Well, Monday’s suck. Everyone knows that. Now, imagine if you will, this particular Monday, that you’re returning to work for the first time in 4 business days so you’re busy as Haiti. Imagine that your family is getting over a duel with H1N1 (hence the days off). We won the war, Swine won a couple battles last week.
[Side Note: I do remember a certain Footballgirl and her family fighting this same battle a week or two ago. I promise to you, Hokie-blog-world readers, that H1N1 is just making its rounds through our society – there are no improprieties going on the background between Hokie-bloggers and I’ve never met the Footballgirl. At least I don’t think so, wink.]
Oh wait, my date with Swine was the best part of my last week into the weekend.
-Wednesday night (still rooting for 3rd party games as VT still had a chance to go far this year), Boise State played like crap, but still won. Dammit.
-Thursday night (still rooting for 3rd party games as VT still had a chance to go far this year), Cincinnati handled USF. Dammit.
-Saturday noon (still rooting for 3rd party games as VT still had a chance to go far this year), Texas and OU played a barn-burning-NAP. Texas looked like crap, OU just was worse crap, Texas pulled it out. Dammit.
-Saturday late afternoon, heading into VT/GT (still rooting for 3rd party games as VT still had a chance to go far this year), USC is beating Notre Dame. Dammit. Kinda? But for the current rankings, dammit.
-Saturday later afternoon, even overlapping some with the VT game (still rooting for 3rd party games as VT still had a chance to go far this year), Florida is in a problematic game with Arkansas. Florida pulls it out and Arkansas’ kicker missed 17 field goals. Dammit.
-Now, at this point, it’s been sucky. But the “glass is half full” can look at the other games and feel ok because if we lay it on GT, it’s still ok. Boise State would lose some respect for their win over Tulsa. Texas might lose some for their win over OU. Etc. All we need to do is light up GT like we’re supposed to, and all is well.
-Now fast forward to today. And, and, and, now imagine you’re me, you’re a diehard Hokie *and* you’re also a Redskin fan. Even throw in that I played against Tom Brady and his 6 TD's in two fantasy football leagues this past week.
Yeah. This Monday *really* sucks.
“well that’s a really nice story HokieJayBee, your life sucks, but what the hell does that have to do with FBS.blogspot.com?”
I’ll tell you. My day/week/season/year was made this morning in the office kitchen.
[Side Note: Confession. My office’s kitchen vending machine has these. I like them. They are ridiculous in a little 4 pack of win. Don’t judge.]
My office has that group of guys that is always talking football. Unfortunately, none of them know crap. But they’re always talking football. Note, this is not THE normal office football group,where there are more football knowledgeable people talking football. Or even talking about their alma mater. These are the fair weather, coffee machine, water cooler, guys. This is the office “old guys who play golf together and somehow always end up talking about football”. I typically don’t even speak with them (about football). No, I’m not some elitist jerk and think I’m God’s gift to office-football-talk. I just avoid conversations with them about college football because they end up frustrating me more than I need,trying to explain to a group of chimpanzees why Virginia Tech would have more one-loss-respect (last week) with Alabama and Nebraska on the slate out of conference when Penn State played the Indiana School for Deaf and Blind Midget Women Tech State. (no overly intentional additional offense to any deaf, blind, height-challenged, female, college student, or Indiana resident – or any of the actual teams that Penn State did schedule this year)
*There’s a guy who is from Kentucky, went to U Maryland, but worked “near Gainesville” at some point in his life. Guess who he reps on Monday mornings, despite not being able to name one Gator that isn’t named Tebow.
*There’s a guy who is from Austin, Texas, went to a small school, but his son goes to school where Les Miles works. He has two top 10 choices to rep on Monday mornings, despite not being able to tell you a player from either team. Not a *single* current player.
*There’s a guy who went to the Air Force Academy, but apparently spent some years at a company in a certain state that rhymes with Idaho, and he just loves “that smurf turf stuff”. Guess who he reps on Monday mornings, even though I’d be willing to bet you a lunch he couldn’t tell you Boise State’s mascot.
