The Virginia football program conducted its final summer workout Friday morning. And it appears as if, in a new tradition, the Hoos commemorated the end of its conditioning program by breaking a rock (or paver, or tile, or...).
#UVa wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus braces to "Break the Rock," ending Cavaliers' summer conditioning program, a new tradition at Virginia. pic.twitter.com/3HjUJUUaWJ— Jerry Ratcliffe (@JerryRatcliffe) July 27, 2018
pic.twitter.com/fzyZfxLC3N— Brad Franklin (@Cavs_Corner) July 27, 2018
Yes.
Among two sharply depicted... mountains, yes mountains, and the instructions, "BREAK THE ROCK", in case anyone forgot what the sledgehammer was for, is the maroon text "BEAT TECH".
The "rock" #UVA football players will break after today's final summer workout includes the words "Beat Tech." pic.twitter.com/TvVu3dRW30— Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber) July 27, 2018
(The pristine towel is so on #brand.)
"Beat Tech" is the mantra of UVA football this season. As rock breaker HB Olamide Zaccheaus put it at ACC Kickoff: "And as a team our goal is to beat Virginia Tech and not only go to a bowl game this year but win one, as well."
Super!
From breaking rocks, to breaking huddles, to going to the bathroom (seriously), it's all about "Beat Tech" this season for the Hoos.
#UVA WR Olamide Zaccheaus on 'Beat Tech' signage around team's facility: "When you're going into work, everything you do you have to beat Tech. Whether it's going to the bathroom – you have to beat Tech in the bathroom. It's making it a lifestyle."— Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber) July 18, 2018
As a reminder for why this is important to UVA; it's been 14 seasons since the Hoos have beaten the Hokies, and Virginia Tech is closing in on 5,000 (4,990) straight days of Commonwealth Cup possession.
| Date | Location | Winner | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 27, 2004 | Blacksburg, VA | #11 Virginia Tech | 24–10 |
| November 19, 2005 | Charlottesville, VA | #7 Virginia Tech | 52–14 |
| November 25, 2006 | Blacksburg, VA | #17 Virginia Tech | 17–0 |
| November 24, 2007 | Charlottesville, VA | #8 Virginia Tech | 33–21 |
| November 29, 2008 | Blacksburg, VA | Virginia Tech | 17–14 |
| November 28, 2009 | Charlottesville, VA | #14 Virginia Tech | 42–13 |
| November 27, 2010 | Blacksburg, VA | #14 Virginia Tech | 37–7 |
| November 26, 2011 | Charlottesville, VA | #4 Virginia Tech | 38–0 |
| November 24, 2012 | Blacksburg, VA | Virginia Tech | 17–14 |
| November 30, 2013 | Charlottesville, VA | Virginia Tech | 16–6 |
| November 28, 2014 | Blacksburg, VA | Virginia Tech | 24–20 |
| November 28, 2015 | Charlottesville, VA | Virginia Tech | 23–20 |
| November 26, 2016 | Blacksburg, VA | Virginia Tech | 52–10 |
| November 24, 2017 | Charlottesville, VA | #24 Virginia Tech | 10–0 |
Comments
UVA FOOTBALL:
Steven Peoples would have given it the "People's" Elbow.
I think it's good that they are focusing on beating Georgia Tech - that Triple Option is so tough to defend, that it does take a little extra effort.
I didn't know he's a wahoo?!?
UVA's offense can actually break 30 points against GT, so the option is less of a factor.
I believe that the only thing that UVA's offense can break is wind.
They couldn't even beat either Tech...
Someone made a great suggestion on twitter. We need a way to celebrate FIVE THOUSAND days of dominance over LOLUVA.
OT: Celebration Plans for 5,000th Day of Holding The Commonwealth Cup
I think the way you celebrate that is to add another year.
I can't wait until we can use this gif to celebrate
If someone can cue the video up to some Queen...that would be pretty amazing...
based solely on the mountains depicted on their tile/slab/rock, I am assuming they have some sort of beef with Colorado Tech.
lincoln tech
I'm afraid we're going to have to start paying rent for how much we're living in their heads.
