Well, that was fun!  (for me at least, not so much for some others…Andrew).  We piled 10 of us into Norms RV at around 12:30, got to FexEx around 1:45, and sat in the road drinking until around 3:00 when they finally started letting people into the lots.

 

People that were not already queued up at 3pm were pretty much screwed with traffic and spent most of their tailgating time sitting in cars.  We had 15 people for the big beer game, which was lost by a first timer whose name I can’t recall, who then beat Trey at RPS…so Trey had the honor of being the first to wear and sign our new sash, courtesy of mom Oshell.

We then spent 30 minutes or so trying to clear security to get into the game.  Once all THAT was done, it was a hell of game!  I’m sure everyone watched, so I don’t need to recap the game itself too much.  A bit disappointed overall with our defense (hailed, once again, as “maybe one of Bud Fosters best ever”) but they made plays when they needed to.  Special teams was “the best of times, the worst of times”… Slye missed those 2 short field goals that could have made for a much more comfortable ending, but we also killed them in hidden yardage on punts and kickoffs.  Our net punting average was 10 yards better on 8 punts (9 for WVU), and 7 yards better per kickoff (on 6 for VT, and 5 for WVU).  The end result is that the average starting field position was the 33.4 for VT and the 21.3 for WVU.  And that’s your “BDG Sneaky Stat of the Week”.

Recap of our conference mates/season opponents in week 1 (spoiler alert:  not good):

++ACC went 10-4 OOC, but a miserable 2-4 against P5 opponents.  They were 0-3 against the SEC (FSU vss Ala, GT vss Tenn, NCSU vss USC-e), 0-1 against the P12 (Carolina fell to Cal at home), 1-0 against the B12 (VT vss WVU), and 1-0 against the B1G (Louisville vss Purdue).  Overall, a lot of the “mid-tier” teams looked less than stellar (UL, UNC, NCSU, Pitt).  GT looked pretty good but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  There are 10 OOC games this week, with 4 coming against P5 teams.  The highlight of the week is #5 Clemson vss #12 Auburn, with the other P5 games being Pitt@PSU, uva vss Indiana, and dook vss Northwestern.  I could easily see 0-4 there, but I’m hoping for 2-2 (and 8-2 overall for the week).

++ our season opponents went 8-4 this week, and 2-2 OOC.  ECU looks pretty bad again, and got rocked by JMU.

This weeks game:

The mighty Blue Hens of Delaware!  Delaware is 1-0 after beating Delaware State last week 22-3.  They are a middle of the pack CAA team (1-aa).   I don’t think there is a spread for the game, but I would expect somewhere around 35ish, as VT is expected to cruise.  Of course, it’s a short week after a night game at FedEx, and we all know how that turned out last time.  The game kicks off at 330 pm, and is on the ACCN (which I’m not entirely sure what that means…but I think it means it will be available online and also syndicated onto some local channel).