virginia Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A Skeptic's Guide To The 2012 Heisman Trophy
Remember the lullaby afternoons of September, when we all figured we'd see a Heisman winner who merited the award? Maybe a Geno Smith, slinging the ball all over the yard, or even a Matt Barkley, who despite being named after Big Bird's dog had the right pedigree and weaponry (Robert Woods and Marqu...

Five Players Ejected From Marshall-WVU Game As Kick To The Balls Turns "Friends Of Coal" Game Unfriendly
The intrastate rivalry between West Virginia and Marshall has been nasty of late both on the football field and basketball court, and the annual Capital Classic game (featuring a massive, full-court logo from "Friends of Coal") turned ugly again tonight in Charleston as the Herd's Robert Goff deli...

West Virginia Won't Let Its Mascot Kill Things With His School-Issued Musket Anymore
Yesterday we brought you West Virginia, in video form: the WVU mascot killing a black bear with his musket, while the fight song played and the hunters whooped and hollered....

West Virginia Student Mascot Shoots A Bear; Bear Falls Out Of A Tree; Everyone Hollers
According to the YouTube description, this is Jonathan Kimble, the senior who's spending this year as the Mountaineer, WVU's (human) mascot. The costume includes coonskin cap, buckskin jacket, and a usually-unloaded musket. It's black bear season and Kimble proved, at the expense of a bear driven ...

College ShameDay: Who Embarrassed Themselves In 2012? (Besides USC, Iowa, And The Tom Selleck Impersonator At Boston College)?
Our weekly college football shame index. ...
![Two Virginia Tech Players Charged With Building, Setting Off Explosive Device [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/1878cpmnb0rjwjpg.jpg)
Two Virginia Tech Players Charged With Building, Setting Off Explosive Device [Update]
Walk-ons Josh Trimble and Brian Rody haven't picked a major, but perhaps chemistry would suit them: the two were able to build some sort of explosive device, and set it off in an off-campus apartment last night. Unfortunately, both those things are against the law....
![Former VCU Women's Volleyball Coach Claims He Was Fired Because He Is Gay [UPDATE: The University And Ed McLaughlin Sent Us An Official Statement]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/186plv71ci2wwjpg.jpg)
Former VCU Women's Volleyball Coach Claims He Was Fired Because He Is Gay [UPDATE: The University And Ed McLaughlin Sent Us An Official Statement]
James Finley has been the VCU women's volleyball coach for the past eight years. This season, Finley's team performed surprisingly well after moving into the more competitive Atlantic 10 conference, finishing with a 25-6 record and a trip to the conference semifinals. So Finley was shocked when he ...

Reports: The Big Ten Wants Maryland And Rutgers
Pat Forde and ESPN are reporting that serious talks are afoot to fold Maryland and Rutgers into the Big Ten. Not only would that create a 14-member conference that'd surely be the biggest Ten in the world, it would reopen the scabby wound of major conference realignment. The ACC, the Terps' current ...

You Probably Shouldn't Trust SportsNation About Sports Betting
So the Old Spice Classic hasn't happened yet. It starts on Nov. 22, Thanksgiving, with West Virginia, Gonzaga, Davidson, Clemson, Marist, UTEP, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt battling to win all the deodorant. ESPN polled its loyal subjects, and they like West Virginia to win. But why, oh, why?...

Virginia Tech Receiver Marcus Davis Doesn't Feel Like Blocking. Ever.
In the above compilation of last Thursday's Florida State-Virginia Tech game, Virginia Tech receiver Marcus Davis (wearing the No. 7 jersey, and highlighted with a white arrow in the video) seems to not agree with the concept of blocking for his teammates. Maybe it's a diffusion of responsibility (E...

College ShameDay: Who Embarrassed Themselves On Saturday (Besides West Virginia And Steve Spurrier)?
Our weekly college football shame index. ...
![If You Haven't Been Paying Attention, West Virginia's Geno Smith Is Having An Insane Year [UPDATE: Now With Geno Smith Ineptitude GIF]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/182xyfmaie6rwjpg.jpg)
If You Haven't Been Paying Attention, West Virginia's Geno Smith Is Having An Insane Year [UPDATE: Now With Geno Smith Ineptitude GIF]
Geno Smith leads the FBS in quarterback rating by more than twenty points. He's third in passing yards total (and, as of this afternoon, has played in a game less than either of those ahead of him, who he'll surely surpass), and his completion percentage leads the FBS by four points, despite throwin...

Here's How Tavon Austin Dominated The First Quarter With Just Six Touches
It's not too often you get to see a player that doesn't line up in the backfield dominate a game over a stretch of time, but it happened for a quarter tonight. Mountaineers wide receiver and kick returner Tavon Austin finished the first quarter of tonight's WVU-Texas game with 166 all-purpose yard...

Deadspin's College Football Top 25 Or So: Mountain Fastness
It's time for a new installment of Deadspin's college football rankings. As always, the teams are ranked according to the logic and values of college football, no matter how bizarre or contradictory they may be. ...

Here's The Catch Of The Day, From The Offensive Explosion That Was Baylor At West Virginia
Ooooh-wheee, that was a good one. It wasn't quite as close as it looked in the end—70-56 until Baylor struck one last time with about three minutes left, whereupon the Mountaineers were able to run the clock down—but it was back-and-forth for most of the game. West Virginia bled the clock partly w...

ESPN's Dan Dakich Says West Virginia's Former President Once Threatened To "Destroy" Him
Sunday's New York Times featured a lengthy story about Jonathan Hargett, a playground legend from Richmond who's now in prison on drug charges, years after his brief college basketball career at West Virginia never panned out. Hargett played at WVU in 2001-02, and an in-house investigation done at t...

Women's College Basketball Player Quits School To Pursue Professional Modeling Career
Krystal Forthan had transferred from LSU to West Virginia just last month, after only one season in Baton Rouge. She's a 6-foot-4 former high school All-American, so her arrival in Morgantown was hailed as a coup for Lady Mountaineers coach Mike Carey. But before Forthan even enrolled at WVU, she ch...

Former WVU Head Football Coach Bill Stewart Has Died Of A Heart Attack
Bill Stewart, who amassed a 28–12 record as head football coach at West Virginia before being forced out in 2011, has died of an apparent heart attack. He was 59....

Was Bob Huggins Drunk At A Coaching Clinic The Other Day?
A number of current and former college basketball coaches—Billy Donovan, Roy Williams, Bob Knight, Jamie Dixon, among others—gave presentations at a Nike clinic over the weekend at Robert Morris University in suburban Pittsburgh. But according to an eyewitness, West Virginia's Bob Huggins is the onl...

A Chain Reaction Takes Out Every Horse In This Race But One
That would be Miss Fifty, the favorite, who barely snuck inside the carnage as all the other horses went down. Sharp Beauty, in the lead, broke down on a muddy track at Charles Town in West Virginia, causing a seven-horse pileup....