WVU, city say post-game mayhem could have been worse
By VICKI SMITH, Associated Press
© October 23, 2003 | Last updated 3:21 PM Oct. 23

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Students celebrating West Virginia's 28-7 upset of No. 3 Virginia Tech set more than 100 fires in the streets, most doused within minutes.

Mayor Ron Justice said a massive citywide cleanup in the days before Wednesday night's nationally televised game left most revelers with little to burn.

``They didn't have much at their disposal,'' he said Thursday. ``Our situations last night could have been much worse.''

Crews removed 20 dump truck loads of furniture and debris from the porches and yards of student rental housing this week, then went through town again Wednesday emptying Dumpsters, Justice said.

Fires were contained before they got out of control, traffic through the student-dominated Sunnyside neighborhood kept flowing, and law breakers were identified and arrested, he said.

``I was out, so I saw it all,'' Justice said. ``I think we were very successful.''

City and WVU officials say they plan to study videotapes and photographs of the celebratory rioting and will pursue charges against people they can identify.

``If there are students in the pictures, and I'm sure there will be, they'll be hearing from our student affairs office and will be disciplined accordingly,'' WVU spokeswoman Becky Lofstead said.

Fire Chief Dave Fetty said his firefighters took photographs of fans who accosted them and will share them with police.

``There will be some surprised students, I imagine,'' he said.

Earlier this month, WVU disciplined three students who participated in similar post-game mayhem after the Mountaineers' 22-20 loss to No. 2 Miami, Lofstead said.

As the game wound down, fans in the crowd of 56,319 began streaming onto Mountaineer Field with the intention of tearing down the goal posts -- a practice as old as bonfires among die-hard fans.

Police used pepper spray to hold them back, and after coach Rich Rodriguez pleaded with them to depart, the field cleared quickly. But some students said anger about the pepper spray helped fuel the fire-starting.

``I was standing on the side cheering for West Virginia and the next thing you know, there's a cloud of pepper spray, and I'm throwing up,'' said Jim Jay, a junior journalism major from Richmond, Va.

``As long as no one's getting hurt, I think they should leave people alone,'' he said. ``People are out having fun and celebrating. No one's trying to hurt anybody.''

Lofstead said the pepper spray was ``an absolute last resort.''

``That is not something that officials wanted to do, but they decided for the safety of these fans it had to be done,'' she said.

Bill Case, a spokesman for WVU's Ruby Memorial Hospital, said staff treated several people for pepper spray exposure and ankle injuries, but no one was seriously hurt. The hospital also admitted eight people with some form of substance abuse problem, either alcohol or other drugs.

Police Sgt. Mike Lantz said several firefighters and police officers were hit with rocks and bottles, and one student was charged with battery after punching an officer who tried to take his drink.

About 20 other people were charged with setting fires, disorderly conduct and public intoxication.
 

Tech entirely out of control in ugly loss
By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - For more than a week, Virginia Tech had been expressing concerns that a West Virginia crowd might hurl batteries and other projectiles at the Hokies from the Mountaineer Field stands.

Come to think of it, Tech might have been able to use a few batteries Wednesday night.

It was like Hokies coach Frank Beamer had a television remote in his hands but was unable to change the channel.

He no doubt felt like changing the channel later in the evening, especially when he saw the "SportsCenter" reruns that showed him slapping wide receiver Ernest Wilford on the helmet.

Beamer's actions were regrettable, as well as symbolic of an evening when the Hokies were out of control in virtually all phases of their operation.

If it sounds bad enough that Tech was penalized 13 times for 116 yards, consider that three other Tech penalties did not count in those figures. West Virginia declined two of them and a third was offset by a WVU penalty.

The offsetting penalties came on a personal foul, one of six personal fouls called against the Hokies, including four in the third quarter. Tech had entered the game as the least-penalized team in the Big East.

For a moment, there was pause to consider a comment last week by Boston College coach Tom O'Brien when he was asked about possible fallout from BC's decision to join the ACC. O'Brien said his greatest fear was a possible imbalance in officiating.

There was no imbalance Wednesday night, when WVU was flagged nine times for 96 yards and was the victim of the worst call of the night, actually a no-call that enabled Tech's Vincent Fuller to return a fumble 50 yards for a touchdown. Teammate Vegas Ferguson should have been ruled down.

