sabres.gif (4521 bytes)

Cavs to land another wide receiver: Lane
 By JERRY RATCLIFFE / Daily Progress sports editor
Dec 10, 2002
 
Virginia football coach Al Groh obviously believes in getting his Christmas shopping done early. Groh, voted the ACC Coach of the Year after leading the Cavaliers to a second-place finish in the league, has his stocking filling up quickly.

According to recruiting analyst Mike Farrell, UVa is expected to gain its 16th commitment today in wide receiver Shannon Lane of Salem High School in Virginia Beach. Ranked No. 6 on The Daily Progress Gold List and a three-star receiver by Farrell's Rivals 100 recruiting service, Lane will choose the Cavaliers over Virginia Tech and Boston College.

Lane told Farrell that he plans to commit to UVa assistant coach Ron Prince, who is scheduled to make a visit to Lane's home tonight.

The 6-foot, 190-pound standout, considered the best wide receiver prospect in the state of Virginia, said he has cancelled a scheduled visit to Virginia Tech this weekend.

"Virginia just fits me better than Tech does," Lane told Farrell.

With 4.4 speed, Lane was rated as a preseason All-American by SuperPrep in August. He played at Princess Anne high school as a junior, where he became good friends with UVa redshirt freshman linebacker Kai Parham.

Parham and Cavalier freshman outside linebacker Darryl Blackstock were Lane's hosts on his official visit to UVa.

"Kai has good things to say about Virginia," said Lane in an earlier interview. "He had a lot of choices last year and the fact he chose Virginia says a lot of good things about them."

Lane had 15 catches for 400 yards and seven TDs as a junior. His statistics for this season were not available although the reason he transferred from Princess Anne to Salem was an opportunity to shine in Salem's spread offense. He also had one interception as a junior defensive back and six as a sophomore.

Should Lane officially commit tonight, he will become the fourth wide receiver to do so for the present recruiting class. Previously, UVa gained commitments from wide outs Fontel Mines of Richmond's Hermitage High School, Emmanuel Byers of Ragsdale High in Jamestown, N.C., and Deyon Williams of Suitland High in Marlboro, Md.

Meanwhile on the recruiting front, another three-star wide receiver, 6-4, 190 Jesse Holley of Roselle, N.J., said that Virginia is the team to beat on his list.Holley, who officially visited UVa in late November, wants another school to compare to Virginia.

Most likely, that will be No. 2 ranked Ohio State. Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel is scheduled to make an in-home visit to Holley this week. Holley is also considering Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State and North Carolina.

Scheduled to make an official visit to Virginia this weekend is massive Texas offensive lineman Ian-Yates Cunningham, a four-star guard from the Lone Star state.

UVa is Cunningham's last visit. The 6-5, 300, blue-chipper has visited Nebraska and Georgia Tech. He cancelled a visit to Notre Dame.

 

 

Curses,Hokies foiled again

The Hokies lose for the 21st time in their last 22 road games, including both road games this season.

By MARK BERMAN
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   GREENVILLE, N.C. - Brian Chase sat silently in the visitors' locker room, his face covered with a shirt. A frustrated Terry Taylor sat next to him, cursing about Virginia Tech's latest loss.

    The Tech men's basketball team blew a 13-point second-half lead Monday and lost for the third time in four games, falling 76-60 at East Carolina in front of 7,012 noisy fans at Minges Coliseum.

    "We just [expletive deleted] lost, man, [expletive deleted] lost. Write that - we [expletive deleted] lost," Taylor said. "Print that, we [expletive deleted] lost. ... Put that in there, we [expletive deleted] lost.

    "Ain't no, 'We did this, we did that.' We [expletive deleted] lost."

 

 

UVa in for short trip; Hokies for long haul
Virginia will face West Virginia in Charlotte on Dec. 28, and Virginia Tech will play Air Force on New Year's Eve.
By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

The long and the short of the football bowl situation is that Virginia Tech will be playing in San Francisco and Virginia in Charlotte, N.C.
Both teams will be playing in first-year bowls, the Hokies (9-4) against Air Force (8-4) in the Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl at 10:30 p.m. on Dec.31 at Pacific Bell Park.

