More Yeast Required for ACC Fluff!!
4 Days remaining
With the upcoming football season getting underway, a bevy of NCAA team and conference stories circling, NCAA sanctions looming EVERYWHERE, and coupled with my geographic location, I’m forced to begin the season not with my VOL brethren in Knoxville, TN but submersed in Virginia Tech Hokie country and fandom of questionable logic. This year, however, has begun humorously with the Hokie fans polluting the air with derogatory statements about the SEC and most of its conference teams. Recent news stories involving teams possibly leaving their conference in order to join the SEC has overshadowed an obvious black mark on this college football season….
The ACC!!
So I am still wondering how teams like Virginia Tech and Florida State can be excited when ESPN and gamblers pick them as the favorites to win their respective divisions? Who the hell else is going to win?
Of course these two teams are favored to win the ACC, they’re practically the only competitive teams left in the conference. What is more outrageous is that once these two teams start tallying up the win column, they will start getting press and poll votes. Neither will be deserved. Frank Beamer will be heraled as one of the all-time great winning coaches, Jimbo Fisher will be marked as a man who should of been teaching Bobby Bowden football. I’m sure Virginia Tech will look like a very tough football team when handling the likes of Duke and Wake Forest or Arkansas State on the YAWN Channel! (throwing up in my mouth a little). Adding insult to injury, these two teams will be guaranteed automatic BCS bowl bids simply for strolling their way up the ACC.
Even though a long standing Virginia Tech tradition has been to have a completely unsuspecting team catch the Hokies with their tailfeathers down like James Madison in 2010 you still have 2 or 3 teams on this schedule that would look like a good game if it were not for all the off-season press, turmoil, and coaching changes which will obviously set teams like UNC or Miami into the “rebuilding” year talk. Clemson? A team that has consistently folded during big games. Boston College or Georgia Tech? Do they even have coaches?
Yet, with all this considered, the Hokies are awarded a pre-season ranking of #13 in the nation on both ESPN and AP/Coaches Poll. Obviously the pollsters have seen that Virginia Tech is going to walk its way into the ACC Championship game and possibly a BCS Bowl, so why not just let them. Here’s why!!! Because they don’t deserve it. Virginia Tech may be a top #25 team pre-season but certainly their schedule gives them very little to be proud of. Similar to the Boise State discussion of last year where the idea of beating up on unworthy opponents kept them out of contention for a national title, this too should be the discussion about Tech’s season.
The smack talk of the SEC and comparison to the Vols schedule is at first glance laughable. While the Vols haven’t been the pride of the SEC for a while now, they are still good competition and improving. It’s hard not to improve when faced with a schedule like the SEC teams face. 6 Top #25 teams, 4 of them in the month of October! Only 3 games on the Vols schedule can you point to with the “they should win that” attitude compared to a minimum of 7 games or 60% of the Hokies schedule!
Strength of Schedule Rankings via Congrove Computer Rankings (www.collegefootballpoll.com)
With a Strength of Schedule ranking that is right along side college powerhouses like Airforce and Louisiana-Lafayette, the Hokies should have to rely more heavily on their bakery and tons of yeast this year to even keep them rising in the media’s National Championship discussions. In the end, just like with any fluffy cake fresh out of the oven too early, it is bound to fall flat. The National Championship will be given to a team from a real college football conference, such as the SEC which is in line for its 6th straight! So for all you ACC fans out there, the countdown begins…… for TIPOFF!
I loved this! I grew up in Virginia but graduated from Ole Miss…well in the days before they were a joke. I attended VA Tech for graduate school two years ago and annoyed my classmates to no end saying basically the same things as this piece.
While I know VT to be a good program, them theoretically jumping to the SEC would turn a 10-2 program into an 8-4 or even 7-5. Ditto Florida State. The ACC is too into basketball to really build a competitive football conference and are behind the Pac 12 and Big Ten and the rump 12 even.
I’d say for football “culture” I do respect Clemson…they would fit into the SEC atmosphere.
In any case ACC football was boring in person. I once left a game versus NC State since Ole Miss and LSU were on tv and when I left at halftime, told the ticket lady (I have a real game to see).
I challenge anyone to match up Virginia Tech’s schedule with anyone else in the Top #25 and then make the argument that they deserve to be ranked this high. Now awarded 2 spots from #13 to #11 in both AP and ESPN/Coaches Poll for beating Appalachian State. Even #20 Baylor, plays 6 Top #25 teams and just beat #14 TCU who was last year’s #4 in the BCS.