Luckily, the rent there is pretty cheap.
Well, the space hasn't been improved much in 14 years.
and the neighbors are assholes
Take a look at the back of the shirts in the video....
Maybe they should take a step back from the word "hard" for a year or two....
Their game week shirts were just leaked
I like how he keeps moving down the line like he'll be able to break the next one
And then finally gives up, like, "Awww, fuck."
I think it's representative of UVA playing us every year thinking it's going to be a different result.
Each karate chop represents a game in UVa's season. They start out full of fire, but by the ninth game they are seriously questioning their desire to keep playing and then they give up after the 10th.
Lol what's going on in here
Somebody slapping some coconuts?
14 rocks in a row...
UVA's 2018 Team Captains Getting Tough
midnight chuckle. thanks.
I guess one could say they're hanging tough.
Damn. He broke the rock. We are fuuuucked
You'd think they'd get creative and/or personal on us and use a slab of Hokie Stone....
but, I think they know that would most likely infuriate Hokie Nation and inspire a manslaughter of a game in Blacksburg the likes of UNC last year when we curb stomped them at home.
Hokie Stone is harder to break than a shittily painted paver. I accidentally dropped
onea paver from too far off the ground the other day it also broke.UVA football players trying to break Hokie Stone
They should try rocks because its easier
Never thought I'd be defending Clemson's stupid rock, but here I am. Howard's Rock shits all over that thing Bronco picked up from Luck Stone.
Hey, don't insult Luck Stone.....They provide real rocks not pavers. This reeks of Lowe's discount rack.
Is this real? Did that actually happen during game day?
I think it was from a College Game Day commercial a few years back.
They should try rocks
Someone already did. Was sentenced pretty harshly, too.
Suspect In Howard's Rock Vandalism Convicted, Sentenced
Did you drop a Hokie Stone from too far or a paver?
Seriously. I dropped one from like a foot off the ground in grass and it broke. Honestly they could dropped that thing from 8ft ladder and it would have probably broken into more pieces.
Fitting that they state "break the rock" but instead they break something that people just walk all over.
i prefer my cheesy schticks to be a little more on the nose. i think they should have used the towel to "wipe the slate clean."
During game week (cause that's when the game actually matters) can we have our team make a similar video with a Zima?
Ryan Willis likes this idea
We joke, but how intimidating would it be if the other teams QB broke a bottle over the punters head before he took the field and then he drops a 48 yd punt on you. F*cking Aussies man.
Are you seriously suggesting that our Aussie punter drinks Zima?!?
You'd better hope he doesn't see your comment.
Those Aussie's will get after ya.
I had seen the punch. I didn't know the kangaroo had the dude's dog in a headlock (which is awesome in and of itself.)
I guess that kangaroo's are quite a threat to dogs, they wrestle them to the ground and often kill them. As I understand it this guy is very lucky that the punch surprised the kangaroo, causing it to retreat (not shown in this gif) instead of attack. They can disembowel with a drop kick, or tear their enemies eyes out with their claws.
I wonder if the Aussies lost a Great Kangaroo War too? They lost the Great Emu War...
While UVA would get beat by a team full of these kids. UVA would totally lose the Emo Wars.
I think our Aussie punter drinks whatever the fuck he wants. I sure ain't gonna tell him otherwise.
If our punter is an Aussie (and the term "punter" has a meaning in Aussie slang, so this is even more amusing to me), he drinks All The Things. If a Zima gets in the way, so be it.
Care to find us in on some Aussie slang?
A punter in "Aussie" is a gambler - usually in reference to horse racing. I mean, it's not a laugh riot or anything, but it's just something that makes me smile, having heard the term a lot when I lived there.
Was it a real rock??? Or were they pretending to be tough and broke something that easily shattered? You know like their dreams....
It is a brick paver just painted. And sometimes those break when you look at them too intently.
I was hoping it was ceramic or maybe a balloon that was painted. But a fragile paver is appropriate. It symbolizes LOLUVA--- easily broken and everybody walks all over them.
