We are still either in bed, eating our bacon and eggs, drinking coffee or about to take a shower, but a victory picture should have been at the top of the website at 00:00.
I apologize for that.
S/o to #HokieNation !! The atmosphere was crazy tonight!! Love you all!!! Thanks for hanging with us!! — J.C. Coleman (@jc_coleman4) November 29, 2014
No J.C., thank you for sticking with us and for running your pants off these last three weeks.
| Opponent | Carries | Yards | YPC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duke | 20 | 95 | 4.75 |
| Wake Forest | 18 | 98 | 5.44 |
| Virginia | 18 | 118 | 6.56 |
Reminder: Coleman wasn't even listed on the depth chart prior to the Duke game. Marshawn Williams, Jerome Wright and Joel Caleb were the three-deep. In its last three games, Tech's turned to the running back Beamer Co., pundits (me) and fans (me again) overlooked the most to produce an iota of a running game. I don't know what's different, maybe nothing, but Coleman has delivered big.
GIFTORY, film reviews, perspective and perhaps even LOLUVA will all be published soon.
Comments
That pic makes me a little emotional. Thrilled for JC. Go Hokies
So happy for JC and team. Great kid, nice to see him have success after all the work he has put in. Pound for pound, he was one of the toughest guys out there tonight. That is saying a lot because every player seemed to be bringing it for both teams. Big props to Dadi, Ken, Sam, Bucky and Brewer too!
please please please please please
I think we all know what needs to be included
I actually felt bad for Mike London for some reason when they kept showing his face after our last td...
When I saw that look from him while the stadium was cranked to 11, my thought was that he was genuinely impressed by this foreign thing called "fan support".
Totally agree, I think he appreciated and even enjoyed it in a weird way. If you like football, that atmosphere is about as good as it gets.
Whatever this moment of humanity meant, if anything, I felt like Mike London was somehow one of the good guys on the UVA campus. He wanted to revel and be a part of this even if it was going against him again. With all the issues they are faced with, UVA could probably do worse than giving this guy a couple more years. This was a pretty good second half. First half was not a great display of VT - UVA football. Something to build on. Maybe we'll have a full game next year that makes us proud of (winning) the Commonwealth Cup.
This pretty much summed up my feelings about the first half and early 3rd quarter (Knowles fumble followed immediately by Lambert int). Couldn't ask for a better ending though.
I am glad we won but shouldn't CFB reconsider Knowles on KR? I mean he rarely gets back to the 20 much less anything else. He has not done well there of recent. That fumble really just pissed me off... He made two bone head plays in a row Friday.
Agreed, but once Newsome was kicked out of the game, we were limited. Probably would have preferred Newsome and Knowles to give JCC some time off, especially after he hurt his knee in the 3rd.
So, thanks, really bad targeting call.
Newsome or not, Knowles should not have been fielding kicks for us in any regard. Over his career he has shown very poor decision making, between constantly taking the ball out of the end zone on plays where there was no advantage on doing to, to the constant need to run backwards or side to side on punts, to the dancing with the ball, to a lack of protecting the rock, he just shouldn't have been out there. There HAD to be someone on the team we could have turned to.
Next year it will be McMillan and Newsome. I really don't know who else we had at that point.
Real excited to see what McMillan can do with the ball in his hands, especially on returns.
I'm sure Demitri Knowles is a great guy and a good student and a loyal Hokie
Edited because when you type "I have to disrespect a player like this," you should really just hit the "back" button instead of "post."
I agree any kick returner who is ranked 4th on the all time return list with 1345 yards and a 23.2 yard average in only 3 years can't be any good. I do agree that he needs to learn to take a knee and trust his blockers and run straight ahead at full speed, but to say that he's been terrible throughout his career is simply untrue. He has definitely regressed this year and has not lived up to the potential he had his first 2 years where he looked like he would be writing his name in the record books but something has definitely changed for the worse.