The San Francisco Bowl will be televised on ESPN2, as will the Continental Tire Bowl, in which Virginia (8-5) will meet West Virginia (9-3) at 11 a.m. on Dec.28 at Ericcson Stadium.

It will be the shortest bowl trip the Cavaliers have taken and the longest trip of any sort the Hokies have made. Tech has never been west of El Paso, Texas, where it played in the 1946 Sun Bowl.

Both Virginia teams had a good idea of their destination on Saturday night, when Washington State clinched a Rose Bowl berth with a 48-27 victory at UCLA. That gave Pacific 10 Conference runner-up Southern Cal an at-large spot in the Bowl Championship Series.

When Southern Cal and Iowa got the BCS wild-card spots, the Gator Bowl exercised its option to take independent Notre Dame and pass up Big East runner-up West Virginia.

"Almost the entire season, it looked like Notre Dame was going to the BCS," San Francisco Bowl executive director Gary Cavalli said. "When USC thrashed Notre Dame [on Nov.30], that threw everything up in the air. It wasn't until the last two weeks that we began conversations with Virginia Tech.

"Eight weeks into the season, Virginia Tech was third in the country and it was very, very remote that we'd have a chance at them. To be honest with you, I feel like Christmas came early this year. We feel like we got one of the best matchups in the bowl lineup."

Continental Tire Bowl executive director Ken Haines, with the fifth choice of ACC teams and the fourth choice of Big East teams, had similar sentiments.

"With our selection spots in the conferences, to be able to get the second-place team from both the ACC and Big East is really a coup for the bowl and the city of Charlotte," he said.

Three other bowls had passed over Virginia in favor of teams that trailed or were tied with the Cavaliers in the ACC standings.

Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage said the Cavaliers had not set a target for ticket sales, "but this gives us an opportunity, once and for all, to dispel the notion that the University of Virginia has travel issues," he said.

"This is what we were hoping for because of the location of the game, quality of the facility, natural rivalry with a school from a bordering state and a game time that puts us on television ahead of the NFL playoff games."

Although there was some speculation Saturday night that Tech might play in the Motor City Bowl, that was not an option.

"The decision was made early in the week that this was the way it would play out," Cavalli said. "But, the only person who knew that was [Big East commissioner] Mike Tranghese after a conference call with the commissioners."

Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer said he was surprised to learn that it was cheaper to fly to San Francisco than it was to fly to New Orleans when the Hokies played for the national championship following the 2000 season.

"I really believe, given our historical tendency, that we should take 5,000 [followers] for sure," said athletic director Jim Weaver. "It wouldn't surprise me at all if we took between 7,500 and 10,000."

 

 

Dudley finalists chosen
Corley, Schaub, Suggs are selected
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Dec 10, 2002

A pair of quarterbacks and a running back are finalists for the 2002 Dudley Award.

The quarterbacks are Matt Schaub of the University of Virginia and David Corley of William and Mary. The running back is Lee Suggs of Virginia Tech.

Named after former U.Va. running back "Bullet" Bill Dudley, the award is symbolic of the player of the year in state college football. It will be presented Monday at 7 p.m. at a banquet at The Downtown Club, which sponsors the award.

Each football-playing school in the state is allowed to nominate one player for the Dudley Award. A panel of 15 sports writers and broadcasters from across the state selects three choices in order, with points awarded on a 5-3-1 basis. The top three point-getters become finalists.

Corley, a senior, finished third in Dudley balloting in 2001. From Columbia, S.C., Corley completed 200 of 329 passes this season for 2,672 yards and 21 touchdowns. He finished his career with 9,805 passing yards and 73 touchdown passes. He holds 14 career records at William and Mary.

