached Vander Plas' father at Wisconsin-Green Bay.

UVa has lost Malachi Poindexter, a walk-on from nearby Louisa County who played in 19 games this past seasonfor a total of 121 minutes. Poindexter, who is headed to Illinois State, saw more minutes than a scholarship UVa player, Carson McCorkle, who played 78 minutes and is headed to Wofford.

The Cavaliers, who finished sixth in Division I in scoring defense, were 342nd in 3-point field goals and have been mentioned with Sean McNeil, who was second on West Virginia's team in scoring, with 12.2 points per game, and had 57 made 3-pointers.

McNeil, a rising senior from Union, Ky., also has been mentioned in connection with Indiana and Louisville.

STOCKING THE CUPBOARD

§ Retiring Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is leaving successor John Scheyer with the Nos. 1, 2, 5 and 20 in the 2002-2003 entering class. That will be followed by three of the top 21 in the 2023-24 class.

§ Rivals.com is showing football prospects from Virginia (mostly northern Virginia) who are rated the Nos. 1, 6, 9 and 16 in the state for 2002-2003. Heading the list is Alex Birchmeier, a 6-5, 275-pound offensive lineman from Broad Run in Ashburn.

Birchmeier has committed to Penn State and the No. 2 prospect on the list, outside linebacker Tony Rojas fom Fairfax, is reportedly visiting Penn State this weekend.

NEW COACH

Amaka "Mox" Agugua-Hamilton, now heading up the Virginia women's basketball program, will be joined by Cady Pauley, who averaged 33.8 points last year at Milan (Missouri) High School.

Pauley, who previously had committed to play for Augugua-Hamilton at Missouri State, scored 3,074 points in high school. She joins Samantha Brunelle, a McDonald's All-America when she was at William Monroe high school just up the road from Charlottesville who will join the Cavaliers after transferring from Notre Dame.

After spending time as an assistant football coach at various college programs, most notably Virginia Tech in this part of the country, Brian Stinespring has accepted a different position.

Stinespring confirmed Thursday that he will serve as athletic director for both Alleghany High School and Covington High School starting in 2023.

"There will be one high school where there were once three," he said.

Stinespring, who was born in Clifton Forge, played football at James Madison University and coached at Virginia Tech from 1990-2015. He later served as an assistant at JMU, Maryland, Old Dominion and Delaware.

"At the end of the day, it was the right thing at the right time," Stinespring, 58, said of his latest move.

'After Delaware, I wasn't taking a job just to stay in the coaching business. And I had offers but I just wasn't going to do it."

He had conversations with multiple ACC programs.

"The ones I wanted, I came in second." he said. "There wasn't a bad job out there, but I was tired of the bouncing. I appreciated this downtime. This will be the first time since I was 14 years old that I won't have my feet in a field somewhere come August 1."

A return to the college ranks wouldn't be totally out of the question, "but I was bound and determined that it would have to be the right deal," he said, "and there wasn't the right deal."

Out of the Past

The name, Ben Vander Plas, may not jump out at many people, but now that he's entered the draft portal, followers of UVa men's basketball might be interested in his connection.

Vander Plas was a member of the Ohio University team that defeated UVa, the defending national champion, in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Van Der Plas, currently listed at 6-8 and 232 pounds, had a game-high 17 points against the Cavaliers.

Vander Plas is from Ripon, Wis., and his father, Dean, played at Green Bay, also the college home of UVa head coach Tony Bennett.

"That family has meant a lot to my family over the years," Vander Plas was quoted by NCAA.com in 2021. "When we got matched up, I was really excited to play against him.

"I got to talk to him for a little but after the game. He asked where my dad was sitting. That was a pretty cool moment with coach Bennett."

Transfer Portal

In its ranking of the nation's top transfer prospects, Sports Illustrated has Manny Bates of North Carolina State at No. 9 and Nahiem Alleyne of Virginia Tech at No. 16.

• Virginia is among the schools under consideration for the No. 24 player, Sean McNeil of West Virginia…. The No. 1 player on the list, Nijel Pack from Kansas State, already has visited Miami.

• Carson McCorkle, who played sparingly in two years at Virginia, is transferring to Wofford after also considering William and Mary.

When former Roanoke sportswriter Blair Kerkhoff learned of a leukemia diagnosis in December, who would have thought that he would be covering the NCAA championship game?

Kerkhoff had been covering the Jayhawks since he ended his Roanoke Times tenure in 1989. Roy Williams, who has retired as North Carolina's head coach, was the Jayhawks' head coach at the time

Current head coach Bill Self took over when Williams went to North Carolina in 2003 and Self would win the NCAA championship, his first, in 2008.

In 2012, Kansas was the NCAA runner-up.

"I can't be at the games, but I'm on the hook for two stories and a podcast," Kerkhoff wrote on the weekend prior to the Final Four.

As it turned out, he was joined by his wife, Karen, and headed toward New Orleans for the induction of a co-worker, Vahe Gregorian, to the United States Basketball Writers' Association Hall of fame.

"I'm immuno compromised and need to avoid the arena/dome settings," Kerkhoff wrote this week. "We stayed in Gulfport [Miss.] on the beach. KU getting there cut into my beach walking time."

He watched the pre-game interviews and [Saturday] games on TV and wrote from his hotel room. On top of that, he did a podcast at 1:30 a.m. from Greenville, Miss.

"Oh, and my laptop crashed during the game," he said. "I had to use a combo of my phone and Karen's laptop to get things gone."

Kerkhoff, 59, had covered every Final 4 in person since 1996 and had missed only two since 1991.

"So that was coming to an end this year because of the illness," he said.

Nevertheless, a diagnosis of Hairy Cell leukemia means that it can be treated, although it never completely goes away, according to a story Kerkhoff wrote for the Kansas City star.

An Appalachian State graduate, he was an intern at the Raleigh News and Observer before he was hired by the Roanoke Times, where he worked from 1981-89, primarily covering Virginia Tech.

In 2019, he received the Bert McGrane Award by the Football Writers Association, an organization he had previously served as president.

Roanoke-based college basketball official Roger Ayers appears to be headed for the big time again this April.

According to graphics displayed by ESPN, Ayers will be at the Superdome in New Orleans where Villanova will meet Kansas at 6:09 p.m. Saturday, followed by a Duke-North Carolina tip scheduled for 8:49 p.m.

It will be the fourth Final Four assignment for Ayers, who was at New Orleans for the final weekend in 2012 and also called games on the final weekend in Houston and San Antonio.

He was slated to go last year until he was found to have COVID and was sent home on the first day of the tournament.

One year earlier, the 2020 championship was canceled by the coronavirus.

It's been a banner season this year for Ayers, who coached the final regular-season game pitting outgoing Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and his team against North Carolina.

This year, Ayers had the ACC championship game -- not the first time that had happened -- between Duke and Virginia Tech.

BASKETBALL COMMITMENTS

New Duke coach Jon Scheyer will welcome 7-1 signee Dereck Lively from Chester, Pa., as well as Dariq Whitehead. a 6-6 forward from Newark, N.J. and Montverde (Fla.) Academy, who was the MVP of the McDonald's All-America game.

Lively and Whitehead were rated the Nos. 1 and 7 prospects in the country by ESPN, which has another Duke recruit, 6-10 Kyle Filipowski from Westtown, N.Y., at No. 5 on its list.

The top Virginia Tech and Virginia recruits are Nos. 44 and 46. That's guard Rodney Rice from DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md. for the Hokies and 6-8 post player Isaac Traudt from Grand Island, Nebraska for the Cavaliers.

Duke nabbed five of the top 50 and North Carolina had two. Two-year Duke women's coach Kara Lawson had the best ACC haul among the women.

PORTAL IN BLOOM

The college basketball transfer portal is in full swing, with former junior-college transfer Sean McNeill looking for an alternative to West Virginia, where he averaged 12.2 points this past season and had 57 3-point field goals.

Two other players on the Mountaineers' 2021-22 roster, Jalen Bridges and Isaiah Cottrell, also have entered the portal. West Virginia's top scorer, Taz Sherman, had come to WVU out of junior college and was in his fifth season.

ACC schools listed among McNeill's suitors are Clemson, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Virginia, according to rivals.com. There were five Division I transfers on the Mountaineers' 2020-21 roster.

TRANSITIONS FOR CAVALIERS

Seldom-used Virginia guard Carson McCorkle has entered the transfer portal, where he is being joined by two Cavalier walk-ons, guards Malachi Poindexter and Jayden Nixon. Poindexter, from Louisa County High School, logged 121 minutes over 19 games.

PAY RAISES

Lars Tiffany, who has taken Virginia to back-to-back men's lacrosse championships, has received a contract extension that will take him through the 2026 season. Tiffany has gone 62-23 in six seasons after coming south from Brown. His compensation will be $175,000 per year according to virginia.edu.

ROANOKERS

Brooke Knisely, a Patrick Henry High School graduate who is in her second year at UNC-Wilmington, became the sixth swimmer from UNCW to qualify for the NCAA championship. She earlier had won the 500 and 1,650 freestyle events in the Colonial Athletic Conference championships in Radford.

Former Timesland boys' swimmer of the year Noah Bowers was a contributor as a sophomore on the North Carolina State team that won the ACC men's championship. Bowers was the Timesland boys' swimmer of the year as a senior at Patrick Henry.

Another ex-Patriot and swimmer of the year, junior Caroline Kulp, is a member of the Cavaliers' conference and back-to-back NCAA championship women's team. She was a three-time Timesland girls' swimmer of the year.

CONNECTION

Griff O'Ferrall, a freshman on UVa's baseball team who has started the first 25 games and is batting .351, was a football and basketball teammate of Jay Woolfolk's at St. Christopher in Richmond.

Woolfolk, the starting quarterback for UVa against Notre Dame when Brennan Armstrong was injured last fall, has a 2.93 earned-run average in 11 outings in baseball.

The look on Tony Bennett's face following Virginia's season finale Tuesday was almost a sigh of relief.

Clearly, the Cavaliers would have preferred to go further in the National Invitation Tournament, but Bennett's program is only two years removed from an NCAA championship.

UVa doesn't work all year to get to the NIT semifinals.

So, now what happens?

The Cavaliers finished with a 21-14 record, their 11th in a row with 20 or more, but they don't usually get there by manner of the NIT, where they won two games before losing to visiting St. Bonaventure 52-51.

Of the 13 players on the roster, four are listed as seniors, including walk-on Jayden Nixon. The other three are guards Kihei Clark and Kody Stattmann, as well as forward Jayden Gardner.

Kihei Clark and Jayden Gardner were the only UVa starters listed as seniors but who knows whether they could get an extra year based on coronavirus stipulations. The same goes for another senior, Stattmann, who played more than 15 minutes against St. Bonaventure.

"Welcome to the new age of college basketball, right?" Bennett said after the game. "The transfer portal … decisions to be made. When the season's done, you have your player meetings.:

"Some guys maybe have decisions made in their mind -- what they're going to do, what they want to do," Bennett said. "Guys that aren't planning on coming back, if there are some, the sooner they do that, the better.”

"We’ll do that fairly soon."

COACHING CAROUSEL

Within days of St. Bonaventure's victory over Virginia, Bonnies head coach Mark Schmidt has removed his name from consideration for the opening at Massachusetts, where Frank Martin, ousted at South Carolina during the season, has emerged as the frontrunner.

The connection is that Martin's wife, Anya Forrest, was a hurdler on the UMass track team in the 1990s…. New Mexico State coach Chris Jans has filled the opening at Mississippi State , which let go of Ben Howland the morning following his team's NIT loss at Virginia.

o Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard is the new head coach at Maryland, replacing Mark Turgeon, who resigned in December after going through a six-season string in which he had five teams with 20 wins or more and a sixth with 19.

o The new head coach at Louisville, Kenny Payne, was a player for the Cardinals and most recently was an assistant with the New York Knicks after working under John Calipari at the University of Kentucky.

