The Internet Web site Bodog.com released odds Thursday night on prospective candidates to replace Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis, whose current seat in South Bend, Ind., may be the hottest item this side of the planet Mercury.

Odds are the Irish, who are an underachieving 6-4 with regular-season games left against Connecticut (home) and Stanford (away), will send Weis packing following yet another less-than-subpar campaign in South Bend, Ind.

Urban Meyer, whose unbeaten and top-ranked Florida Gators are bidding for their third national title in four years, is listed as the co-favorite at 3-to-2. Meyer is coupled at that price with Brian Kelly, the third-year Cincinnati coach who has the unbeaten Bearcats ranked fifth in the BCS standings.

Stanford's Jim Harbaugh is next at 3-to-1, followed by Oregon's Chip Kelly at 5-to-1. Iowa's Kirk Ferentz is next at 10-to-1, followed by Oklahoma's Bob Stoops (20/1) and Jon Gruden (30/1), the ex-NFL coach who is currently working as an NFL television analyst.

Beamer? Foster? No mention of either.

In fact, the only coach named Beamer being mentioned these days about a possible job opening is Frank's son, Shane Beamer. Young Beamer, currently an assistant coach at South Carolina, has had his name tossed about the past few days as possibly being a candidate for the head-coaching vacancy at I-AA Murray (Ky.) State.

Murray State, you ask? Yes, that's the Ohio Valley Conference school in which Frank Beamer began his head-coaching career in 1981. Beamer coached six seasons at Murray before landing the Tech job in 1987. Foster played football at Murray from 1977-80, then spent six years with the Racers as a graduate assistant and assistant coach before following Beamer to Tech.

-- RANDY KING

Warren has missed the past two games with a sprained MCL, which he sustained midway in the third quarter of Tech's 20-17 home loss to North Carolina on Oct. 29.

If Warren can't go, redshirt freshman Michael Via will make his third consecutive start.

Saturday's game starts at 3:30 p.m., and will be televised by ESPNU.

-- RANDY KING

Starting with a 34-21 victory over then-No. 22 South Carolina in 2002, Groh’s teams won 16 of their next 17 home games, twice winning eight straight home games during that span.

Now, the Cavaliers are working on another streak at home. They’ve lost their last five ACC home games and seven of the last eight home games overall.

So, what the difference?

“Talent,” Groh said in the shortest answer during his Monday news conference. “The most talented team wins most of the time.

There was an obvious follow-up question, “What happened to the talent?”

Skeptical of the answer I would receive at that point, I decided to wait until later in the week. Thursdays are generally a good time, when there are fewer reporters on Groh’s conference call.

Readers of this column will know that I blame poor recruiting for many of Virginia’s current problems. My esteemed colleague from the Charlottesville Daily Progress, sports editor Jerry Ratcliffe, says that Groh hasn’t gotten enough support from the school in the area of academics.

I’ve told Ratcliffe on several occasions, most recently on WINA’s “Best Seat in the House,” that I don’t agree with him.

But, as I was driving home at 1 a.m. Friday after attending my mother’s 85th birthday in Washington, D.C., the name “Mike Brown” popped into my head.

Mike Brown, a SuperPrep All-American from New Jersey, would have been a senior on this year’s UVa team. So would defensive end Jeffrey Fitzgerald, who has 8 1/2 tackles for loss and six sacks for Kansas State.

Quarterback Peter Lalich would have been a junior and linebacker J’Courtney Williams would have been a redshirt sophomore.

Brown and Fitzgerald were two of UVa’s top signees in 2005. Lalich and Williams were two of UVa’s top signees in 2007.

Fitzgerald was dismissed from school for an academic offense (everybody knows what that was) and the other three were arrested and subsequently dismissed from the team.

Fitzgerald was one of Virginia’s best players at the time of his departure and Brown was the Cavaliers’ punt returner. It’s hard to say how good Lalich and Williams would have been, although Lalich was UVa’s starting quarterback at the beginning of last season.

It was widely reported that Williams was transferring to Hampton, but I’ve never been able to find him on the Pirates roster and wonder if he would have amounted to anything at Virginia. (Amateur sleuths out there are welcome to investigate his whereabouts).

People have told me there were red flags with Lalich, but I didn’t hear a whole lot of people questioning UVa’s decision to recruit him at the time. The same with Brown, Fitzgerald and Williams. Groh didn’t have a history of recruiting derelicts prior to the dismissals of 2007-2008 and he hasn’t had that reputation since then.

My impression is that the current talent disparity comes from a combination of factors (and, again, I’m not giving Groh a free pass on the recruiting).