Agreed. He's more track athlete than football player, and I've always hated seeing him do everything he can to avoid contact. On our last kickoff return we had JCC and Der'Woun Greene back, but it was just a touchback.
The more alarming thing than the kickoffs was the fact he actually played a few snaps on offense AFTER the fumble(s). Is Stanford really that deep in the dog house? Seriously, I don't think he played one snap.
I read it rather differently. I think he was thinking, "Well that's what I get for calling a time-out. If i keep the clock running there, they don't play Enter Sandman. That's another reason not to call those damned things."
nm
Coach London is thinking "so this is what stands are for, people sit in them to watch real men play football, no wonder ours are always empty.
That is a man trying his hardest not to cry
Tech is now 4-0 when my girlfriend runs a race.
Ohio State (Arlington 9/11 Memorial 5K)
Western Michigan (Clarendon Day 10K)
Duke (Richmond Half Marathon)
Virginia (Del Rey Turkey Trot 5 Miler)
Everyone needs to petition the Military Bowl to pick VT. She's already signed up for their 5K in case we go there!
Ohherro, I thought we had establish she was gonna run a race every weekend we played! Now it all makes sense...!
Maybe we should all pitch in and buy her some extra running shoes for next season
So many feels. Such a glorious, beautiful morn in C'ville for this Hokie.
Me too mate....me too
There is no limit to the number of threads JC deserves to have posted about him. Seriously. You want to talk about what it means to be a Hokie...this guy was absolutely buried on the depth chart yet still continued to work his ass off and stay committed to the team. Then somehow he gets his chance again and he plays with as much heart as anyone I've ever seen.
Take a bow, JC. You have truly earned it.
Reminds me a little of Bryan Randall.
+1 for mentioning one of my favorite Hokie players of all time. For much the same reasons that we are now showing the love to JCC. After that horrible experiment with Marcus Vick, for Bryan Randall to come back as a starter and get us to the Sugar Bowl; that guy has a lot of heart.
JCC is one heck of a great story.
Kid has found something inside himself after the setbacks he endured that few others do. Watching him run these past few weeks has been like watching a complete stranger. Never going down on first impact. Falling forward. Running through tackles. Hitting a hole with purpose.
These have been performances that demand starting consideration. If he keeps this up, Juice & Shai will have all the time they need to get healthy and explode back on the scene at 100%.
Let's not ignore the O-Line in all this either. Their pass protection was criminal for most of the night, but they fired off the ball well for run-blocking.
But JCC made the most of what they gave him. My only regret from last night is that he was obviously banged up when he broke off that last big run, or there is no way he wouldn't have housed it. I cannot wait to see him shine in the bowl game.
When JC broke that long run, all I saw was number 4 running through the defense with authority.
At first I was like, Oh, David Wilson running all over LOLUVA again.
Then I realized DW4 was gone, so for a second I was like, Oh, Eddie Royal doing Eddie Royal things, but then realized I was even farther off.
So then I was like, Oh word, that's JC Coleman.
Word.
You can definitely tell that he has put on a lot of muscle. It showed between the tackles, but it also showed on that run. JCC freshman year would not have been caught.
I think he's right where he needs to be now. At his height, I'm thinking no more muscle. Unless Gentry can set his program up to add muscle and keep his current burst and speed.
This is along the lines of what I was guessing early this season. I felt like they sacrificed too much of his speed in exchange to try make him able to play between the tackles in a 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense.
What makes backs his size dangerous is his top-end and his ability to make quick cuts. Lose that, and you have a guy who can't make the first guy miss, can't make the quick bounce at speed to find the right hole, and can't outrun backside pursuit. All this described him the past couple seasons, up until the last 3 weeks.
Did he slim down a bit and regains some quickness? Or did the light turn on, allowing his feet to become untangled from his mind? Or is the O-line just opening better holes where they are designed to?
I'm suspecting it's probably a bit of all that.
