Anyway, we got to our spot around 9:30, tailgate weather was good, and none of us were hungover / still drunk from Friday night. For a while, it was just the three of us (Katie, me, and Jason), then we were joined by Pam n Stork, then others started trickling in as the day went along.
so lonely…
It never turned into a very big tailgate though, and in the end we had just 11 people for the Big Beer game at 12:30. We were originally just 9, but at the last minute Joey showed up with his friend Dave from Richmond, who had never played the Big Beer Game before. Care to guess where I’m going with this? Chris from Lynchburg drew the joker, challenged Dave from Richmond, and Chris won a thrilling 2-1 decision in RPS. And guess what’s back? It’s not available in 24oz cans, but….
Zima is back, baby!
The football game itself was pretty much a clinic…the Hokies fumbled on their first possession, but then forced a turnover right back and proceeded to score on each of their next 10 possessions. Bradburn never had to punt the ball all day long, as the Hokies simply ran out the clock on their final possession of the game. All 3 QBs played, and backup Ryan Willis even made it into the game before halftime. It was hot-hot-hot in the first half, then right at the start of the 4th quarter there was a brief, blissful rainstorm to cool off those of us that stuck around. As the game ended, the jumbotron displayed a warning that there were thunderstorms in the area and that we needed to clear the stadium immediately. We headed back to our tailgate, ate everything in sight in about 25 minutes, then packed up and headed home.
Oh, one last random observation: VT decided this season to crack down on tailgating that encroaches on the driving lanes, resulting in them painting lines in the lot behind which your tailgating fun cannot extend. For the people near us with full-sized pickups, this left exactly ZERO room. I forgot to take a picture, but it was pretty ridiculous. And they were actually enforcing it…enforcement staff came through around 11 warning people that were over the line, and much outrage ensued. Not surprisingly, VT sent out an email on Sunday saying essentially “oops! that might have been a bit much…we will continue to tweak this (poorly thought out) plan as the season continues”.
Recap of our conference mates/season opponents in week 2:
++ACC went 10-4 this week OOC, but was once again weak against P5 opponents (2-2, with wins by dook over Northwestern and Clemson barely over aTm, while Pitt got shelled by PSU and uva lost to Indiana). The league record now stands at 19-7 OOC, but just 2-5 against P5 teams. There are 8 OOC games this coming week, with 2 against P5 teams (dook at Baylor, and NCSU hosting WVU). Also, unc is going to lose to another non-P5 opponent this week when they take on UCF. I expect the ACC will go 6-2 this week.
++ our season opponents went 7-5 this week (14-10 on the season), and 2-2 for our OOC foes (4-4). ECU rebounded nicely this week from an embarassing loss to FCS foe North Carolina A&T by curbstomping the hapless tarholes of north carolina 41-19. Ha! Speaking of ECU…
This weeks game:
ECU (maybe). ECU is 1-1. That’s about all I know about them. They lost to an FCS team, and crushed unc. Their QB has minus 8 yards on 8 rushing attempts through 2 games, so that seems like a good thing. I hate playing mobile QBs. In 2 years at VT, Fuente has beaten ECU 54-17 and 64-17. I expect similar results this year, though scoring may be suppressed by rain. VT is an early 28 point favorite. The big news this week is not so much ECU as it is Hurricane Florence. Most forecast models seem to have it making landfall between Charleston and Hatteras on Thursday night or Friday morning. It is currently a category 4 hurricane. The models also suggest a POSSIBILITY of it stalling out over central VA and dropping 1-2 FEET of rain here over the weekend. That would not be good. Whit Babcock tweeted out on Monday that VT will have an announcement about their plans for playing (or not playing) the game on Wednesday sometime, but not likely any earlier than that. As of now (Tuesday morning), it seems reasonably likely that the game will be cancelled / postponed.
Big Beer Game 