Here’s what he had to say Thursday:

“Football, in general, is a talent-driven game,” he said, “and, in college football, even moreso. There’s two things on the top list of what it takes to be successful year after year on a college and professional level, and that’s the acquisition and development of talent. Those count a lot more than tactics.”

“The position where that is most significant is at quarterback, When the player who was designated as the quarterback of the future was not available to us, it put us on a different course.”

Nobody will ever know how good Lalich would have been at Virginia. He’s currently listed as a junior for 20th-ranked Oregon State but has not played for the Ducks since enrolling at the start of the 2008 fall term, at which point he already played in two games for UVa.

The last time I inquired, Oregon State was waiting to hear from the NCAA if Lalich had grounds for a hardship appeal and he continues to be listed as the Beavers’ No. 3 quarterback, but he hasn’t been needed with senior QB Sean Canfield having a record-setting year. Chances are that he will not play and have two years remaining in 2010.

If Lalich grows up and gets the starting nod at Oregon State, maybe the Cavaliers will learn what kind of player he would have been for Virginia. With Groh’s tenure likely to end in the next 10 days, that’s something he could be considering for a long time.

The Hokies (7-3 overall, 4-2 ACC) also are 16th in the coaches' poll.

Georgia Tech (10-1, 7-10, which clinched the ACC's Coastal Division title with a 49-10 romp at Duke on Saturday, remained seventh in both polls.

Clemson (7-3, 5-2), which has won five consecutive games and can clinch the Atlantic Division title with a victory over visiting Virginia on Saturday, is 18th in the AP poll and 19th in the coaches' rankings.

Miami (7-3, 4-3), which lost at North Carolina on Saturday, is 21st in the AP poll and 24th in the coaches' rankings. UNC (7-3, 3-3) entered the coaches' poll at 25th and is the first team among those receiving votes not making the writers' rankings.

The ACC now has six teams eligible for bowl competition -- Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Miami, UNC, Clemson and Boston College (7-3, 4-2). Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Maryland and Virginia are now out of the bowl picture.

Florida State (5-5, 3-4), thanks to its upset Saturday at Wake Forest, can qualify for a bowl with a win over reeling Maryland at home this Saturday. Duke (5-5, 3-3) must win its final two regular-season games -- Saturday at Miami and Wake Forest at home on Nov. 28 -- in order to qualify for postseason play.

The Hokies will face N.C. State in their Senior Day home finale Saturday at Lane Stadium. The contest will kick off at 3:30 p.m., and will be televised by ESPNU.

Las Vegas Sports Consultants, the panel of experts who set the opening Las Vegas casino odds, released a suggested early line that marked the Hokies as a 17.5-point favorite over the Wolfpack on Sunday evening.

-- RANDY KING

Here’s the first thing that Virginia football coach Al Groh had to say to the media Saturday following a 14-10 loss to Boston College:

“We made a lot of progress with our team today,” Groh said. “That certainly is apparent to anybody who watched the game. I’m really proud of the effort that the players put into it and the fight that they showed.

“We’ve been working for 10 months to get to this point, to have a performance as one like that.”

In The Roanoke Times’ game story, I believe that “weeks” was substituted for “months.” But, it doesn’t matter. Is this what the Cavaliers have been working for, another game when they failed to score an offensive touchdown, another game when they failed to gain 300 yards?”

I realize that coaches (and players) say things after a game without time to give those statements much thought. But, the standards certainly have been lowered at Virginia if the Cavaliers’ have been working toward a 14-10 loss to Boston College for 10 months. Or weeks.

Boston College isn’t the worst team in the ACC’s Atlantic Division, but that’s where the Eagles finished in the preseason poll. Virginia should have beaten Boston College, just as it should have beaten Duke in Charlottesville and William and Mary in Charlottesville.

I would agree that almost every big penalty seemed to go against the Cavaliers, but the Eagles actually were assessed more penalties than Virginia, 10-8, and had almost as much penalty yardage, 97-85.

As usual, Virginia did a lot of stuff offensively that made me wonder. On UVa’s second series of the second half, senior running back Rashawn Jackson had a 15-yard run on first down. On the next play, Jackson slipped and fell and was saddled for a 3-yard loss,

Apparently, one of Jackson’s shoes had come loose, based on some repair work he was taking on the sideline, but he never carried the ball again. On Virginia’s next offensive series, true freshman Perry Jones was at tailback. Jones carried four times for 2 yards.

Mikell Simpson, a fifth-year tailback who had been the starter for most of the season, did not get in the game. He has not run successfully since suffering a neck injury against Indiana, but the move to Jones smacked of the knee-jerk moves that have marked UVa’s coaching this season, despite Groh’s contention that “we’re not a knee-jerk operation.

