Wednesday links

Safe travels to all of you going to see family for Thanksgiving. And now, some links.

So you might have heard the Virginia Coach Al Groh's sitting on the hot seat, skating on thin ice, headed for the guillotine . . . any more cliches? Anyway, who exactly is going to replace him if he's fired as the Cavaliers' coach? Jerry Ratcliffe of the Charlottesville Daily Progress has come up with some possible answers.

Aaron McFarling of the Roanoke Times says that Groh should have announced Monday that Saturday's game would be his last at Virginia. Why? McFarlings writes that Groh would get the send-off he deserves and "more importantly, perhaps the Cavs would get that extra modicum of motivation that would help them beat their in-state rivals for the first time in their last six tries."

Meanwhile, Darryl Slater of the Richmond Times-Dispatch takes an in-depth look at the development of Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor. The numbers speak for themselves. But the less-obvious benchmarks of Taylor's improvement and perhaps the greatest sign of the coaches' increased trust in him, as Slater writes, is "their recent willingness to let him, and not his offensive coordinator, pick a play at the line of scrimmage based on what he sees in the defense’s formation."

ESPN.com's Heather Dinich offers her predictions for Saturday's games. Her take on the Hokies-Wahoos game is perhaps closer than some might expect. What's your take? Feel free to drop a score prediction in the comment section below.