Payne is a former Louisville player who was a freshman on the Cardinals' 1986 NCAA championship team. Unfortunately for Payne, Louisville is still under NCAA investigation.

o On its CBS sports website, Virginia has mentioned longtime Virginian assistant Jason Williford as a possiblity for the opening at George Washington. Williford, a former UVa player, has been on the Wahoos' staff for the past 13 seasons.

RECRUITING

Eight of the top 25 men's basketball 2022 recruiting classes, as ranked by rivals.com, are ACC teams, with Duke ranked first under new head coach Jon Scheyer. Virginia is next at No. 12 and Viginia Tech is 25th.

Secondary to the outcome of Wednesday night's NIT game between host Virginia and Mississippi State was the status of Bulldogs coach Ben Howland.

Howland, who previously was the head coach at Pittsburgh and UCLA, was released following a 60-57 loss at Virginia in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament.

There had been talk of a change throughout the week on ESPN and other venues and the announcement came early Thursday morning.

"There's no question he left our program better than he found it," athletic director John Cohen said in a school release. "Coach Howland is one of the best basketball minds in the country and a future College Basketball Hall of Famer.

The Bulldogs were 60-57 losers Wednesday night in Charlottesville, where they briefly took a 34-32 lead with just over 15 minutes remaining in the second half.

Howland recently completed his seventh season as MSU's head coach.

"Throughout Mississippi State's men's basketball history, we have shown that we can compete for championships at the highest level," Cohen said in a somewhat questionable statement.

" Serving as the head men's basketball coach at Mississippi State is an outstanding opportunity, and the position will be highly sought after."

Really?

"I have the utmost respect for coach Howland because of our time going against each other at UCLA," said Bennett, who was in the Pac-10 at Washington State.

• As the higher-seeded team, Mississippi State was hopeful of getting the home-court advantage, but renovations were underway at Humphrey Coliseum, its home floor. "I was very disappointed" said Tolu Smith, a 6-9 Mississippi State post player who had 16 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double. "A homecourt advantage is a big advantage. Having that intensity boost on a home stage is better than anything else.

"Not being able to play at home was tough. It's one of the best schools in the ACC. It was a great turnout for them."

Howland was 134-98 at Mississippi State and he had 533 wins in 26 years as a head coach, including stints at UCLA, Northern Arizona and Pittsburgh.

"I think we had a lot of adversity this year," Smith said. "Coach Howland did an amazing job handling it. We had a lot of injuries on our team. I feel that coach Howland did an amazing job. Personally, I'd love for him to come back next year."

OPENINGS

Schools looking for head basketball coaches in the mid-Atlantic include Maryland, which let go of Mark Turgeon; South Carolina, which did not renew Frank Martin, and The Citadel, where former VMI coach Duggar Baucom, who has been 77-136 since 2015, was not retained

Baucom. a Citadel graduate, was the second-winningest coach in VMI upon taking the Citadel job. Only Bart Bellairs is ahead of him in that category, 116-104.

LOCAL ANGLE

Abby Weaver, a graduate of Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, was named the ACC player of the week in softball after hitting a three-run walk-off home run in the Cavaliers' victory over 24th-ranked Notre Dame.

The home run came on a two-out, two-strike count and gave UVa its first win over a ranked team since 2011.

One item might have jumped out at spectators during the introduction of Virginia's men's basketball seniors for the Cavaliers' final regular-season home game.

Introduced with their families Saturday were Kihei Clark and Kody Stattmann, as well as walk-on Jayden Nixon.

There is one other senior listed on the Cavaliers' roster, Jayden Gardner, who leads the Cavaliers in points per game (15.5) and rebounds (7.4). He was not introduced.

Gardner played in 80 games during three seasons at East Carolina but presumably will qualify for an extra year of eligibility based on COVID-19 restrictions.

So, Gardner and second-leading scorer Armaan Franklin, a transfer from Indiana, are eligible to play in 2022-23. Franklin, the Cavaliers' second-leading leading scorer, is a junior.

Presumably, Clark could play for the Cavaliers again next season. His parents had come east from California for Saturday's senior-day ceremony and Stattmann, who is from Australia, had a following as well.

You take the four, four-star recruits who make up the nation's No. 14-ranked recruiting class, according to rivals.com, and that's an awfully large roster if everybody returns.

COACHING

One of the names involved in speculation about the opening at Louisville is Scott Drew, the head coach at Baylor, where he has won close to 400 games and took the Bears to the 2012 NCAA championship, when they finished 28-2.

NOT DONE

Coaches listed on the Busted Bracket website as being in danger do not include any of the ACC programs. However, Patrick Ewing at Georgetown is on that list. … Names mentioned elsewhere are Jeff Capel at Pittsburgh, Kevin Keatts at N.C. State and Chris Mooney at Richmond.

TOUGH TIMES

Former UVa player and coach Jeff Jones is 12-17 at Old Dominion, where he has had a four-game losing streak and three separate three-game losing streaks.

THE PORTAL

Athlon Sports has rated the top ACC football programs based on their success on adding players from the transfer portal, with Virginia ranked seventh out of 14 teams and Virginia Tech rated ninth. Clemson is 13th and Duke is 14th.

Clemson has added a quarterback, Hunter Johnson, who began his career at Clemson before transferring to Northwestern, where he played in a total of 11 games, including three last season, when he was a team captain.

Heading to Miami is Daryl Porter Jr., a cornerback at West Virginia, where he was a starter. Porter is from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

LEGACY

The top recruit nationally among rising seniors is Arch Manning, the nephew of NFL great Peyton Manning and the grandson of Archie Manning, a star at Mississippi, one of the his grandson's finalists, along with Alabama, Georgia and LSU.

ON THE HARDCOURT

Updating college basketball rankings, Duke has landed the top three prospects in the class of 2002, as well as players ranked No. 20, 88 and 132, the last one from 7-1, Christian Reeves from Oak Hill Academy. Reeves is expected to redshirt in 2022-23.

IN BASEBALL

Despite being less than a year removed from a College World Series trip and off to an 8-0 start this year, Virginia is not in the top 25 in the DI Baseball rankings.…At 7-0, Virginia Tech has been experiencing a similar snub. Tech scored 72 runs in its first seven games and UVa scored 102 in its first eight.

The latest and most likely the last meeting between the Duke and Virginia men's basketball coaches has raised a question about future showdowns between the programs.

Now that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is retiring, will the Blue Devils continue to get top prospects from Virginia? The same goes for North Carolina, now that Hubert Davis has replaced Roy Williams.

Duke outlasted host Virginia 65-61 on Wednesday night with a lineup that included 7-foot-1 sophomore Mark Williams from Virginia Beach and guards Trevor Keels and Jeremy Roach, who played at St. Paul VI in Chantilly.

North Carolina also has a player from St. Paul VI in guard Anthony Harris, as well as 6-10 Armando Bacot, who was at Trinity Episcopal in Richmond before heading to IMG Academy.

All three of the in-state players on Virginia's roster are walk-ons.

Virginia has done well enough during the Tony Bennett coaching era that the absence of in-state players hasn't been a major factor, but consider these names: Ralph Sampson, Bryant Stith, Curtis Staples, Mike Scott, Justin Anderson and Cory Alexander.

You could say the same for Virginia Tech and the likes of Dell Curry, Allan Bristow and Bimbo Coles, who went to high school in Covington.

There is not a player from Virginia on the Hokies' current roster aside from Darrius Maddox from Bowie, Md., who played for Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson.

ROANOKE VALLEY RECRUITING

There's no question that the new football staffs at Virginia and Virginia Tech have been doing their due diligence.

Longtime North Cross school football coach Stephen Alexander said that Tech and UVa assistants already have stopped by his campus.

Alexander has two seniors who are international players and a junior, 6-foot-7, 272-ound offensive lineman Hannes Hammer, who already has a scholarship offer from William and Mary.

"I think Hannes is the only one who has received that kind of attention," said Alexander, who also thinks that quarterback Connor Lange can play at the college level.

James Jackson, a 6-foot-3, 220-pound linebacker from North Cross. played in 10 games for UVa last fall.

"He burned up his redshirt; he played in nearly every game, mostly on special team," Alexander said. "He did really well.

" A couple of coaches from Tech and Virginia already have been down to visit me. We've had some years when we didn't have any one worth visiting."

Alexander wasn't surprised this year.

"Most years Virginia Tech and Virginia would come by," he said. "Since there were new coaches at both schools, it was a case of making up for lost time."

MORE RECRUITING

Virginia Tech football coach Brent Pry has stopped by Lord Botetourt, where top prospects include D.J. Toliver, the son of former UVa standout Elton Toliver, pictured on Twitter after a recent stop by UVa with his parents.

TRANSFERS

Kameron Butler, a defensive lineman at Miami of Ohio, has transferred to Virginia. Butler (6 foot 3, 250 pounds) was a first-team All-Mid America Conference selection. A product of Florence, Ky., he also had offers from Penn State, West Virginia and Mississippi. according to Wahoos247 and other sources.

UVa also has landed Andres Fox, a 6-foot-4, 245-pound, linebacker from Stanford by way of Mobile, Ala. Fox started one game this past season and a total of 24 over his career. He was rated a four-star recruit by 247Sports when he signed with Stanford in 2018.

Rivals had him as the No, 12 prospect in Alabama coming out of high school.

MILESTONES

With a 17-point performance Saturday in Virginia's 74-71 victory at Miami,. Kihei Clark became the 50th 1,000-point scorer in school history. It also marked the 127th appearance of his UVa career and his 100th start.

Malcolm Brogdon had a program record of 136 appearances and Joe Harris had a UVa record for starts with 128. Clark, if he were to take advantage of a COVID exception and return in 2022-23, would have a chance at both records.

NUMBERS

Self-described sports blogger Danny Neckel notes that Virginia has the most basketball wins against major conference foes, 139, in the past 10 seasons. Villanova is next with 138 and Duke is second among ACC teams with 129.

In the aftermath of Virginia's 67-54 women's basketball victory over Duke that ended a 19-game losing streak against ACC opposition, one question came to mind:

How did Virginia end up with Mir McLean?

McLean, a 5-foot-11 sophomore from Owings Mill, Md. started and played 31 minutes against the Blue Devils on Thursday night and finished with a double-double of 12 points and a team-high 14 rebounds.

It was only the eighth game at Virginia for Mir, six of them as a starter. She had transferred from Connecticut to Virginia after entering the transfer portal on Dec. 27.

The rules for men's and women's basketball are consistent but who would be leaving a perennial national contender for a one-proud program that seems headed for a fourth straight losing season under Tina Thompson.

The UVa women were 3-1 overall and 0-14 team in ACC games as they played host to a Duke team coached by Kara Lawson, one of the best players of her generation.

The UVa women's team has two transfers from Marquette and one each from UConn, Texas Tech, Florida State, Pennsylvania and Brown.

McLean had played in three games for a total of eight minutes at UConn this year after playing in 24 games last year under UConn coach Geno Auriemma, an assistant under Virginia coach Debbie Ryan during the Cavaliers' heyday.

PRIME AREA

Devin Sherwood, the quarterback prospect who committed to UVa this past week, comes from Austintown, Ohio, which is located just over 100 miles from Shelby, Ohio, the hometown of record-setting current QB Brennan Armstrong.

Sherwood had close to 2,500 yards passing and more than 3,100 yards in total offense. He has listed himself as a PWO or preferred walk-on.

· Video of early UVa spring baseball practice shows Jay Woolfolk, the back-up starter at quarterback last season and a starter for the Cavaliers game with Notre Dame.

SUCCESSION

Replacing Steve Smith, the longtime boys' basketball coach at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, will be Yerrick Stoneman, a past Oak Hill assistant who also coached at Galax High School and at Ridge View High School in Columbia, S.C., where he was 114-44 , including an 18-2 mark in the playoffs.

CONNECTIONS

Sam Hauser has been elevated to the Boston Celtics' 15-man roster after leading the NBA G-League in 3-pointers for the Maine Celtics.

· Another ex-Cavalier, Kyle Guy, was having similar success with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, a Miami Heat affiliate before signing a two-way deal in early January. One of Guy's former UVa teammate, Anthony Gill, had back-to-back double-figure games this week for the Washington Wizards.

