Virginia Tech vs Georgia Tech Reaction

I don’t understand how a team can leave such a sweet taste in my mouth, while looking so terrible.  But, for the first time that I can remember, Virginia Tech didn’t choke in the clutch! And because of that, I have reason for optimism as we head into week 2.  While there are so many things to be concerned of moving forward, I am extremely excited about this team and ready to see us bounce back extremely well as the season progresses. 

In the spirit of irrational optimism, here are some of the things that impressed me about this Hokies team. 

(1) The entire defense looked incredible.  If you look back at the game, the first TD was scored on a short field.  While I would have loved to see them held a FG there, I give the D a pass here.  The FG drive was against a tired defense which had been on the field for over 10 minutes of the 3^rd quarter.  But they stiffened up when it mattered and kept them out of the end zone.  Finally, the last TD drive was somewhat of a concern and should have been stopped several times.  Even still, I’m impressed and look forward to how good this D can be.  They held the #2 rushing offense from last year to under 200 yards! That's incredibly done!

(2) Special teams looked promising.  I know there was a missed FG and a botched snap/catch/punt.  However, other than that, there were no mistakes.  I have full faith in Journell and think that Hughes might be the best punter around VT in a while.   Remember the 19 yd. punts last year and having a WR handle punting duties? Yeah… this is better. 

(3) Discipline.  There were very few penalties in the game, no turnovers, very few stupid mistakes, and several clutch performances (Fullers, Thomas, Journell).  This is so un-Hokie-like and a good sign moving forward.

(4) The running game looks promising.  I know we had less than 100 yds rushing, but we would have had 22 more yards without the botched punt.  I think Logan will put together a nice season running the ball and Michael Holmes / JC Coleman looked like they belonged in the backfield.  Coleman looked like a young David Wilson / change of pace back and Holmes looks like he can handle the bulk of the duties and run between the tackles. 

Go ahead, tell me I’m being way to optimistic, I don’t care!  This is our year!

Check out my reaction to my picks here.  

College Football Picks: Week 1

It’s the first week of the season and I have my first set of picks against the spread.  I don’t bet these picks, but I feel pretty confident about them and would if I had some spare coin.  I’ll star (*) 3 or 4 that I’m the most confident in.  I am also forcing myself to pick all top 25 matchups and any conference ACC or Big12 games. 

Tomorrow, I will be submitting a sweet new post that I am super excited about! I will be getting my incredibly witty wife, Mrs. dallas hokie, to share her thoughts on the upcoming College Football season.  You’ll see that she really knows what she is talking about.  I know guys; I totally hit it out of the park with this one.  In the meantime, check out her blog here.  

This post is Day 4 of college football preview week.  Check out Days 1-3 here:

1) Conference Race Projections
2) BSC Bowl Projections
3) Power Rankings

Enough with the intro, here are the picks!

Michigan State -7.0 over Boise State – Boise lost too much talent last year and while they have a decent team filling those spots, MSU is just too big up front on defense and will win big at home. 

* Navy +15.5 over Notre Dame – While Navy still loses this game, Notre Dame isn’t back and they don’t have a proven QB.  This first game will be rough for ND against a Navy team that has given them fits over the past few years. 

* Penn State -6.5 over Ohio – The betters have pushed this line down significantly over the week.  That is due to their lack of confidence in Penn State coming out of their off season probation mess.  I don’t think they are going to be that bad and will easily beat Ohio by a TD. 

Miami -2.5 over BC – Miami is bad… BC is terrible.  I don’t see BC winning a conference game this year.

* Clemson -3 over Auburn – I am really high on Clemson this year.  Sadly this means I think they beat VT later in the season, but it also means they beat Auburn in Atlanta. 

* Duke – 3 over FIU – Duke is back! Well, not really, but I think this is the year they finally put together some ACC wins.  They won’t beat anyone good, but will surely beat FIU by more than a FG.

Michigan +14 over Alabama – Alabama will win this game.  But, since I am high on Michigan this year, I’ll take them to make this game closer than expected.  Also, it should be noted that this line has risen 3 pts over the week, meaning that Vegas thinks Michigan will make it closer than 14 pts.  And Vegas is usually right…

Virginia Tech -7 over Georgia Tech – I will put out a full game preview this weekend and break down this game a little more.  But for now, I think VT comes out strong.  I think their offense shines and outscores GT.  I can see a score similar to last year.  Right now I’d say VT 31 GT 21.  That could change over the weekend though.  

Virginia Tech vs Georgia Tech Analysis

What a great win last night for the Hokies.  By now you have probably had a chance to read up on the game and watch all the highlights.  So here are just a few quick thoughts of mine moving forward.

