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Virginia, Duke to play for ACC title: Could the conference miss the Playoff?

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Virginia, Duke to play for ACC title: Could the conference miss the Playoff?


Next week’s ACC championship game won’t include the league’s best team. It will instead feature a doomsday scenario that could leave the power conference out of the College Football Playoff entirely.

First, the matchup: No. 18 Virginia vs. unranked Duke. The Cavaliers (10-2, 7-1 ACC) easily earned their spot with Saturday night’s 27-7 triumph over Virginia Tech. J’Mari Taylor rushed for a touchdown and threw for another in the first half, and the defense forced seven three-and-outs and snagged two interceptions in the Hokies’ first 10 drives to put the Cavaliers in the conference title game for the first time since 2019.

“This is what we came here for,” Cavaliers head coach Tony Elliott said on the ESPN broadcast. “Just super proud of the staff, super proud of the players, but we have four more quarters.”

Those four quarters are, surprisingly, against Duke, which ended up atop a log jam of five other teams with two conference losses (joining Miami, Pitt, SMU, Georgia Tech) … even though the Blue Devils were the only one unranked by the CFP selection committee.

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Duke’s first appearance in the ACC championship since 2013 opens the door for a disastrous scenario for the conference. The CFP’s protocol does not guarantee a bid to every Power 4 conference. Rather, it reserves a spot for the five top conference champions, regardless of their league. Duke’s resume includes defeats against UConn, Illinois and Tulane. If the Blue Devils beat Virginia, the CFP selection committee could snub the ACC’s champion in favor of whoever wins the American Conference (Tulane or North Texas) and James Madison (11-1 entering next week’s Sun Belt championship) for the fourth and fifth automatic bids. The Mountain West’s champion (San Diego State, New Mexico, Boise State or UNLV) could also have a case.

The Athletic’s Playoff projection model gives Duke a 47 percent chance of winning the ACC title game, but just a 7 percent chance of making the Playoff — while James Madison has a 47 percent chance.

No. 12 Miami is regarded as the ACC’s top team, but losses to SMU and Louisville put the Hurricanes in a complicated web of tiebreakers despite Saturday’s 38-7 triumph at No. 22 Pitt.

The No. 21 Mustangs (8-4, 6-2) were in the best position to join Virginia in Charlotte, N.C., next week. All they had to do was beat a 6-5 Cal team led by interim coach Nick Rolovich to play for the ACC title for a second consecutive year.

They could not. SMU lost a wild game 38-35 on the road despite making a furious comeback. The Mustangs trailed by 17 early in the fourth quarter but scored touchdowns on four consecutive drives to take the lead with 2:22 to go. Cal’s standout freshman quarterback, Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, led the Golden Bears on a 75-yard drive, and Kendrick Raphael twisted out of a would-be tackle and past the goal line for the winning score with 43 seconds remaining. SMU missed a 52-yard field goal in the closing seconds, sealing the loss.

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The Mustangs’ defeat gave the final spot to Duke, which did its part Saturday afternoon with a 49-32 win over Wake Forest. The Blue Devils (7-5, 6-2) recovered three fumbles, and quarterback Darian Mensah threw for two touchdowns to pass Maalik Murphy for the Blue Devils’ single-season record (28). Mensah also rushed for a touchdown.

Regardless of who wins the ACC, Miami would still have a shot at making the field as an at-large team. That bubble is crowded, too, however, as the Hurricanes compete against the likes of Notre Dame (which Miami beat), Alabama, BYU and Texas.





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Harrisburg’s Kevin Brown makes legacy commitment official to West Virginia

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Harrisburg’s Kevin Brown makes legacy commitment official to West Virginia


Kevin Brown’s recruitment was supposed to be settled last summer.

But for the Harrisburg star, fate intervened, and now the blue-chip offensive lineman has officially signed to play at a place that always made sense: his father’s alma mater of West Virginia.

Brown just wrapped up his senior season at Harrisburg, playing two ways to lead the Cougars to their fourth consecutive state semifinal, and now will head to Morgantown to lead a stellar WVU recruiting class.

“It’s surreal,” Brown said after he first announced his decision. “I still haven’t taken it all in.”

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Maybe the dust has settled a little bit for the 6-foot-5, 270-pound lineman who ranks as the No. 122 player in the nation per 247.

And with his presence, the WVU recruiting class for 2026 has bolted all the way up to No. 31 in the nation, sitting ahead of schools like Mississippi State, Arizona, Pittsburgh and more.

Brown will be joining that group of Mountaineers in Morgantown, where he will wear the same uniform his father, Tim, wore from 1999 to 2004, playing for the same head football coach in Rich Rodriguez.

“I’m super excited to get on that uniform and be burning couches every Saturday with Rich Rod and my dad,” Brown said.

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Raccoon passes out on Virginia liquor store bathroom floor after drunken rampage

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Raccoon passes out on Virginia liquor store bathroom floor after drunken rampage


The masked burglar broke into the closed Virginia liquor store early on Saturday and hit the bottom shelf, where the scotch and whisky were stored. The bandit was something of a nocturnal menace: bottles were smashed, a ceiling tile collapsed and alcohol pooled on the floor.

The suspect acted like an animal because, in fact, he’s a raccoon.

On Saturday morning, an employee at the Ashland-area liquor store found the trash panda passed out on the bathroom floor at the end of his drunken escapade.

“I personally like raccoons,” said Samantha Martin, an officer who works at the local animal control. “They are funny little critters. He fell through one of the ceiling tiles and went on a full-blown rampage, drinking everything.”

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Martin said she took the raccoon back to the animal shelter, though she had her fair share of giggles along the way.

“Another day in the life of an animal control officer, I guess,” she said.

Raccoons are common in Virginia, according to the state’s Department of Wildlife Resources. They are found in forests, parks and sometimes in cities — and apparently, at a liquor store.

The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter commended Martin for handling the break-in, and confirmed the raccoon had sobered up.

“After a few hours of sleep and zero signs of injury (other than maybe a hangover and poor life choices), he was safely released back to the wild, hopefully having learned that breaking and entering is not the answer,” the agency said.

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It’s not the first time this year that a raccoon was found in a place where it shouldn’t have been. In May, a raccoon was found with a glass methamphetamine pipe in its mouth and was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car in Ohio.

The vehicle was pulled over because its registered owner had an active warrant and a suspended driver’s license, the Springfield Township Police Department said.



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New shipping container bar-restaurant Virginia Transit Co. taking shape in Richmond

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New shipping container bar-restaurant Virginia Transit Co. taking shape in Richmond


RICHMOND, Va. — Another food and beverage venue fashioned from shipping containers is taking shape in Richmond, this time near the Sauer Center courtesy of a D.C. restaurant group.

The Virginia Transit Co., or Vitco as its founders John Groth, Arturo Zaloga and Matt Weaver refer to it, will be a bar, restaurant and event space constructed mostly out of dozen shipping containers on a vacant parcel at 1010 N. Meadow St.

Vitco is the second concept for Groth, Zaloga and Weaver, who in 2021 opened Metrobar, a similar concept in D.C. that’s anchored by a 75-foot-long former Washington Metro car that they repurposed into a restaurant and bar. For their Richmond venture, they’re incorporating a decommissioned streetcar. Click here to continue reading on Richmond BizSense.





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