That turned a possible 17-0 or 21-0 West Virginia lead into a 14-7 affair that sent Tech into halftime with all the momentum. Only a 93-yard touchdown pass turned the game back in favor of the team that deserved to win.

Unlike the teams' 2002 game in Blacksburg, when WVU needed a game-saving end-zone interception to win 21-18, there was no question as to the superior team Wednesday night. If the teams played again this weekend, you'd have to like the Mountaineers, especially on their new fake grass.

As for the Hokies, goodbye national championship, hello quarterback controversy.

Until now, junior quarterback Bryan Randall has been so outstanding that a perceived challenge from redshirt freshman Marcus Vick has been a nonissue. However, Randall wouldn't want to have too many more games like Wednesday's, when he was intercepted three times, lost a fumble, fumbled three snaps and was sacked five times.

When asked about Randall, Beamer correctly pointed out that nobody from Tech had enjoyed a great game. The only thing as dead as Tech's national championship hopes is tailback Kevin Jones' Heisman Trophy campaign.

The best tailback on the field Wednesday night was West Virginia's Quincy Wilson.

If Tech was overrated, what should people make of a Mountaineers team that was 2-4? That it has underachieved? On closer examination, maybe West Virginia was a victim of a tough nonconference schedule that included Maryland, Wisconsin and Cincinnati.

Five home games and a trip to Rutgers left the Hokies woefully battle-untested. As long as the Hokies kept winning and winning big, they were the darlings of the national media. As soon as a team falters against this kind of schedule, it invites criticism.

To me, Tech's decision to ask out of a 2004 game at LSU is a total sham, particularly if the Tigers are replaced by a Division I-AA opponent, possibly Western Carolina.

Mountaineers dominate Virginia Tech
No. 3 Hokies' fall especially hard
Aside from being pushed around at WVU, Tech hurts itself with turnovers and penalties.
By RANDY KING
THE ROANOKE TIMES

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The turning of the leaves is a lovely sight that most cherish. Not so for members of Virginia Tech's football team.

For the fourth straight season, one of the annual rites of autumn has correlated with a fall by Tech from the ranks of the unbeaten.

In a horrific exhibition in front of millions of national television viewers and 56,319 delirious fans, No.3 Tech saw its unbeaten season and hopes for a national title sucked up by a blue-and-gold blower at Mountaineer Field on Wednesday night.

Blowing away its border rival easier than even it could have imagined, 14-point underdog West Virginia pummeled mistake-prone Tech 28-7. The upset marked one of the biggest victories in the history of WVU, which had been 0-19 against teams in the top three of the Associated Press poll before dominating the shell-shocked Hokies.

"If you look at that game they just pounded us, plain and simple, and there's nothing you can do about it," Tech's DeAngelo Hall said.

"I'm just feeling hard in my stomach. I just can't believe it. We worked so hard. Our strength and conditioning coach [Mike Gentry] told us before we went out there that we worked so hard during a two-a-days, waking up and doing winter workouts at 6 in the morning, and that we just go through so much as players. ... He knows what we go through, and he knows that other teams in the country don't do what we do.

"So mentally and physically we were ready. But the outcome just didn't say that."

Who were those impostors wearing the white uniforms? Tech fans certainly would like to have an answer to that question. A team that had been so proficient and workmanlike in discarding its first six opponents by an average of nearly 31 points per game resembled a bunch of bad impersonators on this eve.

Tech quarterback Bryan Randall, so efficient in the Hokies' quick start and rise to No.3 in the rankings, made more mistakes in 60 minutes than he had in the first six games combined. Randall was intercepted three times, lost a fumble on an errant pitch, and fumbled three more routine center exchanges that Tech recovered.

"I don't think it was my best effort, by any means," a disconsolate Randall said. "It's kind of one of those things where you don't get off on the right foot, and it seems like when things go bad they really go bad."

The only good moment for the Hokies was a 50-yard return of recovered fumble by backup cornerback Vincent Fuller that cut WVU's lead to 14-7 with 2:07 left in the first half. Even that was a questionable moment as it appeared Tech linebacker Vegas Robinson, who had started the play by recovering a fumble by WVU back Quincy Wilson, had been down via tackle before the ball skittered from his hands and was retrieved on the run by Fuller.

