A-plus: Nobody came further and changed more opinions during the baseball season than Alex Rodriguez. In the spring, his name was leaked from the secret list of steroids users - remember his televised pity parties?

GREENVILLE, N.C. People who wonder why college football teams would bother to meet in a non-conference game in November will have to look elsewhere for a good answer. ESPN needs Thursday night fodder. Understood. But moving down a weight class didn't ignite a seemingly waning Virginia Tech or inspire an overmatched East Carolina.

PORTSMOUTH The boys of summer - South Hampton Roads chapter - were back together Monday, this time to swing golf clubs on a gloomy, soggy morning.

NORFOLK When Bobby Wilder was hired away from Maine in 2007, Old Dominion got a football coach at a good price. In return, Wilder was afforded a great opportunity. "A fair deal," Wilder's agent calls it. "He was a long-time assistant; they were taking a risk," Dennis Cordell said the other day.

Hoops du jour: The best thing about the preseason basketball rankings that have Kansas No. 1 - they mean absolutely nothing. But did anybody notice that Old Dominion received one vote in the Associated Press poll?

Another college football official has been suspended. This week, it's a Pac-10 zebra blamed for missing a "blatant and dangerous" facemask call in Saturday's game between Southern California and Oregon State.

CHARLOTTESVILLE November came early for Virginia football. The Cavaliers' Octoberfest of victories, a seven-game streak that went back to last season, was cruelly interrupted Saturday by the same relentless Georgia Tech ground game that dashed Virginia Tech's national championship hopes seven days before.

Radio daze: If Vinny Cerrato, the Redskins executive VP of football operations, said on his radio show Friday that Jim Zorn's job is safe this season it must be true, right? Glad to know, too, that Cerrato isn't allowing the team's problems to interfere with his precious air time.

Say what you will about Jim Zorn and the job he's doing, but there are right and wrong ways to treat a coach who's desperately treading water. As Zorn flails around in the deep end, the Redskins have decided to throw him a cinder block.

The year's first BCS standings are missing something: a dominant, electrifying, gotta-see team. For now, there is no team that fits that description. Not Florida, the No. 1 team in the BCS rankings. Not Alabama or Texas. Not undefeated Boise State and Cincinnati. Not one-loss Southern California. Iowa? You gotta be kidding.