I feel compelled to state that a paver is a ceramic.
Fair enough.
Soft rock is right in a hoo's wheelhouse, so this makes sense. The should be there theme song, the lyrics are too spot on...
If someone wants to make a highlight video of the breaking the rock with this song playing, I'll venmo you money to buy a beer or 2.
That clown will have 2 catches for 7 yards against VT this year. Go ahead and break your rocks, bro.
I agree this gimmick is beyond idiotic and that hyper-focusing on what is literally the last game of the regular season seems to be a poorly conceived motivational strategy. That's almost entirely on Bronco though. I personally think Zaccheaus is a pretty decent player who seems to work hard and be a team player. I'm not going to hate on that.
While I largely agree with you, this is the guy that when trying to come up with a non-football related activity that would most convey their intention to "beat tech," the best he could come up with was going to the bathroom.
To me, that's another indictment of Bronco and demonstrates how little substance there is to this latest gimmick. Zaccheaus was chosen to represent the team to the media and as a result has been put in a position of discussing the gimmicks. I'd say most of us have had moments where we had to try to convince someone of something stupid even though we were aware of its inherent stupidity.
Maybe, but he's also a wee little man...
And he's comin' to our house this year.
How cute!
Can't wait until we fracture their hopes this fall.
They all HAVE to think this is the dumbest shit possible, right? I hope that the 27 ACC caliber players at least do because this is the dumbest shit possible. I feel bad for the reporters that covered this that had to take pictures and at least pretend to care.
Edit: It was more impressive when my son broke a pine board with his hand. Maybe they should've printed up boards for each of the players to break so that they could do #hardthingstogether
I dunno, I think Bronco hit a high point of dumb shit when he came up with their three step hand holding process to get on the field.
There has to be a point where the players look at each other and realize this is just dumb shit. Everything Bronco does is so gimmicky and then he says that only 27 of them are ACC caliber players. If you're on the team it has to be getting harder to buy into his bullshit.
So far, we have:
-Playing basketball with football helmets on
-"hard things together"
-Diamond Dallas Page teaching yoga
-"if it's not hard, it's weak"
-Breaking the Rock
and I'm sure I'm missing many more. One day these guys are going to be sitting in a bar watching the Edmundi playing on Monday Night Football, look back on their college careers, and it's all going to click. I almost feel sorry for them.
don't forget the toaster and burnt toast
The linemen doing snow angels...
Fond memories.
No numbers on jerseys...you gotta earn those.
I thought that about PJ Fleck and his Row the Boat thing, but it worked for him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgHyEbMQ-OE
Because it's his one thing and he at least acts like he believes in it. Every program has something (usually gimmicky) that they use to motivate the team. Miami had the turnover chain. Clemson had the chips in the bucket thing. Alabama had envelopes full of cash. The reason those work(ed) is because the coach believes it and gets buy in from the players. The problem with Bronco is that he changes his gimmick every year and it gets dumber, every year. At some point the players stop believing that the coach believes it and then the buy in stops.
Tennessee
hasis the trash canI think we have reached the conclusion the LOLUVA is 27 ACC caliber players and 0 ACC caliber coaches.
All of this preseason talk is going to make the 15th in a row that much sweeter in November.
And its another year, another gimmick for Bronco. I guess making them earn their helmet logos didn't work, now they have to break rocks and Beat (off to) Tech in the bathroom. This all sounds nice and swell, but man does it ever set themselves up for mentally falling apart the second things don't go well during the season. The only reason last year was even remotely a close game is that we literally had an injured QB who was barely able to stand on 2 feet, let alone put any weight into his throws. They didn't do a damn thing on offense, and now they have to come to our house? Good luck with that.
It even looks like someone is trying to beat off on the paver at the end.
Just so everyone knows:
All real rocks >> compressive strength than aerated concrete (paver).
We add things like steel and rocks to cement in order to make concrete strong.
We add airspace to make aerated concrete. Aerated concrete is good for applications such as pavers (permeability & light weight/cheaper) and as insulation (industrial buildings).