*and finally, there’s a guy who is from Ohio, went to Youngstown State, but this year is somehow switching his Monday morning rep from Terrell Pryor to Tony Pike……
Yes, I work with these four guys. It is hell, on a normal Monday. Let alone *this* Monday that I described for you all above.
But, alas, they made my day today, as an admin on FBS.blogspot.com, and general Stinespring-as-my-playcaller-hater. Sometimes the little twinkles of insight come from those you normally hate to listen to, or generally think are ignorant to a situation. Like a riddle that only a 5-year-old could figure out because they look at a situation so vaguely and so innocently.
Overheard in my office’s kitchen this morning (paraphrased):
“if you would have told me that GT would only score 28, I would have said VT would win.”
“only 3 at the half with all that field position?”
“how many times did VT run up the middle?”
“how come every time Taylor ran, he got 10, but they stopped doing it?”
“did that fat tight end they have (he means Boone) get kicked off the team? He was good last year.”
“I used to laugh at [insert my real name here] for talking badly about his own coaches, after the GT first half, he might be right.”
And finally from the Florida guy:
“Coach Meyer or any other real football school would never put up with that offensive coach’s record for more than 3 years. You get 3 years to prove yourself and succeed. They’ll never be a true national threat with that offense or that coach.”
Read that last one again. “…any other *real* football school…”
That's our image. Thank you Bryan.
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14 comments:
Excellent post.
It's getting pretty bad when the football know-nothings (and there are droves of them out there) have started to get the idea.
I certainly hope by "or that coach" they're talking Stinespring instead of Beamer. But when it comes to the Monday morning QBs sometimes you're lucky if they even know the head coach's name.
If you read the latest team report from Yahoo! Sports, you see that the focus among the coaching staff has already shifted to an ACC championship and another 10-win season being enough.
Does Stiney realize that HE WILL HAVE TO MAKE in game adjustments? I could see that he is putting effort into good game planning, but does he realize that in game adjustments are part of the game? Does he know it but is isn't capable of doing it well or does he not know it? I really want to know.
HH, what I want to see the next time the game plan isn't working as drawn up is Stinespring take the cuffs off and put Taylor into no-huddle.
We wouldn't really be able to credit Stinespring with an adjustment then, but we would at least be able to honestly say he tried something different.
yeah, IH, i thought about that too when Mr. Florida said it, and when i wrote it out here.
but, either way it works:
[a] since he said, "that offense or that coach", i took him to mean Stiney. but i guess that would have been "and that coach". i took his meaning to be that we won't be upper echelon with stiney.
[b] or if he meant, "that offense or that coach", (inherently) meaning beamer (via stiney), he's still right if he's slapping beamer for his blind loyalty.
either way, Mr. Florida called it the way non-VT people see it. we ARE NOT a football powerhouse. we ARE NOT one of *those* schools. and he called out why, *that* offense.
keep in mind these 4 football office guys live in VT's hotbed. they live in hampton roads. and they have no respect for our game. just like the rest of the nation/voters.
It is sad but true.
To the outsiders, we are not a football powerhouse.
I'm sure Cincinnati thinks they're a powerhouse now. But they're not.
Could it be that we can't see who we really are due to the orange and maroon glasses that we're wearing?
I've said this before and I'll say it again.
The real powerhouses made the leap into the next echelon at a similar junction that VT has faced during the last 8 years.
It's one thing to make that jump and struggle for the next 15 years in the uppermost echelon (i.e. Florida before Meyer came along. Even spurrier won only 1 championship),
and it's one thing to miss that jump and slowly fade into mediocrity.
We are already long overdue.
We are in serious danger of nullifying the progress of the last 20 some years if we don't make a move soon.. I really believe this with all my heart.
