It wasn’t always pretty (especially the weather in the 2nd half), but the Hokies improved to 7-1 with a 24-3 win over dook.  We arrived at our spot at 9:40-ish, and we were pretty much the first people in the lot…VERY light tailgate crowd all day, as most fans appeared to be scared off by the weather and/or just taking a week off against an opponent that doesn’t inspire much emotion one way or the other.  Speaking of the weather, it was actually a very nice day for tailgating, though there was enough wind that we had to get creative with some rocks in order to anchor out tents to the ground.  BRNM brought the awesome with a half bushel of fresh oysters, which we enjoyed both roasted (with bacon and cheddar) and also on the half shell.  Mad props to him for slaving over the grill and the shucking table all day long.  Gradually more and more people trickled into the lot, and we recruited a bunch of people from nearby tailgates to fill out the big beer game, which was about 20 people this week.  Brad did NOT draw the joker for the first time in 3 games, but his tailgate cohort Chris DID.  At least, I think he did…it was a long day of tailgating and its possible things were a little fuzzy at that point :-).  Anyway, the PBR was (not surprisingly) challenged, and we had another first time loser!

hey down there, stork!

hardest working man at the tailgate

mmmmm, oysters

the setup

scissors beats paper!

big beer loser

Eric in town? Must mean a monsoon is coming.

As far as the football game itself, the crowd that did show up was loud and into it, even moreso once it started raining (pouring) in the second half.  I probably should have known that the weather would turn disastrous, as our Charleston friends Eric and Maggie were in town for the game, and severe weather seems to follow them around like a puppy.  Fuente sounded like he was pretty amused by how much fun the crowd was having:

“Obviously, it got progressively more challenging out there as the game went along,” said head coach Justin Fuente. “I thought our fans were more into it as the elements got worse, which is pretty cool, a pretty cool thing.”

And once it was over, the players were having a great time with the rain as well:

The defense turned in another fantastic outing, holding dook to just 10 first downs, 183 yards of offense, and 3 points.  VT now ranks in the top 15 nationally in pass defense (14th),  rush defense (13th), TFLs (10th), total defense (9th), pass efficiency defense (7th), first downs allowed (5th), 3rd down stop rate (3rd), and scoring defense (2nd, behind only the mighty Alabama).  And that’s your BDG Sneaky Stat of the Week ™.

Fireworks!

My nose!

happy rain time!

Recap of our conference mates/season opponents in week 8:

++ As expected/predicted, NCState fell to Notre Dame 14-35 in the only ACC out of conference game this week.  The ACC is now 30-12 OOC, and just 5-11 against Power 5 opponents (including Notre Dame).  This week, Wake travels to South Bend to take on #5 Notre Dame, and I don’t expect that to go well either.

++ Our regular season opponents went a horrendous 4-7 this weekend, and now sport a cumulative record of just 51-47 (14-18 combined record for OOC foes WVU, delaware, ECU, and ODU).  uva, they of the 5-1 start and overly inflated opinions of themselves, continued to face the reality of who they really are as they fell on the road to Pitt 14-31.  BC continued their resurgence (and FSUs embarassing season) with a 35-3 beatdown on Friday night.   Since losing to VT 23-10 three weeks ago, BC has proceeded to beat Louisville (45-42), uva (41-10), and FSU (35-3) while scoring an average of over 40 pts per game.  Maybe that defensive performance was even better than we thought…

Coming Up

VT travels to Coral Gables FL to take on the Hurricanes of Miami.  Da U.  Our old Big East rivals.  Annual candidates for the “We’re back, baby!” award.

MIAMI – NOVEMBER 04: Wide reciever Josh Morgan #2 of the Virginia Tech Hokies and cornerback Glenn Sharpe #4 of the University of Miami Hurricanes have to be seperated by side judge Mike Safrit in the second half at the Orange Bowl Stadium on November 4, 2006 in Miami, Florida. Virginia Tech defeated Miami 17-10. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Josh Morgan;Glenn Sharpe;Mike Safrit

Are they finally, actually, “back”?  The pollsters seem to think so, as 7-0 Miami comes in ranked 9th in the AP poll and 6th in the coaches poll.  But as weak as our schedule has been (see the aforementioned 51-47 cumulative record of our foes, which includes just 31-36 for teams already played), Miami’s competition has been arguably worse at 26-30.  Each team has a 7-1 opponent propping up their schedule…the difference is that our 7-1 opponent is Clemson and theirs is Toledo.  Their best wins are arguably a 1 pt last-second win over 4-3 GT and a 2 pt last-second win against 2-5 FSU.  Miami has built their record on a strong defense (3rd nationally in pass efficiency defense, 3rd in sacks, 4th in TFLs), winning the turnover battle (6th nationally with a +10 turnover margin), and the occasional explosive play on offense (13 scrimmage plays of 40+ yards in just 7 games).  Actually, that sounds a lot like a certain orange and maroon team I follow.  The game kicks off at 8pm on ABC, and VT is currently favored by 2.5 pts on the road.

Also, if anyone was concerned about how Jack would survive without his snuggle buddy Jimmy, rest assured that he was able to find a new snuggle buddy this week.

Epic Smackdown of UNCheaters!  Woot woot!  Got to our spot a little before 9:30am on Saturday, and had craig back and planning menus for the first time this season.  Ribeye sliders and bacon wrapped beef tenderloins by him, meatball sliders by jimmy, and random marinated chicken breast by me for the post game.  20ish big beer game participants, including some beers that we hadn’t seen in quite a while (hello, Camo Black Ice!) courtesy of Richmond ghetto marts.  The same guy drew the joker again this weekend as did against Clemson, and instead of challenging “that Clemson sumbitch right there!” he challenged “that unc dumbass right there!”  2-0 victory for the good guys in RPS!

