Richmond Times-Dispatch

HARRISONBURG — A golden opportunity for an early-season statement came and went for Liberty football in Bridgeforth Stadium. After a first half controlled by James Madison, the Flames scrapped for the first 28 minutes out of the half to keep themselves in the Battle of the Blue Ridge. But this mountain was too high to climb.

BLACKSBURG — The Virginia Tech football team has enjoyed just one winning season in the past six years. But with James Franklin now at the helm of the Hokies, Virginia Tech fans are excited about the new season. "Coach Franklin, I think he's going to make some big changes here," Cam McLaughlin of Blacksburg said while tailgating before Saturday night's season opener against VMI. "I don't think they could've done any better.

High school football romantics might say it’s the nature of a good, old-fashioned rivalry. More pragmatic, analytic thinkers might blame Mother Nature. Whatever the case, the losing team of Saturday’s VISAA Division 1 tilt at Bobby Ross Stadium was bound to leave the grounds asking, “What if?” Trinity Episcopal defeated Benedictine 7-0 in a battle of squads that have reigned supreme among Virginia’s private schools since 2019.

Ladies and gentlemen … Roger Goodell. Boo! Boo! Boo! That’s pretty much the standard reaction when the NFL Commissioner gets before a crowd. It has rained boos with Goodell on the stage at the NFL Draft, during cameos at NFL stadiums and shoot, a few weeks ago in Canton, even when he popped over for a photo op with more than 100 Hall of Famers on hand for enshrinement ceremonies. No, it’s probably nothing personal.

The sport that continues to be sanctioned by high school athletic associations across the country and is set to make its Olympic Games debut at the 2028 Summer Olympics just added another notch in its belt. Girls flag football is officially inside the top 10 of girls sports across the country, NFL Flag announced in a social media post on Wednesday. According to the post, more than 102,000 girls are playing flag football in 2026, marking a staggering rise from just 15,716 five years ago.

How do you pronounce Powhite? You voted: Po-White Pow-hite The name of the parkway that connects Richmond to Chesterfield County has been a subject of debate for decades. Here’s the age-old question: Should it be pronounced “Po-white” with the first syllable rhyming with “oh” or “Pow-hite” with the first syllable rhyming with “wow”?

Stanley Meador had a premonition after 10 days of sorting through the burned-out rubble of the Pentagon to collect evidence of a terrorist attack on the heart of the United States military establishment on Sept. 11, 2001. As an agent for the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in Northern Virginia, Meador had been "sifting through anything and everything in the rubble pile," breathing foul air whenever he took off his mask.

Brendan Sorsby confessed to gambling throughout all three of his college stops from Indiana to Cincinnati and even with a newly inflated bank account from NIL earnings when he arrived at Texas Tech via the transfer portal earlier this year. Sorsby, banned by the NCAA for sports-betting violations, shared the details of his habit in an interview that will be part of the new Paramount+ four-part documentary series "The Program: Texas Tech," which debuted Friday.

What’s Happening: Strong thunderstorms are moving east at 35 mph, impacting areas from 6 miles northwest of Ladysmith to near Wyndham. The storms are expected to last until 12:45 PM EDT.

In Sunday's Richmond Times-Dispatch, check out a 24-page photo section, "24 Hours in Richmond." There’s a lot to learn from a photo. Beyond the basics of who, what, where and why, there’s a story embedded in a moment in time. That was the idea behind Richmond Times-Dispatch photographer Mike Kropf’s "24 Hours in Richmond" project, which brought photographers across the city together for one day of documenting Richmond as they saw it.