I am so proud of our NFL talent, specifically I’m happy about the breakout year of rookie Eddie Royal. Looking around at other Hokie WR who are new to the league you have fellow rookie Josh Morgan in San Francisco and with 1-year experience you have David Clowney on the Jets. So how the hell did that happen? I mean these wideouts were all great at Tech but why weren’t they the considered “amazing-always-talked-about-threats” that most prolific receivers are? Was it Glennon’s bad arm or was it that three-hundred pound gorilla in the corner, Stinespring’s play calling? Was it Bryan who was unable to spot the playmakers? Or was Glennon unable to make good passing decisions in the pocket?

Looking at the numbers, Virginia Tech has a TERRIBLE pass offense ranking (data source) and has historically had a very bad ranking over Stinespring’s era, beginning in 2002. No surprises there. But consider the fact that Virginia Tech has more NFL drafted Wide Receivers than almost any other school and since Stinespring took over they have had 5 WR go pro - which tops USC, Florida, FSU, Texas, Georgia, and Texas Tech. Comparing draft selections with the passing offense rankings and you can see quite a disparity between the 7 teams:

With all that receiver talent on the field how does VT end up with such a miserable passing game year after year? Is it the Quarterback position? Is it that we are a run-first offense? Is it Stinespring? Granted you can also consider the importance of TE positions in passing calculations, but oh yeah, that’s right VT has one of them in the pros too.

You can’t make a direct mathematical connection between NFL drafting and offensive performance but the talent produced by Virginia Tech is undeniable and there are plenty of people who spend many millions of dollars just to figure who should be offered an NFL contract so how is that the NFL can make productive professional athletes out of these players and we are unable to capitalize more while they are at VT? You can easily also point the blame toward our coaching staff, in particular wide receiver and quarterback coaches, but its Stinespring’s decision on where to put the ball and it seems to me that he should have gotten some better production with what options he had.

Thoughts?

Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech, January 1st, prime time BCS bowl game… No one cares but the teams involved. Interestingly the two teams share a common history as the 1947 Sun Bowl was the first postseason appearance for both schools. Virginia Tech last played Cincinnati in Lane Stadium back in September 2006 and apparently it really pissed off the Bearcats as they have been on a tear ever since. Though it was an obscure early-season and expected victory for for the then-ranked #11 Hokies apparently it really stuck with Cincinnati as their players are referring to the game as a chance at redemption. For the Hokies its a chance to redeem a bad history in BCS bowls (0-3) and a chance to finally bring a BCS win for the ACC (0-8 since FSU won the title game eight years ago).

Cincinnati has a pretty good defense… its not quite as good as the Hokies (they allow more yards and don’t force as many turnovers) but they are similiar enough to consider this game to be a defensive matchup. It will be a tough time for Tyrod Taylor who isn’t going to be the star in my opinion - the Hokies will try to rush Darren Evans as much as possible. Unfortunately, some recently announced injury news may balance the defensive scales in Cincinnati’s favor: Hokies defensive end Jason Worilds, the team’s leader in tackles for loss, and linebacker Brett Warren, the second-leading tackler are both out for the game.

Neither VT nor Cincinnati can be proud of their quarterback situation. But Cincinnati’s quarterback Tony Pike, who was fifth on the depth charts, completed 62.9 percent of his passes with 18 TDs and seven INT. Most of the articles I have seen have focused more on two great wide receivers for the Bearcats: Marshwan Gilyard (who will likely be covered by Macho Harris) and Dominick Goodman. Unlike the Hokies the Bearcats, if they are smart, will put the ball in the air as much as possible. Despite VT having a top 20 defense, the Hokies give up a lackluster average of 13.2 yards per pass attempt; you’d have to travel down the defensive ranking all the way to #49 Duke to find a higher number. Cinci can chip away at the field using the short passes that the Hokies often give up in order to protect the “big play” but without a reliable running game they may find themselves risking turnovers at the hands of Macho and the rest of the secondary.

Another thing — I don’t know what the Hell a Bearcat is. I have heard of a Bobcat, but a Bearcat? I’m sure its some stupid extinct animal indigenous to Ohio which was killed off when people got too fat up there, oh wait no, apparently it is “a viverrid mammal from Southeast Asia”. Go figure. Google image search produced this much better definition:

Granted a “Hokie” isn’t much of an improvement considering it doesn’t even exist but still.

I will be heading down at the game on the 1st and given the cost of game tickets on eBay I have a feeling that the place will be pretty empty. Hopefully the fifty-nine fifty crew will be out there scalping, I plan to be in the FOX camera tower cart for 5 bucks.

