Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 7, 1995                   TAG: 9511070052
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WSET CLEARS WAY FOR TECH-VIRGINIA FOOTBALL GAME

For the fourth time in the past five seasons, the Virginia Tech-Virginia football game will be televised.

The kickoff for the sold out Nov.18 game at Scott Stadium has been moved up one hour to noon for ABC Sports and will be aired locally by WSET (Channel 13).

WSET has pre-empted ABC's noon games all season because of a contractual commitment to the ACC schedule from Jefferson Pilot Sports. WSET is the only ABC affiliate in Virginia with an ACC network conflict. The ACC games for Nov.18 are Florida State-Maryland and Duke-North Carolina, with the latter scheduled for other Virginia stations on the ACC schedule.

Jerry Heilman, president and general manager of WSET, said the Lynchburg station has been given approval by Jefferson Pilot to air the ABC telecast of the Tech-UVa game.

The Tech-UVa game will air in a split-national feed with Michigan-Penn State. The Big Ten game will go to most of the nation, although exact regional percentages have yet to be determined.

ABC had completed its contracted appearances to the ACC for this season but still owed the Big East one team date. The Hokies' appearance satisfies that. Each school will receive $365,000 for the telecast, although the Virginia check will go into the ACC TV pool that is split among members. The Big East will not share TV dollars until next season.

ABC never has televised the century-old state series. The game was aired by cable's ESPN in 1990, then in 1991 and '93 on the ACC package by J-P Sports and last season on the Big East Football Conference regional schedule. The game was telecast only once before 1990, when TBS cable aired the Lane Stadium matchup on Thanksgiving night in 1982.

Barring conference-game upsets by Temple and Maryland this Saturday, Tech and UVa will meet as ranked and bowl-bound opponents for the third consecutive year. The UVa-Maryland game will be televised at noon Saturday by WSET via the ACC network. There is no TV for the Tech-Temple game, which has a 1 p.m. kickoff, at RFK Stadium.

The visit to UVa will be the Hokies' sixth TV date on ABC or ESPN in the past two seasons and second ABC regional in three weeks. The network aired Tech's win over Syracuse on Saturday. Virginia also has appeared six times on those networks in the 1994 and '95 regular seasons.