An earthquake and a hurricane?  OK, OK, we’ll bring back tailgate fever.  Enough already.

You asked for it, so you better get fired up.  It’s game week, and we’ve got tailgate fever.  Let’s do this thing.  It takes a nation of millions to hold us back!

So, where have we been you might ask?  Mostly sleeping.  We like sleep.  No one is more confusing to us than people who don’t like sleeping.  Especially, those people who insist on staying awake all night and say things like “it is too early to go to sleep” or “I just start waking up at 1am.”  The only thing worse than them are morning people.  “Hi, I’ve been up since 4:30am.  I jogged four miles, then had some breakfast, wrote a haiku, researched the tie-breaker rules for the European International Chess Championship in which Russian grandmaster Vladamir Potkin won in a tie-breaker based on the strength of the play of his opponents and his demolishing Baadur Jobava of Georgia in the penultimate round (say what you will about the PAC-10’s tie-breaker system but this is just crazy talk), and now I’m heading into the office to color collate the office supplies.  Good morning!”  Don’t you just want to punch that guy in the throat?  The only time we are not interested in sleeping is for about 90 minutes after we get up.  And Saturdays.

Sabbaticals really are underrated.  We recommend one every three to four months.

 

Things We Did On Sabbatical Besides Sleep

Baked a pie.

Changed some light bulbs.

Filled that huge hole by the trashcan with dirt.

Refilled huge hole by trashcan with dirt after large rain storm.

Paid a lot for a muffler.

Ran a mile.

OK, briskly walked a mile.

Ran an unsuccessful dog fighting ring.

Did 11 months in the pen.

Filed for bankruptcy.

Signed $100M contract.

Figured out how many licks it takes to get to center of Tootsie Roll Pop.

Figured out what we would do for a Klondike bar.

Ate just one Lay’s potato chip.

“Acquired” Black Diamond Trophy

Millionaire Matchmaker marathon.

Tried Vegemite.

Vomited.

Hacked Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account.

Sequestered on the Casey Anthony jury.

Raised one eyebrow.

Licked our elbow.

Touched our nose with our tongue.

Sneezed with our eyes open.

Showed up at Jim Weaver’s office promptly at 10am daily to “Share some ideas.”  Strangely, spent lots of time waiting while ignored.  PS – those ideas, in order were (1) make VMI a regular I-AA opponent, (2) place cannon on ledge in southeast corner of stadium, (3) allow band to play Stick It In, (4) return Home of the Fighting Gobblers to somewhere inside the stadium, (5) ban noon kickoffs, (6) eradicate orange, (7) build a bar, (8) cancel ECU series, (9) entertain, just for giggles, what it would be like to be an SEC AD (they name streets after these guys, Weaver!), (10) more marching.

Discovered “storage wars.” Bought a storage unit at auction for $80.  Sold grateful dead poster and genuine pleather Redskins jacket on EBay for $80.  Net loss = $13.50 after shipping and handling. Forfeited remainder of contents in said unit because didn’t feel like moving it.  No longer welcome at storage unit auctions in the greater Fauquier area.

Refiled for bankruptcy.

Started Ponzi scheme.

Got arrested.

Brought down storied Division I-A football program.

Memorized second verse of Enter Sandman.

 

Now we are writing again.  Primarily because you won’t stop emailing and posting.  But this is a partnership.  If we are going to do this, you need to hold up your end of the bargain.  See that Contact Us link over there on the right?  Use it.  If you don’t, how else are we supposed to steal your great ideas and pass them off as our own?