Despite ESPN fan polls, CBS game predictors, and Todd McShay - I think the Hokies can cap off their 5th straight ten win season on Thursday. I have no reason to feel overly confident about any game after watching this season but I think the Hokies looked pretty balanced and played very well (from what I can remember) against Boston College. If we can carry that level of play in to Miami and manage a solid running game and don’t make stupid mistakes in the air I think the team can pull off the win. Cincinnati may rack up 300+ yards passing, but I don’t think they will be able to punch it in when pushed up in the redzone leaving them with a bunch of field goals. Going into the game, Virginia Tech’s average margin of decision was just 7.3 points, ranking lowest in the nation, and going back to the Hokies past two BCS bowls the team has been one score short in each, losing both games by 3 points, but Beamer said this year he is “actually preparing” for our bowl, so once you get over asking why the Hell we never prepared before, maybe that means we will see redemption day arrive (for the Hokies that is).

Score Prediction: Virginia Tech 28, Cincinnati 19

Sure its a recession and holiday shoppers have really cut back on their spending but its not too much to ask for a few things under our Hokies Christmas Tree.

• The Stocking - your stocking is filled with little tidbits that just make getting to what’s under the tree the main event so whats more fitting than asking for a handful of inner-conference Basketball wins. Given our difficult start to the season we need at least 10 ACC wins to have any shot at the NCAA tournament. These wins can come at home or away, I won’t care, but I would really love to see some Blue Devil tears at Cassel on February 28th.

• The Homemade Gift - so the macaroni didn’t spell your name out completely and for some reason you were drawn with big red wolverine claws but its the thought that counts, right? This year my homemade-cost-a-penny gift is that I want to hear more accountability from our coaching staff if things continue to suffer offensively. If things are going badly I don’t want you to coddle me it in soft statistics like how we could have 10 wins this season and only USC and Texas have as many consecutive double digit win seasons - flat out tell us that we deserve better and if things don’t change on the grass then its going to change in the office. I think in 2009 I would like to avoid eating more dogshit. Oh, and a commit to play from Tajh Boyd wouldn’t cost much either and would be pretty swell.

• The You-Are-So-Behind Gift - Yeah it would be cool to get a Gameboy game if you weren’t already playing on the Gameboy Color asshole, next time ask Babage’s opinion. These impossible to avoid razor-scooter-two-years-after-the-craze gifts usually come from an out-of-touch relative that really do mean well but you would really rather they had planted such a surprise back when it would have been the talk of the cul-de-sac. This year I want a reliable sole starting quaterback behind center- combined with a good mixture of offensive play calling - consider it the Bryan Randall of 2008 (there is a reason he is the only jersey I wear).

• The BIG Gift - you know every year you looked forward to one BIG gift under the tree be it a mountain bike, a Super Nintendo, or Mark Teixeira. Well this year, in a sign of understanding of the financial woes we all live in, I just want something that is relatively small and easy but would mean the world to me - that’s right all I want is one simple BCS Bowl game win. We are 7-14 overall in bowl games (good for a 55th best in NCAA rankings) and we are a fat 0-3 in BCS bowl games. Right now, we have Cincinnati teed-up high for a great old school Big East versus new school Big East match-up and I have had to endure witnessing 3 BCS loses from the stands… all I want for Christmas is for that trend to end.

• The Pony - This is the gift you ask for because your too shitforbrains to realize Stealth Bombers aren’t available at Costco. I would love to have a Head-Coach-In-Waiting position for Bud Foster and a job at Radford for Stinespring. Honestly I don’t see this happening in 2009 but you never know, there always was at least one asshole at your school who rode to school on January 2nd in a dune buggy.

I don’t know what I will find under-the-tree/beside-the-menorah-oils this year, but if any of these presents show up it will be the best Christmas morning ever… well since Playstation in ‘94. Oh and Stinespring - don’t you dare leave a pair of wool socks and homemade fruitcake for us on the 1st or we’re so toilet papering your house on our first snowday.

