For years now, Virginia Tech has been considered a team who fails to live up to its potential. Let’s take a trip in the Way Back Machine, shall we?
2001 - 6-0 start, followed up by losses to Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and Miami. The season culminated in a rematch against Florida State in the Gator Bowl, which ended up having pretty much the same result as the first matchup.
2002 - 8-0 start, followed up by losing 4 out of their last 5 against Pitt, Syracuse, WVU, and Miami. Resulted in VT squeaking past a service academy in the San Francisco “Rice-a-roni” Bowl.
2003 - 6-0 start, followed up by losing 4 out of their last 6 against WVU, Pitt, BC, and Virginia. Resulted in the ridiculous shootout against Cal in which a missed field goal by Carter Worley cost them the game 52-49. The vaunted Virginia Virginia Tech defense at work.
2004 - Two losses against the post-season #1 and #2 teams in the country in their first and last games, but sandwiched nicely in-between was a loss to mediocre Chuck Amato-coached NC State. It’s a veritable sandwich of suck.
2005 - 8-0 start, followed up by losing to Miami. However, this still would have been saved as a good season if not for going to the ACC championship and blowing the game against one of the, if not the, worst Florida State team in recent memory. In their defense, FSU did go on to play one of the most hilariously inept BCS bowl games ever against Penn State.
2006 - 4-0 start, followed up by a loss to Georgia Tech that was 21-0 at the end of the first quarter, and another loss against Boston College, ruining the mystique of Virginia Tech’s “Thursday Night Supremacy”. They rebounded back to win the rest of their games, only to turn a 21-3 lead against Georgia in the Peach Chick-Fil-A Bowl at halftime into a 31-24 loss.
Will this year break the trend? Probably not. But let’s preview the team anyway.
A candid photo of offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring sharing a candy bar with his son.
Team: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Hokies (or Virginia Tech Hokies for us lazy people)
Location: Blacksburg, Virginia
Stadium: Lane Stadium - Capacity 66,233
Coach: Frank Beamer/Quato, his neck alien sidekick
2006 Record/Finish: 10-3, 6-2 ACC. Bowl Game: Peach Bowl vs. Georgia (L: 24-31). Finished 19th overall, 3rd in the ACC, 2nd in the ACC Coastal division
2007 H2DN Prediction: 10-2, although this could realistically be anything from 11-1 to 8-4. I’d like to be more confident about this, but LSU @ Death Valley is almost a guarenteed loss, and I’ll be downright shocked if they don’t lose another one this season, most likely against either FSU or Miami at home. VT has a tendancy to drop the ball late season (in Sean Glennon’s case, quite literally), and with those two games back-to-back, it’s most likely going to be there. Although, knowing VT, it could be against anyone. Georgia Tech? UNC? Duke? Who the hell knows?
OK, it won’t be against Duke.
Top Returner: Tough call, but it’s probably the dual LB core of #9 Vince Hall and #11 Xavier Adibi
Biggest Loss: Either safety Aaron Rouse or WR David Clowney. Both were valuable to the team, although Rouse probably gets the edge since VT has no definite QB, and a WR isn’t too much of a loss with nobody to throw to him.
ESPN Incessant Talking Point: Gee, this is a tough one. I can’t imagine what in the world ESPN would have to talk about regarding Virginia Tech this season. Maybe Michael Vick and his dogfighting. Yeah, that’s certainly it. They’ll talk non-stop about Michael Vick’s puppy ranch. I mean, what else could they possibly talk about?
Key Offseason Event: Are we still talking about football? Well, I will, because nobody else will be. Most of the offseason news isn’t terribly bad. High school phenom QB Ike Whitaker has completed his 12 step program and is now alcohol-free. The question is whether he stays that way once he realizes that he pissed away his best chance to be the starting QB last season once Sean Glennon began knuckle-dragging his way into interception after sack after interception. Most of VT’s starters are back again this season, meaning that we’ll finally get to see whether the offensive line was inexperienced or just genuinely sucks (my money’s on the latter). Bud Foster has still inexplicably not taken a head coaching job somewhere else, probably due to some pact with Satan that Beamer has made. And the most impressive fact is that nobody ended up in jail. Yet. There’s still time. Come back to us, Marcus!
Additional Notes: As usual, the defense will be the ones to carry this team, yet again. The offense is still a gigantic question mark, and the lack of a spring game didn’t do anything to quell the uncertainty. With no definite quarterback (but plenty of options), an offensive line who did less than nothing last season, a questionable TE group starring Greg Boone, the 6′3″ 280 pound ex-quarterback who believes actually catching the ball is for skinny white people, and the most experienced wide receiver on the team off to play for the Green Bay Favres, offensive leadership is going to have to fall to the senior duo of Eddie Royal and Josh Hyman at WR, and junior RB Branden Ore, who was literally the only thing worth mentioning about VT’s offense last season. Add the cherry on top that is Bryan Stinespring, quite possibly the worst offensive coordinator in college football (damn you, Bobby Bowden, for firing your idiot son!), and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, the defense will step it up with two of the best linebackers in the country in Hall/Adibi, an outstanding cornerback in Brandon Flowers, and plenty of other talented returners such as CB Roland Minor, DE Chris Ellis, and FS D.J. Parker. Losing Aaron Rouse will hurt the team, but it’s not as if Bud Foster doesn’t do a great job recruiting potential talent. If their pass coverage can tighten up, VT’s defense should be nigh unstoppable this season.
As far as scheduling goes, outside of LSU @ LSU, you can’t ask for a much better schedule. The two hardest ACC opponents that Virginia Tech faces (Miami and FSU) will be at home. The away games are Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, and Virginia, which are all manageable games. And the OOC schedule includes such perennial powerhouses as William & Mary, East Carolina and the mighty Ohio Bobcats. Rumor has it that VT was trying to replace LSU with ULL, under the grounds that “Hey, they’re both in Louisiana, right?”
Fun Fact: The answer leads all the way back to 1896 when Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College changed its name to Virginia Polytechnic Institute. With the change came the necessity for writing a new cheer and a contest for such a purpose was held by the student body. Senior O.M. Stull won first prize for his “Hokie” yell (Old Hokie Cheer below) which is still used today. Later, when asked if “Hokie” had any special meaning, Stull explained the word was solely the product of his imagination and was used only as an attention-getter for his yell. It soon became a nickname for all Tech teams and for those people loyal to Tech athletics.
Now shut the fuck up and stop asking. You’re not witty. Seriously.