Schaub, a junior, was the Atlantic Coast Conference's player of the year. The West Chester, Pa., product set or 10 tied school records in 2002, among them passing yards (2,794), touchdown passes (27) and completion percentage (68.7). He was 23-27 passing in the Cavaliers' victory over Maryland.

Suggs, a senior, was the 2000 Dudley winner. He missed almost all of last season with a severe knee injury. This year, the Roanoke resident returned to rush for 1,255 yards and 20 touchdowns. He also caught 11 passes for another two touchdowns. He has an NCAA-record streak of 26 games with at least one touchdown.
 

 

 

Cursed bowls create blight
Mark Bradley - Staff
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
 

To rip the bowl system is to shoot fish in a barrel, but these fish deserve it. They're piranhas. They exist only to gorge themselves.

This year's killer fish is the Orange Bowl. Somehow it managed to get two first picks in the always hilarious BCS draft, thereby depriving the Sugar of a worthy opponent for Georgia and the Rose of a Big Ten entrant. At the expense of its brethren, the Orange eats hearty. The bowls are all in this together, except when it comes time to invite somebody attractive. Then it's every ugly-blazered committee for itself.

The second-best bowl pairing --- and likely the best pure game --- would have been Georgia vs. Southern Cal. Among non-Fiesta teams, they're the hottest. (It's hard to call Iowa hot; the Hawkeyes haven't played since Nov. 16.) But the Orange took Iowa because its fans figure to travel in droves, and then the Orange trumped the Sugar for Southern Cal by means of the only bowl commodity that matters --- money.

So now the Orange looks pretty good, while the Rose and the Sugar suffer in comparison. The Rose pairs two-loss teams. The Sugar gets the BCS booby prize in four-loss Florida State.

About all the Sugar will produce will be a new record for Mentor-Pupil stories, eclipsing the mark established before the first Final Four meeting between Dean Smith and Roy Williams.

Georgia deserved to be in a good game. Instead it's part of a bleeding-heart story line. The wonder isn't that someone was shortchanged; the wonder is that, at this late date, we're still surprised when it happens.

Bowl committees make baseball owners seem selfless by way of comparison. Bowl committees make annual noises about trying to provide "the best experience possible" for "the student-athletes," but when it comes time to fill those precious slots, the high-mindedness turns to mud-wrestling. There used to be a date before which no invitations could be extended. (Nobody abided by it, but still the date was on the books.) Now a midlevel bowl can grab any non-BCS team pretty much any time. The Gator tabbed N.C. State before Thanksgiving, setting in motion a domino effect that dispatched Virginia to the Continental Tire Bowl in Charlotte and Georgia Tech, which beat Virginia, back to the West Coast.

Twenty-eight bowls exist. Boise has a bowl. Detroit has a bowl. Las Vegas has a bowl on Christmas. (What better way to celebrate the yule season than by roasting chestnuts around the ol' slot machine?) Of the 56 teams making postseason trips, 22 carry five or six losses. This is why we can't have a Division I-A playoff --- because we need to learn if 6-6 Ole Miss can get the better of 7-6 Nebraska in scenic Shreveport, if 7-6 New Mexico can handle 7-5 UCLA, which was so moved by its accomplishments that it fired Bob Toledo, in aforementioned Vegas.

Put simply, the bowls are a blight. Because two teams wound up unbeaten, you'll hear some voices harrumphing that the BCS Got It Right. The BCS will always get it wrong. Who's to say Southern Cal couldn't handle Miami? Who's to say Georgia wouldn't beat Ohio State by two touchdowns? By tying everything to one mythical championship game, the BCS rules out all manner of possibilities. The lure of the NCAA tournament is that anything can happen. The curse of the BCS is that only two things can --- No. 1 wins, or No. 2 beats No. 1. All other teams can go wind their commemorative bowl watches.