The Hokies' bad moments? Got a few minutes?

One in particular involved coach Frank Beamer slapping receiver Ernest Wilford in the helmet. Beamer apologized to Wilford after the game, and Virginia Tech released a statement Thursday regarding the incident.

"There is no one I respect more in my football program than Ernest Wilford," Beamer said in the statement. "I should have shown him better respect. It came at a very frustrating time for all of us, but that still does not excuse my actions."

Athletic director Jim Weaver, who was out of town Thursday, said Beamer will not be disciplined.

"The administration and I agree that this single incident is not reflective of how Frank has conducted business throughout his coaching career," Weaver said in the statement.

"Football is an emotional game and I will ask Frank to maintain in himself the same sort of discipline that he requires from his players."

As for miscues on the field, Tech (6-1, 2-1 Big East) helped tie the noose around its neck by committing 13 penalties for 116 yards - both season highs by far. Showing a total lack of poise and discipline under fire, the suddenly reckless Hokies were called for six personal fouls, including one that was canceled out by personal foul on WVU; two offensive holding penalties; one defensive pass-interference penalty; two false starts; an offside call; and a roughing-the-kicker infraction.

"Things just didn't go our way," Tech center Jake Grove said. "I'll be anxious to watch the film and see exactly what happened. You can blame it on a lot of things and I blame myself. I had a penalty [personal foul] I shouldn't have had.

"You can blame anybody. Just blame the team, we lost as a team. The defense didn't play well enough, the offense didn't play well enough and our special teams didn't play well enough."

Tech's defense, which had all the right answers 11 days earlier in a 51-7 rout of Syracuse, didn't have a clue this time. WVU (3-4, 2-1) ran for 264 yards on a defense that had allowed its first six foes to run for 88.8 yards per game.

A 93-yard touchdown pass in which wideout Travis Garvin blew past Tech rover Michael Crawford and hauled in a perfectly thrown rainbow from Rasheed Marshall to make it 21-7 early in the third quarter was the clinching blow.

"They got us matched up there and [Crawford] just got outrun," Hokies coach Frank Beamer said. "We had a lot of 'want-to' but we didn't have a lot of great play from our football team on either side of the ball and the kicking game."

WVU limited Tech star tailback Kevin Jones to 57 yards on 11 carries, and Tech's defense made Mountaineers back Quincy Wilson look like Priest Holmes. Wilson rambled for 178 yards on 33 carries, including 131 yards on eight runs of 10 or more yards. WVU finished with 426 total yards, of which 335 came on 17 plays of 10 yards and longer.

Mix the turnovers, the penalties, and all the big plays allowed defensively, and that's a recipe for disaster.

"You throw an interception the first time, you fumble the second time, you get stopped on downs the third time," Beamer said. "You want to get a crowd into the game, that's a good way to get 'em in there."

Hall, who was called for a personal foul when he blatantly hit Marshall long after the WVU QB's 4-yard run made it 28-7 late in the third quarter, said: "Those 66 players from West Virginia beat us, not the 56,000 in the stands. The [WVU] players were talking, but they were up the whole game so they had a right to talk. We didn't have a right to talk."

When it was over, thousands of WVU crazies hopped from the stands onto the field and celebrated wildly as police tried to fend off the surging mass. Bud Foster's defense sure could have used some pepper spray, too.

"It's already dawned on me," Wilson said. "As soon as I saw all those people run out there, I knew we had done something special."
 

UVa gets safety from Chesapeake
Hagan form analyzed
By DOUG DOUGHTY
Exclusive to roanoke.com by 5 p.m. Thursdays

Deep Creek High School coach David Cox said that Jamaal Jackson established himself as a Division I-A prospect when he was timed in 4.45 seconds for 40 yards at a Norfolk combine.

Syracuse already had offered Jackson (6 foot 3, 205 pounds) by the time he made a "silent" commitment on an unofficial trip to Virginia last weekend.

"He had a good year last year," Cox said. "Some people had questioned his speed, but [UVa assistant] Bob Price was here to see him in person. He must have been impressed because we hadn't sent out much film on him."

Jackson was an option quarterback {"that shows his athleticism" Cox said) before he was moved to wide receiver in the fourth game of his junior year. On defense, he plays safety, a position at which the Cavaliers have found themselves unusually thin.

