Yesterday Uncle Frank announced that the Hokies would be redshirting sophomore Tyrod Taylor for the upcoming season. Supposedly this was done with complete approval from Tyrod, who I assume took one look at the incoming recievers and was reminded of the closing scene of the Simpsons “Scorpio” episode (Aw, the Denver Broncos?!). Basically what this means is that we are hopeful that Tyrod will be with the Hokies for another 3 years after this season and finally fulfill his destiny as the next phenom Hokie QB. BUT… what this unfortunately *also* means is that we have to rely on Sean Glennon *all* season with little hope for alternatives no matter how much he stinks up the place. Sure, we have a back up option in Cory Holt but thats not much better than putting in Mac Tonight. Granted I’m not one to talk since I can barely throw a football spiral 10 feet without losing my balance but while I would throw plenty of wobbly passes in to the back of a lineman’s helmets, Glennon would fly perfectly to the hands of opposing defenders while frustrated wide-open receivers throw their hands up at the opposite side of the field. We know its a mental thing with Glennon and he’s just a few bad snaps away from going totally fucking postal again just like he did against LSU, and then my friends, even Western Kentucky will be a nail biter.

Just look at how much concentration it takes for this guy to make a pass during a non-rush practice scrimmage… I have never made a face that serious (or is it worried?) in my life. I could be shitting hot peppers and broken glass while down to the last 10 minutes of a Physical Chemistry final as I watched my daughter get railed by a Miami linebacker in full uniform at the front of the classroom and even then I couldn’t recreate that face.

As the sun sets over the smog draped skyline of Beijing we say goodbye to not only the 2008 Olympic games but also to the inclusion of baseball as an Olympic event. That’s right, for at least the 2012 Olympics there will be no baseball played -at least for medal status. This marks the only sport since Polo to be eliminated, never mind the fact that over 16 teams and 300 athletes will now be left out of Sydney London so that the world of competitive gun shooting can have center stage. Baseball has been played since 1904 in the Olympics in some fashion. Though it did not gain medal status until fairly recently (1992) many countries in North and South America are wondering just how an event with such popularity could be “voted out” of the next games. Of course the IOC is a tight ship that doesn’t let anything slip by so I feel confident it was a legitimate vote.

After investigating more on this supposed “vote process” I was able to see which other events missed the cut for the 2012 games by even narrower margins than our nation’s pastime…

iPhone Waiting

The iPhone Wait event barely made it on the radar for this year’s games but may gain momentum in coming years as market share of the iPhone increases and as Apple decides to release newer, shinier versions of its highly sought-after mobile phone device. The iPhone wait consists of standing in a line for several hours, sometimes overnight if the conditions and rebate price requires it, and obtaining an iPhone as quickly as possible and most-importantly before any stranger sitting next to you on a commuter flight from Washington DC to Chicago beats you to the purchase. Championship events are held daily in major American metropolises and the sport’s popularity is spreading to the European Union, Canada, and eBay. Training can be grueling, but the payoff is sweet for those willing to endure. Most athletes entered the world of sport waiting participating in Wii Waiting at a younger age and moved on to the professional circuit once they reached the age of 16, as required by international rules. This event may just be a twinkle in the IOC’s eyes (see 1996 Beanie Baby Collector petition) but the committee is keeping its finger on the pulse of the sport to see if it gains enough global popularity to warrant a vote for 2016.

Cockblocking

Perhaps even more surprising than baseball is the omission of the globally recognized sport of Cockblocking. Cockblocking, which is widely popular among amateurs and professionals alike once again missed the cut for the 2012 by the narrowist of margins. To those who may not know, Cockblocking is the ancient and delicate art of interfering with someone who is getting acquainted with, conversing with, or otherwise trying to fuck a member of the opposite sex. Teams consist of two women or sometimes may be co-ed teams consisting of one woman and one man who “has a place for you to crash”. The teams attempt to thwart the interactions between a member of the team and a “point man” -a heterosexual male- during his tactical attempts to get the tip of his dick wet (one way or another) as the three athletes wander through a controlled environment of pool tables, dance floors, and draft beer. 2006 World Games champion and likely top contender for a 2012 games Jenny Johnson (or better known to fans as “No Play J.J.”) of Minneapolis, MN had been training since she was a child and was crushed by the news from the IOC that the sport was not going to be played at London. “I gained all this weight and got shit on by just enough guys to really make myself as bitter as possible… now what am I supposed to do with all this spite and unmatched knowledge of the show ‘The Hills’?” Some speculate that the varying local rules of each participating country would add significant difficulty in assessing scores and lead to a debacle reminiscent of the Bird Dogging finals of the 1936 Olympic games.

