Tech Talk Live (football and basketball season)
When: Every Monday from 7:00-9:00 during football season, 7:00-8:00 during basketball season.
Where: Click here for a list of radio stations, and to find the link for listening to the show on the Internet (look to the right on the hokiesports.com page that loads when you click the link). You can see the show in person Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill in Blacksburg.
Jim Weaver
Weaver is excited about the result of the football game on Thursday night,
women’s soccer had a great year, and men’s basketball is off to the right start.
Saturday’s game at UVA will be huge.
All nine ACC women’s soccer teams made the NCAA Tournament. The Hokies made
the Sweet 16, beating West Virginia and Texas A&M, and finally fell to UVA.
They had a great season.
Weaver is very happy with the way Dennis Wolff has taken over the women’s
basketball program. They have a good future, and recruiting is already
improving.
It’s great exposure for the men’s basketball team to play Syracuse in Madison
Square Garden. The final four of the NIT Season Tip-Off are Virginia Tech,
Syracuse, Oklahoma State and Stanford.
Weaver doesn’t believe Tech has a great shot of getting an at-large bid to
the Sugar Bowl or Fiesta Bowl if they don’t win the ACC Championship. The most
important thing is that they take care of business in Charlottesville on
Saturday.
If the Hokies beat UVA, Virginia Tech gets 10,000 tickets to sell to their
fans. Those tickets would sell very quickly, and at that point the game would be
a sellout. Charlotte is the ideal location for the ACC Championship Game.
Weaver has thought about Tech playing for the National Championship, but he
would rather keep those thoughts private. A lot has to happen for the Hokies to
make it to New Orleans.
Tech’s schedule is locked up for 2012. The 12th game has been scheduled, but
it hasn’t been announced yet.
In an expanded ACC, Weaver is in favor of playing 10 conference games. Other
AD’s are in favor of nine games, and others want to stay at eight.
Bud Foster
The fact that UVA and VT are playing for the Coastal Division championship
shows how good the high school football is in the state of Virginia. Foster is
excited about the game. He has a lot of respect for what Mike London has done in
his short time at UVA.
Tech will have to play very well on Saturday. UVA is a hot football team
right now.
Tech has a good base defense and that makes it possible for Foster to adjust
to spread offenses and pro style offenses. He has great assistants, and that
makes it easier as well.
Foster’s biggest concern this year was the injury bug, and it has certainly
struck the Tech defense this year. The Hokies have lost some major talent.
However, it makes a statement about the young players on the Tech defense. This
is a very young defense, and they are still playing well.
Foster wanted more experience against the Georgia Tech offense, so they moved
J.R. Collins to defensive tackle. It was Collins who actually approached Coach
Wiles about that move. Tyrel Wilson was a good matchup for their jet sweeps as
well. Those moves turned out to be good fits.
Detrick Bonner played whip for Tech on Thursday. They wanted Kyle Fuller and
Jayron Hosley to be matched up on the outside against the UNC receivers.
Jayron Hosley had a couple of technique issues against UNC, but overall he’s
played very well. He was good in downfield coverage against a good receiver, and
he broke up some passes.
Both of Virginia’s tailbacks remind Bud Foster of UNC’s Giovani Bernard.
Perry Jones is a terrific receiver out of the backfield. UVA tries to get him
the ball in a variety of ways.
Virginia generally has one of the best offensive lines on Tech’s schedule.
They have good running backs, a couple of good receivers, and Mike Rocco is
playing very well ever since UVA got away from the two-quarterback system.
Virginia reminds Bud Foster of Virginia Tech. Defensively they are hardnosed
and tough, and offensively they like to spread the ball around and do a lot of
the same things the Hokies do. Offensively they also remind Foster a lot of
North Carolina.
Cris Hill busted the coverage on the long reception by Erik Highsmith.
Tech has talked about getting Telvion Clark some work at whip, but there are
simply too many differences between backer and whip. Clark was playing very
well, but had a high ankle sprain, and then never seemed to make it all the way
back. He seems to have settled into second team mode, which Foster doesn’t like
to see. Tech could potentially try him at whip during the spring if the coaches
feel there is a need.
Alonzo Tweedy isn’t full speed yet. He was limited in practice on Monday, and
that’s unfortunate because the Hokies could really use him.
Virginia Tech has to stop the run this week. UVA always wants to run the
ball. Tech needs to stop the run and cut out UVA’s big plays down the field.
They need to get off the field on third down. If they can do those things, the
Hokies should be fine.
Eddie Whitley
Senior Night was emotional. He shed a tear when he hugged his mom, but she
told him to toughen up because he had a football game to play. He has a lot of
great memories in Lane Stadium.
The Hokies stayed calm when UNC took an early lead. Whitley told them all
that they had been down before, and they always come back. He wasn’t worried,
but he knew they had to get some key stops, and they did.
Georgia Tech and North Carolina were completely different offenses. The Tar
Heels have a pro style offense, so Tech got back to their basic stuff last week.
As an out-of-state guy, Whitley says the UVA game is just another game. His
rivalry game was against UNC. He told his teammates that they have to treat all
games the same, because they have to play well each game.
When Whitley visited VT, he went to dinner at D2. He got some butter on his
pants, and a random person came up to him and told him. For whatever reason,
that stood out to Whitley as a nice thing to do.