"He was up there last weekend on one of those unofficial deals and they offered him on the spot," Cox said. "I talked to him [Wednesday] night and asked if he was sure. He's a smart kid. He knows what he wants."

If the Cavaliers need safeties, "that might have been a selling point," Cox said. "I asked him about positions and he said, 'I told them I'll play either side of the ball.' "

Cox said Jackson has scored more than 1,000 on the SAT and has a grade-point average in the 3.0 range. He becomes the 10th player to commit to Virginia for 2004, joining Nashville, Tenn., tight end Tom Santi, who committed earlier this week.

CREDIT FORMER Virginia defensive back Kirk Martin and his fellow Southwest Roanoke County football coach Rick Radford for spotting a flaw in the mechanics of UVa punter Tom Hagan.

Martin and Radford both played at Cave Spring High School and have watched Hagan since he was a pre-teen. They had the same observation Saturday after watching the UVa-Florida State game: Hagan is leaning backward when he punts.

For evidence, Radford offers a photograph that accompanied an article in Monday's editions of The Roanoke Times, "Cavs' Hagan Not Measuring Up." The ball is going one direction and the rest of Hagan's body is another.

(Radford offered his opinion in an e-mail confirming a 34-6 fantasy football loss to the author of this column, whose juggernaut is led by Brett Favre, Deuce McAllister and Randy Moss.).

When presented with this information (on Hagan, not the fantasy football league), UVa coach Al Groh didn't immediately disagree.

"Leaning backward can be a factor," Groh said on his weekly Thursday teleconference. "I will say that every kick is taped every day. If it were something as simple as leaning backward, I think Tom would have reached that conclusion by now.

"As I've said, each kicker's mechanics are different. The two most important things are rhythm and balance."

THE RESPONSE TO last week's UVa Insider poll showed that support was overwhelming among those readers who consider themselves "fans" of the quarterback sneak.

If Groh wasn't aware of the poll, he at least had grown tired of my constant questions about quarterback sneaks when he raised the issue at his Monday news conference.

Keep in mind, there was no situation in the Cavaliers' 19-14 loss to Florida State that might have called for a quarterback sneak.

"I was watching the Purdue-Wisconsin game before coming over to our game," Groh said, "and Purdue almost lost the game because it failed twice to pick up 1 yard. Know what play they called?

That's right. A quarterback sneak.

This week's poll concerns Virginia's final regular-season record.
ANOTHER NEW NAME for a Virginia men's basketball program seeking a post player is 6-10 Robert Rothbart from Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif. Rothbart is rated the No. 176 prospect in the country by Prep Stars.

San Antonio, Texas, big man Brent Plaisted, listed as a Virginia target last week for the first time, has committed to BYU. The Cavaliers knew Plaisted was a longshot because he is a Mormon.
 

HAVE MONEY? WILL TRAVEL
Troy State decides to sacrifice wins for large paydays
By Dave Johnson
Daily Press
Published October 24, 2003

They're called "guarantee" games, as in you're guaranteed a certain sum of money just for showing up. And more times than not, you're guaranteed to get creamed.

It's an interesting tradeoff, one lower-level programs often are willing to make. Sometimes it's in the interest of feeding a starving athletic budget. Sometimes it's a bid for exposure. For Troy State, in its third year as a Division I-A football program, it's both.

"I've always said we've got to take advantage of the big payday to help us continue to grow," said Trojans coach Larry Blakeney, whose team visits Virginia on Saturday. "Folks who have a half-million plus, that's who we need to be playing. Folks that ain't got $300,000, we don't need to play them because they all beat you up, whether you win or lose."

Win or lose Saturday, the Trojans will take home a guaranteed $300,000. While that's pretty good coin, it's nothing compared to the $475,000 check Nebraska gave Troy State to be its sacrificial lamb. Or the $450,000 the Trojans took home after their trip to Kansas State.

Playing eight road games isn't a recipe for success, but Troy State - which joins the Sun Belt Conference next fall - expects to net $1.6 million in guarantees. Money is a big part of college athletics, and the Trojans are strapped for cash. The school's athletic budget stands at $8 million, one-fourth of Virginia's. And TSU has spent $30 million in the past decade on facility improvements.

