AFP Podcasts

Podcast: There’s more to the problems with UVA Athletics than meets the eye

You want to blame UVA Football coach Tony Elliott, or UVA Basketball coach Ron Sanchez, or the athletics director, Carla Williams, but the truth is, the problems with UVA Athletics are more than what you think.

Our #TeamAFP resident Chicken Little, Scott German, joins me on the podcast for a rousing discussion of all that ails UVA Athletics.

Included in our rather depressing chat:

• We’re losing the starting quarterback, Anthony Colandrea, for no good reason.
• We’re keeping the offensive coordinator, Des Kitchings, for no good reason.
• Is Carla Williams even around in a few months to have to deal with all of this?
• Do the issues involving UVA Health and the external review of the Nov. 13, 2022, shootings play a role in all of this?

Photo: UVA Athletics

UVA Football, Tony Elliott, at a crossroads after late-season swoon

UVA Football showed improvement in 2024, winning five games in coach Tony Elliott’s third season, after back-to-back three-win seasons.

But with Elliott facing having to replace 43 seniors and grad students off the 2024 roster, and his starting QB, Anthony Colandrea, hitting the transfer portal, his career at UVA, and the UVA Football program itself, is at a crossroads.

AEW ‘Dynamite’ was a big letdown this week, after a solid ‘Full Gear’ PPV

AEW dropped the ball with a lackluster “Dynamite” following the solid Nov. 23 “Full Gear” pay-per-view.

I welcomed AFP resident AEW beat writer Ray Petree to break down the past week in All Elite Wrestling.

We discus “Dynamite,” “Full Gear,” look ahead to “World’s End,” and discuss the ongoing odd behind-the-scenes drama with Ricky Starks, and the booking for Darby Allin, who is either headed toward a main-event run with AEW world champ Jon Moxley, or is being booked into oblivion after suffering two squash losses in recent weeks.

Getting you ready for the Tech-UVA annual football series game

It’s not a rivalry, any more than there’s a rivalry between bugs and a bug zapper, but anyway, this week is UVA-Virginia Tech football week.

It’s my job to get you ready for the annual beatdown, so, here goes.

• Virginia Tech may have to go with freshman Pop Watson at QB for UVA game
  The folks in Vegas aren’t fooled by the strong possibility that Virginia Tech is going to have to go with its third-string freshman quarterback.
• UVA Football Injury Report: Vaughn needs to step up at RB, good news with Trell Harris
  UVA Football lost tailbacks Xavier Brown (broken collarbone) and Kobe Pace (knee) during last week’s 33-7 loss to College Football Playoff contender SMU.
• UVA Football: Can we stop calling UVA-Virginia Tech a ‘rivalry,’ please?
  “It’s two in-state schools. It’s houses divided. It’s bragging rights,” UVA coach Tony Elliott said on Tuesday, musing on the topic of, ahem, rivalry week, such as the annual UVA-Virginia Tech football series can be considered a “rivalry.”
• UVA Football: The suits running the show are perfectly happy with things as they are
  There even is a UVA Football program because the University of Virginia, like every other college and university in America that plays football, has made a Faustian bargain. We, like the others, let kids truck each other into head injuries and various other upper- and lower-body injuries and maladies involving broken bones and ligament and cartilage tears and bruised spleens and the like that will affect them the rest of their lives – the whole point to us doing that being, because it gets other kids to decide to apply for admission.

 

 

This was the wrong week for UVA sports fans to stop sniffing glue

That’s just an expression, the thing about sniffing glue, and I doubt many UVA sports fans actually partake, but whatever the vice is, you’re probably doing more of it now, with your football and basketball teams partying like it’s 2009.

My effort at helping you find healthier ways to deal with your anxieties is this podcast.

The topics:

• UVA Football: How bad have things gotten, really? An examination
  SMU left its starting quarterback in to throw a TD pass with 1:42 to go up 33-7, which should p— you off, if you’re a UVA Football fan, because SMU doesn’t need the style points, since the win here on Saturday puts the Mustangs into the ACC title game, and in control of its own CFP destiny.
• UVA Football: Tony Elliott isn’t interested in your opinion on who should be his QB
  UVA Footballcoach Tony Elliott has clearly had enough of you idjits who didn’t call the plays for Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence as Clemson was winning natties trying to tell him who to play at quarterback.
• Inside the Numbers: Simplified game plan, play-calling doomed UVA Football offense
  The UVA Football offense never had a chance on Saturday against SMU, and it started with the game plan, the coaching given to the quarterback, and the play calling.
• UVA Basketball: The analytics of how bad that trip to the Bahamas was
  Last week’s 70-point night against Villanova in Baltimore seems like a fever dream for UVA Basketball fans, who have the nightmarish 42-point throwback to the 2023-2024 ‘Hoos that ran Tony Bennett out of the sport fresh in their minds.
• Fair or not, Ron Sanchez doesn’t have a lot of time to figure things out
  Ahead of this week, UVA Basketball hadn’t lost back-to-back games by 22 or more since 2008.

#TeamAFP previews Saturday’s AEW ‘Full Gear’ pay-per-view

AEW is headed to the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., for its annual “Full Gear” pay-per-view (Saturday, 8 p.m. ET).

I had #TeamAFP AEW beat writer Ray Petree on my “Street Knowledge” podcast today to help me break down the card.