Virginia is a good team. They have a lot of confidence right now because
they’ve beaten Florida State and Miami on the road in the last month. It’s a
huge game, and Virginia is a very talented team. They have a quarterback who is
pretty good, so the Hokies have to be on their keys and play lights out.
As a Charlotte native, Whitley would love to play one last game in Charlotte
for the ACC Championship. He had a blast playing in that game last season. All
of his family and friends were there.
Danny Coale
Coale is participating in “no-shave November” to see which player
can grow the best beard. It’s a slow process for him, but he feels like he is a
darkhorse in the race.
His career at Tech has gone by fast. The game on Thursday night went by fast.
It really hasn’t hit him yet that his career is almost over. The fans have been
great, and he was glad to get to play in front of them one more time.
It can be tough going from seeing your mom cry to playing football. But once
Enter Sandman came on, it was easy to flip the switch.
The Hokies didn’t start the game strong, but they didn’t panic. They
eventually got back in the game and took the lead. Tech was expecting UNC’s best
shot, and they got it.
Coale is happy to be on this side of the rivalry. His brother played lacrosse
at UVA. His brother has never challenged him to a fight, and that’s probably
fortunate for his brother. Coale is a big UVA lacrosse fan, and his brother is a
big VT football fan. Coale also had an offer to play lacrosse at UVA. Once he
visited Tech, he loved spending time with the coaching staff and fell in love
with the place. He made the right decision.
Logan Thomas is a great player. He has exceeded Coale’s expectations. He
can’t wait to see Thomas develop over the next couple of years. Sometimes Coale
just finds himself stopping and watching when Thomas does a quarterback sneak,
even though he knows he’s not suppose to.
Thomas has the right approach to the game. He’s a smart guy, he works, and he
cares a lot about the game and his teammates. If you add that to a guy who is
6-6, 260 and can throw the ball a mile, and he’s the total package. Things
clicked very early for him.
The receivers tried to help Thomas because they are so experienced, but
Thomas has really taught Coale quite a bit. He has great leadership, he’s calm,
he’s collected, and for a guy with so much spotlight on him he has done a great
job.
Virginia is a good team, and they are playing with confidence. They have a
lot of talent in the secondary. Three of the four guys in the secondary are
seniors. It’s going to be a good matchup. Everyone is aware of how bad UVA wants
it, but the Hokies want it pretty bad too.
Frank Beamer
It’s been very warm for the practices since the UNC game. It feels great
outside in Blacksburg.
The UNC game didn’t start well and it didn’t end well, but the middle was
very good, and the Hokies were able to win the game. Beamer is proud of the way
the team rallied from an early deficit yet again. You have to have the right
type of people in the program to do things like that.
Logan Thomas is a smart player, and he’s always in control. That’s what you
want out of your quarterback.
Beamer got to watch some football on Saturday, and he enjoyed it. He watched
the FSU-Virginia game. He wanted FSU to win so the Hokies could clinch the
Coastal Division, but there will certainly be a lot to play for in the annual
rivalry game.
Beamer likes it when the football program is reflected in a good light in the
national rankings, but they don’t need to spend a lot of time looking at where
they are ranked. They have to beat Virginia, or else the rankings won’t matter.
UVA does standard punting as well as rugby style punting. In rugby style
punting, the punter forfeits his right to not get hit. There can be a collision
to block the punt in that situation.
The bigger the things get, the smaller you should think. If you take care of
the little details, the big things will come. Tech has to think like that as
they go into this football game.
Beamer feels like there is enough high school talent in the state of Virginia
that both UVA and Virginia Tech can be ranked in the top 20 consistently. Mike
London has done a great job with his team this season. There are enough players
to go around for both teams. It’s a credit to the high school coaches around the
state.
When Beamer played, he only played UVA once. The series stopped briefly. Back
then the Tech-VMI game was the bigger rivalry.
Tech has been well-received by high school recruits in North Carolina. Beamer
is a little surprised by how successful recruiting has gone in that state. The
coaching staff likes to stay in a six-hour radius from Blacksburg, but they will
go outside that area in special situations. A special situation would be Charley
Wiles and his pipeline at Atlantic High School in Delray Beach, Florida.
All of Tech’s injured players who are out for the season seem to be coming
along fine in their rehab. They will know more at the end of the week about the
status of Alonzo Tweedy.
A Tech tight end has scored a touchdown in three straight games. Drager is
having a good season. He’s a very unselfish player, and a very consistent player
at the tight end spot. He’s been an important part of the program.
Beamer went over everything that was possible for this team to accomplish,
such as winning 13 games this season. It’s okay to know what you are playing for,
as long as you continue to take things one game at a time.
Tech has won 11 of the last 12 against UVA, but there have been some very
tight games. This upcoming matchup has the makings of a great football game. UVA
is playing very well, and playing a lot of confidence. The Hokies have their
work cut out for them.
Mike Rocco has really made a difference for UVA. He’s been steady and he’s
made great decisions.
UVA has three good tailbacks. Perry Jones and Kevin Parks are only 5-8, but
they can really run. Clifton Richardson comes into the game and provides more
size and strength to the running game. They are a good trio.
Virginia plays very good defense. They are #1 in the ACC in redzone defense.
They are strong and tough up front. Offensively, they are balanced. They have
good athletes at receiver. Their offensive line is always good, and they are
good again this year. They are for real. They are a good, confident team. Tech
is going to have a play a heckuva game to win.
Monday was Day 2,550 of Virginia Tech’s continuous possession of the Commonwealth Cup.
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