Given that Georgia hasn't been to New Orleans in 20 years, you wouldn't think the Bulldogs could feel diminished by a Sugar Bowl berth, but here sits the BCS's third-ranked team in the fourth-best BCS game. For all their blather, bowls don't care about producing meaningful games. They care about filling hotels and placating sponsors. Yeah, there's something fishy here, and there's no way to drain the tank and start over. The bowls won't pull the plug on themselves. They're too busy feeding.

 

 

COMMENTARY
Loyalty a funny word coming from Sherrill
GREGG DOYEL
 

Add a rim shot, and Jackie Sherrill could have been Jackie Gleason. Last week, the solemn Mississippi State football coach deadpanned the word "loyalty" as he fired five assistant coaches to save himself.

What a card that Jackie Sherrill, talking loyalty as he cut loose receivers coach Craig Stump, who played for Sherrill at Texas A&M and whom he hired away from a coordinator position at Southwest Texas State in 1997.

Cue the laugh track. Also among the flotsam were veterans Sparky Woods and Joe Lee Dunn, Sherrill's offensive and defensive coordinators.

"That's tough," Sherrill said of his staff purge, "because of the loyalty you have."

Giggle. Loyalty? Sherrill showed where every ounce of his loyalty lies when he faced the choice of falling on the sword or sticking it into five of his employees' backs.

Sherrill isn't the only one. Such a choice -- fire or be fired -- can wilt even a good man like former North Carolina coach Carl Torbush. Among the concessions he made to keep his job after 1999 was firing offensive coordinator Steve Marshall.

Ironically, Torbush replaced him with Mike O'Cain, who was available because he lacked that very instinct for survival.

Given the chance to fire most of his staff, O'Cain instead went down with the N.C. State ship. You might wonder what, exactly, he accomplished by ensuring almost every coach on staff was out of work.

O'Cain accomplished this: He can look himself in the mirror and know he doesn't have the loyalty of a black widow spider.

Can Nebraska coach Frank Solich look into the mirrors of the palatial football offices at Nebraska and say the same thing?

After running the Cornhuskers aground in five years, Solich looked around and figured the problem surely wasn't him. This week he fired three assistants with more than 40 combined years of coaching experience at Nebraska. That 7-6 record must have been their fault.

Coaches are a disloyal lot. Not all of them -- specifically, not Jim Grobe of Wake Forest -- but generally speaking, coaches are like sports writers, looking for a bigger employer with bigger exposure and a bigger paycheck.

Unlike sports writers, who leave behind a trail of broken infinitives, coaches leave broken promises. A coach with a fancy telephone can woo a high school recruit on line one, promising to stay at his school until the kid graduates, and then switch to line two to negotiate with another university. It happens every day of the week and twice on Sundays, when those coaches ought to be in church, begging forgiveness.

Look at Alabama's Dennis Franchione. He insisted he hadn't been in touch with Texas A&M two days before becoming its coach. What's the last $11 million deal that came together so fast?

In defense of Sherrill and Solich, massive change can work -- assuming a man can stomach firing friends. In the early 1990s, a football coach in the South gutted his staff and within a few years saw his program, one of the worst in the country, become one of the best.

Professionally speaking, Frank Beamer of Virginia Tech made the right move. Who's to say Solich and Sherrill didn't? Given the choice between firing or getting fired, what would you do? What would I do?

Good question, hard question, but not our question. It's for Solich and Sherrill to answer, and they did, revealing more about their character than we wanted to know.

 

 

Fans scoop up WVU bowl tickets
JOHN RABY
Associated Press
 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Fans waited up to an hour-and-a-half in line Monday as tickets went on sale for West Virginia's game with Virginia in the Continental Tire Bowl.

The Mountaineers received about 12,500 tickets to the game, which will be played at 11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 28 at Ericsson Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.

Tickets, based on seat location, are $65, $55, $40 and $25. They were available through the Mountaineer ticket office in Morgantown, which will be open Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Fans also can order tickets by phone but should expect a wait there as well.

