So today I was thinking to myself about Mike London and trying to figure out how he's still around. My hypothesis was that maybe UVA is holding on to him in hopes that they can replicate Frank Beamer's career where he struggled early but eventually transformed his team into a perennial powerhouse. London is going into his 6th season as UVA's head football coach so I looked up how Beamer did in his 6th season at VT:
A couple things popped out at me.
- We were still playing ECU even then. Football's oldest rivalry.
- We still stomped JMU 49-20
- We lost 6 games by a combined total of 12 points:
- ECU - 3 points
- Louisville - 4 points
- NC State - 0 points (tie)
- Rutgers - 1 point
- Southern Miss - 1 point
- UVA - 3 points
- Our 2 big losses were to #1 Miami and #10 Syracuse on the road.
It makes sense to me now why VT would have held onto Frank. Even though they only won 2 games and lost to UVA, the team came very close to winning 6 more. The administration was right in holding onto Frank, as he rallied back the next year to win 9 games, including UVA and their bowl game. Just found this interesting and figured I would share.
Comments
Let's make sure the UVA AD is well aware of the Frank Beamer story. I have all the confidence in the world that London will turn UVA around and make them a powerhouse again.
UVA?... powerhouse?... again?
I must be too young to remember that
But add in the "London" and the whole thing makes perfect sense to the delusional.
For all of you young whipper-snappers. Everything you need to know about LOLUVA's reign as a powerhouse in 8 minutes, 21 seconds
well that was anti-climactic
Exactly ;)
So was the rest of the Hoos' season.
The more I look into that 1992 season, the more similarities I see to our team now.
My first thought was 1992? Why do we want to talk about that year?
Had no idea that team lost so many close games. That year was really last bad year of Tech football. Glad they hung onto Frank.
We had the lead in 7 games in the 4th quarter too. To only win 2 of them was rough. But the NC State game was especially frustrating. At the time I had no idea what was about to happen in the years to come, but its made of for my freshman year down there.
I was there for every home game that year. Tech wasn't on tv much in those days, regardless of who we played, so the rest may have all been on the radio. It was a really tough year for this fan, and I remember having serious doubts about Coach Beamer at the end of it. Wasn't calling for his head, mind you, just wondered if he, or VT for that matter, was going to have what it would take to be relevant, ever, in the larger world of the college game. To say we exceeded expectations in that regard would be an understatement.
The 1992 season also features prominently in Frank's book. The importance of that season and the AD's faith in Frank were huge in terms of VT history.
Absolutely. Thank Dave Braine for Beamerball. In 1992 there were many cries for firing Beamer, but Braine believed something special was brewing and waited it out. No way that happens in today's college football landscape.
Wasn't there pretty significant staff shakeup after '92, essentially at Braine's insistence? Everything I've read about the fallout of the '92 season (that wasn't written by Frank himself) seems to point to Frank's retention being basically one last chance to prove himself, rather than a vote of confidence in him.
That's the way I remember it also. Frank brought his pals in with him, and Braine put the pressure on him to redo the staff. Frank's loyalty is famous, it may not have gone well if Braine didn't insist on the changes. I do, however, think Braine did have confidence in Frank, though. Still, to say it was "basically one last chance to prove himself" was also true. Braine had a good football mind and I think he saw where the problems were and overrode Frank's natural tendency toward loyalty for the obvious betterment of the program.
Was that when we brought in Elmassian? If people want to point to a turning point in our program, it was the hiring of Phil Elmassian. Bud took what Phil installed at Tech and made it the best defensive scheme in college football. You could argue that without the groundwork that Phil Elmassian laid, Bud wouldn't be the DC that he is today.
Times have changed though. We are in the a media frenzy era where everything is projected over wins and losses and everything is outed into the public spectrum. I don't expect him to last too much longer.
1993 Sports Illustrated Preview
83. Virginia Tech - Bleak days in Balcksburg
I think that was the quote. I remember thinking that was crap. The people ranking it had no idea how close we were in games the year before. Of course, I was wondering if Beamer was the right fit. Shows what I know.
My condolences.
Beamer started in a bad spot though. We've seen recently what a few subpar recruiting classes can do to you, not being able to have a full class can devastate a program. London's only recruiting deficiency is pitching a program that can't beat the good guys.
You're exactly right. Beamer inherited a mess from Dooley with scholarship sanctions to boot. He just needed time to turn it all around. Sounds like a certain five star get after it full juice OC I know.
Oh no. Let's please not deviate to another conversation about our OC.
Yeah but how would you align the conferences so payers can be paid in fines by wearing all maroon against ECU at noon for the next twenty years after we fire Frank?
Edit: oh, and recruiticorns,
Perfect response.
You forgot the First Lady of TKP, Emma Watson.
Yes, I would like to give Emma Watson a paddlin.
This ought to fix it.
Here's one I bet not many have seen: Hermoine if she had been a pure blood Slytherin...