Over the last three years, Troy State has played Nebraska (three times), Mississippi State (twice), Kansas State, Miami, Maryland, Minnesota and Arkansas - all on the road. Throw in two-for-one arrangements against Missouri, Iowa State and Marshall, where $150,000 changes hand with each game, and the Trojans have made nearly $5 million in guarantees since their jump to I-A.

Not that it's been easy on Blakeney's team. This season, for example, Troy State's first two games were at Kansas State and Minnesota. The athletic department made $725,000 from those trips, but the Trojans lost by a combined score of 89-12.

"When somebody pays you $450,000, that's usually about how many points they're going to beat you by," TSU athletic director Johnny Williams said. "That's usually how I equate it. So as a coach or AD, you have to sit down and decide how many of these can we play?"

Blakeney, in his 13th season at Troy, leaves that up to Williams.

"When we made the move, we didn't want people to think we were afraid to play I-A teams," he said. "We could have dodged a bunch of people and played down and maybe won a few more games. We certainly wouldn't have gotten the national exposure for our university that way. And I don't think we would have been able to attract recruits that way. We think we've done it the right way for what was available to us.

"You can get all the big-time games you basically want if you work at it a little bit. It's hard to get folks your equal to play you. You can get some of those other teams you try to bring in for wins, but we haven't done much of that. Not enough of that, in my opinion."

Not that Troy State doesn't get in some licks. In 2001, a week after giving Miami a tough first half, the Trojans won 21-9 at Mississippi State. Four weeks ago, they shocked Marshall 33-24, seven days after the Thundering Herd had upset No. 6 Kansas State. In Jeff Sagarin's latest power rankings, Troy State (4-3) is 89th, ahead of seven teams in Bowl Championship Series conferences. According to Sagarin, the Trojans' strength of schedule (91st) is better than Virginia Tech's (102nd) and Oklahoma State's (97th).

Not every program in transition is as adventurous. While Troy's I-A debut came at Nebraska, Connecticut's came at Eastern Michigan. Since making the jump in 2000, the only ranked opponents the Huskies have faced are from the Big East, which UConn will join as a full-fledged member next fall.

Of course, everybody follows the Marshall Plan. In 1996, the Thundering Herd exited I-AA by going 15-0 and winning the national title. In '97, it won the MAC and went to the Motor City Bowl. But that's an anomaly. Most programs struggle, and some feel the need to sell their souls.

Troy State doesn't have a monopoly on "guarantee" games. In fact, few have done it better than Louisiana-Monroe. Last year, the Indians agreed to play Mississippi State for $225,000 but backed out when Auburn offered twice that. ULM faces LSU, Ole Miss and Auburn this season - three games that will net more than $1 million.

The NCAA, at least indirectly, has taken a step to limit "guarantee" games. Starting next fall, I-A programs are required to play at least five home games against I-A foes. Still, Troy will travel for bucks. Missouri, Marshall, South Carolina and LSU are on the schedule for next season. Florida State is in 2006, Florida in '07.

Blakeney loves a challenge. But he also wants a more realistic approach.

"As we get into conference affiliation, I think we've got to be smart," Blakeney said. "If we want to win the conference, we can't be mixing in too many Notre Dames in the middle of the conference schedule. And Florida States right before we open conference play, no matter what the offer is. We've got to take care of our team and our competitiveness in the league."

And that will take a major change in philosophy.

 

ACC ponders title-game plans
CHARLES ODUM
Associated Press

ATLANTA - Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford said Thursday Charlotte and five other cities already have "expressed a serious interest" in serving as the host to the league's new college football championship game.

In Atlanta for a luncheon to promote the Jan. 2, 2004 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl game, Swofford was still buzzing about the Oct. 12 announcement that Boston College has agreed to become the ACC's 12th member. That news came only four months after Miami and Virginia Tech announced they were leaving the Big East Conference to join the ACC for the 2004 football season.

When Boston College begins conference play, probably in 2006, the ACC definitely will split into two six-team divisions for football and then will stage a postseason conference championship game.

The NCAA has said conferences must have at least 12 teams in order to stage a championship game.

The 12-team Southeastern Conference and the Big 12 Conference are the only leagues that currently hold championship games in football following the regular season.