It wasn't immediately known how many tickets were sold Monday. The ticket office number rang busy.

Ken Haines, the bowl's executive director, told West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez during a conference call Sunday that the bowl has received a large number of calls and emails from Mountaineer fans.

"I think you're going to travel very well to Charlotte," Haines said. "We were hoping things worked out the way they did because we very much wanted West Virginia in the game."

Rodriguez would have preferred a trip to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., on Jan. 1, but that spot was taken by Notre Dame after it was left out of the Bowl Championship Series.

Still, going to Charlotte is a nice reward for the 15th-ranked Mountaineers (9-3), who won six of their final seven games, including back-to-back road wins over ranked teams Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh.

"The location is very convenient to our fans," Rodriguez said. "A lot of fans I've seen are going to be excited because they can make the trip the night before and can drive home comfortably after the game."

The game matches the second-place teams from the Big East and the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Unranked Virginia (8-5) was picked to finish eighth in the ACC. After losing the first two games, it won six in a row.

The Cavaliers lost three of their final five, but the two wins in that stretch came over ranked teams North Carolina State and Maryland in November. Virginia's Al Groh earned ACC coach of the year honors.

A victory would give West Virginia both its first 10-win season since 1993 and its highest finish in the polls since then.

The teams last played in 1985, with Virginia winning 27-7 in Charlottesville, Va. The all-time series is tied 11-11.

Rodriguez expects to have offensive lineman Ken Sandor and wide receiver Miquelle Henderson back from injury for the bowl, but a few players may not make the trip due to academic struggles.

"We're keeping a close watch on some guys if they don't give their best effort academically and do what they need to do. I hope that's not the case," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez wouldn't divulge the players' names. He said his seniors, along with sophomore quarterback Rasheed Marshall, weren't among them.

Rodriguez said the team may leave for the bowl a few days before Christmas to get in a full week of practice.

 

 

Charlotte bowl officials thrilled with matchup
GREGG DOYEL
Raleigh Bureau
 

RALEIGH - The second-place finishers in the ACC and Big East are earmarked for the Gator Bowl, so why are Virginia and West Virginia headed to Charlotte to play in the Continental Tire Bowl? Bowl officials don't care how it happened. They're just thrilled it did.

"How is it possible we end up in our inaugural game with two teams who finished second?" mused Ken Haines of Raycom Sports, the Charlotte-based company operating the Continental Tire Bowl. "That's pretty unbelievable. We're not going to throw this one back."

Of course not. The Continental Tire Bowl is supposed to be get the fifth or sixth pick of the ACC and the third or fourth pick from the Big East, but the Gator Bowl took N.C. State over Virginia and Notre Dame over West Virginia, and the Peach Bowl took Maryland.

Notre Dame, an independent in football, was added to the Big East's portion of the BCS mix after the 1997 season, and received the league's Gator Bowl bid.

"I'm just a football coach and our players are just players, but we don't understand some of the political things," West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez said. "I don't understand why Notre Dame is getting the best of both worlds.

"I think the Big East is a great league and we can stand on our own. In my opinion, Notre Dame either needs to get in or get out."

Notre Dame athletics director Kevin White made no apologies.

"It certainly seems to make sense for Notre Dame or we wouldn't have participated," White said. "I think we've all entered into a relationship that I think all parties have been well served to this point."

As unexpectedly good as the Continental Tire Bowl matchup is for football reasons, it could be even better economically for the bowl and the city. Virginia (9-3) and West Virginia (8-5) are each located about five hours from Charlotte -- close enough to drive, but far enough that fans probably will want to spend at least one night, maybe more, in the area.

"It's ideal for us," Haines said. "I never thought it could fall this perfectly for us."

If the Continental Tire Bowl has made out better than expected with the matchup, maybe it was due. The ice storm that rolled through town late last week knocked out phones at Raycom Sports for almost a day, and even this morning Raycom has one-fourth its normal number of phone lines.