Also, Jimmy got in a lot of good snuggle time with Jack the dog on both Friday night and Saturday night.

Regarding the game itself, it was a beautiful day followed by a beautiful night, with a nice whomping of UNC in between.  Orange effect was pretty awesome.

The 52 point beatdown was the largest margin of victory for VT over an ACC opponent since joining the league in 2004. We got scores from the offense, defense, and special teams IN THE FIRST HALF.  The run game still has some issues, but I’m OK with a “flawed run game” that still produces 181 yards. This was the first time all season that Josh Jackson (10-20, 132 yds, 3 TD) was held below 220 yards passing, but he DID break his streak of 3 straight games in which he had thrown an interception.  UNC got a cheapie TD late after it was already 52-0, but they basically couldn’t do anything offensively all day long.  Coleman Fox continues to look like our best RB, though pretty much all his carries this year have come in garbage time.  I’d like to see us get him involved earlier in the game and see what he can do.  He is now 2^nd on the team in rushing yards with 211 yards, and has the best YPC average (5.9) of all the RBs.  And that’s your BDG Sneaky Stat of the Week.  Bonus stat:  The VT defense scored more points in the first half than the UNC offense has scored the past 2 years.  Suck it, Carolina.

Recap of our conference mates/season opponents in week 8:

++ No out of conference games this past week.  Big one coming up this week though, as #14 NCState travels to South Bend to play #9 Notre Dame.  I fully expect NCState to lose, cuz that’s what they do.

++ Our regular season opponents went a solid 7-4 this weekend, with 3 of the 4 losses coming to other teams on our schedule.  In the biggest surprise of the week, ECU actually managed to win a game (33-17 over hapless BYU), AND held their opponent to less than 34 points for the first time this season.  Well done, mateys!  UVA, they of the 5-1 start and overly inflated opinions of themselves, were brought crashing back to earth with a 41-10 defeat at home against BC (as a 7 pt favorite).  Our opponents are now 47-40 on the season, and our OOC foes are a combined 14-15.

This week:

the Blue Devils of dook.  The dookies got off to a strong 4-0 start including OOC wins over Baylor and Northwestern and what seemed at the time like an impressive win over UNC, but they have now lost 4 in a row since getting into ACC play (6-31 vss Miami, 21-28 @ uva, 10-17 vss FSU, 17-24 vss Pitt).  Dook probably has the 2^nd best defense we have faced this year (behind only Clemson), but their offense is struggling (particularly in the pass game).  They rank 77^th in scoring offense, 115^th in passing efficiency, 109^th in sacks allowed (21), and 73^rd in total offense. Conversely, they are ranked 27^th in total defense, 33^rd in scoring defense, and 7^th in sacks (24).  Containing QB Daniel Jones in the run game will be the biggest key for the VT defense.  I expect this to be a low scoring, fairly close game despite the vegas line of about 16 points, because containing mobile QBs is not exactly our strong suit.

That went…poorly.  Set up the tents on Friday night, headed downtown to check out the gameday set, then went home and made sure not to break Jason.  Took our time on Saturday morning, and didn’t get out there until about noon.  Of course, possibly the biggest downside of taking our time on Saturday is that WE FORGOT TO PLAY THE GAMEDAY MIX / WHO LET THE DOGS OUT.  So maybe that’s the root cause of the poor play on Saturday night.  Tailgate was good times…pam turned 48 and took a silly string blast to the eye for it.  Stork brought her a nice cake.  Stork and pete were twinsies.  Children grilled for us.  big beer game was so big that we had to turn people away (still had like 25 participants).  Random guy from neighboring tailgate drew the joker and challenged “that Clemson sumbitch right there!”  He won.

The game atmosphere was pretty awesome.  There were skydivers with flags.  There was a “Lets Go Hokies” card trick.  There was Enter Sandman.  There was a ton of maroon, both on the field and off.

But as far as the game itself…well, you saw.  Offense couldn’t do much.  Defense was mostly stout, but when they weren’t it was noticeable.  Joey Slye missed another FG, though on this one it looked to me like a pretty bad snap/hold.  WRs were dropping balls and missing blocks.  Travon fumbled and never got back in the game.  Coleman Fox was once again our best RB late in the game (which isn’t a good thing).  And in the end, VT lost 31-17.

Recap of our conference mates/season opponents in week 5:

++ ACC went 3-0 against a bunch of bad teams this week OOC and is now 30-10 on the season.  5-9 against P5.  That will likely drop to 5-10 this week, as the only OOC game is UNC against ND, and I think the cheaters will get slapped around in that one.

++ our regular season opponents went 5-4 this week (31-22 on the season), and 0-2 for our OOC foes (8-9).

This weeks game:

Saturday @ Boston College, 7:15pm on ESPN2.  BC is 2-3 on the season, with losses to Clemson, Wake, and ND, and wins over Northern Illinois and Central Michigan.  BC always seems to give us trouble (well, maybe not last year haha), but their defense is struggling so far this year.  In their 3 losses they have allowed an average of 39 points per game.  Also, a good sign for the Hokies is that their QB is not much of a runner (18 carries for 27 yards through 5 games).  And that’s your weak attempt at a BDG Sneaky Stat of the Week.  VT is favored by 16.5 pts on the road.