Tony Bennett was emotional and candid in saying goodbye to the Virginia Cavaliers and college basketball Friday. And perhaps calculating, too.
Bennett said he didn’t reach this decision to abruptly retire, less than three weeks before Virginia’s opener, until a recent fall getaway with his wife. He acknowledged thinking about it in the spring, when rumors were flying in the sport that he might hang it up. But then he signed a recruiting class, and a contract extension, and said he was excited for the season … until he suddenly wasn’t.
Maybe that’s an honest accounting of how it all went down. But this could be construed as a shrewd move designed to do two things:
Bennett isn’t built for college hoops in the 2020s, a time when athletes have more freedom and a lot of adults struggle with the concept. This was the last act of a coach who craves control.
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Bennett’s lack of adaptation to the modern world has little to do with his stodgy, stultifying but largely successful playing style. It’s more related to modern rules and player movement. (It’s less about NIL—he acknowledged that players should be compensated.)
He’s an old 55 when it comes to the current state of the game, and he freely admitted that Friday. More than any of the other national championship coaches who have retired in recent years—from Jay Wright to Jim Boeheim to Mike Krzyzewski to Roy Williams—Bennett plainly stated that the current state of affairs is driving him away.
He called himself “a square peg in a round hole.” He said his staff “pulled me along” in the new era by handling most of the conversations with players’ agents. He said college athletics “is not in a healthy spot,” and that it needs to “get back to regulations and guardrails. There’s things that need to change.”
NCAA regulations and guardrails have been getting routed in the courts for the past several years, so this yearning for yesteryear might be a losing fight. But there was one battle Bennett could still win, and that was the timing and nature of his retirement.
If he’d retired last spring, the transfer portal would have opened for 30 days for the Virginia players. The Cavaliers’ roster likely would have scattered. That’s the way of the world now. It happens almost everywhere that a coaching change occurs.
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Same thing if he’d retired during the summer, or anytime before classes began at Virginia Aug. 27. Even for another month after that, players likely could have transferred and found an immediate spot at a school that is on a quarter system and didn’t begin classes until late September.
Doing it now, smack in the middle of the semester, leaves those players with nowhere to go. That includes five incoming transfers, from Florida State, San Diego State, Kansas State, Duke and Vanderbilt. It also includes two freshmen. They’re pawns in Bennett’s program preservation chess game.
And now Sanchez is in charge of moving those pawns around the board. If Bennett had stepped down in the spring, maybe Sanchez gets the job but maybe not—Virginia athletic director Carla Williams would have been able to make that call and conduct a search, if she so desired. Doing it mere weeks before the season opener forces Virginia to go along with Bennett’s personal succession plan for 2024–25 at least.
Bennett’s greatest achievement with the Cavaliers was winning the NCAA tournament in 2019. / Greg Nelson /Sports Illustrated
This is an ego-and-control play, though he’s hardly the first to do it. It’s a tried-and-true move for basketball coaches who have been successful enough to call their own shot.
Oct. 9, 1997: Dean Smith retired at North Carolina, gifting the job to assistant coach Bill Guthridge. While winning a lot and taking the Tar Heels to two Final Fours, Guthridge only lasted three seasons before stepping down himself.
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Nov. 30, 2000: None other than Dick Bennett, Tony’s dad, stepped down three games into the season at Wisconsin, and seven months after taking the Badgers to the Final Four. He was 57 years old, just two years older than Tony is now. Bennett handed the job to Brad Soderberg, who finished the season but didn’t keep the job. (Soderberg has worked for Tony Bennett at Virginia since 2021.)
Dick Bennett came out of retirement in 2003 to be the coach at Washington State. After three seasons he turned the program over to … Tony Bennett.
Sept. 12, 2012: Jim Calhoun retired at Connecticut, amid some strife and controversy. But after winning three national championships, Calhoun had the clout to hand-pick successor Kevin Ollie. He won a surprise natty in 2014 but was fired by 2018.
Dec. 15, 2015: Bo Ryan, who followed Soderberg as the successor to Dick Bennett at Wisconsin, went to the Dick Bennett retirement playbook. After going to the Final Four the previous season, Ryan announced that the 2015-16 season would be his last and he’d be replaced by assistant Greg Gard. Then Ryan waffled on whether he would retire. Then he did, abruptly, 12 games into the season, and Gard took over.
With those retirements, the players left behind were stuck in place for that season—and then faced a year sitting out if they chose to move to a new school. At least now, Virginia players can participate in 2025–26 at their new school. But they have effectively been held hostage for 2024–25.
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(December graduate transfers, if there are any candidates for that on this Virginia team, could play as soon as the spring semester somewhere else. That might be difficult, due to scholarship availability and playing time and rotations being set. But it’s allowable under NCAA rules.)
Bennett is held in universally high regard in his profession and around college athletics. His It’s The System’s Fault retirement at a young age will generate a new spasm of despair over the state of things. Some concerns are justified, but many are exaggerated—and not much is going to change on account of Tony Bennett.
This last act of a coach who craves control is only a win for him and his hand-picked successor. It doesn’t beat back the advancing tide of the new era.
It’s a reunion for Clemson Tigers coach Dabo Swinney and Virginia coach Tony Elliott when their teams face each other at noon on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
Elliott was an assistant coach for Swinney for a decade, working both of the Tigers’ national championship teams. On the strength of his work with Clemson, Elliott got the job with Virginia.
It’s been an odd week, Swinney admits, saying that he’s never faced a former assistant coach before. So there will be some hugs and some pleasantries extended during pre-game. But once the ball is kicked, it will be time to get to work.