Quoting Will Farrell Movies

One of the newer events that hopes to make it to the 2016 Olympic games (to be held in a yet-to-be-determined city) is that of Quoting Will Farrell Movies. As Will Farrell has produced one box office hit after another, a steady accumulation of lines representing the few reasonably funny moments from his films has been building in the minds of boring middle-aged white-collar males. These athletes, or “Farrelletes” as they prefer, have brought their craft to mainstream society by using Farrell movie lines in conversations with co-workers and strangers alike, usually resulting in spectacularly failed attempts to elicit a comedic reaction (usually due to the fact that saying the lines is only funny if said by Farrell himself while in character during the viewing of a motion picture which someone has actually decided to pay money and watch). In international competitions, judges base scores on obnoxiousness of the quote and award special points for excessive repetition and general lack of humor and timing. After the 2004 games in Athens many were convinced this event would make it to Beijing on the heels of such classics as “We’re Going Streaking”, “You’re my boy, Blue!” and “Stay Classy, San Diego”. Perhaps it is the restriction to an English-speaking audience that is hindering the adoption of this event.

Wasting Time Online

An event never imaginable during the first Olympic games in 776 BC just may find itself as the newest event for 2016. Wasting Time Online has become wildly popular in developed nations and may be a way to harmonize the many advancements in technology with the traditions and prestige of the Olympic games. Athletes in this event are given an option between an Apple Powerbook or a Dell Latitude laptop and have one 8-hour work day to spend as much time as possible online and not contributing to any work product whatsoever. Though the event is said to be the sport of only the wealthy, many point out that “wasting time” is a universally understood concept and this variation simply “tweaks” the playing court. Often times event participants will visit websites more than a dozen times a day, post to message boards such banter as “Buried for misleading title -it was a car accident, but he’s not dead you tard”, as well as watch countless movies of less than 2 minutes in length and play poorly coded Flash-based games which require no skill and even less intelligence to master. International rules restrict content used in official matches which is deemed to be “NSFW”- as many South American competitors found that masturbation was an easy but unethical method of achieving a near perfect score. Not everyone feels the Olympic games are ready for such a radical and technically advanced event. Barji Mannuli, of Brazil’s world champion traveling team noted “[T]his may not be the worst time to take a step back and let [the game] develop for another 4 years- we lost Scrabulous recently and that was a major blow to our Facebook routine.” Because it is in indoor event, Wasting Time Online may also be included in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, which has a final listing of events that are still “under review.”

Until 2016 we will just have to wait and see if Baseball can again be considered an Olympic event and more importantly, whether these or any other events currently “standing on the outside and looking in” can make it on to the world’s stage for the athletic elite.

No one can agree on Virginia Tech’s odds to win the 2009 BCS National Championship. It is perhaps fitting that even professional oddsmakers who spend their livelihood and risk billions of casino dollars determining the chances of a college football team’s success are unable to understand and predict from the roller coaster ride seasons that all Hokie fans know so well. Bodog online has given the Hokies a 30:1 shot to win the BCS, while Sportsbook.com makes the bet even juicer for those golden hokies looking to drop a few bills at 35:1 and oddly enough SBG (who plays a large part of the Vegas sportsbook industry) puts the Hokies at an astonishing 12:1.

Virginia Tech ACC Conference Title odds aren’t that great of a payout but do show some faith in a repeat Dr. Pepper championship team: Bodog online lists the Hokies as 5:2 favorites, Sportsbook.com and SBG Global follow with the same. Another interesting bet is Virginia Tech’s 2008 Full Season Over/Under for total number of wins. The odds on these bets are as follows: over 9 Wins is at -140 (meaning it will cost you $140 to win back $240) and under 9 wins is at +110 (so Swain, it will cost you only $100 to bet against the team this year to win back $210. No telling if loan sharks accept the excuse that you thought “the bowl game wasn’t to be included” to get out of the bet.)

And perhaps the sucker bet of the season: Placing $100 on Sean Glennon’s Boos to Cheers ratio and then parlaying the winnings in to taking Furman without the +70 point spread pays $272,100.

EA Sports recently released the “official” top 25 toughest stadiums to play in for 2008 and Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium was ranked at number 9. Clearly there is no more definitive source than a video game publisher and nothing but concrete evidence to show we are the most dangerous place to play, but if we were to pick apart this ranking, you know- just for fuck’s sake, what would it show?

