With Miami’s overtime loss to Clemson its now a two horse race in the Coastal division. Virginia Tech can do its part by winning out against their remaining ACC opponents, but that won’t be enough to get to the championship game.

Yes… Its cool you got student tickets for the basketball season

Georgia Tech holds the tie breaker against VT and with only two games to go for the Yellow Jackets the Hokies can only hope for an upset. Those two games? Wake Forrest and Duke. Considering Wake Forrest just lost to Navy, I don’t want to waste any time talking about those shit stains. However, Duke put up a decent fight against VT and just beat Maryland today.

Its not outrageous to think Duke could cause the upset. Georgia Tech is an unorthodox offense and sometimes its the least established defense that can adjust. UVA did an okay job with their 4-3 but ultimately fell victim to the same long drives that crushed Tech last week. I think it’s possible that Duke will be this seasons Georgia Tech (as in a team that upsets the Coastal leader to help VT). And keep in mind GT will be busy worrying about their big rivalry game against University of Georgia… may be the perfect time for some Blue Devil magic.

Duke… you are the Hokies only hope.

Reading Beamer’s lips after Georgia Tech recovered an onside kick with less than two minutes to go said it all.

The Hokies hopes for a National Championship vanished at the hands of Paul Johnson spread-option offense. The empty trophy case will remain such for at least another year. In some regard it felt like the Hokies had snuck under the velvet rope to the National Championship party after the season opening loss to Alabama and squeezing by Nebraska, but had there been a win over Georgia Tech, as the last ranked opponent the Hokies would face all regular reason, all it would require is cruise control to sneak in to the Rose Bowl Championship game.

Pretty sure our engineers could do a better job of ripping this down

Though I can accept the loss to Georgia Tech, I think its worth pointing out three glaring “bullshit moments” from the game:

1. 4th and 2 Williams rushes for 1 yard? What? Even the announcers said that spot was far off, prompting the comment “The spot of the ball is reviewable” … but nothing happened except Tyrod running off the field for the GT offense to come back on. Sure we forgot all about it after Ryan Williams ran 60+ yards a few plays later after an interception, but that bad spot was only further magnified because what of what you will see below.

2. Inches to go + ????? = Profit. This one was so unexplainable I still don’t know if it even upset me because I don’t even know what rule applies. I understand that you should have the football facing straight up, but why then did the ball not start on its correct side?

Ta daaaaa

I haven’t seen a dead ball move like that since Tiger Woods hung a putt on the edge the 16th at Augusta National. It was a neat trick for the line judge David Blaine, who I heard later pulled out Josh Nesbitt’s eyeballs before clapping them back in place a different color.

3. Don’t you give Stinespring credit. To those of you watching the game on ESPN2 you saw not only saw three minutes of Bud Foster wake surfing but got led  down some idiotic conversation regarding the definition of consistency, or some shit like that, and the announcers pointed out that the Hokies were about as consistent as you can hope for in college football and then showed 4 coaches… head coach, defensive coordinator, strength coach, and lastly offensive coordinator. Yes, you could say Stinespring has been amazingly consistent at keeping our offensive ranking in triple digits, and despite the variation this season, I’m not convinced he has done anything consistent but suck since becoming the OC. And no, he has NOT been in that position for 14 years… pricks.

In the end I guess we did see Tyrod react very well to being down as he efficiently moved the team down the field in the final drive of the game. It was great to feel confident in a quarterback, something I haven’t done since Bryan Randall’s last season. And I’m convinced that had we recovered the onside kick Tyrod would have scores again. And also Ryan Williams, even with the flu, still showed he is going to be a terrific asset for years to come.