Last season was filled with let downs.  First, there was the all black jersey nonsense.  Ridiculous then; ridiculous now.  Fortunately, ESPN has been kind enough to spend our entire sabbatical reporting on the future of the Boise State program and in doing so never once fails to show a clip of them beating the Mighty Fighting Va. Tech Pumpkins, most likely just to piss us off.  Then there was JMU.  A loss we have not and will not ever recover from.  Think we are exaggerating?  Think again, Baby Einstein.  Just this week, we were on the phone with Mitch who was at the same Richmond bar in which we watched The Greater Debacle for a Yankees-Red Sox game.  He was trying to have a normal, ordinary, everyday conversation about tailgates, road trips, and hot girls at the bar.  But would we listen?  Could we even hear his witty commentary?  No.  Because we were screaming, repeatedly, at the top of our lungs, “BURN IT.  BURN IT.  BURN IT DOWN.”  Who does this?  And then, when he tried to explain he wasn’t going to the Appalachian State game because Troy sold his tickets to an ASU fan, we responded “BURN HIM.  BURN HIM.  BURN HIM DOWN.”  These are not the responses of a normal human being.  This is not OK.  Where were we?  Oh yeah, letdowns.  Then there was the Orange Bowl.  You forgot about that ass-whipping, didn’t you?  So did we.  This is, in fact, the joy of the sabbatical.  You forget stuff.  It’s not that different than bourbon now that we think about it.

There were great things in last season, too.  Ten consecutive wins.  David Wilson’s kickoff returns.  Beating the crap out of Florida State.  And a great senior season for Tyrod Taylor, who left Techtown with 3 ACC Championships and, more importantly, with the title of Our Favorite Quarterback.

Speaking of conference championships, what the hell happened to the conference lineups while we were gone?  And did Jim Weaver really turn down an essentially guaranteed invitation to the SEC because, wait for it, the conference is too pro-tailgating?  And because the ACC is, wait for it, wait for it, we said WAIT FOR IT…….“a bus league?”  A bus league?!?!  Really?  Want to know what else is a bus league?  Virginia Group AAA high school football.  Why Weaver?  WHY?  Yeah, being in the SEC would suck.  Who needs the SEC?  Did we need them in 1932 when we opted to stay in the Southern Conference?  Of course not.  It only took us 70 years to fix that mistake.  Why would we possibly want to go to a conference that eat, sleeps, and breathes football?  A conference which has produced 5 consecutive national champions.  Look, we get the arguments for why we like the ACC.  And they are all nice arguments.  The best one of all is that the competition is so generally mediocre, that we will likely go to 80 consecutive bowl games, but we are forgetting one important fact…no matter how much progress modern medicine makes, Frank Beamer is not going to coach until he is 100, and when he finally retires, we may or may not continue to fill those precious Lane Stadium sky box suites that ole He Hate Me Weaver lives for.  Know who we should ask about the potential advantages of recruiting in the SEC….Shane Beamer.  The fact remains that while we get outstanding players at Tech, we don’t get as many outstanding players.  Alabama’s second string O-line would probably start for us.  We don’t like it either, but just because we took a year off you didn’t think we were going to start lying to you, did you?  At least not about football.

So, preseason #13 ranking.  Not bad.  Let’s go to the map.

Sept. 3 APPALACHIAN STATE:  A proper season opener against a clearly inferior I-AA opponent.  What could go wrong?  1-0.

Sept. 10 @ East Carolina: Game #8 in our 436-part series Better Know A Crappy C-USA team.  A legitimate reason for this series is just like our Ferrari.  It does not exist.  We already play 12 other North Carolina schools every year, so we don’t need the exposure.  Why have a “rivalry” game that isn’t against a rival?  All playing them every year does is give them opportunities to beat us, of which they have taken regular advantage.  Plus, we hate that damn yellow, plastic sword.  Good news is they suck.  2-0.

Sept. 17 ARKANSAS STATE:  Now this is the kind of opponent we should be playing.  They changed their mascot from Indians to Red Wolves since we last punished them.  Welcome back to Blacksburg, Wolfie.  Touchdown Tech!  3-0.

Sept. 24 @ Marshall:  Seriously, we are playing two out of conference road games against non-BCS conference teams?  Our hypothetical SEC membership application will be laughed out of the board room.  We forgot what conference Marshall is even in.  As long as Byron Leftwich doesn’t play for them anymore, we should be OK.  4-0.

