VHSL & site news

This is the hot spot. Here you'll find my little comments about the state of the game and other football goings-on.

NEW :
Nov. 20 :
Updated the results page, which has links to the season schedule & results for all of the teams in the playoffs and directions to the championship game sites.
Also updated the girls basketball page.

Fixed the countdown displays above.


Is necessity the ONLY mother of invention? Not to VHSL members.
Two SW Va. schools barely missed the playoffs this season because of 'quirks' in the VHSL Ratings Scale. Grundy would have replaced Lebanon in Division 3 with 1 more point... a point a lot of Grundy people thought they had earlier in the season. A defeated opponent, Prestonsburg, beat district rival Betsy Layne in Kentucky's Group AA. The enrollment numbers posted at the KHSAA website indicated that both schools had enrollment numbers which would make them AA in Va. But those numbers were for the top 4 grades, and the VHSL uses grades 9-11 for the 1st year of their 2-year period. Alas, Betsy Layne needed 14 more students to be AA in Va.
It's a shame that coaches who schedule out-of-state schools are at the mercy of ESTIMATED numbers from those states when it comes to the power points. What if Grundy had played Betsy Layne (which is about 15 miles closer than P'burg) ? The Wave would have expected to receive 9 points for the win, but wouldn't have found out until early October that it was only worth 6.
If anyone has any ideas about how this can be modified in a way that is fair, let me know. I have an idea or two, but I'd like to hear some other views that may lead to a better solution.

The other school that stayed home, Radford, seems to have come up with a better way to remedy their situation in the future.
If you recall, the Bobcats tied for 4th on the ratings scale with Patrick Henry (Glade Springs). Since they didn't play each other, an 'official' tie-braking procedure (pulling a piece of paper out of a hat) had to be used to determine which team would make the playoffs.

According to a recent article in the Roanoke Times, Radford coach Norm Lineburg has come up woth an idea to end the coin-tosses and paper-scissors-rock battles some coach has to face somewhere every November.
His idea : if TWO teams are tied, and haven't played each other in the regular season... a mini-playoff game on Monday. Selected a neutral site, and, since they're 'tied', have them play overtime, with one minor modification. Each team starts play at the 20 yard line, instead of the 10, to reduce the eay field goal factor. This would give the schools a chance to settle it on the field.
Reportedly, this will be (or maybe already has been) submitted for consideration at the state meeting in December. If the state likes it, they'll send it out to the schools for feedback, and a vote could be taken at the spring meeting, meaning it could be used next fall.


Now, my weekly Va. Tech/BCS update :

The Hokies laid it on thick Saturday. JMU shoulda played Hofstra a bit closer; Clemson shouldn't have let SC score so much; UAB shouldn't have been taken to OT.
Flipping between BC-ND & Fla-FSU can wear a fellow out. But I did get to see former Powell Valley star Julias Jones' 67 yard, punt return for a touchdown. Even better was seeing the 2 point try fail. BC moved up a little in the polls (to #22) and comes into B'burg Friday on a roll. (FYI, Tech has sold-out every home game this season.)

And big brother Thomas set a new ACC rushing record of 1,798 yards in a season, leaving him 2 yards shy of 4,000 for his career, in UVA's 34-30 win over Maryland.

So the Gators are out of it now, & FSU gets to wait a while to see who they'll be playing in Naw'lins. Nebraska is breathing down Tech's neck in the BCS, and it appears that they'll move into 2nd place unless they lose 1 of their last 2 games.

By the way, don't the teams from the Big 12 & SEC have an edge in the race to the title game? After all, they have no more control over their schedule and SOS as does Tech, yet they get to play one more game at the end of the year, against a quality (and maybe even ranked) team, for their conference title.

You can bet that we'll be watching the scoreboard Friday at Lane and rootin' for the Buffaloes.


Odds & ends form the Regional finals :

Pound & Floyd Co. won their first-ever regional titles, while Rural Retreat & Honaker are back in the semi's after long absences.
Meanwhile, out East in Group A, both semi's will feature re-matches from the past couple of years.


This week's news is brought to you by John-Boy & Billy, the 'official' Big Show of VHSL-Helper.


A SW Va. daily newspaper is advertsing their turn-of-the-century Collector's Packet : "the last issue of Dec. 31, 1999, and the first issue of Jan. 1, 2000 in a special commemorative Y2K protective ziplock bag" for JUST $3.00.
Hmmm... two 50 cent newspapers in a giant baggie for $3. Who could resist that ?!?!?


You may have noticed that the page is a little bare. Well, I had some problems yesterday, and somehow all of the info that was here disappeared. I've contacted Angelfire about this, and, as of noon Tuesday, haven't heard back from them. Most of the stuff that was here was done 'on-the-fly', so I don't have a copy of it anywhere. We'll see what happens.