Having worked 2 summers at Lowe's of Short Pump, I can attest that concrete pavers do in fact break. Without too much effort, either.
The boohoos are soft and got nothing.
So....they're destroying their goals before the season starts???
dancing sam rogers needs to be added to more of these pictures
^^^^ Yass!!!
Here's the gif I made that one with. Shoulda watermarked that sucker. Can't link cause I'm on mobile and imgur hates me
Rogers gifEDIT:
also, worse quality, but I like the pop-up effect:
Maybe they'll break it after 15 attempts, but I doubt it.
"Break the rock Beat Tech" anagrams to "Heck the Bareback Otter" and "Backtrack Hetero Bet Eh"
It also anagrams into "Both Bake The Crack Tree"
Stages of UVa coaches:
1: Denial
Mike London had a count down clock.
Bronco has bathroom signs and a hammer/paver exercise.
Seriously, at this rate lolUVAs players are gonna come out jacked for this game, they're gonna be sloppy, we'll hunker down, then they'll start to play frustrated and even more sloppy from making this game their entire season, and then we'll laugh them out of the stadium
via GIPHY
Where is the followon Zima Celebration video?
Say what you will, but all they have to lose here is the game that they've ALREADY lost 14 times in a row.
But I agree, to make it their singular focus at the point in the season? It does seem like they're upping the embarrassment quotient for themselves at Lane Stadium.
All of that said, if there's a year for them to try, it better be this year, because VT is likely to be a force to be reckoned with in '19 and '20.
Also: The back of their shirt says "If it's not hard, it's weak." I mean, THAT MOTTO IS WEAK!
Haha "even going to the bathroom"....
Best chance these wahoos have is to name their wangs "Tech".
Every time I see the "even going to the bathroom" comment I think back to a Cowboys/Skins games from a couple of years ago. We were driving back home from a Hokies game and listening to the game on the radio. We had to listen to the Skins feed and the glorious Doc Walker.... So Dallas won and Doc Walker was having a hissy fit. He was ranting about it always being the same crap. He kept going and finally was just like "Flush it! We just have to flush this crap!"
When smashing hard things together, one should wear eye protection.
Seriously hope this new tradition does not end in tragedy for any of their players' eyes.
spray-painted styrofoam doesn't send off shrapnel like a real rock would.
Lol is that what it actually is!?
Nah it's a paver. Funnier as styrofoam
The only thing I will give props for in this clown show is Zaccheaus swinging a 30 lb sledge. I have never seen one heavier than 20 lbs.
A 30lb sledge caught my interest as an 8 is standard and a 16 is about as big as I've seen that you could actually swing and get any work done. It looks like that's an athletic hammer with a steel handle used for training. And breaking cheap pavers with shitty paint jobs without proper PPE.
Someone listened to all their safety training and briefings!
what a bunch of jabronis
I couldn't decide which gif to use...
But if you do manage to hurt The Rock:
yes
Looking at it again, it seems only the 27 +/- ACC caliber players on the team got to attend the dusty paver smash ceremony.
The others must not have been hard enough.
Give them a chance. They were still in the bathroom.
If Bronco wanted to send a real message to his team, it should be that they don't belong on the same field as VT, and that if they don't do enough in the first 11 games to prove they do, then he'll forfeit their game against VT.
FTFY UVA:
This thing isn't even ADA compliant, this colorblind dude can't read shit on that paver! I'm calling the OCR!
They should be wearing safety glasses
Better call OSHA. And the NCAA, just for kicks.
UVa really has hit rock bottom
I think the tools they used were a little overkill. All you need is a chisel and hammer.
You are absolutely correct.
Here's what the Rock thinks about loluva!
Seems like this is pretty motivating for VT.
Don't worry, Cavaliers. We're not going to forget about you, even if you're late on the schedule.
We'll be there to take care of business in Lane at the end of November.
In the oil fields, we use lots of sledgehammers. Particularly when rigging-up or down. 30lbs is wayyy overkill, for breaking a sorry-looking paver.
Then again, this is UVA Football, and they need all the help they can get...
