Touchdown Tech!

I hope to be hearing that phrase a lot this weekend. This Saturday, Virginia Tech will meet up with Florida State in the ACC Championship for the 2nd time. The last time was during the 2005-2006 season where Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles threw their weight around and beat Frank Beamer and the Hokies 27-22. I was at that game in Jacksonville, and was pretty crushed by the defeat. The Hokies were ranked #5 in the nation and only had one loss against Miami... at the time they still had an outside shot at the National Championship (even with noted headcase Marcus Vick manning the QB position). That all came crumbling down by the end of the 3rd quarter when FSU was up 27-3. The Hokies fought back with three touchdowns, but it wasn't enough.

I'm hoping this year will be extremely different. After the Hokies give up a touchdown on FSU's opening drive (which I think we should all just prepare for since it seems to happen every game), VT's offense needs to control the clock with the running game. I'm not saying we should go run-run-pass every 1st thru 3rd down, but we need to put the ball into the hands of our best players, and that's our RB corps. You could argue that Tech has had better running backs than Ryan Williams, Darren Evans, and David Wilson, but we've certainly never had three running backs in one season who are this good. I have a lot of confidence in our offense, but right now it's the defense that seems to be a little bit volatile.

VT's defense has plenty of talent, and plenty of players who make up the All-ACC team, but cohesion has been a problem this season. Have you ever seen the movie "Necessary Roughness" with Scott Bakula? Of course you have. Well I often find myself thinking of the scene early in the movie where the Texas State Armadillos are on defense, and everybody is trying to make the defensive call, and they're all just running around yelling, "Double wing! Double wing!" As it turns out, nobody ends up being in the right spot and they get picked apart. That's how I feel about the Hokie defense sometimes this season. The players are very talented, but they often make mistakes with regards to their assignments, which leads me to use far more profanity than I like to use.

The talent of Virginia Tech's individual players also makes them very dangerous, though. Tech is 2nd in the nation in forcing interceptions with 20 on the season (Alabama leads with 21). Jayron Hosley leads the nation with 8 picks. FSU's quarterback Christian Ponder is in no way a free-wheeling gunslinger like Brett Favre, but he is prone to the interception from time to time. For the season, Ponder has tossed 20 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. He has more touchdowns than last season, but when you look at the stats he's actually been less effective this year. He's been over 6% worse on his pass completions, and his passer rating is down 10 points. Ponder is not a threat to run unless FSU is at the goal line, where he's been pretty effective poking the ball throug... okay people this is not the time for "that's what she said" jokes. In comparison, Tyrod Taylor has just as many touchdowns with half the picks and a much higher QB rating. Not to mention TT is a dangerous runner when he doesn't see a good pass to make. I'll take Tyrod any day.

The ACC Championship game will be held in Charlotte for the first time ever. All I can say to that is "Thank God". With the vast majority of the ACC schools being nowhere near Jacksonville, FL, it made absolutely no sense to hold our conference championship game there. Not to mention, Jacksonville sucks. Seriously, it's really boring. It's not far enough south to go to the beach during December, and there's virtually no night life. Charlotte, on the other hand, is an up-and-coming city with plenty of money and a robust night life. Oh, and it's basically smack dab in the middle of all of the ACC schools, geographically speaking. Common sense finally prevails!

Look, I've taken some hard hits the past couple of days. First, the VT basketball game chokes away a 2nd half lead only to lose a game that would have significantly helped their chances at an NCAA tournament berth. Then my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers laid a smelly dump on the floor of Quicken Loans Arena with the hated LeBron James in town after getting some amazing support from their fans. I'm not sure I can handle VT laying an egg against Florida State this weekend. I need the Hokies to come out strong and confident. As the over-acting performer in the Virginia Lottery Redskins Scratcher commercial says, "Let's win this game!"

And to finish it off... the top 10 coaching rants courtesy of ESPN. Pure gold.