Dock Ellis passed away on December 19, 2008. He was perhaps the coolest pitcher Major League Baseball ever knew. He pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, among other teams, and in 1971 he won 19 games for the World Series champion Pirates. He was also the NL starting pitcher for that year’s All-Star Game. However Ellis and his legacy is better told through a couple of outrageous but also hilarious stories…

Dock was known for his gritty and aggressive competitiveness but also sometimes silly demeanor on the field. He would preach to fellow teammates that it was better to psyche out your opponent than actually conquer them athletically. In order to prove his point  following a heated debate over the topic with a handful other Pirates players, Ellis attempted to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup during a regular season start in 1974. Ellis first hit Pete Rose, then Joe Morgan, and then Dan Driessen in the top of the first. The clean-up batter Tony Perez dodged the throws in an animated plate appearance and managed to draw a walk by narrowly ducking out of the way of very high and inside fastballs. Ellis then threw two pitches aimed at the head of Johnny Bench - which means 3 current Hall of Fame members were all targeted in the head by Ellis (one day that number will be 4 once they finally let Rose in). Amazingly it was manager Danny Murtaugh who pulled Ellis and not the home plate umpire - who apparently saw no problem with the head-hunting pitching tactics. Ellis’ box score for the game reads: 0 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K.

The REAL gem of Ellis’ past is his LSD no-hitter and it is best told in his own words… “I was in Los Angeles, and the team was playing in San Diego , but I didn’t know it. I had taken LSD….. I thought it was an off-day, that’s how come I had it in me. I took the LSD at noon. At 1pm, his girlfriend and trip partner looked at the paper and said, “Dock, you’re pitching today!”

“That’s when it was $9.50 to fly to San Diego. She got me to the airport at 3:30. I got there at 4:30, and the game started at 6:05pm. It was a twi-night doubleheader.

I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the (catcher’s) glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to dust. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn’t hit hard and never reached me.”

The Pirates won the game, 2-0, although Ellis walked eight batters. It was the highpoint in the baseball career of one of the finer pitchers of his time, and arguably, one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports. Rest in peace Dock.

It was just announced that the Hokies will take on the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Chick-fil-A College Kickoff on September 5, 2009 at the Georgia Dome. I have some belief that the Georgia Dome is located in Atlanta -friends would recall my drunken 20-second tirade a couple Saturdays ago that the Georgia Dome was not the site of the SEC championship game but I was 13 shotgunned beers deep so I don’t think I can be held accountable for my statements.

Also recall that Alabama beat up then-ranked number 9 Clemson on national television in last year’s kickoff game - forever branding the ACC as a weak conference despite ACC teams getting a few wins over SEC schools later in the year. Popular and biased opinions would say it was Clemson that was overrated and not the conference from which it comes from.

Chick-fil-A Bowl president was quoted as saying “I think both teams will be ranked in the top 10 to start the season, we should have a soldout atmosphere in Atlanta.” This man apparently doesn’t watch much college football or he thinks the Hokies will really dazzle voters with their 100+ ranked offense on January 1st even with a win I can’t say I am confident VT cracks the top 10… Chick-fil-A takes a break on Sundays so maybe he’s a pro football guy.

To those planning on going down to Atlanta for the game - get excited for all the free Chick-fil-A meal cards they will shower you in, if its anything like the Peach Bowl you’ll be eating so many free chicken sandwiches your blood will turn to Polynesian sauce.

Though the good folks over at firebryanstinespring make covering this topic a daily routine, I just wanted to weigh in my thoughts on who I believe is the mot inept offensive coordinator in a major football program in the country.

While Bud Foster continues to place the Hokies defense among the top in the nation, Offensive Coordinator Bryan Stinespring has allowed the Hokies offense to sputter and in the last few seasons go in to a nosedive. VT will be only the second team with a 100+ ranked offense to make it to a BCS bowl since the inception of the BCS ten years ago. The only other team to make it? That would be last year’s VT squad.

Just look at the offense and defense rankings over the past several seasons (this graphic is credited to Beer Control Offense edit: maybe also Jason From Arlington and Tech Sideline):

With the exception of a slight improvement early on in his tenure (perhaps residual effects from a previous era), Stinespring has done nothing but stink up our offensive performance. But why is this? Here’s a thought and some data that may show that Stinespring’s worst problem is that he hasn’t tried to adapt his play calling and develop a good balance between the pass and run game based upon what talent we have on the field.

No one would argue that over the last 8 or so seasons we haven’t changed much of how we throw the ball and how we call plays and this is despite having a variety of different talents and abilities behind center. Comparing numbers season to season, it shows we have one of the nation’s most consistent averages over the past 8 seasons of of how many times we throw the ball to the tune of 279-339 times (with the final game of this season estimated based on 1/13 of the season thus far).

The ranges of other programs who have had great offensive success in their conference over the past 7 seasons didn’t follow such consistency. For example USC’s pass attempts range 360-494 and Texas has a range of 275-436 over that same period of time.

