The table has been set, and it’s time for the story of the 2007 Hokie
football season to write itself. This season has been a roller coaster, and
although the path has taken turns we didn’t foresee, the result is what we
anticipated: a 6-1 record and a wide-open shot at the ACC championship. Virginia
Tech is right where they want to be as the last five weeks of the season begin.

It has been 296 days since the Hokies collapsed against Georgia in the Chick-fil-A
Bowl, and 296 days of waiting for this moment. Every season boils down to a
critical stretch of games that define forever how a team is perceived, how they
write their names in the history books. For the 2007 Hokies, that stretch of
games is here: Boston College, @GT, FSU, Miami, and @Virginia. That’s good
stuff, a gauntlet with an ACC tint to it, a stretch run that could bring
anything from euphoria to ruin to something in between.

It’s high stakes football, and we dig it. The offseason takes forever, and
the snoozers against Ohio and William & Mary are tough to get through, but
this is why we do it. It’s money time. Lane Stadium will be vastly different
Thursday night from what we’ve seen so far this season. No super-hot noon or 1
pm start against an overmatched opponent here. It’s a night game, with a fall
chill in the air, against a team that puts the fear of a loss in your belly,
that queasy, uncertain feeling that makes you yell a little louder.

I usually have a plan with “Monday Thoughts,” but four paragraphs
in, I have no idea where this article is going, which is fine. Nothing wrong
with rambling about Hokie football for a while.

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