Oct. 1 CLEMSON:  Now it’s time for some real football.  We’ve pretty much owned Clemson since joining the ACC.  They are due to be a problem.  Plus, with Miami the next week, this screams “trap game.”  We are shocked the SGA didn’t try to make this the Orange Effect game.  Weaver – how much do we have to donate to eliminate orange from our color scheme and just become a maroon and white team?  Texas A&M does it, and they get be in the SEC.  This game terrifies us.  5-0/4-1.

Oct. 8 MIAMI:  Why is everyone so surprised to learn compliance violations taking place at Miami?  This is a lot like finding out about gravity.  In fact, this has gone on so long, it wasn’t that unreasonable for Miami to believe their actions were essentially sanctioned by the NCAA.  They are the Road Runner to the NCAA’s Coyote.  And let’s all just be honest here, not one of us really wants a clean program at Miami.  This is who Miami is.  And it adds character to college football the same way BYU’s wholesome goodness does.  Yin and yang.  Hakuna matata.  The upside for us is the program is in disarray and that spells another Hokie victory over that stupid ass pelican.  6-0/5-1.

Oct. 15 @ Wake Forest:  One of the most difficult things about writing this column is continuing to come up with creative and original material for making fun of Wake Forest.  They gave Old Man Softy a graduate degree.  Maybe that’s where he learned to be so soft.  We haven’t even researched this team, and we aren’t going to until early October.  We are just calling the shutout now.  7-0/6-1.

Oct. 22 BOSTON COLLEGE:  Another game in which we will be favored but need to not get too cocky.  BC won’t be a real threat in the Coastal or the Atlantic (whichever one they are in – the one we aren’t….side bar: jeers to the Big Ten Begin Parenthesis Twelve End Parenthesis Conference for raising the stakes in the battle for worst division names ever: Legends and Leaders – thank you for making the ACC look less stupid).  But they will beat someone.  Let’s hope it’s N.C. State and not us.  8-0/7-1.  [Editor’s Note: Speaking of N.C. State, little brother Mike Glennon starts at QB this year.  Who just became a Tar Heel fan?  We did!]

Oct. 29 @ Duke: This is going to be our big road trip game this year.  No, really, we aren’t joking.  Seriously, stop laughing.  Do you know how tired we’ve gotten of travelling to away games and losing?  This was the only conceivable remedy.  Are told you get free admission with two canned food goods.  Can anyone confirm?  9-0/8-1.

Nov. 10 @ Ga. Tech (Thursday night): This program is reaching the end of its viability (i.e. most of their players have been recruited post-installation of the U.S. Military Academy style offense), but there is still enough talent in the pool to be competitive for another year.  This is a tricky game at a surprisingly tougher than expected venue.  Bud Foster – this one is up to you.  10-0/9-1.

Nov. 17 NORTH CAROLINA (Thursday night): The annual double-Thursday nighter.  If you like tailgating, this is your Super Bowl.  Cold, at home, late at night….this game IS Va. Tech football.  UNC is going to be really good even without Butch Davis.  Lots of experience and talent on this team, and by this point in the year they will have recovered from the off-season troubles.  The question will be: how important is this game to the Baby Blue Blankies and has Bud Foster figured out how to make his defense not suck yet?  Another tossup.  11-0/10-1/9-2.

Nov. 26 @ Virginia: Ironically, BooVA is our biggest hurdle to joining the SEC.  Conventional wisdom is that we can’t abandon them in a less-than-already mediocre ACC.  Of course, they would never leave the ACC for a conference where lacrosse is so irrelevant.  The only reason we aren’t relegating this game to Duke status is that it seems mathematically improbably that we will beat them every single year.  Yet, it seems to happen.  The Provost has expanded his Hooville Empire by opening a restaurant and swears we can’t drink him out of inventory.  Challenge accepted.  12-0/11-1/10-2.

Dec. 3 ACC Championship (Charlotte, NC): Likely opponent, Florida State.