Could it be that Virginia has handed Mike Krzyzewski his last loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium?

Clearly, there haven't been many of them.

A 3-pointer by UVa sophomore Reece Beekman with 1.1 seconds remaining resulted in a 69-68 UVa victory Monday.

The Blue Devils (19-4, 9-3 ACC) were 13-1 at home this year, with their lone home loss before Monday occurring Jan. 20 against Miami. The Hurricanes won 76-74 on a field goal with 20 seconds left.

Duke has remaining home games against Wake Forest, Florida State and North Carolina.

Since winning at Duke in double overtime 91-88 in 1995, Virginia had lost 18 straight games at Cameron, a streak that ended when the Cavaliers won in Durham, 65-63, in 2018,

"Virginia has such a rich tradition and they play really well," Krzyzewski said shortly after Monday's game. "It's a tough loss [for Duke] because of how it ended but we were not worthy of winning most of the game."

Krzyzewski had announced before the season that he would be retiring

"I don't think it was exhaustion," he said of his team's play Monday. "We're not in the desert. I call it not having a rear-view mirror and you can't look back. It's one of the reasons I'm doing this season the way that I am doing it, so I don't fall into that."

That's why he had designated assistant Jon Scheyer as Duke's head coach in waiting.

"I'm 74 years old and I've been through it, where I make mistakes and hopefully won't make any more," Krzyzewski said.

• Duke's starting lineup included two of the top 20 prospects in the 2021 recruiting class, No. 2 Paolo Banchero and No. 17 A.J. Griffin. Banchero had nine points and nine rebounds in just over 38 minutes Monday.

  • Griffin was 1-for-7 from the field in just under 24 minutes and the Blue Devils were minus-15 while he was in the game. The only UVa freshman to get in the game was Malachi Poindexter, a non-scholarship freshman guard from St. Anne's-Belfield in Charlottesville who earlier had played at Louisa County.

  • Poindexter has played a total of 77 minutes in 10 games and could have a future, especially defensively.

MEMORIES

Jayden Gardner, a transfer from East Carolina who played nearly 35 minutes for Virginia at Duke, was born in Duke hospital and had a team-high 17 points and eight rebounds in front of his family at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

LEAVING A MARK

Steve Smith, the longtime coach at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson has announced his retirement at age 66. Smith, who coached some of the premier players to come through the college and pro ranks, led Oak Hill to eight national championships and was a four-time national coach of the year according to USA Today.

STRUGGLING

The Virginia women's basketball team has lost its last three games by eight, four and seven points and is 0-11 in ACC competition and 3-18 overall. Over two seasons, coach Tina Thompson's team is 0-13 in the ACC and 3-23 overall.

RECRUITING

Rivals.com has rated Virginia Tech's football recruiting class at No. 38 and Virginia's at No. 64. Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Wake Forest are below them. 247 Sports has UVa at 33rd and Tech at 44th.

UVa signed one in-state player, quarterback Davis Lane from Lynchburg Christian, and the Hokies signed 13 players from Virginia. Neither team had a single 4-star recruit, which makes one wonder about the confusion pertaining to the transfer portal, etc. Also, both programs changed head coaches.

MOVING ON

After spending the 2019-2021 football seasons on the VMI staff as a special-teams assistant, former UVa and Patrick Henry High School punter Nicholas Conte has resigned to enter the business world in the Roanoke area while continuing to do private coaching in the high school and college ranks.

While the destination of former Virginia Tech quarterback Braxton Burmeister may be common knowledge to some Hokie fans, some may find it surprising.

Put me in that latter category after reading that Burmeister is headed to San Diego State in his hometown.

Burmeister, a three-star recruit coming out of high school, began his college career at Oregon, where he saw playing time in 2017 and 2018 before transferring to Tech, where he sat out the 2019 season due to existing transfer rules.

Burmeister started 16 games over two seasons at Virginia Tech, leading the Hokies to a 33-15 victory over visiting Virginia in 2020, followed by a 29-24 Tech win this past November at UVa.

Burmeister had 2,481 yards in total offense despite entering the transfer Portal and skipping Tech's appearance in the Pinstripe Bowl, where the Hokies fell to Maryland 54-10.

At San Diego State, Burmeister will play for a well-traveled Brady Hoke, who is in his second tour as the San Diego State head coach. Hoke, 63, also has been the head coach at Ball State and Michigan, where he was the 2011 Big Ten coach of the year.

While committing to Arizona on two separate occasions, Burmeister threw 127 touchdown passes in his high school in La Jolla, Calif.

Lucas Johnson, the starting quarterback at San Diego this past season, entered the transfer portal after the 2021 season and created a path for Burmeister.

TRANSFER TIME

Southern Cal football coach Lincoln Riley, previously the head coach at Oklahoma, came out against the transfer portal in an appearance on ESPN earlier this week but that didn't prevent him from signing quarterback Caleb Williams, whom he originally had committed for Oklahoma.

"At some point, we’ll have to put in some guardrails to ensure when it can happen [and] when it can’t happen so players and staffs are a little bit more on the same page, Riley said. "Right now, it’s so open-ended that I think is difficult for players, difficult for coaches building rosters … trying to project for the future."

At Oklahoma, Williams was a back-up to Spencer Rattler. who has passed for more than 3,000 yards as a freshman, only to transfer to South Carolina and join head coach Shane Beamer. Beamer was an assistant coach at Oklahoma when he became acquainted with Rattler.

RECRUITING RANKINGS

Texas A&M finished with college football's No. 1 recruiting class, according to rivals.com. At No. 10, Clemson had the top-rated ACC class, with part-time ACC member Notre Dame in seventh place.

Virginia Tech and Virginia, both in their first year under new coaches, were 38th and 62nd respectively. In UVa's case, that was ahead of No. 68 Pittsburgh, No. 72 Syracuse and No. 76 Wake Forest.

The top-ranked in-state player to go to a Virginia school was Lemar Law, a 6-foot-6, 295-pound defensive tackle from Green Run High School in Virginia Beach at No. 10 who picked the Hokies.

The Hokies got three of the top 15 in-state players. including No. 14 Gunner Givens, a defensive tackle from Lord Botetourt.

Lynchburg Christian quarterback Davis Lane was the highest-rated UVa signee at No. 38 and was the Cavaliers' only catch in the in-state top 40. Thirteen of Tech's signees came from that group.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Nos. 1 and 2 prospects in the 2023 class in Virginia are 6-5, 275-pound offensive lineman Adam Birchmeier from Broad Run in Ashburn and 6-6, 265-pound tight end Mathias Barnwell from Riverbend in Fredericksburg. Both committed to Penn State during the summer of 2021.

A third top 25 player from Virginia who has committed to Penn State, Anthony Donkoh, a 6-4, 310-pound offensive guard from Lightridge High School in Aldie, Va. It is customary for Penn State to make early offers to Virginia players, who seem to benefit from subsequent jumps in their rankings.

Aldie is listed by Google as a "historic village" in Loudoun County.

Most of the conversation surrounding a successor to ousted Louisville men's basketball coach Chris Mack has centered around New York Knicks assistant coach Kenny Payne, who played for the Cardinals and was a first-round pick of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1989.

Payne, 55, played at Louisville under Denny Crum from 1985-89, and later served as an assistant at Kentucky and Oregon. He was a member of the Cardinals' 1986 championship team.

A former member of the Louisville team who now coaches at Bridgewater, Keith Oddo, was particularly saddened by Louisville's decision, which came after a 64-52 Cardinals' road loss to Virginia on Monday in what was a five-point game with just over four minutes remaining.

"Putting on a Louisville jersey was the greatest privilege of my life and I am forever grateful for the opportunity," Oddo said Wednesday. "It stings to think about this time two years ago, during my final season, when we were ranked No. 1 in the country.

"I wish coach Mack the best and know the program is in good hands with [assisant] coach [Mike] Pegues."

Courier-Journal Tim Sullivan recently wrote that firing Mack would come at a $12-million cost for Louisville.

Another distinguished Louisville journalist, Rick Bozich, came up with a deeper list that included UCLA coach Mick Cronin, Baylor's Scott Drew and Auburn's Bruce Pearl. A sleeper to Louisville outsiders would be Scott Davenport, the coach at Bellarmine, which is also located in Louisville and competes in the Atlanta-based ASUN Conference.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL

When Virginia entertains Virginia Tech in women's basketball Thursday at 7 p.m. , it will mark only the second home game for the Cavaliers since Dec. 8. The Cavaliers are 3-13 overall and 0-6 in ACC play.

Virginia is 0-11 against ACC competition since the start of the 2020-21 season. The Cavaliers have a 13-game conference losing streak going back to the end of the 2019-20 season.

MEETS

The Christiansburg Aquatic Center will serve as host for the Colonial Athletic Association swim meet from Feb. 16-19.

William and Mary is the only state school that will be participating. Mills Harris, a sophomore from Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, is joined by freshman Micah Lowe from Faith Christian on the Tribe's team.

Harris is the sixth member of his family to go to William and Mary,. The Tribe was fourth out of five teams last year, when Towson and UNC-Wilmington went 1-2. Harris' sister and fellow Cave Spring graduate, Suzanne, swims for James Madison, which competes in the ECAC swimming championships.

• Recruiting: Hannes Hammer, a 6-6 1/2, 265-pound sophomore at North Cross in Roanoke, already has caught the attention of college football scouts after coming to the United States from Germany. He is viewed as an offensive or defensive tackle by college scouts, who have slotted him in the class of 2023.

RICE TALES

Trey Murphy III, who passed up his final season at Virginia in order to turn pro, has rejoined the New Orleans Pelicans of the NBA after a stint with the Birmingham Squadron of the G League. He had averaged 3.8 points in 36 previous games with New Orleans.

Murphy averaged 11.3 points last year at UVa after spending his first two seasons at Rice, also the college basketball home of Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, who scored 82 points in 58 games over four seasons for the Owls from 1985-89.

WAITING

Longtime ACC journalist Gary McCann points out that North Carolina State has gone 35 years without an ACC men's basketball championship since 1987, although the Wolfpack had won the NCAA championship under Jim Valvano in 1983, a much more celebrated title.

POLLING

UVa's baseball team has been ranked No. 5 in the preseason by Baseball America for the second year in a row. Texas heads the list, which includes Notre Dame at No. 4, Florida State at No. 12, N.C. State at No. 16., Georgia Tech at No. 21 and Miami at No. 25.

Virginia's 2022 recruiting class was ranked No. 22 in the country, but Baseball America has the Cavaliers ranked behind six other ACC programs. including Miami, Louisville, Clemson and Duke in the top 10.

Virginia was the rare recipient of a transfer from a Big Ten school when 6-foot-5, 260-pound Michigan State defensive end Jack Camper committed to the Cavaliers earlier this week.

Camper played two seasons at Cox High School in Virginia Beach before heading to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., which went 11-0 and was ranked No. 2 in the country in 2016.

Camper's brother, Blake, was an offensive lineman at South Carolina and their father played at Duke in the 1980s. Rivals.com showed Blake Camper with seven offers in 2016, with the most prominent coming from Georgia and Nebraska.

After recording a high of 18 tackles in 2020, Camper played in only two games this past season, with his lone tackle occurring against Youngstown State. He succeeds another Cox High School product, who was an offensive lineman for the Cavaliers, Ross Burbank.

· An earlier UVa addition was Devin Chandler, a wide receiver and kick returner from Wisconsin by way of Huntersville, N.C., and Arlington, Tenn. UVa has a similar all-purpose threat in Chantilly High School running back Jack Griese, who committed over the weekend.

MOUNTAIN WEST TIES

After a 2021 football season in which UVa's football team ranked 121st out of 130 FCS teams in total defense with a yield of 466 yards per game, that unit will be under the influence of John Rudzinski, the defensive coordinator on a 2021 Air Force unit that yielded 296.5 yards per game, which ranked fourth nationally in total defense.

As a member of the defensive staff at Air Force for the past 13 years, the last four as coordinator, Rodzinski had ample exposure to the Mountain West Conference, where outgoing Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall was the head coach at BYU after serving as defensive coordinator.

