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My family had company in town over the Labor Day weekend, so I didn’t get a
chance to spend a lot of time on the computer, or read a lot of articles. I did
get the paper, though, and I like the premise of Aaron McFarling’s column in the
Roanoke Times on Sunday. McFarling Dennis Green-ed it with the headline Hokies
quarterback Logan Thomas is who we thought he would be.

The point of McFarling’s column is that Logan Thomas’s performance Saturday
was exactly what everyone thought it would be, given the immense amount of ink
and electrons dedicated since the end of the 2010 season to talking about Logan
Thomas, analyzing his play in scrimmages, and hyping his personality and
leadership skills. We’ve spent months previewing the Logan Thomas era, and on
Saturday he delivered. He was big, strong-armed, poised, ran the offense well,
but still has room for improvement. He’s got the foundation down, and all he
needs now is seasoning.

I would take McFarling’s premise one step further: the Hokies as a whole are
who we thought they would be. There were few surprises Saturday. I
underestimated the final score in a big way, predicting 31-16, which looks
pretty foolish in retrospect. My prediction was more out of respect for
Appalachian State than it was an underestimation of what the Hokies can do. In
the end, though, nearly every exceptional play was made by a guy in maroon and
orange, not a guy in black and gold.

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