First of all, I hate the triple option and forever will.  I think it would be fair to compare it to that annoying guy who you ball with at the gym.  You all know him.  You would probably refer to him as the “defensive guy”.  He grinds-up-on you all the way up and down the court and is annoying to the degree of a mosquito or gnat.  He’s not really breaking any rules, but you just want to shove him across the floor every offensive possession.  It’s just not how you play basketball and GT isn’t actually playing football out there. 

That being said, I think our defense did a great job last night.  You aren’t going hold GT scoreless for many possessions and I think that the two 3 and outs in the 1^st half were huge for our defense to gain momentum.  I would like to see us maintain our assignments better on defense.  There were plenty of times when Tevin Washington faked a pitch and gained an extra 20 yards.  You have to tackle the guy with the ball first!  Overall though, I think our tackling was good across the board and we made the plays that we needed to, especially in the key 4^th and 1 stop in the 4^th quarter. 

Offensively, I think that from now on we should just run the QB sneak on every down.  But seriously, I am impressed by how well our team does at finishing runs.  Those extra 3-5 yards can be very useful, especially when you don’t have a potent passing game.  I loved the box out touchdown by Drager that put the Hokies up 8.  Logan Thomas just threw up a prayer and Drager outmatched his defender and caught the touchdown.  It made up for his drop on third down earlier in the game. 

Finally, we have figured out the solution to our punting problem!  Just don’t punt the ball! I loved seeing beamer go for it on 4^th down twice in the game.  It was so out of character for him.  But, he is finally realizing he has a freight train at quarterback and can easily gain the needed yardage whenever he wants. 

I saw a great all around effort in this game and was really impressed with the way we were able to finally use the offensive weapons we have to their full potential.  We stuck with the run for most of the game, yet were able to rely on Logan Thomas to make the key third down conversions via the pass when needed.  Great win and now let’s beat UNC!

If you are interested here are the scenario’s to clinch the ACC Coastal.

if UVA loses to Duke or FSU

VT can clinch with a win over UNC

otherwise

The VT vs. UVA matchup Nov. 26^th will determine the ACC coastal

From Prayer to Chaos: Week 8 Reactions

Let the Chaos Ensue

Before going into this week, I was pretty confident that 6 teams would finish the season undefeated (Winner of LSU/Bama, Winner of OKState/OU, Wisconsin, Boise St, Stanford, Houston) and BCS outrage would ensue.  I was not confident that Clemson could keep winning and thought Wisconsin and OU were better than they were.  Yet, for some reason, college football seems to somehow always amaze us.  It amazes us with the chaos that it always creates.  This week showed us that even the teams that we thought were unbeatable are beatable (even when they are 4TD favorites at home).  For the good of us all, lets hope that this week is just the start of the chaos that makes College Football so great!

2 BCS schools from the ACC?

In the 12 years that BCS has been in existence the ACC has never had 2 teams in the BCS.  Could this be the year? Well, there is really only one serious scenario for this to happen.  Clemson and VT would both have to win out.  At that point Clemson would be a guaranteed to be a top 3 team in the BCS (LSU or Bama have to lose).  VT would be a top 10 team.  VT would need to beat Clemson in that game and Clemson would then need to get the at large bid.  This is also contingent upon Stanford beating Oregon.  In this scenario LSU, Alabama, OKState, OU, Wisconsin (who beats MSU in the BIG10 championship rematch), Stanford, Big East Winner (who really cares about this), Boise State (who will finish the season in the top 4 and be guaranteed a BCS bowl), VT and Clemson would be in BCS games

Clemson looks good while GT struggles

Georgia Tech is falling hard after their lost last week to UVA.  They looked terrible against Miami this week and have Clemson and VT as their next two matchups.  I could see GT losing both of those games and crashing from their #12 ranking just 2 weeks ago.  On the other hand, Clemson looked like they might be able to handle the pressure of being a top 5 team.  Tajh Boyd is good and if Clemson keeps winning he may make a case for the Heisman trophy. 

So what that MSU won…

Let’s all remember that the game was tied! This was not a Hail Mary, not a case of win/loss, and not a “Flutie-like” pass.   Yes, it was a great play and incredible play but I’m not ready to place it up there with the all time great last minute plays.  This ranks for me up there with the Crabtree TD over Texas a few years back.  If anyone remembers, Tech was trailing by 1 pt at the time of the play and would have had a chip shot field goal to win the game.   Yes, it was a great play, but not life or death!  Everyone praised Crabtree for his TD, but the game was already won he just got the glory for it.