MID-ATLANTIC TIES

Eager to join Rudzinski is Curome Cox, an Air Force assistant who went to high school at Gonzaga in Washington, D.C., and later played at the University of Maryland, where he had 10 interceptions during his career. He also saw National Football League action with Denver and Houston.

New UVa head coach Tony Elliott has assistants who have coached at Army, Navy and Air Force.

MIXED MEMORY

Of the UVa players who have entered the draft portal, one of the bigger losses for the Cavaliers was linebacker West Weeks, who had a team-leading five solo tackles in UVa's 29-24 loss to Virginia Tech but committed a penalty that proved damaging.

The Cavaliers were leading 21-14 late in the half and the Hokies were looking at a fourth-and-22 from their end zone after Weeks had sacked Tech quarterback Braxton Burmeister for a 14-yard loss. The Hokies were forced to punt from their end zone but Weeks was called for roughing Tech punter Peter Moore.

Instead of getting the ball inside midfield, UVa had to send its defense back onto the field and the Hokies were to drive to the Cavaliers' 15 before kicking a field goal as the clock expired that cut UVa's lead to 21-17 at the half.

Weeks was ranked the No. 28 prospect in Georgia by rivals.com in 2019. In the portal, he had an assortment of offers from Stanford and four Southeastern Conference schools before settling on LSU.

LONGEVITY

An updated UVa football roster released earlier this week showed cornerback Darrius Bratton from William Fleming High School and fellow Roanoker Josh Clifford, a wide receiver from Glenvar, as returning for the 2022 season. It will be the sixth year for Bratton, who spent the 2016 season at Fork Union Military Academy.

(Bullet) Jackson Matteo, a starting center at Virginia for parts of three seasons and later a graduate assistant at UVa, has taken a position as the head football coach at Woodberry Forest in Madison County. Matt Blundin who played football and basketball at UVa, is the athletic director at Woodberry Forest.

ON THE HARDWOOD

An 85-57 Miami victory over North Carolina on Tuesday at the Hurricanes' Watsco Center marked the first time that Miami had beaten the four Carolina schools -- UNC, Duke, NC State and Wake Forest in the same season.

It wasn't the most lopsided loss of the season for the Tar Heels, who were 98-69 losers to Kentucky on Dec. 19 in Las Vegas. Carolina is 9-0 at home, 3-2 on the road and 0-3 at neutral sites.

Talk of a thaw in the relationship between the Cavaliers and one SW Virginia coach might be a little misleading.

Jamie Harless, the coach of the Lord Botetourt High School Cavaliers, said his beef was never with the University of Virginia.

The topic came up again with word that Botetout quarterback K.C. Bratton is being recruited by UVa as a preferred walk-on.

"He'd been a quarterback mostly, just so we could get everybody on the field," Harless said of Bratton, a senior. "We got him in the right spot and everybody else in the places they needed to be. They clicked and we won seven games.

"The problem was, we had to replace 19 starters [off Botetourt's 2020 team].”

Bratton has been contacted by Navy, which had contemplated sending a coach to Botetourt, "but I don't know that that's going to happen as far as the Navy offer," Harless added.

"He's [Bratton[ going to play somewhere and I would say UVa's pretty appealing to him. He wants to be a lawyer, so that's a good school to go to."

"The issue I had [with UVa] was with one coach and how he handled himself. That was it."

Relationships had been strained because, after running back Hunter Rice had committed to Virginia in 2019, the Cavaliers pulled back on their offer after he suffered a broken ankle in the first game of the season.

"It was one of those things where don’t tell me the sky is green when I know it's blue,'" Harless said.

"I really like their offensive line coach, [Garett] Tujague. That situation there was me and one guy [on the UVa staff]. It wasn't me and UVa. “

"We've got Jake Dewease there [at UVa] who's still playing. I think he's had a good experience."

The best Botetourt player to go to Virginia was Elton Toliver, whose son, D.J., is one of the top underclassmen in the Botetourt program.

"It's just like any other sophomore offensive lineman," Harless said. "Sophomore offensive linemen are kind of like ugly ducklings. He started out at guard and we moved him to tackle, which is more of a natural spot for him. He ended up coming on and had a real good second half of the season. D.J. is just really super athletic.”

"He's got so much twitch and athleticism that he'll be off the charts. I watched him play basketball against Blacksburg the other night and he showed marked improvement off of what I'd seen before."

FAMILIAR WITH PRY

Referring to the coaching staffs at Virginia and Virginia Tech who will be recruiting in the Botetourt County area, Harless pointed out that he had known Tech head coach Brent Pry previously as well as members of the Pry staff.

"Some of the younger guys I don't know," Harless said, "and UVa hired coach Keith Gaither from Army and I've known him for several years. Nothing new there."

· One of the players whom Gaither coached at Army was wide receiver Edgar Allen Poe, whose name might strike Gaither at various places on the UVa campus.

TRANSITIONS

Mark Atuiai, the running backs coach under former Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall for the past six seasons, has joined the staff at Washington State. Following Atuaia to Washington State is UVa sophomore D-lineman Nusi Malani.

Jordan Arcement, who had the title of senior scout on the Mendenhall staff from 2018-2020, has taken a similar position on the recruiting staff at LSU. Arcement, a Louisiana native who played at Nicholls State, helped in the recruiting of such UVa players as wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks and running back Mike Hollins.

QBS ABOUND

Marshall quarterback Grant Wells, who is transferring to Virginia Tech, will be reunited with ex-Thundering Herd defensive-line coach J.C. Price, as well as Mike Villagrana, the general manager at Marshall under first-year Herd head coach Charles Huff in 2020.

Wells started in 23 games over two seasons at Marshall and was the Conference USA freshman of the year in 2020. Wells, a graduate of George Washington High School in Charleston, passed for 3,525 yards and 16 touchdowns form the Herd this past season.

· New to the James Madison program is Todd Centeio, who passed for 2,958 yards and 15 touchdowns this past season for Colorado State and also rushed for 439 yards. JMU earlier had picked up quarterback Chase Hart, a transfer from William and Mary, with the departure of six-year QB Cole Johnson, an FCS All-American.

As if it wasn't weird enough that Clemson beat Virginia by 17 points in men's basketball on Dec. 22 and then lost to the Cavaliers by 10 points Tuesday night, the winner in both cases was the road team.

"They just played better down the stretch than we did, but it was a good basketball game," said Clemson coach Brad Brownell after a 75-65 loss. "Sometimes, you play Virginia and it's really ugly and it wasn't ugly tonight."

Only three days earlier, Virginia had won at Syracuse, 74-69, in a game that was 33-33 at the half.

"It just comes down to defense,” Brownell said. “Our defense wasn’t good enough tonight. You can’t give them 75. You’re not gonna beat Virginia when they score 75. That number’s gotta be in the low 60s and we just didn’t do a good job."

Virginia entered the season with an unexpected 66-58 home loss to Navy, followed by a 20-point road loss to Houston and a 52-49 loss to James Madison, which was opening a new facility. A 67-50 home loss to Clemson dropped the Cavaliers to 7-5 in their last game before Christmas.

They haven't lost since, although they're only 9-5 and play at North Carolina on Saturday.

"Every game is a battle for us; we’re not going to overwhelm people," Bennett said. "But at least, the last two games, we walked into some stuff where I think we forged a nice identity."

PORTAL A FACTOR

Two years that Shane Beamer spent as an assistant coach at Oklahoma paid more dividends than Beamer, currently the head coach at South Carolina, had in mind.

While he was at Oklahoma, Beamer had the opportunity to evaluate Spencer Rattler, who recently came off the transfer portal and committed to Beamer and the Gamecocks.

Rattler was rated a five-star prospect and the nation's No. 1 dual-threat quarterback as a senior in high school in Phoenix.

He passed for 4,595 yards and 40 touchdowns in three seasons at Oklahoma, where he was 15-2 as a starter. Rattler, hailed as a Heisman Trophy candidate by some,subsequently was replaced by another elite QB signee, Caleb Williams.

When Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley resigned to take the head-coaching position at Southern California, he was joined by Williams, who had led Oklahoma to a 55-48 victory over Texas.

Fortunately for Beamer, he had a spot for Rattler.

• A coaching change at Virginia no doubt contributed to a list of 20 players who have entered the transfer portal. The same website showed the transfer portal with hardly any players from Virginia Tech, possibly a reflection on a quicker coaching transition. Obviously, the most prominent is Tech quarterback Braxton Burmeister.

NEW ADDITIONS

A growing number of additions to head coach Tony Elliott's staff at Virginia includes Keith Gaither, who was responsible for wide receivers at Army, and Kevin Downing, who headed up the defensive ends at Navy.

The two Virginia football assistants who are headed to Syracuse, offensive coordinator Robert Anae and quarterbacks coach Jason Beck, will be joining a program whose head coach, Dino Babers, isn't necessarily secure.

Nevertheless, Sports Illustrated has referred to Anae and Beck as "Home Run Hires" on its si.com website.

The Cavaliers ranked third in the Football Championship Subdivision in total offense with 518.2 yards per game, as opposed to Syracuse, which was 95th.

Babers is rated No. 6 on coacheshotseat.com, although director of athletic John Wilhack announced early as Nov. 29 that Babers would be returning. Offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert was one of three Syracuse assistants let go after a 5-7 season.

Syracuse has not been invited to bowl games after the last three regular seasons and five of the past seven.

Other head coaches on the coacheshotseat.com list are Georgia Tech's Geoff Collins at No. 3, Florida State's Mike Norvell at No. 21 and Louisville's Scott Satterfield at No. 27.

· Virginia was 42nd in total offense under head coach Bronco Mendenhall, Anae and Beck in 2019-2020, when the Cavaliers were 5-5.

· Including a 6-6 record this year, it marked the first time since 1965, when it went 5-5 under George Blackburn, that UVa has finished with back-to-back .500 seasons.

WHO’S NEXT

An extended outing for Virginia Tech quarterback Connor Blumrick in Wednesday's Pinstripe Bowl has brought back memories of another Texan, Michael Brewer, who passed for 4,395 yards in two seasons (2014-15) at Virginia Tech after transferring from Texas Tech.

Blumrick, chosen to start the Pinstripe Bowl after Braxton Burmeister submitted his name to the Transfer Portal, transferred to Tech after playing in 18 games in three seasons at Texas A&M, where he attempted only one pass.

TOUGH TASK

Three of the most prominent Virginia players to enter the transfer portal are starting center Victor Oluwatimi, who is headed to Michigan; tackle Bobby Haskins (Southern Cal), and guard Joe Bissinger (Southern Methodist).

All three played for offensive line coach Garett Tujague, one of the few UVa assistants who didn't head elsewhere following the naming of Tory Elliott to succeed Bronco Mendenhall as head coach.

One of the biggest losses among UVa underclassmen was outside linebacker Noah Taylor, who is headed to North Carolina.

Taylor had a career-high 69 tackles this past season, including a team-high eight tackles for loss and three sacks.

MIGHT BE SURPRISING

A glance at the University of Maryland roster reveals it only has six players from Virginia, once a recruiting hotbed in the mid-Atlantic. On the flip side, Maryland's roster includes 18 players from Florida.

TRANSFERS

Running back A.J. Davis, a four-star recruit when he was signed by Pittsburgh, is transferring to James Madison. It won't be the first Panther to head to JMU. Ben Dinucci, who earlier transferred from Pitt to JMU, was a seventh-round NFL draft pick in 2020 and later started a game for the Dallas Cowboys.

STAFFING

New Duke football coach Mike Elko has tapped his former Texas A&M colleague, Robb Smith, a colleague when Elko was the defensive coordinator, as the Blue Devils' defensive coordinator. Smith most recently was the defensive coordinator at Rutgers.

RECRUITING

Point guard London Johnson, a 6-foot-4 junior from Norcross, Ga., has narrowed his choice of schools to Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, N.C. State, Southern Cal and Virginia. He is listed as a five-star recruit by rivals.com, which has him rated as the No. 17 prospect in the 2023 class.