Edit: In case you were wondering about the total number of plays and how that can impact these ranges, know that most teams call roughly the same number of total plays season to season (giving or taking about 50 from the average). Drilling down the Hokies a bit more and analyzing the ratio of pass plays to the total number of plays and it shows that the Hokies put the ball in the air 30-40% of the time over Stinespring’s era. The Hokies pass attempt range and percentage of total plays gap is the narrowest of all the teams analyzed:

Now is this significant? Perhaps not - could just be a coincidental trend - but most programs vary their passing and rushing attempts based on the talent available and do not just stay the same course each year. It appears that Stinespring took a long look at tech’s last season before he took over and said “I’ll keep with that.” Granted every now and then we have a trick play (Marcus passing to Randall/Triple Reverse/The always astonishing Screen Pass) to keep people guessing but really you can expect to see one of only a handful of plays every time we throw the ball. Tracking the type of passing plays called would make this data even more juicy but the Hokies aren’t really that diverse in what they put out there — so simply knowing what ratio will come from an offense over the course of the game is a big advantage to opponents. And yes, consistency can be applauded if it works and if the talent fits, but our declining offensive ranking would show that this repetitive cycle clearly isn’t. Showing our opponent’s the same thing week after week and in the same dosage allows them to easily adapt and deconstruct or schemes.

Some of this consistency could be due to VT moving conferences, or perhaps the continuous shake up of who was to be our starting QB was - not giving any particular time for one to develop, or maybe we just having a reliable running ga,e built on a strong O-line, but I think it really shows a lack of adaption to the changes in quarterback abilities - a cornerstone of great offenses. It highlights the Hokies dependency to keep with the same (predicable) offense which is only getting worse as each year more teams understand how to stop us.

So what will our goal be next year? To not have a 100+ ranked offense? To not have the WORST offense in the nation and still make a major bowl game? I think its time to sign the petition and have a new goal for our team.

The Hokies lost by the narrow(est) margin on Tuesday, falling to Georgia 66-67. That makes the team 5-4 and Seth Greenberg so angry that his non-existent hair follicles produce boiling water. And there is reason for steam: in the four losses this season the Hokies have lost by a combined total of 8 points. The only silver lining is that the team is playing hard throughout each game and will learn that everyday is a new game and a new chance to lose by one or two points.

Hopefully this gets out of their system when it comes time for conference play. The Hokies will need a solid finish in the ACC standings and should seek out some feather-in-the-cap wins against top ranked UNC or Duke if they want a shot at the tournament. I have faith the team will find a way to clean things up - after all they are only 3 possessions worth of points away from a perfect 9-0 record.

The Hokies pulled off a great end to their regular season on Saturday by beating BC for a second straight ACC Championship title. Collectively the offense, defense, and special teams played their most balanced game I have seen this season. The game wasn’t without the usual frustrations and questionable play calling as well as head-shaking realizations that our offense is a joke to be considered a BCS conference champion but there was plenty to be happy about with the defense, Tyrod Taylors endzone reaching footwork, and even our kicking game looked good. It was supposed to be a defensive battle between the two teams and Virginia Tech won the turnover tally by grabbing two INT and a couple fumble recoveries but they also narrowly missed having a couple more INT and BC lucked out on a questionable Darren Evans fumble call and review.

The game itself was one of the most entertaining off-field performances also. Throughout the broadcast the announcers alluded to how wasted the crew and staff had gotten that weekend. At one point they identified a shark as taking the likeness of Paul Maguire, the sideline announcer, and showed embarrassing footage of the camera crew from a hotel karaoke bar. And then… yep… Cory Holt punched Frank Beamer in the face after our 50-yard field goal passed through the uprights. The footage will make Hokie football lore forever but I have to hand it to ESPN for putting together a third quarter montage recap which included the cold clock by Holt and “Paul the Shark’s” parrot throwing tirades aboard his pirate ship.

Raymond James stadium looked desolate on television, as the camera cut to pedophiles in the upper corners of empty sections around the stadium. Astonishingly the venue recorded 53,927 guest tickets being torn that day but we all know that’s bullshit since they claimed 52,000 came out to Jacksonville last year. If you thought that the football game was empty, you should have seen the turnout at the Verizon Center for the Navy/Virginia Tech Basketball game, the first of two games in the BB&T Classic.