Swofford says the ACC is continuing its efforts to convince the NCAA that an 11-team conference also would be eligible for a championship game. If the NCAA agrees with Swofford's argument, the conference could pursue divisional play and a championship game as early as the 2004 season.

"We may not have a definitive answer as to whether or not we can have the game (with 11 teams) until April, and one of the things we are going to need to be deciding in the next couple of months is whether or not we want to have that championship game in '04 if it's allowed," Swofford said. "It may be answered for us that we cannot have one."

Swofford said the possibility of a 2004 championship game will be discussed at the ACC's regularly scheduled meeting in December.

"I think that will be predicated on whether we feel we can, within a relatively short time frame, put together a championship game that puts the championship games of the future on stable footing," Swofford said. "If we can't do it well and do it successfully the first year, we may not do it."

Swofford said the conference is beginning to talk with possible venues for the game.

Swofford said Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando and Miami have expressed interest in playing host to the game.

Another question is whether to have the game in one city each year or move it around to different locations.

When it began divisional play in 2002, the SEC first staged its championship game in Birmingham for two years before moving to Atlanta in 1994, where it is contracted to stay through the 2009 season.

Swofford says his conference has noticed the success the SEC has enjoyed in Atlanta. The city's Georgia Dome also is the home of the Peach Bowl.

"I don't think anybody has done that better than the Southeastern Conference," Swofford said. "They've had great success keeping it in one location and growing the game. The Big 12, on the other hand, has taken a different approach, moving it around and I think they're having some success with that, so we're talking with those two conferences as well as the appropriate people in different cities who have expressed an interest in the game."

The SEC Championship Game will be played on Dec. 6 this year and has a lock on that weekend each year with the Georgia Dome.

To have its game in the Georgia Dome, the ACC probably would take the first weekend after Thanksgiving, a date which holds conflicts with Georgia-Georgia Tech and other rivalry games involving ACC teams.

Swofford said when the ACC accepted Boston College as a league member, it was with the assumption the school would honor a Big East rule requiring members to provide 27 months notice before leaving the conference. Under that guideline, Boston College could join the ACC on July 1, 2006, in time for the 2006 football season.

The alternative to waiting 27 months is paying an exit fee, reportedly set at $5 million.

Swofford said he does not know if Boston College would try to join the league before 2006, a decision that could affect the league's plans for a championship game.

"The ACC is not a player in that," Swofford said. "We will welcome Boston College whenever they can make that transition."
 

ACC still seeking title game
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer

Even after announcing that it will add Boston College as its 12th member, the ACC is still striving to get the NCAA to change its 12-team requirement for conference championship games in football in time to hold one next year.

It's not clear whether NCAA members will buy an ACC proposal that is based largely on the conference's immediate need for the added income that a title game would bring.

So far, there hasn't been much support for the idea. The NCAA's competition committee has recommended that it be defeated.

But when the powerful, 58-member management council met this week in Indianapolis, "the comments I heard were more positive than I anticipated," said Wake Forest athletics director Ron Wellman, a council member. "No straw vote was taken, but I'm more encouraged now than I've been. I think our chances are better now than they've been."

The league's best hope will come in January at the NCAA convention in Nashville, Tenn., where the management council will take a preliminary vote on the motion.

Before that vote is taken, there will be a discussion period during which the ACC can advance its case directly to all Division I-A schools.

"I think that open discussion period will be an important step in the process," said Chris Plonsky, a Texas assistant AD and chairwoman of the management council. "It will be a chance for everyone to hear all of the pros and cons."

The management council's decision then will go to the NCAA board of directors, which will have the final say-so but generally follows the council's lead on new legislation. Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough, a championship-game advocate, represents the ACC on the board of directors.

Yea or nay, the issue will be resolved by April at the latest. If it passes in January, the ACC almost certainly will begin preparations for a 2004 championship game. If the proposal passes in April, there's still a good chance for a 2004 game.

"Some of the sites that have expressed an interest in hosting it have said they can wait it out until April," ACC assistant commissioner Mike Finn said. "But the decision would be up to our league members. The schools would have to decide if that would be enough time to put it together."

N.C. State athletics director Lee Fowler and other title-game advocates insist that a rule change would be good for college football by adding "stability to conference memberships," as Fowler put it Thursday.

