Hokie Hotline Notes for 9/1/08

The Hokie Hotline (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 at Awful Arthur’s in Blacksburg.

• The defense played hard. They weren’t consistent enough in a lot of
  things. The tackling was atrocious. They worked on tackling at length on
  Monday, and they’ll do the same on Tuesday and Wednesday.
• The Hokies started nine players who were either first-time starters or
  starting at a new position.
• When it’s all said and done, Foster feels they played well enough to win,
  it just didn’t work out that way.
• ECU was good on third downs. That goes back to the tackling issues, and
  the Hokies had some alignment issues as well. When asked why they lined up
  wrong, some players didn’t have a good answer for Foster. It was an excuse,
  and excuses don’t fly with him.
• The Hokies will find out what kind of football team they have this week
  during preparations for the game. It doesn’t matter who they are playing.
• Kam Chancellor took some bad angles on some tackles and had spacing
  issues. Of course, you’ve got to give ECU credit as well. They are a good
  team with good athletes.
• At times, Tech defenders were over-aggressive, which leads to missed
  tackles.
• Patrick Pinkney had an excellent game. When he got pressured, he was able
  to pick up a few yards.
• With a young team, you’ve got to keep being positive. There were mistakes,
  but they were fundamental mistakes. The physical ability is there. Each
  week, Tech will get better.
• A season opening loss isn’t the end of the world. Tech has had some great
  seasons in the past when they lost their first game. This is a young, green
  team, and Foster likes that.
• ECU didn’t do anything different in their schemes in the second half. Tech
  had some guys get lined up in the wrong gap a few times, sometimes on third
  down when they were about t get off the field.
• The way ECU runs their offense, you aren’t going to get a lot of minus
  yardage play. You just have to tackle, and the Hokies didn’t do that.
• Stephan Virgil played very, very well. He stepped up. A few others didn’t
  play as well as Foster thought they would.
• Macho Harris was limited in practice on Monday.
• On ECU’s goal line touchdown run, Tech had a free hitter in Kam
  Chancellor, but he didn’t get his head across and make the tackle.
• Tech probably ran out of gas a little bit. It was the hottest day Tech has
  faced since practice began. August was very mild in Blacksburg. They played
  every defensive lineman that traveled, and two sets of linebackers.
• The defense will be better because of the game on Saturday. Sometimes you
  have to fail to move forward. If you go through life successful all the
  time, sometimes you start going blind.
• Furman is a very good 1-AA program, but it doesn’t matter if it’s Furman
  or Miami, it’s about how Tech prepares.
• This group wants to get better, but they have to go out and work hard and
  earn it.

• We almost saw a really young team come away with a win. That would have
  been huge for them. This is the youngest team Tucker has seen in the five
  years he’s been covering the team.
• The
  last special teams touchdown Tech allowed was in the 2005 ACC Championship
  Game. The Hokies made so many mistakes, but they still almost won the game.
  It’s encouraging, but it also makes you worry about the rest of the year.
• Recently, Tech teams have been known for improving a lot as the season
  progresses. We’ll see if that happens this year.
• Fans are concerned, and probably rightly so, about the play calling. The
  offense has struggled for the last few years, and has really lagged behind
  the defense.
• People are starting to wonder about things like throwing a pass on third
  and 17, deep in your own territory up 14 points just before the half. There
  is some justification to that.
• When Tucker asked Beamer about the quarterback situation, Beamer said they
  would address that on Tuesday, which is an interesting answer.
• Tucker asked Stinespring if, in a perfect world, he would have had Tyrod
  Taylor on Saturday. He responded that in a perfect world, they would have
  picked up the first down on fourth and one, and not thrown interceptions.

• Things don’t always go the way you draw it up. Sometimes you need
  adversity in order to grow.
• A fan emailed and asked Weaver what he had seen from the coaching staff
  over the last five years that would indicate they are trying to improve the
  program. Weaver said Tech has won 10 regular season games each of the last
  four years. Only USC has done that over the same span.
• Weaver promised that Beamer and his staff would turn this around, but
  there are growing pains when there is such a young team.
• Conferences are cyclical, and right now the ACC is on the down cycle. They’ll
  get better. However, they do need to start winning some out-of-conference
  teams.
• The new SEC TV contract is incredible. Teams like Ole Miss and Vanderbilt
  are now making more TV money than Notre Dame.
• The SEC can now build more facilities, and they can pay coaches more money
  than the other conferences.
• The men’s soccer team has had a great start to the season. They tied
  Portland, and beat Washington, two perennial NCAA teams.
• If he could play a game in Charlotte again, Weaver would do it. They gave
  up a road game, not a home game. It’s always fun to play in an NFL stadium
  as well.
• There is nothing official yet about who the Hokies will be playing in the
  Georgia Dome to begin next season. Weaver is hopeful that something happens
  soon on that front.
• Tech needed an opponent for this date, and Furman was available. They are
  a very good 1-AA program.

