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I’m not the AD at Virginia, which, great news for Virginia there, because the donors wouldn’t give the athletics department a dime if I were running it. Kissing the asses of the money people is an important part of the job. The other part of the job involves being the ultimate person within the football program. Carla Williams needs to treat her job like one of her roles is to be president of football operations. Here in the pod, I tell you how I would approach UVA Football if it were me serving as the liaison between the money people and Tony Elliott.

The people who fund UVA Football aren’t paying millions to lose 38-7 to a program that is about to fire its coach. The ball is now in the court of head coach Tony Elliott, who has a lot of fixin’ to do ahead of this week’s game with Syracuse. I don’t know that I expect the fixin’ to be all that extensive, but here on the pod, I lay out what seems to be an obvious first point of focus.

AEW star PAC – real name: Benjamin Satterley – passed away on Sunday in Des Plaines, Ill., hours after wrestling on the “All Out” pay-per-view. The details are beginning to trickle out, so this is, for the most part, at this stage, still a lot of unknowns. What do we know? PAC was a star. He should have already had a run with a major promotion world title. He seemed to work safe. It didn’t seem like he’d left “All Out” with any kind of injury.

It’s back to the drawing board for the UVA Football program, which had its major flaw, at QB, exposed in its 38-27 loss to West Virginia in Week 3. Another flaw – defensive coordinator John Rudzinski just assuming he can game plan based on the depth and athleticism of his group – was also exposed. Go figure: you still have to game plan around what the other side is going to do. That would be the final flaw exposed – with the coaching staff, which overestimated how simple it could keep things.

The only job that I can imagine UVA Football coach Tony Elliott leaving us for is the one at his alma mater, Clemson, where Elliott started his career as a walk-on, ended as a co-captain with an engineering degree, then came back to as a coach to serve as the play-caller for two national champs. I think we’re now officially on Clemson Reaching Out to Our Coach Watch, after what we saw last night in Death Valley – the one down on the bayou. Also on the pod: - Norfolk State, the Week 2 opponent, hung around for a while in 31-10 loss at ODU - Virginia Tech takes care of business in opener with VMI in 73-3 win - JMU defeats Liberty, 20-13, in season opener ruled by stout D on both sides - JMUCLA: Bruins defeat Cal, 45-24, in debut for former Dukes coach Bob Chesney #football #collegefootball

A group of parents of students at Westwood Hills Elementary School has launched a petition on Change.org to request a meeting with Waynesboro Public Schools administration regarding safety issues at the school, as we’re learning troubling details about just how much more tragic the shooting at the school on Wednesday morning could have been.

The national folks just don’t pay attention. The Virginia team that pummeled NC State into submission in a game that finished out with a 34-8 final score, and wasn’t that close, is who we thought they were – deep at every position group, and fine-tuned after a near-miss at a berth in the CFP.

A former contender in the pro boxing ranks whose career ended in a disputed DQ loss in a 2015 match in Northern Virginia that left him in a vegetative state died on Thursday. Prichard Colon, 33, a native of Florida who relocated to Puerto Rico to train as an amateur boxer, was 16-0 as a pro going into the fight with Terrel Williams at EagleBank Arena on the campus of George Mason University on Oct. 17, 2015.   #boxing

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Chris Farina, in 2016, began work on a new project with the working title “Death Becomes You,” with the idea of tackling what is very much a taboo subject: death. For obvious reasons, we don’t like talking about it – death – because, while it’s inevitable, it’s, you know, it’s death, the end. The film, as he envisioned it, at the outset, would have Farina, a 1982 UVA alum, speaking with funeral directors, hospice workers, grief counselors – people whose jobs bring them into daily contact with that which the rest of us don’t want to think about, much less base our lives around. The goal: to get us thinking, get us talking, and maybe edge us toward accepting death as a natural part of life. Then, as happens, life intervened. First, it was other projects – “Seats at the Table,” a documentary on a class taught by UVA lecturer Andrew Kaufman that brought together university students with residents of a maximum-security juvenile correctional center through the study of Russian literature; “Pep Banned,” a doc on the rise and fall of the irreverant University of Virginia Pep Band; “A Bridge to Life,” which tells the story of The Bridge Ministry, a Buckingham County-based ministry that works to save lives of men dealing with serious addiction issues. Then, the intervention was, life itself. Farina was diagnosed with ALS in 2022.   How you can help Rosalia Films is currently raising funds to support the film's release to create significant social impact. A generous donor is matching every dollar raised up to $35,000, meaning roughly $5,000 more in new donations would trigger the full match. The goal is to raise the funds quickly, so the film can be shared while Chris is here to see it happen. Donate (tax-deductible via The Film Collaborative): thefilmcollaborative.org/fiscalsponsorship/projects/deathbecomesus

Baltimore Orioles fans are going to be upset at the news of the trade of former #1 overall pick Adley Rutschman to AL East rival Boston, and that the O’s didn’t get back any big-league talent in return. No need to fret: this one’s actually a good deal.

The Stafford County man who died by suicide on Sunday while in custody at the Rappahannock Regional Jail never had a chance. “He said, ‘Sissy, I didn’t do this, but men don’t beat rape charges. I’m going to die in jail,’” said Elizabeth Self, whose brother, Christopher Lee Franklin, 40, was awaiting an Aug. 19 jury trial on charges related to the alleged Jan. 17 rape of an ex-girlfriend in Stafford.

Not the oligarchs, surprisingly. The obscenely wealthy are nothing new; their obscenity dates back to the ancients. It's MAGA voters, the far, far, far, far, far left, and elected Democrats who don't want to rock the boat - who are afraid to stand up, and so, give up. Those people piss me the eff off. #democrats #maga #politics

There’s an alternate universe, in which the Virginia Supreme Court follows the law instead of trying to write it, in which Adam Dunigan is running for a congressional nomination in a district that represents Augusta County. The Marine Corps and CIA veteran is now focused on pulling an upset in the Eighth District, where the incumbent is Don Beyer, a Democrat seeking a seventh term in Congress. I caught up with Dunigan on Friday to talk about his upstart campaign, and the issues of the day.

The 30-win UVA Basketball team had one second-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, in Ugonna Onyenso, the backup center. Ryan Odom can squeeze value out of the talent, I tell you. I break down how Onyenso fits at the next level, and the impact of new NCAA eligibility rules on UVA Hoops, here in the pod.

We’re all tired of the headlines about the latest nonsense coming out of DC, and while we can’t change how we got here – 2016, 2020, 2024 – we can change things going forward. It’s not enough to snark online, to your spouse, among friends. I’m not the biggest fan of just going to rallies with signs, though if that helps you vent off some steam, by all means. The 2026 midterms are four months and change out from now. There are millions of doors that need to be knocked on.