To help you follow along, here are the matches:

• MJF Roderick Strong
• Will Ospreay Kyle Fletcher
• “Hangman” Adam Page “Switchblade” Jay White
• Bobby Lashley vs. Swerve Strickland
• Four-way match for the AEW world tag team titles: Private Party (c) The Acclaimed vs. The Outrunners vs. Kings of the Black Throne
• TNT title match: Jack Perry (c) Daniel Garcia
• TBS title match: Mercedes Mone (c) Kris Statlander
• International title match: Konosuke Takeashita (c) Ricochet
• AEW world title match: Jon Moxley (c) Orange Cassidy

UVA Football preps for SMU, hoops face challenges in the Bahamas

It’s a busy week for UVA sports fans. The UVA Football team has #12 SMU coming to town, and the UVA Basketball team is in the Bahamas getting ready for two games against Top 25 opponents.

AFP editor Chris Graham covers the big topics of the week.

On this podcast:

Preview: A lot has to go right for UVA Football to pull upset of #12 SMU

The UVA Football program is one win away from going bowling for the first time since the 2019 Orange Bowl.

#12 SMU is one win away from a berth in the ACC Championship Game in its first season in the league.

Both have a lot to play for on Saturday (noon ET, ESPN2).

Injury report: ‘Hoos in, ‘Hoos out for UVA Football for this week’s game with #12 SMU

UVA Football coach Tony Elliott confirmed on Tuesday that middle linebacker James Jackson will not be available for this weekend’s game with #12 SMU.

“He was nursing a foot, and then gave us everything he had and about 22 plays in, he couldn’t deal with the pain anymore,” Elliott said.

UVA Football: Tony Elliott is trying to convince himself to stick with Anthony Colandrea

You can hear UVA Football coach Tony Elliott struggling with the call that he has to make with Anthony Colandrea, his sophomore starting quarterback, who has been struggling mightily, going back several weeks now.

Report Card: How did UVA Football do this year with the transfer portal?

Whatever happens over the next two weekends, UVA Football coach Tony Elliott is going to have a lot of work to do, and pretty much right away, to piece together a working roster for 2025.

How much is UVA Football getting for WVU games in Charlotte in 2026, 2032?

I got a flood of questions from readers about the upcoming two-game series between UVA Football and WVU, with game dates announced for 2026 and 2032, and the games being played in Charlotte.

Jones pleads guilty to Nov. 13, 2022, murders of three UVA Football players

The University of Virginia student who shot and killed three UVA Football players and wounded two others in a Nov. 13, 2022, mass shooting on Grounds has pleaded guilty to charges connected to the case, avoiding a trial that had been set to begin in January.

UVA Basketball: #11 Tennessee is up next for the ‘Hoos, down in the Bahamas

I couldn’t pull the trigger on scheduling myself to go to the Bahamas with UVA Basketball, which I’m now regretting, with light snow in the forecast for the Valley on Thursday and Friday.

Two weeks into Trump Administration 2.0, and I feel fine

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t done raiding Fox News for his Cabinet, which is what we expected from the failed TV game show host elected to a second term in the White House.

It’s not quite the end of the world as we know it, but apologies if it feels like it sometimes.

On this week’s politics podcast, we dive head-first into:

• Donald Trump might have to give up on his first Attorney General nominee, Matt Gaetz, who we’re now learning as the new week starts reportedly participated in drug-fueled orgies that included underage girls during his first term in Congress.
  From Warner, Kaine raise issues with Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard Cabinet nominations
• We got ourselves a 2025 Virginia politics cycle shocker on Monday: Jason Miyares is going to run for a second term as attorney general, ceding the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination to Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
  From Shocker: Jason Miyares passes up run for governor, going for second term as AG instead
• Ken Mitchell, fresh off getting 34.6 percent of the vote in his loss to Ben Cline in the race for the Sixth District seat in Congress, is back for more.
  From Ken Mitchell announces candidacy for Sixth District seat in Congress in 2026 cycle
• Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline came up short on Friday in his bid to become the next chairman of the Republican Study Committee.
  From Ben Cline defeated in bid to take control of Republican Study Committee
• Virginiahas added 247,400 jobs since Glenn Youngkin took office in 2022, which we can thank the outgoing president, Joe Biden, and congressional Democrats for – see: Inflation Reduction Act.
  From Glenn Youngkin takes credit for Virginia jobs: It’s the federal government, doofus
• The low-income White MAGA folks who voted for Donald Trump will be the ones who feel the consequences. They’ll be the ones who lose their health insurance when he follows through on his promise to end Obamacare, and the ones who will feel the pinch of higher prices when he follows through on his promise to jack up tariffs.
  From Mailbag: MAGA reader uses the term ‘woke,’ hints Jesus wouldn’t have liked it

Joey Logano wins at Phoenix, putting a wrap on the 2024 NASCAR season

Joey Logano was the big winner on Sunday at Phoenix, bringing home his third NASCAR Cup Series championship, a month after leaving the track at Charlotte thinking he had been eliminated from the 2024 playoff race.

It was a remarkable turnaround for Logano, and an end to the 2024 NASCAR season that had begun nine long months ago in Daytona.

Chris Graham and Rod Mullins recap Logano’s victory and the highlights of the 2024 season on this week’s podcast.

Also on this week’s show:

• How will 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports approach 2025 without team charters as their antitrust lawsuit plays out?
• The latest silly season news
• Who would have won the 2024 championship under the pre-playoff scoring system?

How did AEW fare in the latest installment of the ‘Wednesday Night Wars’?

The road to “Full Gear” continued last night when AEW made its debut in Manchester, New Hampshire, at the Southern New Hampshire University Arena for Wednesday Night “Dynamite.” 

Last night, wrestling fans relived the “Wednesday Night Wars.” WWE’s “NXT” aired head-to-head against “Dynamite,” on The CW Network from the famed 2300 Arena, invoking shades of ECW.

Tony Khan needed to swing for the fences to compete with “NXT” in the ratings. Thankfully, he hit a homerun.