Oak Hill Academy point guard Caleb Foster, another five-star recruit who already has committed to Duke, is rated the the No 17 prospect in the class.

Two other top 25 point guards in the 2013 class, Robert Dillingham from Simi Valley, Calif., and Simeon Wilcher from Rochelle, N.Y., have committed to N.C. State and North Carolina, respectively.

Four-star small forward Dennis Parker from John Marshall in Richmond is listed as having 12 offers but Virginia and Virginia Tech are not on that list.

In all likelihood, Lavel Davis was the Virginia football player most familiar with new head football coach Tony Elliott.

Although he has been unable to play for the Cavaliers this year after undergoing ACL knee surgery, Davis was clearly excited about the impending leadership change.

"To me, last night was great," said Davis of a team meeting prior to Elliott's introduction Monday. "I already knew coach Elliot. He was recruiting me for Clemson.”

"I loved it. I really appreciated him coming in and giving us a real talk. It wasn't just telling us what we wanted to hear. He told us everything we needed to hear. He told us a lot about his background that I really didn't know about.”

"The talk was needed and really good."

Elliott was the offensive coordinator at Clemson.

"If you play football in South Carolina, you're pretty much going to know everybody," said Davis, a 6-foot-7, 220-pound wide receiver from Dorchester, S.C. "So, I kind of knew who [Elliott] was and what type of man he was.''

As a UVa freshman in 2020, Davis had 20 receptions for 515 yards and five touchdown. No other player in the Football Bowl Subdivision had 500 yards on no more than 20 receptions.

A knee injury in high school had affected his recruiting.

"A lot of the schools backed off," Davis said Monday. "Georgia Tech still offered me, Oregon offered me and Virginia offered me. Those were really the three schools I was looking at because they offered me while I was injured.”

"They really believed in me and had faith in me while Clemson backed off. Coach Elliott stayed in contact, still texting me and sending me things and just checking in on me but he was really the only one from Clemson that was still doing that.

"I was stuck on Virginia because of coach [Marques] Hagans. I felt, of all the coaches that I met, Virginia was the most real. My time here has been amazing. No lies have been said. Everything has been how it was stated it was going to be."

Davis and defensive back Fentrell Cypress were the only players from South Carolina on this year's UVa roster.

COACHING

With the firing of former Miami head coach Manny Diaz, now the defensive coordinator at Penn State, it remains to be seen what happens to Anthony Poindexter, who shared Penn State coordinator duties with Brent Pry, the new head coach at Virginia Tech.

Poindexter had been interviewed for the Virginia opening prior to the hiring of Elliott and could be described as a finalist. In the interim, Poindexter was named to the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. He earlier had been named to the College Football Hall of Fame.

RECRUITING

A nearly two-week break between the coaching hires at Virginia Tech and Virginia was reflected in national signing day, with Rivals.com showing the Hokies with the No. 29 ranking among FBS classes and the Cavaliers with the 83rd class. Tech was sixth among ACC classes, counting Notre Dame, and UVa was 16th.

· Penn State's list of signees includes Kaytron Allen, a 5-foot-11, 225-pound running back from Norfolk, who spent the last three seasons at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. Allen played at Norview High School in Norfolk when he was a freshman.

Mario Cristobal, named to succeed Manny Diaz as Miami head football coach, will receive $8 million per year from the Hurricanes, who reportedly will pay his $9 million buyout at Oregon.

Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens told reporters that Miami never contacted him about speaking to Cristobal, who is from Miami, played for the Hurricanes and was an assistant at Miami.

Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich, a Miami MBA graduate, is seen as a possibility to fill that position at Miami, which is hoping to land quarterback Tanner Bailey from Gordo, Ala.

· Liberty coach Hugh Freeze will receive a contract extension that will increase his pay to $4 million per year. The Flames were 7-5 and will meet Western Michigan in the Lending Tree Bowl in Mobile, Ala.

· CBS Sports had listed Freeze as a candidate for the Virginia Tech coaching job that went to Penn State coordinator Brent Pry. Also on the CBS list were South Carolina's Shane Beamer and former TCU coach Gary Patterson.

· Rhett Lashlee, most recently the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Miami, is the next head coach at Southern Methodist, replacing Sonny Dykes, who took the Texas Christian job. SMU athletic director Rick Hart will make the call on who coaches in the bowl game.

RECRUITING AND TRANSFERRING

In the wake of Bronco Mendenhall's resignation as Virginia head football coach, top 2020 signee Andrew Gentry, a four-star offensive tackle from Littleton, Colo., is expected to sign with Michigan. He was one of the top recruits of the Mendenhall/UVa era.

· Devin Chandler, a wide receiver and kick returner, completing his second season at Wisconsin, committed to Virginia after entering the transfer portal. Chandler, from Cornelius, N.C., had offers from North Carolina, Virginia, N.C. State, Duke, Syracuse and Maryland.

· Oly Oluwatimi, Virginia's center for the past two seasons, has entered the transfer portal. Oluwatimi, a product of DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md., originally signed with Air Force but did not play for the Falcons before transferring to UVa in 2018.

LOCAL RECRUITING

Benji Gosnell, the defensive end from Carroll County who committed to Virginia Tech this past weekend, has moved up to No. 16 on the Rivals.com rankings of the top prospects in the state.

He earlier had been listed as a Pilot Mountain, N.C., product who had been committed to Ohio State and also had offers from seven ACC schools, not including UVa, according to Rivals.com.

QUOTE-UNQUOTE ON FENWAY PARK

"Our team hasn’t been there in my time here. It’s a historic stadium, a really good matchup, and it just seemed like a really good opportunity to continue to grow and advance UVA’s football program.

And so, it made a lot of sense to me and I was hopeful that this would be the game we were selected for.” -- Bronco Mendenhall on UVa's acceptance of a Fenway Bowl berth.

One of the surprises in these times of coaching turmoil was Delaware's decision to part company with Danny Rocco, the Blue Hens' coach for the past five seasons, including a 7-1 season in 2020-21, when Delaware reached the FBS semifinals.

"We couldn't get over the hump," Rocco said Wednesday. "We had more setbacks and injuries than we've ever have. I got blindsided Monday. We've got a lot of kids right now that are disgruntled. They're disappointed and they're sad. They can't quite figure out how this happened.”

The same went for his assistants, including Bryan Stinespring, a former Virginia Tech assistant.

"We had a great spring and, I think, checked all the boxes."

Delaware was 5-6 this year after going 26-17 in Rocco's first four seasons. He earlier had gone 43-22 in five seasons at Richmond and 47-20 in five seasons at Liberty.

Athletic director Chrissi Rawak cited Rocco's combined 1-7 record against James Madison and Villanova but said she would hire him again, according to Kevin Tresolini's story in the Delaware News Journal.

Rocco, a former Virginia assistant head coach, had taken over the Delaware program after his predecessor had gone 1-10. Rocco was named the Colonial Athletic Association coach of the year in the spring of 2021, when he was third in voting for the Eddie Robinson national coach of the year.

The Blue Hens were 3-1 this year before losing their starting quarterback in Week 4. They finished 5-6.

CONTACTING BRONCO

Rocco is aware of openings at Maine and New Hampshire and called current UVa head coach Bronco Mendenhall for a recommendation.

"I'm out of work," Rocco said, "so there's no reason I wouldn't want my name out there. My first, primary focus would be to try and remain a head coach. If that doesn't happen, I'm going to shift my focus to the people that I would know, the Virginias and the Penn States and places like that."

Rocco knows Mendenhall from a head coaches panel on which they served. They also spoke last year when UVa hired ex-Cavaliers defensive standout Clint Sintim off the Delaware staff.

"I've gotten to know [Mendenhall] and I think you'll remember that, in his first game at Virginia, we had a really good Richmond team go in there and beat them," Rocco said.

"I've known him and we've had a good relationship. We spoke often about Clint when Clint went back. I actually texted him today [Wednesday] and asked him if it would be OK if I would have him on my reference list.

"He said, 'Certainly, Danny,' sorry to hear what happened.' Having him put my name out there would be a blessing for sure."

Another reason that Rocco is concentrating on getting another head job - "I'm obligated to my staff," Rocco said. "Maybe you wouldn't take all 10 but you've got five, six or seven core guys and they need work."

RECRUITING

A commitment from Corona, Calif. quarterback Delaney Crawford coincided with a report that reserve Virginia quarterback Iraken "Ira" Armstead had entered the transfer portal.

Crawford is listed at 6-foot-3 and 180 pounds by Rivals, which has UVa listed as the only program to offer him to this point. Armstead played in nine games this past season, rushing 12 times for 67 yards and attempting two passes that fell incomplete.

Jay Woolfolk had established himself as the Cavaliers' No. 2 quarterback when he started against Notre Dame following an injury to Brennan Armstrong at Brigham Young. Against Notre Dame, Woolfolk completed 18 of 33 passes for 196 yards and rushed for 113 yards prior to losses.

Another quarterback on the Cavaliers' roster is Jacob Rodriguez, who played in all 12 games, mostly on special teams, although he had eight receptions and 10 rushing attempts.

PORTAL

Brendon Clark, a star quarterback at Midlothian High School outside of Richmond, is transferring from Notre Dame to Old Dominion. Clark originally had committed to Wake Forest before flipping to Notre Dame, where he was sidelined by a knee injury.

BASKETBALL RECRUITING

North Carolina State men's basketball coach Kevin Keatts has landed a five-star recruit, point guard Robert Dillingham from Simi Valley, Calif. A 19-team offer list on rivals.com included Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina.

HONORED

During a period that he has been mentioned in connection with numerous coaching jobs, former UVa football star Anthony Poindexter has been chosen for induction into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

Poindexter will be joined by former UVa and NFL running back Chris Warren, who was a two-time Division III All-American at Ferrum College after transferring from UVa. He had a 162-game NFL career in which he rushed for 7,696 yards and 52 touchdowns.

In its first-round basketball game with Georgia in the Roman Legends Classic, Virginia came face-to-face with a 2020-21 UVa teammate, Jabri Abdur-Rahim, who started and played more than 26 minutes in the Bulldogs' 65-55 loss to the Cavaliers.

Abdur-Rahim's father, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, is president of the NBA G-League. Jabri Abdur-Rahim, named Gatorade state player of the year as a senior in Blairstown, N.J., played in eight games for UVa last season, averaging 0.9 points.

· Another player transferring off the 20-21 team, Justin McKoy, is at North Carolina after spending two seasons at UVa, where he played in 19 games and averaged 3.5 points and 3.3 rebounds.

COMPARISONS

At the time of his ouster as Virginia Tech football coach, Justin Fuente had a 43-31 record. Bronco Mendenhall, who was hired by Virginia in the same year, dropped to 36-37 in his UVa tenure with a 48-38 loss Saturday at Pittsburgh.

CONNECTIONS

Darryl Reaves, a letter-winning football player at Virginia during the mid-1980s, currently serves as the chef for the Rutgers University football team. Reaves studied at the Culinary Arts Institute of Philadelphia and has worked at Red Bull Arena and Met Life Stadium.

BARRIER BROKEN

With its 38-35 victory over Mercer this past week, East Tennessee State's football team logged its first outright conference championship in 53 years.

The Buccaneers' football program was shut down following the 2003 season and was not reinstated until 2015. The team has claimed the number 7 overall seed in the FCS playoffs and will play host to the winner of Kennesaw State and Davidson on December 4^th.

MORE STREAKS

With its 60-48 victory over Fullerton on Tuesday, the Virginia women's basketball team snapped an 11-game losing streak dating back to the 2018-19 season. French-bred fifth-year senior Amandine Toi had 20 points against Fullerton and Camryn Taylor, a transfer from Marquette, added 17.

HISTORY

A women's basketball match-up this week pitted opposing coaches with UVa ties, Geno Auriemma for Connecticut and Dawn Staley for South Carolina. Both had come up through the UVa program, Auriemma as an assistant to Debbie Ryan and Staley as a star player for the Ryan-led Cavaliers.

Staley, whose Gamecock teams previously had gone 1-9 against Connecticut, had her team ranked No. 1 this time going into the women's Battle 4 Atlantis.

