Saturday's Win

One down, one to go. Words can't express how excited, then nervous, then worried, then hopeful, then excited, then downright giddy I was Saturday afternoon as the Hokies beat the UVA Cavaliers 24 - 10 after a scoreless first half.

Bryan Randall had another good game. Doing what he has for most of his career at Va Tech. Running the ball when he has to (and usually for a first down or more), safe passes. It's like he's not trying to make the highlight, he's just trying to lead the team. Our running game was a little less than impressive but it was nice knowing that the passing game was available when the running broke down. Slow start but fantastic finish.

Next up: Miami. The game that will define our freshman year in the ACC. Ironic that the two new members to the conference will be determining this year's conference champion. . . . .

Interesting facts about this series:

• Before last year's 31 - 7 VaTech victory, Miami had triumphed over the Hokies for three straight years


• Before Miami's three year reign over the Hokies, the Hokies dominated the Hurricanes for five straight years

VT Basketball Season

The Hokies basketball season got started last Friday night with a 81 - 58 thumping of Maryland....oops, I meant Loyola of Maryland....you know what I mean. Three players were in double figures as Va Tech easily neutered the Greyhounds. Leading scorer Carlos Dixon had 21, followed by Deron Washington with 20 and Coleman Collins with 11. Next up is Maryland Eastern Shore tonite. Eastern Shore is coming off an embarrasing 83 - 42 loss to Fresno State.

The final Stretch

Well Hokies fans, we have reached that point in the season. Does anyone remember what the 'pundit's' were saying about the Hokies when this season started? We were the other team joining the ACC. We were expected to finish 5th or 6th in the conference. It was supposed to be a down year for the Fighting Gobblers.

Now is the time to define what has already been a great, if not nerve wracking at times, season. With wins in our final two games, the Hokies can claim the ACC title. This achievement is something that has been 50 plus years in the making as the Hokies have been snubbed by the ACC on more than one occasion since the old Southern Conference disbanded. How fitting would an ACC championship in the first year be?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. We still have what will be the two toughest games on our schedule left (and that includes the fallacy that was the USC game): Virginia in Blacksburg, followed by Miami in Coral Gables.

Beating Virginia is going to come down to stopping their triple threat running game. Peariman and Lundy are both great backs that are capable of making huge plays anytime they touch the ball. Hagans is a threat to run from the quarterback position should no one be open. If the Hokies can jump on them early and force them to pass moreso than run, then the defense can get a little more opportunistic in its blitz packages and hopefully cause some turnovers.

Offensively, Mike Imoh has got to be ready to play after tweaking his hamstring early against Maryland. If not, the Hokies will still need Humes or Hamilton to step up out of the backfield. If Randall plays as well as he as the past few games, the passing game (particularly to the tight ends) should do it's job.

Hokies 24, Cavaliers 14

Beautiful Picture

A picture this beautiful probably has some copyright action going on so I'll just post the link here.

Wow, That Was Fun!

55 - 6. Going into the quarter up 55 - 3, I started having fantasies of a 70 point victory. Don't get it twisted, I didn't want to keep the starters in there for that....oh no, I wanted the backups to come and eat a little bit off the plate.

I know in my last post I mentioned wanting some kind of test as a gauge. Well, to put this in perspective, Virginia beat Maryland in Charlottesville 16 - 0.....using my sketchy athletic algebra, Va Tech should beat Virginia. But let's not look ahead.

My condolences go out to Coach Beamer and his family in regards to the death of his mother.

Tonite

Maryland.

This is a game that the Hokies should control from kickoff to final horn. Based on the games they have already played, our defense should be able to dominate their offense. Plus a Thursday night game in Blacksburg means a more electrical atmosphere than usual.

I'm hoping for a blowout but at the same time I don't want a game that is too easy seeing as we had a bye last week and we'll have 9 days after this game to our revenge game against UVA. Tech 31, Maryland 10.

Bye Week

The Hokies are off this weekend after winning a good game at upset minded North Carolina. One disturbing trend I saw in that game happened at least twice on third and 4 or 5 yards. We go with an all out blitz leaving our secondary in one on one situations which I don't mind. THe part that bothers me is that the secondary didn't play up tight and do a little bump and run to give the blitz time to get to the quarterback. So the QB ends up lofting it high and long and the UNC wide receivers just outrun the secondary to the ball and a touchdown. THis happened twice that I know of. Other than that the 27 -24 win was fun to watch especially if you're a running fan in that first half. UNC's RB was averging 11 yards a carry at one point in the second quarter while Imoh was at over 8 yards a carry. Luckily for the Hokies, the defense tightened up in that second half against the run. The final score should have definitely been by a larger margin but special teams (particularly the punt team - 2nd time they've given up points this year) mistakes and a sudden move away from the running game once we had a 13 point lead allowed UNC to make this game closer than it should have been.

Format Change

I've decided that every now and again I will talk college football in general. The focus will still be mainly on the Fighting Gobblers of Virginia Tech but when there's an issue that I need conversate on then it will happen here or on Xpinionated.