It looks like he almost missed the pacer two. He hit the corner of it. There is no way a 30 lb hammer can be effective for any type of work.
Overdramatic Triple H
respectfullydisagrees.It occurs to me that it's probably a 16 lb. hammer with a 30 lb. label photoshopped onto it.
It's funny when, at the end of the day after you get hard and try to beat it in the bathroom, you realize you're LOLUVA and ain't gonna win shit.
Setting goals and strictly focusing on them is one very effective way to accomplish things in life, so I actually give credit to Bronco for making his team set the goal on beating VT. They haven't in so long, they need that kind of focus. Nothing would look better on Bronco's resume than beating us, even if they lose every other game this season.
Now how he goes about doing this is just dumb as shit. Talking about everything being "hard" and all of these weird motivational techniques are just flat out weird. If I was a player I would be standing there thinking "WTF?" the entire time. They should just make T-shirts that say "Beat Tech" and get to work on handoffs or tackling or whatever.
Given that VT will likely have a down year and is unproven in many positions, if they are going to beat us, this could be the year. I won't write UVA completely off and think VT will roll over them, no matter how stupid breaking paving sheets with an over size sledgehammer may be. They are making it a season-long goal to beat us, which is beneficial to them, and hopefully Fuente will have the team ready for them come November after a short week after a tough Miami team.
You mean they should install something like a countdown to victory clock, and set it for rivalry game day?
I'm almost surprised nobody thought of that before. Oh, wait...
This is well-traveled territory.
That is absolutely the stupidest shit I've ever seen.......
I hadn't seen this yet, when a friend provided a link on FB. Between this idiotic move, the idea they want to beat us in the bathroom (presumably having followed us into the bathroom from their white, windowless van), and last year's "Hard Things Together" nonsense, I hope Bronco is their HC for the next 30 or so years. We could all use the laughs.
Ok. This "Break the Rock" stunt takes me back to my high school days.... My school's (GWHS) biggest rival was E.C. Glass. When we played them for Homecoming, one of the Spirit things was to have an old car that we could throw things at, so the student body could "Break Glass." The unofficial cheer among the students was "Kick @ss! Break/Beat Glass!" At least our destructive spirit activity had more of a point---more witty with the play on words and such. And unlike LOLUVA, the stands actually had people in them...
Just curious, but I always thought you were an Amherst grad based on the Lancer handle.
Where'd that come from?
Long wood university lancers
Yup. I went to Longwood. But I prefer Longwood College. I was admitted under College and it didn't switch to University until my senior year. So my undergrad diploma says Longwood College and the grad school one says Longwood University (only because I was admitted to grad school after the name change and they wouldn't put college on it),
I am married to a VT grad---HokieEnginerd...
The whole Lancer thing came up in the Spring Game Thread. :-)
I thought Hokieenginerd was married to Danny Coale is my Spirit animal
Sigh... Nick, you are Trifling! DCIMSA is just a big fan of HokieEnginerd's meat... But honestly, everybody loves my husband's meat...
Really sorry I asked now....
At least you didn't go to Amherst!
I'm not saying I would enter a civil union with Hokieenginerd's brisket, but if I were to put a ring on a brisket, that'd be the one.
You are also a fan of his pulled pork, turkey legs, chicken, ribs.....
Y'all ought to go Vegan like me.
I agree. More brisket for me that way.
You know I am more than happy to share with you.
Yes, but to not share with the guys would also be excellent 😂
Very true... This is one of the reasons we are friends.
YEAH RIGHT!!!
I should have posted this in response to Nick... I was going to behave and not go down this rabbit hole, but my husband told me to go for it...
You and my husband are the reason I am on TKP and I blame the 2 of you for all the crazy tangents that I get pulled into.
Edit--- Nick can also be held accountable at times, but Danny Coale Is My Spirit Animal and HokieEnginerd are the primary influences on my TPKing.
You are a keeper. Adam needs to put a Key on it.
via GIPHY
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Did anyone else notice that the rock video clip was played on the scoreboard during the VT/lolUVA game? I went nuts when I saw it!