For starters if this official ranking takes our 2008 home schedule in to consideration I think we should be happy just to be in the top 10. Almost all the home games we have this year are likely to be noon game blowouts aired on Jefferson Pilot (no HD for that plasma). The existence of only one Thursday night home game doesn’t help the cause much. We do get a 3:30pm start against Georgia Tech which should allow for more alcohol to work its way in to the bloodstream of screaming fans but it will always be less than what is capable of a fully-inebriated Thursday night crowd. Also, I think our “Hokie Respect” campaign will be in its 7th year -continuing to render stadium souvenir cups completely worthless while encouraging fans to cheer on opponents as if they are handicap children and buy them Mill Mountain Gift Baskets. Lastly, we have added a “White Out” game to support literacy for children (and presumably adults) in Southwest Virginia. This is odd because first- white isn’t one of our colors and second- isn’t White Out used to erase words? None of these things help our “toughness” factor much.

ESPN once called Lane Stadium the SECOND scariest place to play (granted “scary” isn’t the same as “tough”… and yes it is too soon for whatever joke you think should follow this statement). Overall, Tech may be slipping in the stadium ranks due to a larger school-wide decline in College rankings. Princeton Review demoted Virginia Tech’s 2007 first place ranking for “Best Campus Food” to a barely palatable third in 2008- a year in which VT also slid off the “Best Party Schools” ranking and was left as a high seed in the “Students Pack The Stadiums” honors. But I guess we are holding on to our top vanity license plate ranking and we did come in third for most powerful super computer in the world. Now if only we could combine those accomplishments to our advantage and activate our own Skynet and use it to make robot destruction machines out of millions of VT license plates. I bet we’d really move up the toughest stadium list then… you hear that EA Sports? There better be a consideration for Roboplate Rex because the pain train is coming to town.

The USA Today preseason College Football poll is out and things are looking good for Virginia Tech. At first glace being in fifteenth place may seem disappointing (uh we did lose that bowl game) but if you look at not only who is in front of us but more importantly the schedules of who is in front of us we have ourselves a nice cherry picking fast lane to the top of the polls (and were not even in the Pac 10).

If you consider all the cannibalization that MUST happen as the season goes on with the top 15 teams and combine that with the unlikely event that more than just Fresno State will go undefeated and then pour on top of it all the fact that we play the chump lineup of the ACC mixed in with some schools I didn’t even know had a football team let alone an athletic department and you get a pretty decent outlook for 2008. Just look at the top 14 teams in front of us and what they have to face from just themselves:

#1 Georgia plays #5 Florida, #6 LSU (away), #11 Auburn #1.1 USC plays #3 Ohio State #3 Ohio State plays #1.1 USC, #131 Youngstown State, and #12 Wisconsin #4 Oklahoma plays #13 Kansas and #10 Texas #5 Florida plays #6 LSU, #1 Georgia #6 LSU plays #5 Florida, #1 Georgia, #11 Auburn and #2 (million) Tulane #7 Missouri plays #13 Kansas and #10 Texas #8 West Virginia plays #11 Auburn #9 Clemson plays … uhhh they always fuck up #10 Texas plays #7 Missouri, #4 Oklahoma, #13 Kansas and #14 Texas Tech #11 Auburn plays #6 LSU, #8 West Virginia and #1 Georgia #12 Wisconsin plays #3 Ohio State #13 Kansas plays #4 Oklahoma and #10 Texas #10 Texas Tech plays #10 Texas and #4 Oklahoma #15 Virginia Tech plays… YAYYYYY NO ONE!

Even IF Georgia, Ohio State, and Texas were win out with the other team match ups as they are the WORST we could be with an undefeated record would be number 4. Much more likely however is that all of these teams will take turns knocking one another off under respective home field advantages.

There are a few concerns in the pecking order before us- including miserable Clemson who decided they would beef up their schedule by playing seven South Carolina high schools this season, and I’m sure FOX has a contingency plan ready in case Missouri wins out and ends up BCS #1 – it’s likely that they will sell the championship game to Versus and air the comeback of ‘Keen Eddie’ instead.

Virginia Tech often finds itself in a position where we play a bunch of cupcakes in the first five or six games of the season, inflating our confidence, only to struggle against semi-decent opponents to take our first loss (GT in 2006, Miami in 2005, NC State in 2004, WVU in 2003…) before regrouping for a good finish and trip to a bowl game deserving of at least the Pizza Hut blimpuHH. But in this year’s case we are cupcake walking all season (and sure to get dismantled in whichever bowl game we go to). There are good things to look forward to this season, every weekend is a chance for us to show our power as we sip iced tea playing against teams like Furman and Western Kentucky while the rest of the top 25 play king of the mountain and smash each other to bits.