Virginia Tech has by far the weakest schedule in the 2011 season but somehow that is going unnoticed by most polls and media outlets which makes me question their integrity and objectivity.
If Virginia Tech came into the SEC, they would be a 6-6 team at best and would be screaming for Frank Beamer’s head because of his inability to match up with ranked opponents. Instead, he is given contract extension after contract extension and miracle rankings. One can only hope that the BCS brings them back down to Earth with its first ranking or Virginia Tech is embarrassed at the end of the year when they finally are pitted up against a team that has had a real football schedule.
I hadn’t read your “about me” before. Now I see you’re a fellow Virginian.
You can remember the Metro conference days of VT football.
I grew up near Richmond. I remember no one liking Tech unless they went there. Everyone pulled for UVA, UNC or really anyone else.
When I first saw the SEC in person I was hooked too. I again say my experience with VT football was boredom. Grad school took two years. Had season tickets year one, was bored after two games and sold the rest at a profit. Didn’t bother going my second year.
The tailgating atmosphere was awful….bunch of dumb cornhole crap, face paint, wigs and etc that belong in the Big East. In fact the Hokies really are a big east team playing ACC ball to rack up titles but get punished in basketball. I hear you about the easy schedule.
They are media darlings too. Same with Boise state but with less substance because Boise State can win a bowl game or two.
I did go to a game last year…but down the road to Knoxville to see Ole Miss get pummeled. It was my first trip to Neyland and I was well treated. UT people were very nice. Pretty girls too. Noticed the Baptists had them handing out tracts. Smart move haha.
I’m back in the Richmond area now where the VT mania is less intense than the rest of the state but just barely.
Warmest Regards,
Mark/Southern Blogger
Mark,
Yes, I grew up in Hokie Country and know the “independent” conference days well. As I said, the more exciting games at Lane stadium at that time were all of us kids playing touch football in the grass behind the press box. Those were the days you could just walk in and out of a stadium without full body cavity searches. I went to Tennessee then stayed in Knoxville for the better part of 15 years. I moved back to Virginia in 2005 and was simply astonished at the attitude of local Tech fans. I take nothing from the Hokies, they are a good football team but not a national contender by any stretch. However, most Hokie fans act as if they are the MOST storied program in college football and the #1 ranked team year in and year out. I know they are “new” to the national spotlight in the grand scheme of things, some of us have been here for a while, but the lack of humility is what slowly poisons you against the Hokies. Sitting in a local restaurant listening to Hokie fans rant about how a #13 ranking, then #11, then #13 is probably the worst insult possible causes me spontaneous vertigo!
To be upset that you are ranked #13 in the nation, when you own one of the weakest schedules in college football and are a member of arguably one of the least competitive of the BCS conferences is outrageous. While I will never begrudge a Hokie fan for rooting for their team, I still fly my orange colors high despite the recent few years, I do take offense to Hokie fans pulling up next to me in their ACC “yugo” and trying to compare it to a SEC “Ferrari”. Just like TCU, Boise State, and others, you will inevitably get your 15 minutes of fame but if you really want to get into the hunt, you’ll need to cozy up to a much better conference. You might win a few games in one of those conferences but don’t hold your breath for any titles.
Now for the ultimate in BCS insults. Virginia Tech with a 10-2 record over a lackluster ACC conference and pathetic out of conference teams, get awarded a major BCS bowl without even winning its conference. The Sugar bowl has elected Virginia Tech to play Michigan. Both teams deserving bowls but far from deserving a major BCS bowl, showing the sugar bowl didn’t care about strength of schedule, wins, losses, or conferences but simply money selecting two teams that travel well.
So to have a team that only played 2 top #25 teams and lost one get a top BCS bowl bid instead of other teams with similar records who played 2-3 times the top ranked opponents just is puzzling!
http://isportsweb.com/2011/12/05/bcs-sugar-bowl-offer-worst-at-large-matchup-in-series-history/
This simply takes a huge chunk out of BCS integrity. While its well know the BCS system was put in place simply to pick #1 and #2, it has shown the other bowls are a disgraceful cash grab..
Congrats Virginia Tech and Michigan, enjoy the game because you were given a huge undeserving gift that college football fans will resent you for.