• Beamer is disappointed, like most Tech fans. He was pleased that they did
  things the Tech way, making plays on defense and special teams.
• They did some things that good football teams don’t do, but at this time
  they aren’t a great football team. They are a young team that is going to be
  good. They just need to stay healthy and get better.
• They played really hard. They just didn’t play efficiently. They didn’t
  make many offensive or defensive goals.
• Good football teams take advantage of opportunities in the red zone. And
  they don’t give the ball to the other team right before halftime with a
  chance to score.
• Tech was playing a good team in ECU. They’d like to get that last
  possession right before the half back, but you don’t just cash in your chips
  when you are playing a team like ECU. You have to try to beat them.
• Roth asked if the play calling criticism is unfair. Beamer hesitated, then
  said that there are always things you wish you could take back. He didn’t
  have a problem with the play calling during the game.
• When Tech was trying to run the clock out near the end, they ran a screen
  pass. ECU blitzed, and the play had potential to go for a big gain. But the
  wide receiver, who was playing for the first time, missed a block. If that
  play had worked, then nobody would be complaining about it.
• Sean Glennon played well, except for a couple of plays. He did a good job.
  A couple of plays were critical though.
• Beamer then said that people need to get off Sean Glennon. That bothers
  him (Beamer) a lot. He’s a good guy, and he’s a good player. He puts so much
  into it. When he does mess up, he’s going full speed. It’s not right for
  some fans to blast him the way he’s getting blasted. Beamer thinks Virginia
  Tech is different in a lot of ways, but situations like this really bother
  him.
• If they need to talk about the quarterback situation, they’ll talk about
  it at the press conference on Tuesday.
• Sometimes you can want to tackle too much. You get too aggressive and you
  try to knock them out. That happened to Stephen Virgil and Rashad
  Carmichael. You have to wrap up and be under control.
• Offensively, there were 10 or 11 times where the play just about popped.
  If they had just made one block, or held one block, etc., they would have
  had some plays that would have gone for a big gain.
• If you’ve got a team that you look forward to working with after a loss,
  then you know you’ve got the right player. Beamer liked seeing his team on
  Monday, and he liked how they practiced.
• The wide receivers held their own, considering it was their first game.
• Patrick Pinkney of ECU had a great game. He was very accurate on his
  throws, and he kept plays alive with his feet. ECU is also very good up
  front on both sides of the ball.
• The punt protection was a simple issue. Someone didn’t protect their
  assigned gap. The ECU player was close to being offsides, but he got a great
  jump. It’s something that should never happen.
• Beamer still has confidence in Dustin Keys. He had a great camp, and he’s
  Tech’s best kicker.
• Ryan Williams did not play against ECU. However, the staff still plans to
  play him this year. Part of the deal is that he has to continue to improve.
• Beamer was happy with Kenny Lewis and Darren Evans at tailback.
• The Hokies only had one penalty for the entire game, and it was for zero
  yards because it was on the goal line. Beamer joked that the team wasn’t
  mature enough to get penalties yet.
• Tech’s uniforms on Saturday will be all-white, from the helmets to the
  socks.
• The last two times Tech lost their opening game, they ended up in the
  Sugar Bowl. That was in 1995 and 2004. There’s no reason to jump off the
  boat yet.
• Beamer feels like the defensive personnel has been better than the
  offensive personnel for the past few years. They got behind on offensive
  line recruiting. When you struggle up front, it’s hard to be efficient on
  offense.
• Tech is on the way back to getting their offensive line back on track.
  Losing Blake DeChristopher against ECU was a blow. You want to keep your
  unit together.
• They hope to get Macho Harris back against Furman. They aren’t sure about
  DeChristopher.
• It’s been a tough stretch for the ACC, but they are going to get things
  rolling here soon.
• Furman scored 66 points on Mars Hill on Saturday. They are a very good
  1-AA team. They are a no-huddle team with a very accurate quarterback. They
  moved the football up and down the field on Clemson last year.
• The ACC still looks wide open. Tech will get better. They lost a game, but
  all their goals are still on the table.

Monday was Day 1,374 of Virginia Tech’s continuous possession of the
Commonwealth Cup.