The No.10 Tigers (5-1, 4-0 in ACC) has averaged 48.6 points in their last five games. Potential Heisman Trophy voters are starting to pay attention to quarterback Cade Klubnik. Most College Football Playoff pundits now have them winning the ACC.
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The Cavaliers (4-2, 2-1) have cleared 30 points in three games this year, but only once against a power conference team. While the Cavaliers have a fine defense, they haven’t faced an offense as explosive as Clemson’s.
Virginia will also have to contend with a Clemson defense that has allowed 13.6 points in its last three games. The quality of the Tigers’ defense doesn’t get talked about enough.
So who wins? Here is the All Clemson staff’s predictions for the game.
Clemson 34, Virginia 13
Clemson is playing really good football right now and I don’t see Virginia getting in the way of that. I expect Klubnik to have time to throw the ball and I see the Clemson front seven dominating the Virginia offensive line.
Clemson 35, Virginia 20
Games before a bye week can be dangerous for the team that’s rolling, and few teams in the country are on the kind of role that the Tigers are on at the moment. Offensively they’re nearly impossible to stop, and their defense is making it difficult for opponents to move the football. Virginia is probably the best team they’ve faced in the past three weeks and the Cavaliers should give them some trouble. But I see Clemson pulling away in the second half.
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Clemson 31, Virginia 13
The Clemson Tigers are riding a lot of momentum and are facing off against a Virginia Cavaliers team with a solid defense. Alas, their offense won’t be able to keep up with the explosive Tigers, who will win their sixth consecutive game. They will face a little more of a challenge this week but still come away with a decisive victory.
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Bhayshul Tuten rushed for a Virginia Tech record 266 yards and accounted for four touchdowns to lead Virginia Tech a 42-21 victory over Boston College on Thursday night.
Kyron Drones added two rushing touchdowns and a touchdown pass for the Hokies (4-3, 2-1 Atlantic Coast Conference), who scored touchdowns on their first three possessions en route to a second consecutive win.
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Boston College (4-3, 1-2 ACC), which trailed 28-0 at halftime, cut the lead to 28-21 on Kye Robichaux’s 5-yard run with 2:55 left in the third quarter and were driving early in the fourth. But Robichaux was stopped on fourth-and-1 at midfield, and Virginia Tech capitalized on the ensuing possession, with Tuten scoring on a 6-yard run with 11:02 remaining for a 35-21 lead.
Tuten carried the ball 18 times and also scored on touchdown runs of 83 and 61 yards, the latter coming with 8:28 remaining to seal the game. In addition, he hauled in a 20-yard touchdown pass from Drones.
Drones, who scored on runs 11 yards and 1 yard on the Hokies’ first two possessions, completed 14 of 18 for 164 yards and rushed for 40 yards. Behind Tuten and Drones, the Hokies finished with a season-high 533 yards.
Thomas Castellanos threw for 205 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Eagles, who finished with 372 yards.
TAKEAWAYS
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Boston College: The performance was a disappointing one for the Eagles. They fumbled on back-to-back possessions in the first quarter — both of which led to Virginia Tech touchdowns — got behind early, and never recovered. Defensively, they had no answer for the Hokies, allowing a season high in yardage.
Virginia Tech: The Hokies played arguably their most complete game this season and have won their past two games by a combined score of 73-28. They appear to be rounding into form after an unimpressive start to the season.
UP NEXT
Boston College: The Eagles host Louisville on Oct. 25.
Virginia Tech: The Hokies host Georgia Tech on Oct. 26.
A Virginia elections official who faced criminal charges, later dropped, over a botched vote count in the 2020 presidential election sued the state attorney general Thursday, alleging malicious prosecution.
Michele White says in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Richmond, that her prosecution by Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares was “celebrated” by supporters of former President Donald Trump who claimed fraud in the vote count and “by those associated with the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement as a validation of their message.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Miyares’ office did not immediately respond to an email Thursday seeking comment.
White was the registrar in Prince William County, Virginia’s second-most populous county, in 2020. Miyares indicted White in 2022 on charges of corrupt conduct, making a false statement and willful neglect of duty for errors in the county’s 2020 vote count.
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At the time, there was little explanation in court papers or from public officials about exactly what went wrong with the vote count. The criminal case against White disintegrated, and in January prosecutors dropped all charges against White.
It was then that Prince William County election officials finally revealed what had gone wrong in the count. In the presidential race, the county mistakenly shorted Joe Biden by 1,648 votes and overreported Trump’s count by 2,327. The 3,975-vote error in the margin of victory was immaterial in a contest that Biden won by 450,000 votes in Virginia and more than 60,000 votes in Prince William County.
Counts were off by lesser margins in a U.S. Senate and a congressional race.
White’s successor as county registrar, Eric Olsen, said the majority of errors occurred in “split precincts,” in which one precinct is home to two congressional districts. The county’s voting system did not split the presidential vote by congressional district. The state system required them to be split that way. The errors occurred in trying to conform the county data with the state requirements, Olsen said.
White’s lawsuit contends that she was unfairly demonized even though she was not personally responsible for the errors, and that her prosecution was used to justify the existence of Miyares’ Election Integrity Unit and placate his Republican base.
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“Miyares campaigned on promises to investigate so-called threats to election integrity and fight ‘election fraud,’ echoing more explicit calls from political extremists who baselessly call into question the integrity and validity of the 2020 election,” the lawsuit alleges.
Corey Stoughton, one of White’s lawyers, who is working with a group called Protect Democracy in filing the lawsuit, said in a phone interview that White’s prosecution “created the justification for voters to continue to be deceived” about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
The case against White was the only criminal prosecution brought by the Election Integrity Unit, which Miyares formed in 2022.
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