Massaponax D lineman Steven Sobczak has orally committed to Virginia Tech— Taft Coghill Jr. (@tcoghilljr) November 26, 2013

This is news via Taft Coghill Jr. of The Free Lance-Star.

Thank you to everyone who donated to the Women's Resource Center of the New River Valley and tailgated with us before the Maryland game. Both the turnout and generosity were much larger than I anticipated.

Pam Beale, my contact at the Resource Center, emailed me a few days after the tailgate and I want to share what she said with everyone.

According to 247Sports Ryan Bartow, South Carolina native and defensive lineman Michael Barnett committed to Virginia Tech. Barnett is rated as a 4-star prospect by, Rivals.com, ESPN, and 247Sports. He's Virginia Tech's second verbal commitment of the 2015 cycle. According to 247Sports, Barnett had offers from Clemson, Florida, Florida State, North Carolina and Tennessee among other schools.

Barnett tweeted his intention to commit today early Saturday morning.

Announcing Commitment on Monday.— Michael Barnett (@JermaineJr77) November 23, 2013

Barnett visited Blacksburg many times over the past year, most recently November 16th when Virginia Tech hosted Maryland. This is what Barnett said 8 months ago about his offer.

Hokies-Hoos will be broadcast on ESPNU at 3:30 PM. North Carolina will host Duke at noon. That game will be on ESPN2. If Duke loses and Virginia Tech wins, then the Hokies head to Charlotte to play Florida State.

And yes, courtesy of VTBox, we announced game times with a GIF.

"Do you want basketball tickets for Christmas?" That was the (pretty ironic) text I got from my mom about ten minutes after Tech lost to USC Upstate two weeks ago. It was at that exact moment in time where I wondered whether my nine-win prediction for this team was too kind. If this was how the entire season was going to go, I would rather have spent an entire year in solitary with Bruce Pearl than watch this team.

That was, however, only the first game of the season and I will admit to being a bit irrational. The team has since ripped off three straight wins over West Virginia, Western Carolina and VMI, sparking a very small hope in the fan base that this team is better than anticipated. Well in short, they probably are, but not for many of the reasons we expected.

Now, before I talk about what's been going on with the team I need to clarify something: this team won't be good. Now, let me clarify something on the point that I just clarified: this team's record won't be good. They'll almost definitely finish in the bottom two or three teams in the conference, so read all of the following through that lens.

Editor's Note: TheFifthFuller is writing about recruiting. Everything going to hell during a bye week is a continuing theme this season.

In a surprising development, Thekeyplay.com has exclusively learned that Virginia Tech has offered fanship to five-star Comedian/Actress Tina Fey out of Upper Darby, PA. The offer is notable since Fey has ties to rival school Virginia, graduating from there in the early 90s. Tech, however, has a recent history of gaining commitments from recruits with ties to the school, including brothers of current players. That strategy is a small part of the overall "Bitch, please" mentality the Hokies football program has to its in-state rival.

Fey would be a big get for the Hokies. She has demonstrated versatility and a broad reach to a large audience, something that can only help the Hokies national profile. She would also reach a vastly different demographic than recent high profile fan commit Britney Spears. Sadly, as has been the trend with many high profile recruits recently, some overzealous Hokie fans are already strongly lobbying Fey to pick their school.

So this happened.

Kyle Fuller underwent successful surgery to repair a core muscle injury on Tuesday in Philadelphia; full recovery in 4-6 weeks.— VT Football (@VT_Football) November 21, 2013

The Toilet Bowl Division

Yeah...these teams aren't making a bowl game

14. Virginia (2-8, LW: BYE): The good news? The Wahoos had a bye last week, which is just one letter away from BYU, conjuring up memories of Virginia's ever more confounding win in week one. This week they play Miami, who Mike London has somehow owned during his tenure (3-0). While this just seems like a random statistic, let's look just a little deeper shall we? As we all know, the NCAA just wrapped up an investigation of Miami. What if having a cop on the across sideline messed with the Canes' head just a little bit, adding a bit of paranoia to the game? What if London told them he was part of the investigation, and Miami just didn't know any better? Wouldn't it explain at least two of their last three matchups?

If Virginia had a Thanksgiving Day disaster, it would be: Uncle Tenuta has one too many glasses of wine, and causes a scene at the dinner table. This forces London to put him down, hard, while Tom O'Brien and Steve Fairchild sit in stunned silence.

I have watched the film of the Hokies baffling loss to Maryland three times, and it is one of the strangest losses I have ever had to do a film review on. In the preview I pointed out that Maryland would have to do two absolutely critical things if it wanted to be competitive in the football game.

1. The Terrapins needed to get the Hokies to abandon the running game, and then play man coverage behind a wide variety of blitzes and stunts from a multitude of alignments.
2. With Bud Foster committed to man coverage, the Virginia Tech pass rush had to put C.J. Brown on the ground without him breaking contain.