This, on a week when fans from a handful of schools have been calling for information regarding potential matchups.

"Our phones have been jammed, absolutely jammed," Haines said. "Now it's jammed with people wanting tickets, so that's a good thing."

 

 

Dave Hickman
About the Big East, Notre Dame, NBC, etc.
Tuesday December 10, 2002
 

MORGANTOWN — I sit here somewhat perplexed, wondering if it is wiser to join in the righteous indignation of the majority or the calmer reality of the minority.

Unable to fall clearly and passionately onto one side of the fence or the other, I’ll simply remain perched there. It is, after all, my right not to take a stand.

Still, both sides of this Notre Dame/BCS/Gator Bowl/NBC/Big East conspiracy theory are somewhat compelling. Oh, and make no mistake about it, this is a conspiracy. It’s a simple case of all of those parties, and more, banding together for one selfish cause or another, all of which in the end comes down to money.

And while there is no question that West Virginia received the proverbial short end of the stick because it isn’t a direct part of that widespread consortium, the question that still begs to be answered is this:

Is there anything that can be done about this arrangement? Maybe more appropriately, Is there anything that should be done about this arrangement?

Should anything be done about the arrangement between the Big East, the Gator Bowl and Notre Dame that allows the Irish — no more than twice every four years, by the way — to snatch up what is normally the Gator Bowl spot reserved for the Big East’s No. 2 team? That’s what happened this year, of course, when the Gator stiffed West Virginia in favor of the Irish. It is also what has West Virginians — players, coaches and fans alike — incensed.

There is a compelling argument against change.

After all, the arrangement is obviously good for Notre Dame, which has a place to fall when the BCS doesn’t call.

It’s good for the Gator, which, the last time Notre Dame played there against Georgia Tech after the 1998 season, sold tickets in 48 states and had an attendance of 70,791 (WVU’s last appearance there, against North Carolina two years earlier, drew 52,103).

It is good for NBC, which, in addition to being the Notre Dame Broadcasting Company, gets much higher ratings and can sell ad time for more money if the Irish are involved.

And — and here’s the real kicker — it’s good for the Big East as a whole, if not for the individual member school that is handed the cigarette and blindfold when it happens.

Or at least it was good for the Big East back when the arrangement was made.

“We tend to look at the Big East stability when we make these bowl deals,’’ associate commissioner John Paquette said Monday. “And Notre Dame makes us more attractive to bowls when we’re arranging our tie-ins.’’

That was especially true when the arrangement with Notre Dame was made in 1998. At the time, the Big East was reeling so badly that the Bowl Championship Series would soon institute its so-called Big East Rule, providing that even champions of the six major conferences had to exhibit at least a wee bit of competence in order to qualify for a BCS bowl. And not only was the BCS jittery about its alliance with the flailing Big East, so were the bowls. Had the league not been willing to throw its bowls the hope of landing the Irish every once in a while, the bowls — particularly the Gator — would have jumped ship.

Times have, of course, changed, what with Miami firmly established as the best program in the country over the last three years, Virginia Tech a consistent Top 10 team, Boston College, Pitt and West Virginia all on the rise. What other conference in the country can claim half of its teams in the Top 20?

But have they changed enough that the Big East can still survive in the bowl landscape without that Notre Dame hook? Maybe. But there is more to it than meets the eye.

Right now, the Gator Bowl is the Big East’s non-BCS gem, the bowl that everyone but the league champion aims for each year. And while the Gator should be happy with the Big East runner-up, it and NBC also crave that Notre Dame fix every once in a while. There would be considerable wrangling if the Big East tried to drop Notre Dame from the mix, maybe so much so that the Gator would shop elsewhere. Both sides — the Big East and the Gator — have bargaining power, the league because it can provide a top-notch team and the Gator with a desirable date and location.

Chances are the Gator would give in and stick with the Big East. But if not it might then come down to whether or not the Big East could find another attractive bowl for its runner-up. If not, they could be stuck with the Notre Dame clause.

