Hokies open transition year with USC
foxsports.com
Matthew Zemek / CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted: 3 days ago
This time, we're not kidding.
College football writers are not immune to the disease that strikes fans of all sports at all times during a season: namely, the toxic inclination to pre-judge a team in the middle of the season, before the full body of work is complete. Sure, such judgments might often prove to be correct, but they're just as often wrong, and when teams are misjudged at the halfway point, it looks really bad when the smoke clears at the end of a long, grueling campaign.
Yes, it's part of the beast: writers try to figure out teams at the halfway point, in the attempt to be opinionated and evocative, giving hungry readers the "skinny" or "inside scoop" on where teams are headed. The college football publishing industry doesn't thrive on predictions and "bold takes" for nothing.
With all this in mind, then, few teams have proven to be more of an irritant, an outright monkey wrench for football writers over the past few years, than the Virginia Tech Hokies.
I openly acknowledge total cluelessness in being able to figure out the 2003 Gobblers, who confounded from one week to the next as the second half of the season unfolded. Heading into Morgantown for a Wednesday night clash with West Virginia, the Hokies had the feel of an elite team as they strutted into enemy territory against a Mountaineer squad that was hungry, yet still in search of an identity and, moreover, a huge, program-defining win. But after a listless and sloppy performance in an embarrassingly decisive loss, the Hokies quickly became the Big East team in search of answers, and the Mountaineers were on their way to a season much more satisfying than the one turned in by Frank Beamer's bunch.
Frank Beamer is trying to keep Virginia Tech in the nation's elite.
Rick Stewart/Getty Images
But oh, just when Virginia Tech's manhood - and its ability to win a big November game - was questioned, darned if the Gobblers didn't swallow up the Miami Hurricanes in a Lane Stadium rout on national television. Suddenly, the aura seemed to be back in Blacksburg, with the West Virginia disaster becoming an apparent aberration.
But no, it turned out that the Miami win, not the Mountaineer loss, was the aberration, as the Hokies (in a marked contrast to what the Hurricanes would do a few weeks afterward) got absolutely demolished by Larry Fitzgerald in a setback at Pittsburgh. Add in a shocking home field stumble to Boston College (who never, but never, wins huge Big East games) and a flat-as-a-pancake loss at an underachieving Virginia squad in the regular-season finale, and the Hokies - of six-and-oh vintage at the halfway mark - stumbled to an 8-4 regular season, followed by an Insight Bowl loss to Cal when an already leaky secondary let the floodgates burst wide open.
Tabbed as an elite team midway through 2003, the Hokies looked noticeably minor-league when they left the major-league baseball field of Bank One Ballpark on that December night in Phoenix, when a Pac-10 team scorched Bud Foster's once-feared defense time and again. After scores of reversals and grossly erroneous pie-on-face predictions from writers (like me) that continually overvalued their quality, the Hokies were left as an empty shell when 2003 concluded. Any remaining claims to superiority in the college football universe were pretty much dashed.
So now, as 2004 begins, the Hokies - and the writers who cover them - both get a fresh start: this time, as the Gobblers face another Pac-10 team (though one just a trifle better than Cal) with a formidable passing game, there's no question where BeamerBall stands: in the middle of transition (in terms of conference affiliation and the makeup of the roster). The manhood of the men in Blacksburg is clearly at issue. The direction of the program is shrouded in anything but the cocksure certainty that pervaded Lane Stadium when Michael Vick took the snaps under center (or even Jim Druckenmiller, for that matter).
Before the Miami game last year, the Hokies had the honor and reputation of the program were on the line. Well, the Hokies won the game, but only to then fritter away that seemingly re-emergent prestige and tumble back to a strange mediocrity that has crept into the program in recent seasons.
This year, entering a mammoth lid-lifter against USC in the home of the Washington Redskins (speaking of football clubs in search of a new or perhaps reborn identity), the football writers of America are not kidding: Virginia Tech's manhood and honor are truly on the line. No fudging, no back-and-forthing, no equivocating, no reversals.
Given the move to the more competitive ACC; given the supremely heated nature of the quarterback race between Bryan Randall and Marcus Vick; given the knockout punches landed by passing games against Foster's defense last season; given the humiliation represented by coach Beamer's unseemly headslap of receiver Ernest Wilford in the middle of the West Virginia meltdown; given the Hokies' precious prestige, hard-earned and then sustained over the past several seasons before 2002 and 2003; and given the Hokies' penchant for starting seasons extremely well and being particularly sharp in big late-August/early-September contests, this game - against the team that stands head and shoulders above everyone else as the logical frontrunner for the 2004 championship - will say a lot about the condition of the Gobbler program. A win, or even a noble, hard-fought loss, and it will be clear that Beamer will have managed to rally the troops and reinstill a sense of pride into the program. But with a bad loss, one will be able to sense the vultures flying around a piece of fresh ACC meat that will be terrorized - and tenderized - for years to come.
This time, Virginia Tech, we're not kidding.
Last year, USC traveled to Auburn and dominated the Tigers.
Associated Press
USC and Matt Leinart proved last year on the Auburn plains that they won't be the least bit fazed by an uproarious road crowd in an early-season pressure cooker. The Trojans' athletic excellence and cool psychological profile suggest that Pete Carroll's team won't be the least bit intimidated when it tackles the Hokies in the nation's capital. USC's credentials are so good, so beyond dispute, that the Men of Troy are almost a sideshow in and of themselves in this game. The drama, the intrigue, the question marks, the theatrical elements - all of the fascinating components of this battle - come from the Hokies' side of the ledger: it's as though the spotlight in this contest will focus on only one of the two main performers, with USC occupying a very low-key supporting role. Virginia Tech has to be genuinely good for this game to be exciting, given that USC isn't likely to give the Gobblers many - if any - free gifts. All the excitement - and excellence - has to be supplied by BeamerBall if an entertaining show is to be witnessed in Washington.
The college football community won't have to worry quite so much about accurately forecasting Virginia Tech's season this year: instead of witnessing a strong start and heaping praise on the Gobblers, only to then see a typical (yet bafflingly) poor finish that leaves scribes scratching heads and wondering what they missed, writers will be able to determine - right off the bat - whether or not this team, this program, is ready to mix it up against the nation's best and hold its own.
It was suggested and speculated about before the Miami game last season, but it's vastly more significant and real as USC comes a'callin' at the start of the 2004 campaign: Virginia Tech's honor is on the line - no kidding.
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