 

This offseason saw some major changes on the coaching staff.  Billy Hite and Jim Cavanaugh have moved to administration and No Mere Mortal Cornell Brown and the only snapper who could one day be in the Hall of Fame, Shane Beamer, joined the staff.  We also made what in our world is a significant change offensively with Brian Stinespring remaining Offensive Coordinator, but Mike O’Cain taking over play calling and moving up to the booth.  This is a lot like telling your kid he can take the car and him finding out your car is a 1987 Ford Aerostar.  Does anyone else just envision O’Cain in the booth, frantically flipping through a three ring binder, while Beamer just stares up at the skybox, shrugging his shoulders with that trademark quizzical look, while O’Cain yells back “damn it, Frank, there’s not a decent play in here!”

At QB this year, we start Logan Thomas who….wait just a minute, Rip van Winkle, you actually expect us to believe that Va. Tech’s starting QB is 6 feet, 6 inches and 354 pounds?  How is this possible?  How long have we been asleep?!!!

Offensively, we are going to be really, really good.  Logan Thomas will make mistakes and has a long way to go, but he’s got great talent (as well as Bryan Randall’s #3 jersey).  He should progress throughout the season and be a three year starter for us.  Mark Leal will be the backup and Ju Ju Clayton fills out the three deep.

David Wilson is prepared to be a beast at running back.  He’s the kind of player than needs lots of touches, and with Ryan Williams and Darren Evans gone he will get them.  Josh Ogelsby will be the backup this season.  Is it us or has Ogelsby been playing for us since the late 90s?  Look for Tony Gregory to contribute as well.

At receiver we are stacked with Jarrett Boykin, Danny Coale, Marcus Davis, D.J. Coles, and Dyrell Roberts.  The offensive line should be the best we’ve seen in about 10 years.  Look, we aren’t saying it will be great, we are just saying this is the least bad line we’ve had since Michael Vick was here.  But the real star and real story is backup TE George George.  That’s right, George George.  Possibly the greatest name in the history of great names.  And named after our own George, CEO and sole proprietor of George’s Igloo’s, Inc.  Get in your teepee, George!

BREAKING NEWS: After investing just $29.99 at PeopleFinders.com (“find anyone, anywhere”) it turns out George George’s legal name is George George III.  We are speechless due to an overwhelming level of awesomeness.

Which leads us to the defense.  We don’t really know how to say this, so we are just going to say it….the defense is a real problem.  Blasphemy in these parts but true.  Last year we were terrible.  So, what did we do?  We went out and got younger and less experienced.  This will perhaps be Bud Foster’s greatest challenge.  If he can make this defense good, then he is truly the greatest defensive coordinator of all time.  The D-line is pretty good but not yet dominate like we need.  We are so thin at whip that The Hyphen has managed to win a starting job.  Bruce Taylor is our star linebacker, but we find ourselves wondering is he Vegas Robinson (i.e. the star because everyone else is just that bad)?  The good news is the defensive backfield is solid, especially with potential All-American Jayron Hosley.

On special teams, David Wilson will continue to return kickoffs.  Scott Demier beat out Danny Coale at punter, raising the age old question: if you have to compete with a wide receiver for the punting job, just how good can you be?  Cody Journell won the kicker job, our fifth new starting kicker in as many years.

All in all it looks like another fine tailgating season in Blacksburg.

Appalachian State is ranked #2 in Division I-AA, so this will be a no-joke game.  Despite being AA, they are one of the most explosive spread offenses in all of college football led by QB DeAndre Presley (no relation).  His top weapon is WR Brandon Quick, who, in addition to having the greatest receiver name ever, caught 108 passes for 1,826 yards over the past two seasons.

Our offense is going to have to take over this game, control the tempo and stay well-clear of ASU on the scoreboard.  We CANNOT get into a close game with this team considering the questions we have on defense.  Unless the D makes a lot of plays (and you never know, it is a Bud Foster defense) it will be hard to beat the hell out of them, but this is still a W, and winning a season opener will make us party like its 2007.

Kickoff is at 12:30.  This column is already too long for the requisite 11 paragraph rant/attack on Jim Weaver.  Maybe next week.  Coverage is on the ACC Network, but there is something special about attending the home opener.

 

Va. Tech 42, Appalachian State (which for those of you scoring at home is not actually a state) 25.

I believe.

 

Copyright 2011 by Coach Eric Taylor.  Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.