"There wouldn't be such a pressing need for conferences to get to 12 in order to have one of these games," he said.

But the truth is, the impetus for expansion always has been revenue. The ACC made its initial money-making projections on the assumption that expansion would bring in $7 million or more a year from a football title game.

After first adding Miami and Virginia Tech in midsummer, the ACC announced Oct. 12 that Boston College would join the fold. The league just doesn't know when yet. It might not be until 2006, and the ACC doesn't want to wait that long for the title-game revenue to start flowing in.

And frankly, why shouldn't the ACC's proposal be adopted regardless of when BC arrives? It hardly seems fair that only the biggest and strongest leagues should have access to the bonus income derived from a football title game. What's kosher for one conference should be kosher for all.

Whether the ACC was right or wrong, smart or stupid, to expand will be debated for years. But, on this point, the ACC is right.



 

Backed into a corner? Not U.Va.'s Franklin
Relocation to defense could enhance his professional prospects
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Oct 24, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE In the most recent NFL draft, eight of the first 46 players chosen were cornerbacks, and five went in the first round.

The first 64 picks, by contrast, included only two tailbacks.

Such is the value placed on cornerbacks in today's game. No wonder Tony Franklin, a converted tailback, hasn't objected to his new role at the University of Virginia.

"I think the way he looks at it is, he's got to a chance to plays on Sundays at the cornerback position," said Bill Powers, who coached Franklin at St. Peter Chanel High in Cleveland.

"I feel that he could play running back, too, but I think corner is his best chance to get to the next level."

As an Ohio schoolboy, Franklin gained fame for his feats at tailback, and he was a scout-team standout at that spot while redshirting as a U.Va. freshman in 2002. Before spring practice this year, however, Cavaliers coach Al Groh saw a well-stocked backfield and a depleted secondary and asked Franklin to consider a move to corner.

"I didn't have any second thoughts," said Franklin, who'd capped his prep career by rushing for an Ohio-record 393 yards and four touchdowns in the Division V state title game, which St. Peter Chanel won.

He wanted to play quickly, and he's getting his wish. Redshirt freshmen Franklin and Marcus Hamilton are the Cavaliers' second-team cornerbacks, behind seniors Almondo Curry and Jamaine Winborne, and they're expected to take over as starters in 2004. Franklin plays in the "dime" package - when U.Va. uses six defensive backs - and has emerged as the team's top return man on kickoffs.

"He's building a foundation of confidence that should help him when he's playing full time," Groh said.

Franklin's average of 29.1 yards per kickoff return ranks No. 8 nationally. He had returns of 43 and 48 yards Oct. 11 against Clemson and returns of 43 and 39 yards last weekend against Florida State.

"I like getting the chance to touch the ball again," he said.

Franklin has yet to break a return for a touchdown, but he has visited the end zone as a Cavalier. In U.Va.'s 59-16 rout of Western Michigan on Sept. 13, the 5-11, 186-pound speedster re- turned an interception 45 yards for a fourth-quarter score.

In the stands at WMU's Waldo Stadium that afternoon were "about 10 family members," Franklin said. He'd have savored the moment more had that cheering section included Glenn Franklin.

Tony Franklin's father was only 47 when he died of complications from a stroke, on Nov. 21, 2001. Two days later, Franklin played through his grief and rushed for 244 yards and three touchdowns in a state-semifinal victory.

"My first thought was not to play," Franklin told reporters afterward, "but I know that would have made [Glenn] mad. I know this is what he would have wanted me to do."

Franklin's father was a former college running back who coached his son from youth football up to high school. Glenn Franklin was a demanding coach, but his instruction helped his son earn a Division I-A scholarship.

"Now I got to play for his memory," Franklin said.

Franklin committed to U.Va. during the summer of 2001. After Franklin's father passed away, Powers said, "I thought maybe he'd want to stay closer to home." But Franklin never wavered in his commitment to Virginia.

"Me and Mom thought it would be a good thing," Franklin said. "That was the school my dad saw recruit me."

Groh said: "Coming to Virginia was something that his dad felt very strong was in Tony's best interest. So on one side of the story, you could say that there was an issue about staying close to home. On the other side was, this was what his dad wanted.

"I think by the time Tony's finished here, there's a real good chance it'll turn out the way his dad envisioned it."