I have never had less fun being right. Maryland put together two scoring drives—one at the end of the first half and another to start the second—largely on the back of Brown's scrambles that caught the Hokies in man coverage downfield. Offensively, as soon as the Hokies started to get some momentum back in the fourth quarter, Maryland was able to generate tremendous pass rush off a wide variety of stunts and blitzes that confused the offensive line.

It is clich to say that football is a game of inches or moments, but it often proves to be the case. Saturday's game against Maryland provided a wealth of frustrating moments, but ultimately two special teams plays haunted the Hokies as they muddled their way to overtime. Walk-on kicker Eric Kristensen dinged a 3-point attempt off the left post that would have given the Hokies a 10-point lead, and the Hokies punt return team gave up a touchdown return to freshman Will Likely that completely took the air out of Lane Stadium. If either play goes differently, perhaps the Hokies pull out a win in a game where they definitely were not sharp. I can't be critical of Kristensen. He was thrust into an impossible situation, and he hit both attempts solidly. Against an average opponent, the Hokies should not have been in a position where kicker needed to win the game. However, special teams as a whole continued to stink. Little was accomplished in the return game. And the coverage teams again struggled as they did against the Hurricanes and Alabama.

If anything this team is inconsistent. Apologies in advance for typos as I am writing on my phone at a reverse tailgate.

This season Tech has figured out to beat good teams, and lose to average ones. It's been both a bumpy and enjoyable ride.

I'll be in Blacksburg tomorrow. In case you missed it, there's a Thekeyplay.com tailgate at 8:00 AM in Lot 9 benefitting the Women's Resource Center of NRV before the game. Bring a five buck (or more) donation and come party your face off with us. Look for a black Ford F-150, or holler on Twitter (@thekeyplay) if you're having problems finding us. Hint: we'll be the loud ones.

Final words on Maryland, courtesy of The Box follow after the jump.

Virginia Tech Hokies (7-3, 4-2) at Maryland Terrapins (5-4, 1-4)

Time: 12:30 PM
Date: Saturday, November 16, 2013
Place: Blacksburg, Virginia
Stadium: Lane Stadium (65,632)
TV: ACC Network
Radio: Virginia Tech IMG
Spread: Virginia Tech -16
Weather: 48 - 61 F, Partly Cloudy, 20% Chance of Rain

The Skinny

By: Joe

Virginia Tech doesn't control its own destiny to Charlotte, but the Hokies cleared a major hurdle by dominating Miami on the road. Regardless of what happens with Duke and the rest of the ACC, the Hokies will need to win their remaining two games. Maryland is a beat up squad, and if Tech can run the ball as effectively as last week, they should be able to handle business on senior day.

Matchup Overview

We almost, almost, worked ourselves into having an offensive advantage over a team. Sadly, it didn't happen. Maryland enjoys a slight advantage when they're on defense, and UVa's defense is the only thing stopping Mike London from handing out speeding tickets in the 757 again.

I was just about to head to the gym when...

Frank Beamer announces that PK Cody Journell has been dismissed from the Virginia Tech football squad.— VT Football (@VT_Football) November 13, 2013

Really? Before senior night, after all the second chances, and Frank Beamer having Cody's back during his slump. All of those golf analogies was Frank's coach speak at its best.

Hello. Welcome to this week's "Foe"Rensics feature, where we make up stuff about our opponents to make them more interesting. The good news is, this week, Maryland lives in this crazy alternative universe where normal doesn't exist, so I don't even really have to be creative this week. Let's get to work!

Before I get to the power rankings, I want to share a quick story.

During my last two years of college I was working as hard as I could to make myself better at broadcasting. I had worked with IMG in Blacksburg, calling play-by-play of all sorts games of the "Olympic sports" variety (volleyball, soccer, wrestling, etc...), but during the spring there was a lot more down time.

In order to keep my reps up, I would go to Hokie baseball games and practice calling them into a recorder, "The three-one to Pinder," and so on. I used to do this on the grassy hill behind the away dugout, so no one could hear me as I made a fool of myself talking into a recorder like a crazy person. Well, to teach me a lesson in vocal confidence, my boss (Andrew Allegretta) told me before one baseball game that I had to sit in the stands with the rest of the spectators.

Needless to say...I was petrified.

After a brief hiatus the #BUZZCAP is back and has less analysis than ever!

Highlights:

1. BREAKING THE CANES

As best as I can tell Mark Giannotto reported the story first, but David Teel followed up with more firm details.

I'm told there will be an announcement later this afternoon about Jim Weaver's status as #Hokies AD. He will not fulfill all of his contract— Hokies Journal (@HokiesJournal) November 12, 2013