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.