RECRUITING BLITZ

With a recent commitment from Andre Greene, a wide receiver from St. Christopher's in Richmond, North Carolina has landed three of the top four in-state prospects for the class of 2022. On top of that, Carolina has four of the top six, five of the top 10, six of the top 15 and seven of the top 17.

ON THE DIAMOND

UVa has taken a baseball commitment from Aidan Teel, a right-handed pitcher and position player from Mahwah, N.J., who is graduating from high school early with plans to play this spring.

Teel will be joining his brother, Kyle, who played in 43 games as a UVa freshman in 2021, when he was named a second-team freshman All-American by Baseball America.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

Within days of the departure of defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, Florida decided to part company with Dan Mullen, who was 34-15 as the Gators' head coach and earlier had presided over a Mississippi State staff that included Grantham. Mullen's four-year record: 34-15.

Billy Napier from the University of Louisiana has been mentioned in connection with Florida, as well as Virginia Tech and others. Napier removed his name from an opening at Mississippi State in 2019 and was mentioned for the South Carolina job filled by Shane Beamer.

ALSO RANS

In computer rankings he compiles for USA Today, Jeff Sagarin has Virginia and Virginia Tech ranked 53rd and 74th, respectively. Among ACC teams, that's behind No. 14 Clemson, No. 18 N.C. State, No. 20 Pittsburgh, No. 22 Wake Forest, No. 39 Louisville and No. 49 North Carolina.

Only Georgia Tech, at No. 96, is behind the Hokies on Sagarin's list.

It would seem that Todd Grantham will not be out of work for a long time following the news that he has been let go as defensive coordinator at Florida.

His history would suggest that.

Since 2017, Grantham had been the defensive coordinator at Florida after holding the same position at Mississippi State.

At Mississippi State, Grantham worked for Bulldogs head coach Dan Mullen, who brought Grantham with him to Florida.

Prior to that, Grantham had been the defensive coordinator at the University of Georgia and Louisville.

After going 29-9 over the past three seasons, Florida has been 5-5 so far this year.

Grantham, 55, played at Virginia Tech and spent time as an assistant under Frank Beamer at Tech (1990-95) and with Nick Saban at Michigan State.

Grantham is a graduate of Pulaski County High School and his father and mother still live in the area, which might spark the possibility of returning to his home turf.

• First-year South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer on the Virginia Tech opening: "I went to high school there. I coached there. My parents still live there. So I have special memories of my time in Blacksburg but this is where I want to be. When I said [South Carolina] was my dream job, I wasn't just saying that to make it sound cool in a press conference or to get the job."

NOT ALONE

Grantham wasn't the only dismissal at Florida over the weekend. The Gators also let go of offensive-line coach Jon Hevesy, Mullen's longest-tenured assistant. Paul Pasqualoni, the head coach at Syracuse from 1991-2004, is helping Mullen, a fellow New England product, during the season's final weeks.

• Mullen, by the way, currently stands second on the coacheshotseat.com site. Three ACC coaches are on the top 10 -- Georgia Tech's Geoff Collins at No. 6, Duke's David Cutcliffe at No. 9 and Miami's Manny Diaz at No. 10. Florida State's Mike Norvell is 23rd.

TRANSFER PORTAL

North Carolina State junior Casey Morsell, who averaged 4.2 points in 53 games at Virginia over the past two seasons, had 22 points Saturday night in the Wolfpack's 77-74 victory over Colgate.

When Morsell was a senior at St. John's in Washington, D.C., he was rated one of the top 50 prospects in the country and was named D.C. Player of the Year by both USA Today and Gatorade.

Another N.C. State newcomer, 6-foot-7 Greg Gantt, transferred from Providence.

SCHEDULING

Virginia will be welcoming the Coppin State Eagles for the third time in school history on Friday at 7 p.m. In the first meeting, UVa beat Coppin 63-61 in 1993, followed by a 97-40 in 2018.

Jerry Kill, an assistant to Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente in 2019, is currently the interim head coach at Texas Christian after serving as assistant head coach at TCU last season. Kill previously was the head coach at Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois and Minnesota at the FBS level.

In his first game as interim head coach following the departure of head coach Gary Patterson, Kill directed the Horned Frogs to a 30-28 victory over then-No. 12 Baylor.

"It's a big one, because it's really weird," Kill said at his post-game press conference. " I mean, all of a sudden, you're the coach and you've got four games left. And you know, you're told you shouldn't ever coach again six years ago."

Kill had stepped away from coaching following his Minnesota years after a battle with epilepsy that he profiled in a book, Chasing Dreams: Living My Life One Yard at a Time."

QUARTERBACK CAROUSEL

While the success of Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker may not be well-received by some Virginia Tech fans, he isn't the lone ex-Hokie quarterback who is thriving at his new school.

Quincy Patterson has passed for 813 yards and six touchdowns at North Dakota State, which is 8-1. Patterson also has rushed for a team-leading 422 yards for the Bison, who are 8-2 and ranked No. 7 in the FCS poll this week

Through nine games at Tennessee, Hooker has passed fo 1,894 yards and 21 touchdown. Hooker also has rushed for 458 yards and four TDs for the Volunteers, who are 5-4 going into a Saturday game with No. 1 Georgia.

· The FCS poll this week includes James Madison at No. 3 and VMI at No. 20.

SIGNING DAY

Wednesday marked the beginning of the fall signing period for basketball. Among ACC programs, Duke and first-year head coach Jon Scheyer were second behind Kentucky. North Carolina was 12th and Virginia was 13th. Virginia Tech was 31st overall and ninth among ACC teams.

The week-long signing period for football will begin Dec. 15.

CONNECTIONS

Kris Thornton, a transfer from VMI, has a team-leading nine touchdown receptions for James Madison, where he has caught 59 balls for 705 yards. Thornton set the VMI record for receptions in a season with 87 catches for 1,004 yards last year. His father, Kristopher, was a wideout for the Dukes.

MIKE LEACH ON KICKING

“The thing is, there’s a ball, and you kick it," said Leach, the head coach at Mississippi State, "and it really doesn’t matter if a bunch of 7-year-olds are watching or if five million Mongol warriors on horses getting ready to shoot their bows and arrows at you, because, I mean, you approach the ball and kick it."

RARE MEETING

Notre Dame joined the ACC -- but not for football -- in 2012 but the Irish have played UVa twice since then, a 35-27 victory in Charlottesville in 2015 and a 35-20 win in South Bend, Ind., in 2019, when UVa was ranked 18th and the Irish were No. 10.

RECOGNITION

Back-to-back games with VMI and James Madison earlier this week had people wondering about their competition, Carlow, a 111-55 victim to VMI, followed hy a 135-40 whipping up the road at James Madison.

"I pride myself on knowing small colleges and must confess I'd never heard of Carlow," said college basketball analyst Bob Valvano, who subsequently learned that Carlow is a Catholic school in Pittsburgh that is 84 percent women.

Carlow, coming off an 0-11 season in 2020-2011, had opened this season wih an 84-82 victory over Pitt-Greensburg and also faces Penn State-Fayette, California University of Pennsylvania and plays its home games at Oakland Catholic High School.

Although Roanoke-based basketball official Roger Ayers was unable to call University of Virginia basketball games while his daughter was a UVa student, that didn't keep him out of the 2020 NCAA Tournament.

Covid was the cause of that.

"It was not a positive experience," Ayers told the audience during the most recent meeting of the Roanoke Valley Sports Club. "I went through the whole season last year, being tested four times a week, just to get the work."

"What that meant was, four times a week I had to find a Fed Ex box, no matter what city I was in, swab my nose, get the test sent overnight and then get the test back after 48 hours. Even though there were no fans, we still had to be tested."

That was common practice aside from the PAC-12, where officials were required to arrive four hours before game time in order for PAC-12 doctors to test them.

"You're hoping your test comes back negative because you don't work if it doesn't and you don't get paid," Ayers said.

On one night, Ayers was tested at 12:01 a.m., because that was required twice in the same day.

When it came to NCAA tournament time, he worked the Atlantic-10 championship game in Dayton. From there, he drove to Indianapolis, where he and his crew would be quarantined all the way to the Final Four.

"That's what I packed for," Ayers said. "That Sunday, I checked in at 6 p.m The Big Ten championship game was that day in Indianapolis. Our rooms weren't ready, so they said, 'We're going to allow you to get some dinner. It will be your last dinner out.' "

The officials came back to their room for a 10 p.m. Covid test. They completed the test and headed to their rooms, with instructions that they would stay there till they got the results."

When he awakened, Ayers had three missed calls from an Indianapolis number.

"It was a lady from the Indianapolis health department and she said, 'Mr. Ayers, can you please call us,' " Ayers recalls. "That's not the kind of phone call you feel you want to get, so I called her back.' "

His test had come back positive, so two nurses arrived at his door for a second test.

"No kidding, they came to the room in what looked like space suits," he said.

In a later call, he was told that his test had come back positive and that his season was over.

He had gone to dinner with five other officials. Three of those five had been slated for the Final Four.

A health official asked Ayers to re-trace his steps.

"I told him the flight numbers that I took." Ayers said. "He said, 'Was there someone sitting beside you?' I said there certainly was."

The health official wanted to know where Ayers went [to a Starbucks] after deplaning. Ayers confided that he had done laundry at his hotel, where he had gone for dinner and with whom. Ayers had been to the Bonefish Grill.

"I had to make five tough phone calls," said Ayers, who was joined by three of the top-rated officials in the country. "I enjoyed our dinner but the season was over. Somehow the media gets a hold of it and finds out it's me and that was the end of it."

He subsequently drove home from Indianapolis.

"I still felt fine," he said. "No issues. The second day, I woke up and was sweating. It went downhill from there but I was one of the fortunate ones. People were struggling from this. People were dying from this. I'm happy to be back."

"I had so many coaches call me, text me, send me e-mails … I had one coach, I won't say who it was because he's going to win this year. He sent me a big thing of soup and some rolls. Next time I miss a call, I'm going to say, 'Coach, what about that nice card you sent me?' "

BRIGHT SPOT

Only one Virginia player has more pass breakups this season than Darrius Bratton, the William Fleming High School product who was praised by UVa coach Bronco Mendenhall following the Cavaliers' 66-49 loss at Brigham Young.

"I think Darrius Bratton made some nice plays for us at corner," Mendenhall said "that was a bright spot. We left him alone a lot and he knocked down quite a few passes. So, I was encouraged by that."

SCHEDULING

The word from Nick Pirro is that the induction of his father to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, will take place during the first part of 2022. John Pirro was an All-America defenseman for Roanoke College and later coached the Maroons. He had been selected for induction this fall.

John Pirro died in 2013 after a 12-year battle with Huntington's Disease. Pirro was the first Roanoke lacrosse player to have his number retired and he also is a member of the Maroons' hall of fame.

UPDATING

Following a 26-17 victory at Georgia Tech this past Saturday, Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente, who had been listed third on the CoachesHotSeat.com, dropped -- or improved -- to eighth. Among ACC coaches, Georgia Tech's Geoff Collins is 16th and Duke's David Cutcliffe is 17th.

Scot Loeffler, the offensive coordinator at Virginia Tech from 2013-2015, is the head coach at Bowling Green, where he was ejected Saturday after receiving back-to-back unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties in a 56-44 loss to Buffalo.

Two unsportsmanlike penalties in one game resulted in ejection starting in 2016. Bowling Green won 56-44. Following his stint at Tech, Loeffler was the offensive coordinator at Boston College.

Virginia football coach Bronco Mendenhall has often compared his multi-dimensional quarterbacks to Taysom Hill, a tight end who also played quarterback during Mendenhall's tenure as Brigham Young coach.

Perhaps the similarity will be revived when the Cavaliers (6-2) go to Provo, Utah for a 10:30 p.m. (Eastern) meeting Saturday with the Cougars (6-2).

The last time the Cavaliers went to Brigham Young, the Cavaliers were 41-33 losers to the Cougars in 2014, when Hill was BYU's quarterback. Hill passed for two touchdowns and rushed for a third in that game.