That damn option offense just took too much time off the clock (three of the GT drives took 6:21, 6:34 and 7:34)… it may have been even more efficient to try an onside kick every time we had to kickoff. Plus that newer college rule that the clock doesn’t stop when a player goes out-of-bounds (except in the final two minutes of the half) didn’t do us any favors either. Nice try covering the spread Bud, not enough though to save the team from a loss, I will still post the video below as the game’s moment of Zen because you are grandfathered in as totally badass regardless of this game:

In the end if we are going to lose to anyone in ACC (division implications aside) I suppose it might as well be Georgia Tech, they are nice enough fans, they have the word “engineer” in their fight song and and generally speaking haven’t done anything to piss me off. In my ranking of ACC teams I would hate to lose to in football they are dead last:

1st: Florida State and Miami (tie)
3rd: UVA
4th: Maryland
5th: Clemson
6th: Boston College
7th: UNC
8th: Duke
9th: Wake Forrest
10th: NC State
11th: Georgia Tech

So savor the win Yellow Jackets - we owe you anyway for last year when you beat Miami to let us back in to the ACC Championship game - and at least now I can stop shitting kittens over staying perfect for the rest of the season.

Well here we are at Number 4 after a great win over Boston College in which the team really clicked on all sides of the ball.

The first half against Boston College (which is all I stayed for once it was 34-0 and my stomach craved rail) was a clear example of how good our team can be. Tyrod was able to scramble around the field and make some great passes, the defense held Boston College to NEGATIVE yardage (if you take out the last play of the half), and the kicking game was much improved. There is no doubt we have athletic talent on the field but until Boston College it was rare to see it all work together as a productive football team.

So what has changed? Have we just gradually improved? Did we secretly fire Stinespring? Maybe losing early and having our hopes crushed, even if temporarily, was what the team needed mentally? Roth interviewed Stinesuck on the radio as I drove down to Blacksburg and he said that Tyrod Taylor has made a transformation over the past few weeks and has really been responding well and reacting to the plays much more efficiently — that, or they just cut the feed from Bryan’s booth and redirected it to the livestock farm behind Fox Ridge.

Either way its a good sign as we head in to a challenging game against Georgia Tech. The “Other” Tech has just come off a win against FSU (which has become as impressive as beating the bat in the first level of Castlevania) but we know that GT always gets pumped when the Hokies come in to town. Whether it be last minute come from behind victories for VT, stolen jerseys, or simply engineering bragging rights, the jackets definitely have had it out for VT in recent years.

GT is a very productive offense, which has become a VT trademark this season as well, but their defense is hardly a match compared to what Bud Foster puts on the field. The hope here is that the Hokies keep up their high scoring streak but more importantly put a damper on the Jackets big yardage average by showing off what the better Tech does best. And not to get ahead of ourselves but this may be the last game Virginia Tech plays against a ranked opponent barring a potential ACC Championship game against a break out Atlantic Division team and sitting at number four with one loss we want to make sure we leave little doubt that anyone standing behind us in the polls has a right to cut in line.

Score Prediction: Virginia Tech 41, Georgia Tech 21

The Hokies were singing in the rain on Saturday as they dominated and downsized the leapfrogging #9 Miami Hurricanes down at Lane.

The final score of 31-7 may have seemed familiar also - that’s because it was the same tally as when VT spanked away the National Championship dreams of a #2 Miami team back in 2003. Strangely enough Miami offensive tackle Jason Fox apparently missed the final score as he said after the game “In all reality, I don’t think they’re a better team than us,” Fox said. “I just think they played better than us.” Uhh meaning what, Mr. Fox? Face it, the U sucks and Tech beat you down in a solid flex of our ACC muscles.

Tyrod made some good decisions and kept plays alive while delivering balls in to narrow spots. Ryan Williams rushed for 150 yards with 2 touchdowns, meaning he has rushed for more than 100 yards in three consecutive games and now holds a 123-yard rush average per game (which ranks sixth nationally) and gives him 48 total points on the year (making him tied for fifth in scoring). No need to be worried about a Hokies offense without Evans with this kind of performance. Even that bitch Heather Dinich knows to show some respect after this week.

And I know this chick has respect…

…seriously, what the Hell is that thing? Whatever it is ESPN loved showing its anguish again and again and again.

So now we play Duke.

Don’t forget we have an even bigger target on our back with each ACC team stadium we invade so no game can be overlooked, then again we aren’t UVA so I expect we win against the Blue Devils.

Score Prediction: Virginia Tech 24, Duke 6