I hope he was referring to Stiney and not Beamer, but that reminds me of something that occurred after the Alabama game. My finance concepts and skills professor asked the class, "Who went to the game?" Nearly every one of us raised our hand (it's about a 45 person class). He then went on to talk about the coaching problems. He said he wants to set up a website called "FireBeamer.com." I thought to inform him about FBS but I was kind of flabbergasted he thought it was BEAMER that needed to be fired. No mention of Stinespring from him.
It was at this point I remembered that while this professor is a graduate of VT, he has told us that almost all of his family are Duke alums. He strongly hinted that he's actually a Duke fan. Maybe he was just seeing it from a Duke point of view. The point is that non-Hokies do recognize a coaching problem at Virginia Tech. Not necessarily that it's an OC problem, just a coaching problem. Beamer is the face of the football program so he might inherently get blamed. Beamer is so blindly loyal to Stiney that he's making himself look bad to the rest of the football world.
On another note, isn't Stiney married to Beamer's secretary? If that's the case, which I believe it is, we're pretty much screwed unless Weaver or someone steps in to remove Stiney because there's no way Beamer will.
Jonesey ,
Weaver is in the back pocket of Beamer's pants. Weaver does not have any power over Beamer ,the only people that can do something, and as was reported after the Bama game they will not, are Steager and the Board of trustees. I think Hokie JayBee said he was present to the discussion made by some big time boosters that nothing will change.
yep, via friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-fried, i somehow found myself at a VERY high falootin tailgate in ATL for the Alabama game. the big wigs, the top donators, don't *want* a change.
they're old. they're old hokies. from bad, REALLY really REALLY bad football, hokies.
they're happy now.
they love the 10 wins per year stat.
we play on television now.
we have a ranking now.
we beat uva now.
they're elated, and not only *don't* blame stiney for the glass ceiling, they revere him (via the staff and the loyalty and beamer) for even getting us to here.
we need a culture change, from beamer to weaver to steger to the board, that our current glass ceiling is not good enough.
HJB, upon further meditation on your post, I have decided something: I am done - completely DONE - giving a crap about 3rd party games. From here on out I only care about games VT plays, regardless of rankings, implications, or possible scenarios. Because regardless of how things shake out in front of us, VT football has internal issues that prevent it from taking full advantage of whatever opportunities are presented.
I am also done even dreaming about a national championship. Let's simply embrace the fact that VT will never loft the crystal football as long as Stinespring is OC.
Some people have already gone down this road in their comments and wind up saying they're done following VT until Stiney's gone, and to those people I say categorically f--k you, we don't need your fair-weather bullshit. I'll still support my Hokies as ardently as ever. But I'm setting more reasonable expectations. I just can't take the tease and disappointment every year.
The goal I'm going to focus on instead is seeing if the Hokies can go undefeated in ACC play - something that has never happened even in this era of conference dominance. I have my doubts even that much will ever happen with Stiney, but at least it'll be easier to swallow.
that saddest point made to me about this season came on sunday, not monday. my boss and i were talking about the game and season, and he says to me that the worst thing about this season is the waste of talent...the fact that we definitely have the talent to be a NC contender, but don't have the support staff to take us there. i think that speaks volumes and that stiney should go around to each and every player and apologize for wasting their talent.
"I am also done even dreaming about a national championship. Let's simply embrace the fact that VT will never loft the crystal football as long as Stinespring is OC.
Some people have already gone down this road in their comments and wind up saying they're done following VT until Stiney's gone, and to those people I say categorically f--k you, we don't need your fair-weather bullshit. I'll still support my Hokies as ardently as ever. But I'm setting more reasonable expectations. I just can't take the tease and disappointment every year."
Exactly that. Dislike it as I might, we are nowhere a national championship. I will love the Hokies regardless of what (will not) happen with Stiney.
Every year I say I'm not going to get sucked into the hype, and yet every year I do. I'll join you in your quest for conference dominance.
And, for the record, I don't think I've met HokieJayBee either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/sports/ncaafootball/25beamer.html
what do you guys make of that article? Pretty much confirms what we already know about Beamer's loyalty.
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