Clearly, Groh is going to be gone after a Nov. 28 game with Virginia Tech and the Cavaliers will be looking for a coach who can unite UVa’s various constituencies. Richmond coach Mike London, with 18 victories and a one-point loss in his last 19 games, appears to be the heir-apparent.

London has been a member of UVa’s staff on two separate occasions but it does not appear that his past association with Groh will hurt his chances.

26. Utah
27. Ole Miss
28. Miami
29. Houston
30. Temple

Cavs got as far as the BC 32 late in the half but Jameel Sewell was intercepted at the 4-yard line on second-and-10. Sewell had broken free of the rush and probably could have run for 10-15 yards.

He also had Jared Green open but either underthrew Kris Burd or overthrew Joe Torchia because the Eagles' Roderick Rollins was the only player close to the ball.

BC has outgained the Cavaliers 180-121, but UVa has more first downs, 10-9.

Virginia Tech's Hokies take on the University of Maryland's Terrapins Saturday, November 14 at 1 p.m. in College Park, Md.

In my mind, a case could be made for the bookies not setting a line because of the uncertain status of  UVa senior quarterback Jameel Sewell.

Virginia’s chances of upsetting the Eagles (6-2 overall, 3-2 ACC) will be much improved if Sewell’s shoulder and ankle injuries have healed to a degree that he can start and enjoy decent mobility Saturday.

I would not have thought that Sewell was much of an upgrade over Marc Verica, who led the Cavaliers on a four-game winning streak during the middle of the 2008 season. But there has been little resemblance between the Verica who passed for 200 yards or more in six straight games last year and the Verica of this season.

For that matter, there hasn’t been much resemblance between the Sewell of Games 3-6 this season and the Sewell who was behind center for consecutive home losses to Georgia (34-9) and Duke (28-17).

I offered the same assessment to coach Al Groh on Thursday that I have made repeatedly in this column and elsewhere:

When Sewell is on his game, he’s very good. When he’s not on his game, he’s not very good. And, there’s no in-between.

“That’s fair,” Groh said in his final weekly teleconference.

Considering  Sewell’s numbers against Georgia Tech and Duke, when he was a combined 26-of-54 for 254 yards, it’s hard to believe that he threw for more than 300 yards in two different games earlier this season.

Sewell started 22 consecutive games for the Cavaliers during the 2006 and 2007 seasons but, even during the best of times, there were variations in his production.

“On the basis of this season, because the physical aspect has been more of an issue than in the past, probably it’s fair to say that both things are involved,” Groh said.

In other words, Sewell just might be prone to inconsistency. Certainly, the numbers would suggest that.

One thing the injuries have done is make Sewell more reluctant to run. That was the case after he injured an ankle prior to an Oct. 17 game at Maryland.

Theoretically, Sewell should be in better shape than he would have been if he had played last Saturday at Miami, “but it’s not going to be completely taken care of until he can stay off it for a significant period of time,” Groh said.

“There’s not as much mid-week limping as there has been.”

UVa’s injury report won’t be released until later today.

Still, it appears there is a good chance that Sewell will play Saturday against BC.

“There’s progress every day and we just hope that it continues,” said Groh, who held Sewell out of Sunday practice in hopes that he would be able to return to practice Tuesday.

Apparently, Sewell practiced Tuesday but Groh did engage in a little cat-and-mouse activity with reporters Thursday.

He was asked, “How’s Jameel been holding up recently?”

“How’s he been holding up?” Groh said, repeating the question. “Great!”

“Does that mean he’s good to go Saturday?” I asked.

“I just mean he’s holding up,” Groh said. “I don’t exactly know what ‘holding up’ means. I’m glad it doesn’t mean 7-11.”

Obviously, it makes a big difference if Sewell can go. For all his inconsistency, he needs only 9 yards to pass Marques Hagans as the No. 5 passer in school history.

“If it didn’t make a big difference, he wouldn’t have started all those previous [29] games. He wouldn’t have been the guy we won nine games with two years ago.”

But, is he the same guy? Among other things, Sewell sat out the 2008 season while on academic suspension. But, prior to the ankle injury, he appeared close to 2007 form.

“He’s had to deal with a lot of those [injury] circumstances,” Groh said, “and, while he’s been dealing with those things, he hasn’t been able to have the practice turns that are important at every position but so important for a player playing that position.

“What everybody sees on Saturday is the end result and that’s what we’re all judged on, but there’s certainly a lot that goes into it.”