Hokies on A1A. If you were driving south on A1A outside Fort Lauderdale yesterday around 3 p.m. or so, you wouldn’t have heard Vanilla Ice rapping about Beachfront Avenue. Instead, you would have spent 10 minutes waiting at a red light as a police caravan escorted the Virginia Tech football team onto Sheridan Avenue. Four buses of Hokies were heading somewhere in the Sunshine State yesterday afternoon, no doubt gearing up for tonight’s Orange Bowl match-up with Kansas.

Political fiesta. The Fiesta Bowl has come and gone, but the political party is just getting started as tonight’s Iowa caucuses will bring us closer to naming a new president later this year. While this is not a sporting event, there was a former basketball player making noise at the Iowa State Capitol on Tuesday, as Manute Bol and other United States citizens with ties to Sudan rallied for increased attention to the genocide in Darfur. Also of note, the presidential candidates have ties to a diverse grouping of NCAA institutions – Barack Obama attended Columbia, Mike Huckabee graduated from Division II Ouachita Baptist and Hillary Clinton went to Wellesley, a prestigious Division III college in Massachusetts.

Hawaii Uh-O. Hawaii didn’t pull a Boise State in its BCS appearance on Monday, as a super defensive effort from Georgia helped the Bulldogs to a 41-10 victory over Colt Brennan and company. Does that do anything to assuage the doubts of those who thought the undefeated Football Bowl Subdivision team should play for a national championship?

Finding college perfection. It’s likely that even the most ardent Belichick haters will acknowledge that 16-0 during the NFL regular season is quite an accomplishment for the New England Patriots. Here’s the question: what accomplishment at the college level is on par?