Mendenhall was BYU's head coach at the time and Hill was the quarterback, passing for 187 yards and rushing for 72. Two of Hill's passes went for touchdowns on an afternoon when the Cougars were outgained 519-332 by a UVa team that was coached by Mike London.

Greyson Lambert began the day as Virginia's quarterback before giving way to Matt Johns.

· Place-kicker Ian Frye had four field goals for the Cavaliers in that game but just as memorable was the heart attack suffered by his father, Mark, a spectator at the game.

According to reports at the time, Mark Frye told Ian not to leave the field and returned from surgery in time to see his son's fourth field goal.

CONNECTION

The last time Virginia and Brigham Young met in Charlottesville was in 2013, when the Cavaliers, under fourth-year UVa head coach Mike London, defeated Mendenhall and Co., 19-16.

There was a two-hour, 10-minute rain delay during the first half but UVa prevailed on a day when it had a measly 223 yards in total offense with David Watford at quarterback.

Watford, who passed for 2,202 yards that season, yielded 15 interceptions as compared to eight TD passes. He was one of five different UVa passing leaders from 2012-2016 -- Michael Rocco, Watford, Lambert, Johns and Kurt Benkert.

CLARIFICATION

Mary Rice, mother of highly recruited football prospect Zach Rice, wants it known that the family had no idea that her son's commitment to North Carolina would coincide with the birthday of Garett Tujague, who coaches the UVa offensive line and recruited Zach Rice for the Cavaliers.

"I would never do a thing to hurt coach [Tujague]," Mary Rice said. "I appreciate that man for how good and kind he was to my son. If we had changed the date, that would have been obvious that we were not going to UVa.

If it seems that ACC men's basketball official Roger Ayers has been absent from Virginia's John Paul Arena in recent years, there's a policy that explains that.

Ayers, who has officiated at the highest levels of Division I basketball, was unable to work Virginia games -- home or away -- over the past three seasons because his daughter, Laken, was a UVa student.

Laken will graduate after 3 1/2 seasons and her father will be able to call UVa games as of Dec. 17.

"I couldn't work a [Virginia] game anywhere," said Ayers, recently the featured speaker at the Roanoke Valley Sports Club.

"I remember a promoter calling me up when UVa was going to play Gonzaga or Baylor on the day after Christmas "

Ayers said, 'We'd like for you to call the game for us.' I said, 'I'd love to but I can't. Our daughter goes to UVa.' He said, 'Is there a conflict? I wasn't aware of that.' "

Ayers was able to do a closed scrimmage between Virginia and Villanova at one point and this weekend will head to Richmond for a scrimmage between the Cavaliers and VCU.

"I can do that because there's no won-loss record," he said. "As far as an exhibition game where there's fans or any type game where they keep score, per our contract, I'm not allowed to work it till she graduates."

It was tough on Laken when she was a freshman.

"The NCAA put out a tweet that year [to answer people] who were saying, 'Why isn't Roger Ayers in the Final Four?' I told Laken, 'No matter where you go to school, your education is more important than any game.'

"She told us she was graduating early, so I was really proud of her."

Laken is applying for physical-therapy school and asked her dad if it would be good to stay close to home.

"I said, 'Absolutely not,' " Roger Ayers said. "She said, 'I don’t want to affect your refereering and I said, 'You go get your education and I'll take care of the officiating part.' "

AROUND THE ACC: Georgia Tech, which goes to Virginia for a 7:30 p.m. Saturday game, has not won at Scott Stadium since 2013 and is 4-13 all-time at Scott Stadium. The Yellow Jackets are looking to snap a three-game losing streak in Charlottesville.

Georgia Tech is hoping to win back-to-back games for the first time in three seasons under head coach Geoff Collins. The Yellow Jackets (3-3, 2-2 ACC) are looking to get above .500 after seven games for the first time since 2017.

IN THE 70s: After visiting Virginia this week, Georgia Tech concludes the regular season with Virginia Tech, Miami, Boston College, Notre Dame and Georgia. The Yellow Jackets rank 71st in the Football Bowl Subdivision in scoring defense, tied for 71st in total defense and 70th in passing yards allowed.

CANDIDATE: The 247Sports site has listed Virginia tight end Jelani Woods as the tight end on its midseason all-transfer team. Woods, a 6-7, 275-pound transfer from Oklahoma State, has scored at least one touchdown for the Cavaliers' in the past six games.

The running back on the team is Michigan's Kenneth Walker, a transfer from currently unbeaten Wake Forest. Walker has rushed for 997 yards in six games at Michigan State after back-to-back seasons at Wake when he rushed for 579 yards. There's been a dropoff in the Deacons' running game, led by Christian Beal-Smith, who is 14th in the ACC with 412 yards in seven games but it hasn't affected the Deacons' unbeaten win-loss record.

When it was announced on May 17 that Mike Jones would be joining the Virginia Tech men's basketball staff, it did not go unnoticed in ACC coaching circles.

"That was a strategic hire, that gentleman [Jones] from DeMatha High School," Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said.

"Actually, Mike [Young] called me. We go way back. He said, 'Hey, I don't know Mike Jones. Do you think he'd be interested in a college job. I said, 'I think he would. I think you should call him.' "

Brey is a graduate of DeMatha, where he played for Morgan Wootten, one of the premier coaches of his generation. Brey later served as a DeMatha assistant prior to joining the Duke staff in 1987.

"I tried to hire Mike Jones 10 years ago but he had a great gig and he was involved with USA Basketball," Brey said. "I said, 'Mike [Young], you should make a run at him. And, make a run they did.'

"And then, I saw [Young] after Mike was with him for a couple of months and he said, 'Mike, he's awesome.' I said, 'Hey, he's a coach.' I said, 'Mike Jones is old school like us. He's one of us. He's a teacher.'

"Mike Jones said, 'I don't know Mike Young. What do you think? I said, 'If you're going to college [as a coach] and take a college job, you go to work for MIke Young. Just trust me. You're going to be in good hands.' "

HARD TO RESIST

Young couldn't resist a question about another DeMatha product, Marty Fletcher, previously the head coach at VMI and now retired as the head coach at Colorado College, where he coached the men's and women's basketball teams, once on the same day.

"One of the characters of all characters," Brey said. "Only Marty could pull that off, as we all know. Somebody told me that a year ago. If I'm 62, Marty's got to be 70. He's always had energy."

CONNECTIONS

Brey was quick to point out the return of a former Irish assistant, Anthony Solomon, an ex-Virginia player, who was a member of the Cavaliers' 1984 Final Four team.

Solomon began his coaching career under Brey at Delaware and later served as an assistant at Bowling Green, Manhattan, Richmond, Virginia, Clemson and Notre Dame. Solomon also was the head coach for four years at St. Bonaventure.

• “Coach Slo has been on the Irish sidelines for all the peak moments during Coach Brey’s magical runs at Notre Dame. His return is major. He demands accountability, he develops guys, and Slo has an uncanny ability to establish a trust between player and coach." – Jordan Cornette, Notre Dame All-Time Leading Shot Blocker, 2005 Graduate, ACC Network Analyst/Host

AGING

With Duke's 74-year-old Mike Krzyzewski stepping down at the end of the season, Leonard Hamilton, 73, becomes the ACC's oldest head coach, followed by Miami's Jim Larranaga, 72. Roy Williams was 70 when he retired as North Carolina head coach April 1.

"One of my goals was to outlast them," Larranaga said of Krzyzewski and Williams. "I've tried to stay in great shape."

He has given up tennis but found a chiropractor who recommended a DRX9000 for his back. He routinely beats his players in free-throw challenges and connected on 1,000 of 1,100 free-throw attempts in one hour, helping to raise $42,000 for Juvenile Diabetes.

Chris Taylor, whose walk-off home run led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 3-1 victory over St. Louis in the National League wild-card game Wednesday, had seven home runs in 580 at-bats in 56 games during his UVa career from 2010-2012.

Taylor, a fifth-round choice of the Seattle Mariners in 2012, did not have a home run in 84 games over his first two years at Seattle and had a total of two home runs in 156 games over his first five seasons. His break-out season was in 2017, when he had 21 homers and 72 RBI.

Taylor's father and grandfather were both wrestlers at Virginia Tech and Taylor, nicknamed CT3, was a wrestler at Great Neck Middle School before making a full-time commitment to baseball. He was named Tidewater Player of the Year at Cox High School in Virginia Beach.

At Virginia, Taylor's clutch hit in the Charlottesville Super Regional helped the Cavaliers advance to the 2011 College World Series with a victory over Cal-Irvine.

A NEW LEASE

There will be no former Virginia athletes on the roster when longtime UVa radio voice Dave Koehn takes over that role for the Milwaukee Bucks, where his first challenge will be the pronunciation of Giannis Antetokounmpo and his brother Thanasis, along with Giorgios Kalaitzakis and Sandro Mamukelashvili.

John Freeman from WINA in Charlottesville will serve in Koehn's place with former Cavaliers defensive back Tony Covington remaining in his role as analyst for the Cavs' game Saturday at Louisville.

IN FOOTBALL

A commitment from running back George Pettaway from Nansemond-Suffolk Academy gives North Carolina its third commitment from the Rivals.com list of the top 10 football prospects in Virginia.

Campbell University has football commitments from three players in the top 40, compared to seven for Virginia Tech and three for UVa. North Carolina has five of the top 17.

RECRUITING

The addition of guard Rodney Rice from DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md., has given the Hokies a spot in the top 25 men's basketball classes as ranked by rivals.com at No. 23.

Rice's commitment on Oct. 3 came two weeks after the Hokies landed 7-foot, 250-pound Patrick Wessler from Mathews, N.C., not too far up the road from coach Mike Young's old haunts in Spartanburg, S.C.

Rice comes from the same program as Mike Jones, hired by the Hokies after 19 seasons at DeMatha, where he most recently was the associate head coach.

PERSONNEL

Louisville will be serving as host for a Saturday game with a Virginia football team with a roster that includes ex-Louisville defensive back Joe Comer, who began his college career at Livingstone College, transferred to Louisville and is now at UVa, where he is not among the 37 players listed as having made a tackle.

PRESENCE STILL FELT

Longtime Virginia Tech strength coach Mike Gentry, who followed head coach Frank Beamer into retirement after the 2015 season, has surfaced in a similar capacity down the road at Division III Emory & Henry, where he has joined former Tech aide Curt Newsome.

Former Lord Botetourt High School coach Tony Hart is on the staff, which includes former Liberty-Bealeton coach and Roanoke City policeman Tommy Buzzo and former Virginia Tech defensive back Davon Morgan among others.

RANKINGS

In the Sagarin Rankings published by USA Today, UVa is ranked 56th in the country and Louisville is 65th. … Virginia Tech is 47th and visiting Notre Dame is 11th. … Pittsburgh is 16th and Wake Forest is 21st.

STATISTICS

Virginia is seventh in the FBS in total offense with 526.6 yards per game while Virginia Tech is 116th at 329.5. … The Hokies are 46th in total defense with 326.0 yards yards per game allowed. Virginia is 96th with a yield of 412.8 yards per game.

One of the unfortunate aspects of being self-employed -- or not being employed at all -- is the absence of information technology or IT.

That was one reason for a belated College Notebook this week.

In all likelihood, there also would have been an earlier story leading up to Virginia's football game with Miami, scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff later today (Thursday).

Miami (2-2) is a 5 1/2-point favorite over the Cavaliers (2-2).

The Hurricanes began the week as a 5 1/2-point favorite.

The big question going into the week was the availability of Hurricanes' quarterback D'Eriq King, who had a shoulder issue that kept him out of Miami's most recent game, a 69-0 rout of Central Connecticut.

"You had to feel absolutely great, though, about how the quote-unquote second and third guys showed up last weekend and those young guys can flat-out play," Miami coach Manny Diaz said in an appearance on the ACC Network earlier this week.

"We thought all off-season that we had three quarterbacks we could win with."

The Cavaliers are 7-11 all-time against the Hurricanes and have lost four of the last five games in the series. This will mark the third straight game in which UVa has played at Miami and Hard Rock Stadium was also the site of the 2019 Orange Bowl, in which Florida held off the Cavaliers 36-28.