Though the Hokies won, they didn’t really make it look very pretty- at least in the first half. They shot poorly as a team early on and missed easy rebound opportunities but were much more cohesive in the second half and Malcolm Delaney led the Hokies with 21 points (including going a perfect 11-of-11 from the line) to beat Navy 79-70. BB&T has really let their tournament go to shit -its not even a tournament anymore- but it was good to be able to watch the team and players like Allen and Vassallo live for a change and also witness Seth Greenberg’s emotions devolve from “well-mannered” to “maniac” over the course of the game. The few Hokie fans that came out were a good support and even got Verizon center echoing “Let’s Go… Hokies” chants to take on the loud brass of the Midshipmen band and the cheering Navy students who were not lucky enough (or without rank) to make it to the Army/Navy game at Lincoln Financial in Philly.

Now the question is how to get down to Miami without spending Verizon center suite prices ($70 bucks for a sink of ice and Bud Selects).

Well here we go again. Its the ACC Championship in Tampa on Saturday and probably the only people who care either went to Virginia Tech or gave up on Notre Dame football six seasons ago and figured BC is the next best thing.

Boston College, on the first go around, was lucky to win with two pick-6 scores from Macho Harris and Brett Warren but in what became the theme of the season, Tech’s offense was unable to find endzone paydirt and lost to the Eagles 28-23. You can credit some of the offensive woes to Boston College’s solid defense, which allowed 4 fewer points on the season than the Hokies. Overall Tech is ranked slightly higher on total defense but Boston College is right behind them. They do a great job at stopping the run and if look at the All-ACC teams you’ll see Boston College pop up a lot under defense. BC also leads the nation with 25 interceptions, and they’ve scored either a defensive or special teams touchdown in seven straight games (sounds like a stat more commonly associated with the Hokies). There is also that crazy asshole number 94 who paints his face up like batman or the guy from Texas Tech who did it first - not sure which one he is going for. Either way, you can expect that this game will be a continuous push back and forth because of the hulking defenses on both teams.

Offensively I don’t know much about Boston College other than Matt Ryan isn’t there anymore and that makes me feel a lot better going in to Saturday. When BC played tech earlier this season they scored on a punt return for a touchdown. Tech was able to snag three interceptions from QB Chris Crane but Tech may be facing Dominque Davis and/or Billy Flutie (related to the guy who was on Flutie Flakes box) and it is uncertain what to expect from either of those young players. For their past 6 games BC hasn’t scored over 28 points in a game and have relied on turnovers and defensive scoring to find the endzone -sound familiar? And lastly Boston College still has that Sid Vicious kicker-from-the-stands, Aponavicius, who was made a feel-good story of the week when his FG beat Virginia Tech back in 2006.

So really these teams are mirror images and it should make for an interesting (or boring) game on Saturday. I don’t know many people who made the quick decision to buy tickets and fly down to Tampa for the game but I hope that the showing is a bit better than last year’s game which granted was in scummy Jacksonville but looked really pathetic for a BCS bowl conference championship game. I’m surprised they even flew a blimp over it to get this shot… good parking still available!

Boston College has beat VT 3 of the last 4 times the teams have met but if the Hokies proved anything last year it is that they can adjust and make a win out of a second meeting.  If the Hokies win it will be off to the Orange bowl against Cincinnati, lose and its the Music City Bowl against Vanderbuilt. We somehow ended up in this position at the end of the season and I don’t think the team has anything to lose at this point except a #25 ranking so might as well put it all on the line… I think we will play a consistent game and, what the hell, we may actually score a couple of offensive touchdowns.

Score Prediction: Virginia Tech 24, Boston College 16

In a sad turn of events for one of the nations oldest and crappiest looking mascots, the Penn State Nittany Lion mascot was arrested on a DUI charge this week and his status for the Rose Bowl is in doubt, police and school officials said.

The scarf-wearing, now-extinct Nittany mountain lion was pulled over on campus around 3:15 a.m. on November 22, hours before Penn State’s 49-18 win over Michigan State, University Park Police Capt. Bill Moerschbacher said Monday. The driving behavior that lead to the stop was that the vehicle was overloaded, with passengers piled onto each other and blocking the driver’s view. I’d assume that when the driver told the officer that he was “THE nittany lion” he only assumed the driver was confused from being intoxicated but had the driver been wearing the school’s signature mascot head he probably would have been let go with a warning and a severe scolding from Jo Pa on Monday morning.

The Hokies once disciplined Hokie Bird for going downtown in costume during one of the Main street psudeo-riots and we even commemorated it on a class ring (class of 2004 I think). The Nittany Lion of course far exceeds Hokie Bird’s behavior however I think you have to be a bit nuts to wear that febreeze soaked sweat factory a couple hundred times a year, I know from personal experience, and if he needs to drink with a car load of friends to deal with it - so be it. BUT come on man, you’re a mascot… you should be driving a segway, or an ATV, or a pogo stick.