Bye Bye POD

Today at the winter meeting of the Board of Directors of the NCHSAA they voted to eliminate the POD system for the football playoffs in 4-A-3-A and 2-A.  It will stay as it is in 1-A since most off all the teams that play 1-A are either east of I-95 and west of Statesville.

Thank goodness as we will no longer be faced with Southern Nash the #2 in the Big East playing Hunt the #1 in the first round any more.  Maybe it will be the third round or later before the top two in each conference square off against each other if they survived to get that far in the playoffs.  Up until the POD system was put in place the Big East football routinely put two teams in the third round.

Congratulations to the Knights of Northern Nash basketball team as they beat Tarboro Tuesday night which ended a one year drought in wins in basketball.  The losing streak has gone into the twenty something category but last week on this site we commented about how close Northern had been  so far this year that last year teams  ripped the Knights in the non-conference games last year.  The Knights will be competitive when conference starts in January.

 By the way so far this year nobody has played the Lady Knights close and we all know they had a big chunk of last year's team back.  They are playing as if they want to get back to the Regional like they did two years ago and were on the door step last year playing Rocky Mount in the sectional final.

So far this year both of the Gryphon basketball teams are undefeated but as they say we will get a chance to see where they are Friday night as they host South Central. The Falcons both boys and girls have been a playoff pain for Rocky Mount in the last few years.

You know once N C State started looking for a basketball coach to replace Sidney Lowe  there was embarrassment for how long it was taking to find a coach and it seemed everyone on the wish list said no.  Seems as if Tennessee is finding that looking for a new football coach in today's world where everyone can tell when a private plane leaves any airport is not easy to do any more.  Guaranteed contracts, buyouts etc that coaches aren't just drooling to go as fast as they use to.

Yow learned her lessons  this go round about hiring their new football coach and nobody knew anything until the bombshell hit.  I sure would like to see  that  any coach who leaves to go anywhere else at least wait until all games are played before switching teams.  Every team that has a new coach will be going to bowl games without the  coach  that got them to the dance.  That's not fair to the players.

The presidents of all of the Universities of the ACC have sent out a statement telling everyone how committed they are to staying in the ACC.  New members Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse were in the statement.  Earlier this week we on this site had mentioned about the rumors of Georgia Tech quitting the ACC for the Big Ten but they signed off on this statement too.  Maryland of course was not included.