I think the last piece of the puzzle is simply reps. I know it's been debated to death, but I just can't help but feel like a RB that knows he is going to be in until he runs out of oxygen is going to benefit from getting familiar with the D he is playing, and not worrying about screwing up and getting benched, or trying to do too much because it's almost time to rotate out.
IMHO, I think its the reps. Which is what drives me crazy when Shane kept rotating the RBs this year/season. We did not allow our RBs to get into a rhythm until the injuries forced our hand. I'm not going to play the what if game, but I definitely would advocate that we stop rotating the RBs during the game except to rest our primary RB. Let the guy with the hot hand keep playing until he shows that he can't anymore either during the game or during practice. Just my two cents.
I was thinking that Ekanem looked smaller...
And like DeAngelo taking a punt to the house. Lots of good #4s
I don't know what's different, but it is. Maybe it's more than one thing. Maybe the OL is opening bigger holes, or maybe SL is calling plays that make it easier to read the holes, I don't know. But what seems apparent to me is that Coleman is more decisive with the ball in his hands. It's like he's running with anger now.
I don't know if he'll ever pass the backs ahead of him, but he's definitely made his name part of the conversation for next year.
Big time props to JCC, MB and the whole team after a difficult week and season. Tremendous gut check performance by all. So it's now 11 in a row, 22 straight and The Timecop is coming back....now a commitment by Sweat would be the perfect trifecta!!
I was so drunk in North last night I had to cover my ears at times or else my head started throbbing from how loud it was...and I woke up without a hangover, because we beat LOLUVA. As a senior who went to this game with low expectations, I've never been happier after a win. After OSU I was happy but in disbelief, after last night the world could have ended and I wouldn't have cared. 11 years baby (I was 10 the last time LOLUVA won, holy hell)
Mike London...the gift that keeps on giving!
*gif that keeps on giving
To be honest, I would have been happy to hear that the guy was no longer the coach at LOLUVa. I hate to cheer for someone to lose his job, but the guy is getting some of the best in-state recruits to go to LOLUVa instead of VT. That has got to stop. Everyone was surprised at LOLUVa's defense this season, but when you look at their last two recruiting classes, it's not that surprising. He may not be a good in-game coach, but he certainly has recruiting skills.
I would like to see some of those runs where JCC would turn it to the outside and gain about 2 or 3 yards and then lower his shoulder and just boom the tackler for an extra 3 yards. I have never seen him run like that. Even in the Duke and Wake game he didn't have that power. It was so cool to see!
JCC is a true warrior and everything I want in a Hokie.
What a great and much needed win for this team & program ! Congrats to every one who played & gave outstanding effort. 11 straight baby. & London will be back. JCC was the man , but this was a team WIN. AND , LE SABRE is in meltdown .
I have said and thought few good things about JCC this year. When he had a few carries earlier this year he looked timid and didn't get it done.
Last night JCC seemed to be a different person. He hit holes with authority, threw wicked stiff arms, and ran over defenders. Even when he was hit behind the line of scrimmage he fought, pushed, and got back to the line to prevent us from being put into a hole.
He ran like a man possessed last night. Much less "I will find a way forward." and more "I will *make* a way forward."
Thank you JCC for carrying us on your back past the Hoos! Mad props and much respect. This photo with the cup and the joy on his face was hard earned and well deserved.
I think a lot of us owe JCC an apology. I'm so happy to see what the coaches must have been seeing camp. He has shown us glimpses of what he can do, it was really special to watch him play these last 3 weeks. Thanks for being a Hokie, J.C.
Second
We're sorry JCC. We all deserve to eat crow.
yuup
Guilty as charged.
UVA has pictures of them with the Commonwealth Cup on their Myspace page
Was myspace even around the last time those clowns won?
MySpace was created to compete with Fakebook so, nope.
MySpace was founded on August 1, 2003, so yes.
Like most folks, I dont use it. Hell I forgot it even existed.
Post a link! I love historical photos!