Miami's best win so far this year came against Appalachian State, 25-23. The Hurricanes were lopsided losers to Alabama and Michigan State, not unlike Virginia's losses to ACC foes North Carolina and Wake Forest.

Miami knows they face a tough test with quarterback Brennan Armstrong, the FBS leader in total offense.

"Virginia is a big challenge," Diaz said. "Armstrong isn't throwing it well; he's throwing it amazing. I think what's changed Virginia is, they've always been really good offensively, they've always been very efficient offensively but they're way more explosive down the field.

"They've always stretched you horizontally. Now they're going at you vertically with a much better success rate than in the past."

WHERE NOW FOR POPE?

K'Vaughan Pope, a top prospect when he signed with Ohio State out of Dinwiddie High School in Virginia, has entered the transfer portal after a sideline incident led to him being dismissed by the Buckeyes.

Pope was rated one of the top five prospects in the state coming out of Dinwiddie, where he was coached by Billy Mills, formerly the head coach at Rockbridge County. Pope will keep a year's eligibility unless he plays in a fifth game this year.

RECRUTING

Duke took a men's basketball commitment on September 20th from Dereck Lively, a 6-foot-11 center from the Westtown (Pa.) School who is rated the No. 3 prospect in the 2022 class by rivals.com. New Duke coach Jon Scheyer has landed three of the top nine prospects on the Rivals list.

CHANGES

Louisville newcomer Mason Faulkner is entering his sixth season of college basketball after earlier stints at Northern Kentucky and Western Carolina. The beneficiary of a COVID-19 waiver, he was a two-time All-Southern Conference selection and has scored 1,343 points in his college career.

Faulkner will be joined by another transfer, Jarrod West from Marshall, where West set a school record for career steals and scored more than 1,200 points. He was also on the Conference USA all-defensive team.

SCHEDULING

Coastal Carolina, which has signed to host Virginia once in football as part of a three-game package, is off to a 4-0 start that includes a 49-22 victory over Kansas. Coastal Carolina played host to BYU last year and also has played at Arkansas.

From the day in 1974 that I was instructed to pick up Bob Feller and drive him to the old Holiday Inn in Salem, the Roanoke Valley Sports Club has met or exceeded expectations.

That was the case Monday night, when the speaker was former Virginia Tech basketball player Ron Everhart.

It's been a while since Everhart played at Virginia Tech when Charlie Moir was Tech's head coach during the 1980s.

"He was always one of the smartest guys I dealt with while I was covering the Hokies," former Roanoke Times columnist Jack Bogaczyk said of Everhart. "I liked him a lot. Too bad he couldn't get in more games because he was playing behind Dell Curry."

Everhart had grown up in Fairmont, W.Va., before he spent his final year of high school at DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md., where he played under the distinguished long-time coach, Morgan Wooten.

Everhart subsequently served as the team captain for the Hokies' team that played in the 1985 NCAA Tournament under Charlie Moir.

One year later, he began a lengthy coaching career that began with a graduate-assistant stint under Bobby Cremins, whose 1985-86 Georgia Tech team played in the NCAA Tournament.

Everhart became a full-time assistant under Joe Cantafio at VMI and later was an aide at Tulane.

Everhart got his first head-coaching job at McNeese in 1994 and subsequently was a head coach at Northeastern and Duquesne.

He had an 18-year record of 273-261 before joining Bob Huggins' staff at West Virginia after the 2011-2012 season.

Huggins is one of the most notable characters in college basketball

"I've got many stories," Everhart said. "There are some stories I can't repeat. 'Coach' is unbelievable. As most successful people are, he's very driven. They're addictive personalities. Is that the right word?”

"But, he's one of those guys … I can't believe he's 67 years old. He just goes and goes and goes. The energy and the drive and the desire to win is incredible."

Everhart noted that an upcoming Roanoke Valley Sports Club will include Roanoke-based college basketball official Roger Ayers, who has faced Huggins a few times.

"He has a great deal of respect for Roger because he thinks he's fair," Everhart said, "and he also has a great deal of respect for Roger because he thinks he's a very good basketball official.

"The interesting thing about Huggs is, he'd give you the shirt off his back. He's got the biggest heart in the world. If we're on a recruiting trip and a guy breaks down and needs help, he'll tell you, 'Pull over, let's help this guy out.' "

Huggins doesn't give many free passes to his players.

"If we get an e-mail that says, 'Johnny fell asleep in class today,' that kid is flipping a 385-pound tractor tire on the turf field behind our offices," Everhart said. "It's 60 yards long and he'll be flipping it at 6 a.m. He's [Huggins] very much into keeping guys accountable."

Opposing coaches are very respectful.

"We go places like Texas Tech and Bobby Knight shows up at the arena to say hello to Huggs," Everhart said. "Jim Boeheim sat at [West Virginia's] NCAA Tournament game last year, grabbed Huggs and told me that we should put him on a diet."

When Everhart played at Virginia Tech, the Hokies were in the Metro Conference. Tech was aligned with the Big East starting in 1991 and joined the ACC, to the delight of many Hokies, starting in 2003.

In recent weeks and years, there has been talk of more ACC expansion, possibly involving West Virginia.

"It's [WVU] a great place," Everhart said. "We don't have any pro teams in football, basketball or baseball. We have as good a following as anybody anywhere.

"There has been some talk about West Virginia in the Big Ten or West Virginia in the ACC. I think most West Virginia fans would understand why we went to the Big 12 when we did and were very disappointed that we didn't make an effort to go to the ACC.

Travel remains a major issue for the Mountaineers

"If you go back 10 years, the ACC wasn't really expanding at that time" Everhart said. " Maybe it's wishful thinking that we'd like to be in the ACC [at least] for the sake of travel."

In addition to an upset loss at Virginia Tech that he followed by passing for more than 300 yards and rushing for more than 100 yards in a 45-7 victory over visiting Georgia State, North Carolina quarterback Sam Howell is making another sort of imprint.

Howell has taken advantage of a new NCAA ruling that allows for student-athletes to make money off their name, image and license. As a result, Howell has been appearing on Bojangles commercials in North Carolina.

Howell, who goes up against Virginia on Saturday night, has been the first UNC quarterback since Marquise Williams in 2014 to pass for at least 300 yards and rush for 100 yards or more in the same game.

AROUND THE ACC

Duke is tied for ninth overall and first among ACC programs in the latest U.S. News and World Report rankings of the nation's top universities. Next among ACC schools is Notre Dame at No. 19, followed by UVa at No. 25.

A tie at No. 28 includes North Carolina and Wake Forest. Boston College is 36th, followed by Georgia Tech at No. 38, Florida State and Miami at No. 55, after which it's Syracuse and Pittsburgh at No. 59.

Clemson and Virginia Tech are tied at No. 75, followed by N.C. State at No. 79.

RECRUITING

Recent Rivals.com football recruiting rankings show Virginia Tech with commitments from seven of the top 40 prospects and Virginia with three of the top 40, including Nos. 39 and 40.

Benji Gosnell, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound defensive end from Carroll County High School, is rated the No. 16 prospect in Virginia. Gosnell committed to Ohio State when he was at East Surry, N.C., High School but decommitted this past summer and more recently has been courted by Clemson and others.

NO RECRUITING DROPOFF

Dariq Whitehead, a 6-foot-8 small forward from Newark, N.J., by way of Montverde (Fla.) Academy, is the latest addition to Jon Scheyer's first recruiting class as he prepares to succeed Mike Krzyzewski in 2022-2023.

Whitehead, rated the No. 9 prospect in his class nationwide, joins a Duke class including No. 5-rated Kyle Filipowski, a 6-10 power forward from Wilbraham, Mass., and 6-5 Jaden Schitt from Yorkville, Ill., who is rated 82nd on the top 100.

NON-REVENUE

Virginia has awarded a two-year contract extension to Vin Lananna, who presides over the men's and women's track-and-field programs. Among other accomplishments, Lananna was able to land the 2023 men's and women's NCAA cross country championships for UVa's course at Panorama Farms in Albemarle County.

Lanana coached at Stanford and Oregon and was the men's team coach for the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janiero. He was elected president of USA Track and Field in 2017.

IN MEMORIAM

Jeff Klein, a member of the Virginia men's basketball team when the Cavaliers featured Ralph Sampson, Jeff Lamp and Lee Raker in the 1980s, has passed away after a battle with cancer. He was a valued member of the 1981 Final Four team. who played in 59 games during his UVa career.

While the destination of former Virginia Tech quarterback Braxton Burmeister may be common knowledge to some Hokie fans, some may find it surprising.

Put me in that latter category after reading that Burmeister is headed to San Diego State in his hometown.

Burmeister, a three-star recruit coming out of high school, began his college career at Oregon, where he saw playing time in 2017 and 2018 before transferring to Tech, where he sat out the 2019 season due to existing transfer rules.

Burmeister started 16 games over two seasons at Virginia Tech, leading the Hokies to a 33-15 victory over visiting Virginia in 2020, followed by a 29-24 Tech win this past November at UVa.

Burmeister had 2,481 yards in total offense despite entering the transfer Portal and skipping Tech's appearance in the Pinstripe Bowl, where the Hokies fell to Maryland 54-10.

At San Diego State, Burmeister will play for a well-traveled Brady Hoke, who is in his second tour as the San Diego State head coach. Hoke, 63, also has been the head coach at Ball State and Michigan, where he was the 2011 Big Ten coach of the year.

While committing to Arizona on two separate occasions, Burmeister threw 127 touchdown passes in his high school in La Jolla, Calif.

Lucas Johnson, the starting quarterback at San Diego this past season, entered the transfer portal after the 2021 season and created a path for Burmeister.

TRANSFER TIME

Southern Cal football coach Lincoln Riley, previously the head coach at Oklahoma, came out against the transfer portal in an appearance on ESPN earlier this week but that didn't prevent him from signing quarterback Caleb Williams, whom he originally had committed for Oklahoma.

"At some point, we’ll have to put in some guardrails to ensure when it can happen [and] when it can’t happen so players and staffs are a little bit more on the same page, Riley said. "Right now, it’s so open-ended that I think is difficult for players, difficult for coaches building rosters … trying to project for the future."

At Oklahoma, Williams was a back-up to Spencer Rattler. who has passed for more than 3,000 yards as a freshman, only to transfer to South Carolina and join head coach Shane Beamer. Beamer was an assistant coach at Oklahoma when he became acquainted with Rattler.

RECRUITING RANKINGS

Texas A&M finished with college football's No. 1 recruiting class, according to rivals.com. At No. 10, Clemson had the top-rated ACC class, with part-time ACC member Notre Dame in seventh place.

Virginia Tech and Virginia, both in their first year under new coaches, were 38th and 62nd respectively. In UVa's case, that was ahead of No. 68 Pittsburgh, No. 72 Syracuse and No. 76 Wake Forest.

The top-ranked in-state player to go to a Virginia school was Lemar Law, a 6-foot-6, 295-pound defensive tackle from Green Run High School in Virginia Beach at No. 10 who picked the Hokies.

The Hokies got three of the top 15 in-state players. including No. 14 Gunner Givens, a defensive tackle from Lord Botetourt.

Lynchburg Christian quarterback Davis Lane was the highest-rated UVa signee at No. 38 and was the Cavaliers' only catch in the in-state top 40. Thirteen of Tech's signees came from that group.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Nos. 1 and 2 prospects in the 2023 class in Virginia are 6-5, 275-pound offensive lineman Adam Birchmeier from Broad Run in Ashburn and 6-6, 265-pound tight end Mathias Barnwell from Riverbend in Fredericksburg. Both committed to Penn State during the summer of 2021.

A third top 25 player from Virginia who has committed to Penn State, Anthony Donkoh, a 6-4, 310-pound offensive guard from Lightridge High School in Aldie, Va. It is customary for Penn State to make early offers to Virginia players, who seem to benefit from subsequent jumps in their rankings.

Aldie is listed by Google as a "historic village" in Loudoun County.