This much is certain, the league is stuck with it until after the 2005 season. Notre Dame, because the Gator can choose it twice in four years, could wind up in Jacksonville next season, too.

And don’t think that this is simply the Big East bowing down to Notre Dame, either. The league gets a black mark when one of its teams is left out, like West Virginia this year. But remember, the Cotton Bowl wants Notre Dame so badly that its agreement allows it to pass on an SEC team once every four years and take the Irish, if possible.

And the BCS, too, has its own Notre Dame clauses. Southern Cal had to climb to No. 4 in the BCS standings and make sure it was the highest-rated league non-champion in order the guarantee itself a BCS bowl. Notre Dame simply has to finish in the top six. There are no such clauses in there for any other schools.

The bottom line, of course, is that if you are a West Virginia fan who wanted to see your team in a New Year’s Day bowl, you are understandably irate. You see Notre Dame getting special treatment, the Big East giving the Irish special treatment and the Gator Bowl salivating. For that, you have every right to be indignant.

But the reality is that the same thing could happen next year and the result would be exactly the same. Get used to it.

 

 

Tire Bowl won't tire WVU road warriors
Mike Cherry <mikecherry@dailymail.com>
Daily Mail sportswriter

Monday December 09, 2002; 09:11 AM

The first Continental Tire Bowl offers West Virginia University neither the pro stadium nor the year it recently thought it was destined to play in.

What the Dec. 28 Continental game does offer WVU and its foe, Virginia, is, at least in terms of day-trippers, location, location, location.

"The location is very convenient to our fans," WVU Coach Rich Rodriguez said Sunday. "They can also drive home comfortably after the game. I think you'll see a lot of blue and gold in Charlotte."

"From the amount of phone calls and e-mails, I think (WVU) will travel very well to Charlotte," said Ken Haines, the bowl's executive director.

Until Saturday's Washington State victory over UCLA, WVU, following a sizzling finish in which it won four straight, held hope for a berth in the Jan. 1 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.

Washington State's win, however, gave it a Rose Bowl berth, pushed Southern California into an at-large Bowl Championship Series spot in the Orange Bowl and shoved Notre Dame out of a BCS spot and into the Gator slot opposite North Carolina State.

Rodriguez expressed disappointment that his Mountaineers, who finished second in the Big East Conference, were shoved from the No. 2 Big East slot in the Gator.

Yet WVU, regardless of Continental's $750,000 payout, will still receive $1.85 million from the Big East for finishing second in the league. The Mountaineers, rated No. 15 in this week's Associated Press poll, will also receive a stern test from the unranked Cavaliers, who finished 8-5 overall and tied for second in the Atlantic Coast Conference at 6-2.

Like WVU, Virginia was unheralded in the preseason. The Cavaliers were picked eighth of nine teams in the league's preseason poll. WVU was selected sixth in the eight-team Big East.

"Not much," Rodriguez said of his early knowledge of Virginia. "I know they are kind of like us. They had big wins over quality teams. They've recruited extremely well. ... They will be one of the most talented teams we've played all year."

The Continental Bowl will begin 11 a.m. Dec. 28 at downtown Ericsson Stadium and be televised by ESPN2. The start is in part to avoid television competition with the NFL that Saturday. There are two afternoon NFL games, the first being a 1:30 p.m. contest between the Eagles and Giants. The only other bowl that day is the 8 p.m. Alamo Bowl between Colorado and Wisconsin.

Both WVU and Virginia, which have not faced each other since 1985, had schedules full of postseason participants. WVU was 4-3 against bowl teams and Virginia was 4-5.

The teams were playing at various levels to end the season. Virginia won just two of its last five, although that quintet of opponents all reached bowls. The Cavaliers' season ended Nov. 30 with a 21-9 loss at Virginia Tech.

"We were playing our best football at the end of the year," Rodriguez said. "You'd rather keep playing. We were afraid of breaking that continuity."