JCC not on depth chart, then averages over 100 ypg the last 3 games when we needed him most. Maximum Hokie-ness.
JCC
I heard there is a wicked strain of nobola going around C-Ville
Coincidentally, an outbreak of gobola started at around the same time in the 'burg.
Can I say how happy I am to be here after a win rather than a loss? I am equally as happy for JC,who is a great example of perseverance. He could have easily given up, kudos to a great Hokie!
If I could tattoo a Vine onto my body, this would be it.
This is great, saw it live and enjoying it all over again. Thanks for sharing this one more time!
Great game last night! Happy for the players, coaches, and the Hokie Nation! It wasn't the best season but it wasn't the worst either. If we lose every game and beat LOLUVA then it's a good year. Go Hokies!
(Trying to post Meme jpg, but having trouble doing so, sorry)
JC a Michael deserve a big pat on the back from every hokie fan. Both played hurt at points last night and left it on the field.
I think my favorite moment from the game last night was when they gave a report from the sideline and Brewer was overheard saying to the O-Line: "I'll keep getting up if you keep pushing forward." - how can you not love that?
Brewer really plays with our emotions, but hard not to root for the kid.
Can somebody post a clip of this?
Is it my imagination or did it take a long time to play that game?
Standing in the cold. Yes, the redshirts did their best to slow the damn game down.
You know what else? Even with the cold, it was the best day tailgating ever.
Agreed. I had a blast all day. And, that was a fun game. I embrace my hangover with honor.
I know we are all a little hungover but it needs to be said...JC was fully dipped in dork magic last night baby! That was a fantastic game environment last night! The mrs. Is hoarse and hungover both of my boys are hoarse and hungover from hot chocolate. I love my hokies!
This never gets old:
I wasn't drunk last night.... but right now I am. I have doubted Loeffler and JC all year... but they did us well last night. Even Brewer showed a flash of his toughness from the tOSU game. I was a proud Hokie today.
Dream situation: After next season (we will finish 7-6) Pep Hamilton gets tapped and accepts. I will cry.
As Hokies the REAL dream situation next year is: Block like 5 punts a game for TDs... And Fuller pulls in the NCAA record for pick 6's. We win the national championship without ever scoring a point on offense.....
Beamer Ball goes out on top in crazy epic fashion.
We did say "dream" scenario right?
So, I was looking back at past Commonwealth Cup results this morning and I realized a beautiful thing...
With the win Friday, VT now has more consecutive wins in the Commonwealth Cup than UVA has had, period, in my lifetime.
I'm 32 BTW. This statement holds true for anyone born since the 1979 CC.
WE OWN THIS BITCH!!!
I'm so proud of our Hokies for playing their hearts out, especially JC for really doing more than his part in the past three games. I'm still not satisfied with where the program is right now, but I know there is a path forward. Let's get this bowl game under our belts, pull off a big W, and never forget: at least we're not UVA!
Maybe it was him knowing he HAD to be the guy, maybe he was finally healthy from lingering injuries we didn't really know about, but man he looked like we had all expected him to coming out of high school. His cuts were quick and decisive and he flashed some breakaway speed while running through contact. Of course the oline blocked better and created some good holes, so they deserve credit but I was so impressed with JCC these last few games. Hell of a guy, hell of a Hokie, and hell of a clutch run here down the stretch. With all these guys coming back from serious injuries I'm finally confident that he can be the guy for us when we need him to be.
I feel great for JC. I've never seen one of our running backs improve like he has this season. I remember him running for the sidelines against W&M. In a similar play against Wake he faked outside and made a powerful cut inside to make a critical 1st down. I don't know what clicked in him, but he is running great and has been the definition of a team player throughout what had to be a tough year for him. I feel a lot better about our RB depth to start next year than I did before the Duke game.
looking back on JCC's improvement this year, i think one thing is no longer up for debate...
shane beamer is the best RB coach in the country.