The 4 shades of Granger...
Hufflepuff Hermione is a fox.
HufflepuffHermione is a fox.Fixed that for you.
You can have Hufflepuff, just send Ravenclaw Hermione this way.
It's all fun and games until I'm waiving this on a sign during VT quasi-Gameday and Desmond sneaks a over the shoulder look.
It blows my mind that Syracuse was once not just a decent football team, but a top 10 football team. They have to be one of the worst FBS teams over the past 5 seasons.
McNabb, Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney. Really strange
And MV5 was set to go there, family preference to stay in state kept Vick at VT
close...it was MV7...heck it might have been both of them but I know for sure that his recruitment came down to VT and the Cuse. and yes, in the 90s the Cuse was most certainly a very good football program (it took the aforementioned MV7 before we were finally able to win in the Carrier Dome in the old Big East days). As was NC State and the UVa game in those days was not the layup it is now, I wouldn't say they were good, but they were decent I used to think of that game as a toss-up. I believe we were about .500 against them in the 90s.
Yeah MV5 came down to loluva (sort of) but mainly Tennessee and VT. He was just about to sign with UT when we ended up with him somehow...
And yes, the Cuse were tough in the 90's. The air-ball pass in the end zone in '95? still irks me. Similar to the BC Matty Ice pass....
oh yes I remember that play well. wasn't McNabb throwing up on the sidelines so we called timeout (for some reason) right before that play so he could collect himself and make the play. classic choke. i think it was a bit later, maybe '97 or '98
Yeah, '98. Avert your eyes if you are allergic to stinging plays against the Hokies.
Final play
thanks for confirming. right, the only stinging final play against the hokies that hurts more is the catch-not-a-catch by Danny Coale in the sugar bowl. i swear we've had more than our fair share of these.
I wouldn't call NC State a lay up anymore...
Doeren is taking that team places.
fantastic username! I was referring to UVa since we don't play the pack every year anymore.
god i miss Suarez
No kidding. At least BR seemed to know what offensive soccer should look like with him on the pitch.
1992 was my freshman year. I actually brought my parents down for the Miami game, in the rain. Boy did that suck.
Anyway, for those who don't remember those days, there were actually two newspapers on campus then, the CT and some smaller one whose name escapes me and is now long gone. I'll never forget when the non-CT paper did a spoof of Old Hokie that went like this:
Chokie, Chokie, Chokie Die!
Tech, Tech, VPI!
Up by 20, lose by 10!
Will we ever win again?!
It hurt but it was damned funny. Reminds me of the time Corso sang on Gameday:
"Fight, fight, for old notre dame! When the hell ya gonna win another game?!" Classic!
I remember not being very impressed when Beamer was hired in 1987. I kept thinking that we should have opened up the pocketbook more and gone after a coach w/D-I experience, not settled for someone who had coached Murray State. I hadn't changed my thought process very much in 1992. Those indeed were dark days in Hokieland. I'm very glad that I was wrong.
I remember listening to the NC State game on the radio-the game wasn't on; I had to listen to sporadic score updates. (Yes, that is how it was done in the olden days, kids.)
We lost to #21 Freakin' NC State on a time-expiring field goal by the 'pack-it was the equivalent in frustration of the 2014 VT-WFU game where no team seemed like they wanted to win, and eventually, the Hokies lost in a heartbreaker. I went out to a party that night and drank out my frustrations. (Can't do that now....)
BUT......it set up the 1993 season where we went 9-3 and won the bowl game and started Beamer's run.
I hope last year sets up Beamer's run, the second coming.......
Cue the Phoenix gifs. Would if I could.
See there? There's a couple Phoenix there. And that there's a football.
So when do I get paid?
I pay you with the currency of the realm. Damn, I've heard of monkeys trying it, but this is a first! Calling that a football though, well, that's downright unAmerican!
Hold up bear with me. I just had a thought. This was the closest thread.
So I'm Shipping Up To Boston just cycled through my playlist and I remembered that they played this song during Notre Dame games. And I thought to myself, "If I were Dropkick Murphys I would trade the rights to play this song in the stadium for tickets to games."
But then I thought I would want to trade my songs for exclusive access to an awesome quality live feed of all of our games, over the internet. Like my own special portal to all events.
Then I thought to myself, "Self, as a Virginia Tech fan, I would pay VT to feed me live streams to the games digitally outside of my cable broadcast. I would even be willing to pay for this since I don't have any songs to trade" Then I thought, "Whit should do this and KeyPlay needs to know."
Thanks
HorseOnATreadmill
so what we need is viewership numbers to estimate how much each person would have to pay to offset the massive penalty tech would get slammed with for broadcasting outside the ACC negotiated deal.
I'm with you..."I'm an idea man"
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"Note to self" haha. Gotta be of at least a certain age to enjoy, I guess...
Saw Michael Keaton in the Keys recently...funny to see some of his movie mannerisms are his true life personna.