Like WVU, Virginia is playing in its second year under an alumnus, ACC Coach of the Year Al Groh. Both Rodriguez (3-8) and Groh (5-7) had losing first seasons.

Where they differ is in their respective offensive strengths.

WVU moves primarily on the ground behind senior back Avon Cobourne (1,593 yards).

The Mountaineers averaged 286.9 yards a game rushing, good for second among NCAA Division I-A's 117 teams. Virginia was just No. 105 against the run (206.2).

The Cavaliers did not have any rusher crest 700 yards. They do, however, possess the ACC's Offensive Player of the Year, 6-foot-5, 235-pound junior quarterback Matt Schaub.

He completed 272-of-396 passes for 2,794 yards and 27 touchdowns with seven interceptions. His favorite target is 6-4 senior Billy McMullen, who caught 68 passes for 886 yards and three touchdowns.

Both Schaub and McMullen were first-team all-ACC selections. The other all-ACC Cavalier was senior linebacker Angelo Crowell (140 tackles). Virginia starts just five seniors, two on offense.
 

 

 

Irish influence puzzling
Mike Cherry <mikecherry@dailymail.com>
Daily Mail sportswriter

Monday December 09, 2002; 09:20 AM

Rich Rodriguez wonders when it was that Notre Dame joined the Big East Conference for football.

Even after accepting a bid Sunday for his West Virginia University squad to play in the first-year Continental Tire Bowl against Virginia, Rodriguez is still bothered by the fact that the Mountaineers finished second in the Big East, yet gave up the conference's slot in the more-established Jan. 1 Gator Bowl to the Irish.

"I don't know if ‘slighted' is the right term," Rodriguez said on a Sunday afternoon teleconference. "I do wonder sometimes what Notre Dame's affiliation is with our league. I'm just a football coach and our players are just players. ... But I don't understand why Notre Dame gets the best of both worlds."

At stake is not money. Although the Continental Tire pays each team the minimum of $750,000, WVU will receive $1.8 million from the Big East for finishing second behind Miami (Fla.).

Yet the Gator, which has the right to take the Big East runner-up, was more appealing to No. 15 WVU (9-3), if for no other reason than it is played on New Year's Day, a marquee bowl date. Following the Mountaineers' last game, the 24- 17 victory Nov. 30 at Pittsburgh, several WVU players held toy alligators. Back Avon Cobourne was photographed slapping his hands together in a mock gator bite.

Instead, Notre Dame (10-2) will play North Carolina State (10-3) in the Gator because of a Big East/Irish alliance forged in 1998. This gave Notre Dame the right to take a Big East bowl slot if it had an adequate amount of wins, but was not selected to a Bowl Championship Series slot. Notre Dame is a Big East member in most sports, but a football independent.

The merger came at a time when the Big East's football fortunes were poor.

League teams were 0-4 in 1997 bowls and Miami, the league's usual powerhouse, was struggling from the affects of NCAA probation. The alliance with Notre Dame allowed the Big East to tie into enough bowl games to permit its eligible teams to participate in the off-season.

This is the second time Notre Dame has plucked a Gator Bowl spot. It also did so in 1999, a season in which WVU finished 4-7. Georgia Tech beat the Irish in that Gator Bowl, 35-28.

Had Notre Dame not fallen from the BCS this season, the Gator Bowl would have selected WVU.

"In my opinion, Notre Dame needs to get in or get out," Rodriguez said.

WVU's second-season coach also questioned how the Irish would have fared in the Big East. Notre Dame was 2-1 against league teams this season, beating Pittsburgh and Rutgers, but falling at home to Boston College. WVU defeated those three teams, but lost to Maryland, which was defeated in August by Notre Dame.

"I'm not sure they would have finished second in the Big East if they played this year," Rodriguez said. "They didn't play three of the better teams (Miami, Virginia Tech and WVU). It would be interesting to see if they were in the Big East, if they would have finished ahead of us."