Friday, December 10, 2004
Roth Report juices Hokies, riles Cavaliers
Powell Valley QB worth a I-AA look at least
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
Find his College Notebook from The Roanoke Times in Thursday's college sports section
Miss the Insider column? Check out the Insiders blog
See Doug and Randy talk sports every week with the Sports edition of the TimesCast
Recent columns
Virginia Tech radio voice Bill Roth may have subconsciously fanned the flames of the Virginia-Virginia Tech rivalry with something he has written.
In the Kroger Roth Report that appeared on hokiesports.com, Roth wrote, “The Hokies won an outright ACC championship during their first year in the conference. That's a feat Tech's in-state neighbor to the north has never accomplished in 52 seasons. For the record, it took Tech 12 weeks.”
Those two sentences, appearing in the 15th paragraph of Roth’s column, suddenly were being used in e-mail messages by Tech students and other Hokie supporters.
This, of course, infuriated UVa fans who felt it was a cheap shot for Roth to glorify Tech by demeaning the Cavaliers, particularly since it was the support of UVa president John Casteen that got them into the ACC.
Roth, eager for the mention in Notebook Plus, indicated that his greatest concern was that his sponsor be mentioned.
“Make sure you get it right, K-R-O-G-E-R,” Roth wrote in an e-mail. “Always good, always fresh, always Kroger ... your total value leader!”
IF ROTH WAS public enemy No. 1 in Charlottesville this week, former Roanoke Times sports editor Bill Brill continues to fill that role in Blacksburg.
Brill said he was not at home Saturday following the Tech-Miami game, when calls started coming in from Tech fans. His biggest regret was the uglingess that callers showered on Brill’s wife, never a party to the Tech-UVa rivalry, who had just come home from a visit to an elderly aunt.
Not surprisingly, Brill isn’t too happy with me for bringing to light his “Tech won’t win an ACC championshiop in my lifetime” comment.
AMONG THE FIVE players taking official visits to Virginia Tech this weekend are two who already have committed, tight end Ed Wang from Stone Bridge in Loudoun County and quarterback Ike Whitaker from Northwest High School in Germantown, Md.
Uncommitted players who will be in Blacksburg are running back-defensive back Victor “Macho” Harris from Highland Springs, quarterback Greg Boone from Oscar Smith in Chesapeake and defensive tackle Jeff Owens (6-2, 270) from Plantation, Fla.
Owens was rated the No. 17 prospect in Florida before the season, earning him SuperPrep preseason All-America recognition, the same as Harris and Boone. Harris is rated the No. 1 prospect in Virginia and Tech is considered his prohibitive favorite.
Harris was the only uncommitted prospect to visit Virginia last week, not surprising considering the Cavaliers have received 24 commitments -- one under the NCAA limit. However, it appears that UVa has changed its strategy from 2003, when most of its top uncommitted prospects had visits coinciding with the team banquet in early December.
Now, it appears than Jan. 21 will mark the Cavaliers’ biggest recruiting weekend. That’s the weekend when five committed players from New Jersey will be on campus, where they tentatively will be joined by uncommitted Bergen Catholic linebacker Brian Cushing.
Several Internet sites are reporting that new South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier is making a push for Southern Durham, N.C., wide receiver Brandon Woods, who committed to UVa this summer. Hampton coach Mike Smith said another UVa receiver target, Todd Nolen, plans to visit Tech, Penn State, North Carolina and Virginia.
IT WAS INTERESTING to read a news release from HeismanProjection.com, which, by Wednesday, had ballot information from 154 voters, or roughly 17 percent of the eligible voters.
Southern Cal quarterback Matt Leinart had received 25.1 percent of the vote and HeismanProjection.com was close to projecting him as the winner.
Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson was next at 21.6, followed by Sooners quarterback and reigning Heisman winner Jason White at 15.1, Southern Cal running back Reggie Bush at 14.5 and Utah quarterback Alex Smith at 13.4.
Among the voters is 2002 Heisman winner and Southern Cal alumnus Carson Palmer, now quarterbacking the Cincinnati Bengals, who said he voted Leinart first, Bush second and Southern Cal wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett third.
What the online service found is that Palmer was the exception, not the rule. Of the first 30 ballots that had Leinart, first, 21 had either Peterson or White second. Players were paired more commonly by position (Leinart-White or Peterson-Bush) than by school.
IN THE MEDIA: During the same five-day period in which I visited my 40th state, Iowa, (by plane, no less) I experienced another milestone when I made the acquaintance of Coalfield Progress sportswriter Coy Bays.
Bays was a longtime runningmate of Roanoke sportswriter Nappy King on the NASCAR circuit (“closed many a hospitality room with him,” Bays said) and was at the Bristol Herald-Courier in its golden era, when he teamed with current Roanoke prep editor Robert Anderson and Gannett chain heavyweight Bill Vilona, now in Pensacola, Fla.
Throw in Bucky Dent, who later joined the Bristol staff by way of Richlands, and that’s a lot of journalistic firepower at one paper. If I’m not mistaken, would-be congressman Kevin Triplett once served on that staff, although I’m much more partial to Anderson’s politics than Triplett’s.
IN ACCEPTING an assignment to cover the Group A Division 2 semifinal between Giles and Powell Valley, the setting for my meeting with Bays, I was eager to get a look at Powell Valley quarterback Brad Robbins, son of illustrious Powell Valley coach Phil Robbins.
Robbins, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound left-hander, had passed for 2,500 yards and 33 touchdowns through 12 games, but his only offer, from Coastal Carolina, had been for baseball. Phil Robbins said after the game, however, that his son was interested by the possibility of playing college football.
Apparently, Brad Robbins battled a weight problem when he was younger and some might question his speed, but don’t say he can’t run the ball. Robbins frequently took off upfield against Giles and, while he didn’t pull away from anybody, he didn’t mind running them over. He finished with 356 yards (250 passing, 106 rushing).
Phil Robbins said that VMI is interested in Vikings’ running back and linebacker Patrick McKinney (6-3, 210) and that the interest is mutual. To me, Robbins is capable of playing quarterback in a Division I-AA offense tailored to his strengths; he certainly has the arm strength and the smarts to get the job done.
