I may be 100% wrong here. But I've been talking with my father, who is much wiser than i'll ever be, and he says that if Virginia Tech wants to compete at a national championship level, then UVA needs to be able to compete with us on the field. Maybe not win but 38-0 is too much. He says that all the championship teams have that close location rival that plays them tough every year, Alabama with....well the SEC in general, Texas and Oklahoma, The Ohio State U and Michigan, USC and UCLA, etc. Like when we were at the height of our power, West Virginia played us tough every year, even UVA played better then. So I feel like in some respects he's right. What are other people's thoughts on this subject?
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Unfortunately, I agree 100%.
Disagree. At the height of USC's power, UCLA was a doormat. Bama is currently at the height of their power, and outside of the one fluke year of Cam, Auburn has been a dumpster fire.
LSU replaced Auburn, thats why i feel like the lack of a true rival in auburn was offset by the fact that the SEC was just that good at that time
well based on your logic why can't miami just replace loluva?
Notre Dame was a consistent top 25 team when USC was winning those titles, though. Most classified them as a rival.
What national titles?
Oh burn.
Got em
I will award turkey legs for bashing the University of Spoiled Children 100% of the time.
Exactly.
The state of Virginia has enough football talent to support a program with national title aspirations... but not two. If Tech wants to win a title for Beamer it has to start getting some top notch recruiting classes, either by demolishing everyone else in state or by successfully picking up their out of state targets. The new coaches are doing a great job at with recruiting this year, but they'll bring in even more talent if UVA isn't a serious threat on the recruiting trail in state.
I would not agree that the stats has enough offensive talent for national titles recently.
THIS. It was discussed already on another thread. The fact of the matter is that there are only 3 states that can support teams that can consistently recruit top level home talent and be competitive: Texas, Florida and California. No other state has enough talent to support 2 top level teams. For VT to be a National Champion they must destroy LOLUVA both on the field and on the recruiting trail.
However, they also need the ACC to generally improve. This year we see a nice change with FSU, Miami and Clemson (despite last week). With the ACC rising more home talent will stay home and not jump to SEC and other conferences.
Here are the scores of the last ten games of the Alabama-Auburn rivalry, otherwise known as the Iron Bowl - Auburn has won 6 out of those 10 games.
Saban became the head coach at Alabama in 2007 and since then, Bama has won 4 out of 6.
L 11-22-2003 23 Auburn, AL 28
L 11-20-2004 13 Tuscaloosa, AL 21
L 11-19-2005 18 Auburn, AL 28
L 11-18-2006 15 Tuscaloosa, AL 22
L 11-24-2007 10 Auburn, AL 17
W 11-29-2008 36 Tuscaloosa, AL 0
W 11-27-2009 26 Auburn, AL 21
L 11-26-2010 27 Tuscaloosa, AL 28
W 11-26-2011 42 Auburn, AL 14
W 11-24-2012 49 Tuscaloosa, AL 0
Alabama leads the overall series with a record of 42-34-1.
http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/sec/alabama/opponents_records.ph...
yes, this is true but you are forgetting that the majority of players on Alabama do not come from their home state. Let's look at their starting roster (see below) only 13 players out of the 46 man 2 deep come from Alabama. (special teams not accounted for) Compare that to VT who has only 11 out of state players on our 2 deep. That's the exact opposite.
Fact is LOLUVA sucking ass is best for VT and our chase for the crystal football.
DEFENSE
DE
49 - Ed Stinson - FLORIDA, 86 A'Shawn Robinson - TEXAS
NG
99 Brandon Ivory - TENNESSEE, 95 Darren Lake - ALABAMA
DE
8 Jeoffrey Pagan - NORTH CAROLINA, 54 Dalvin Tomlinson - GEORGIA
SAM
42 Adrian Hubbard - GEORGIA, 25 Dillon Lee - GEORGIA
MIKE
33 Trey DePriest - OHIO, 2 Reuben Foster - ALABAMA
WILL
32 C.J. Mosley - ALABAMA, 11 Tana Patrick - ALABAMA
JACK
47 Xzavier Dickson - GEORGIA, 30 Denzel Devall - LOUISIANA
CB
13 Deion Belue - ALABAMA, 16 Bradley Sylve - LOUISIANA
CB
10 John Fulton - South Carolina, 8 Cyrus Jones - Maryland
SS
3 Vinnie Sunseri - ALABAMA, 26 Landon Collins - Louisiana
FS
6 Ha Ha Clinton-Dix - Florida, 27 Nick Perry - ALABAMA
OFFENSE
LT
71 Cyrus Kouandjio - MARYLAND, 63 Kellen Williams - GEORGIA
LG
77 Arie Kouandjio - MARYLAND, 68 Isaac Luatua - CALIFORNIA
C
70 Ryan Kelly - OHIO, 78 Chad Lindsay - TEXAS
RG
61 Anthony Steen - MISSISSIPPI, 50 Alphonse Taylor - ALABAMA
RT
79 Austin Shepherd - GEORGIA, 72 Leon Brown - MARYLAND
TE
84 Brian Vogler - GEORGIA, 89 Brandon Greene - GEORGIA
TE/H
44 Jalston Fowler - ALABAMA, 82 Harrison Jones - TENNESSEE
QB
10 AJ McCarron - ALABAMA, 6 Blake Sims - GEORGIA
RB
4 T.J. Yeldon - ALABAMA, 45 Jalston Fowler - ALABAMA
WR (X)
9 Amari Cooper - FLORIDA, 2 DeAndrew White - TEXAS
WR (Z)
83 Kevin Norwood - MISSISSIPPI, 7 Kenny Bell - LOUISIANA
WR (H)
22 Christion Jones - ALABAMA, 5 Chris Black - FLORIDA
Or we become a national recruiting powerhouse. Grimey, Lefty and Moorehead certainly seem headed in this direction, but I think the mission for VT recruiting will always be to own the state of VA.
It's going to take a long time to be able to recruit nationally like Bama, ND, Michigan, and, um... that's about it. There aren't many schools that have the resources to recruit everywhere and the ability to visit anyone in the country and get their attention.
Wasn't Alabama under sanctions during the first five losses listed?
We've got Miami, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and FSU to pick up where UVA is slacking. Not to mention we have a renewal of the WVU rivalry coming up and a game against Tennessee which should be interesting.
We don't need UVA to be relevant, we just need to win. They can either step it up or be content with being our doormat. There call.
^ This. Going to the national championship is about playing and beating highly regarded teams. I don't think we specifically need UVA to to improve, we just need any teams that we play regularly to improve.
Any teams in the Coastal or Boston College would help the most. Atlantic teams improving definitely raises the perception of the entire conference (case in point the current season) and helps us out if we're scheduled to play the big teams from that side of the conference.
We have some big out of conference games setup for the next couple of years, so if we get some lucky draws from the Atlantic and win out or loose close then we'll have a shot at the 4 team playoff.
I think as long as we play some sort of marquee rival we will be fine. I would rather LOLUVA continue to be bad and play a tough Miami or GT.
Look at the SEC in general. UCLA and USC have been down in recent years, but other teams in the conference ie. Oregon, are solid. We don't need UVA specifically to be good, just another opponent we play every year.
They say competition makes you better..would tend to agree and LOLUVA has talent..
Disagree. If UVa is better, we get one more (maybe) challenging game per year and I doubt it changes much of anything. Every program you mentioned above (except UCLA) is a historic powerhouse. There's no competing with the perception of those programs. Our rise in the late 90s was fueled by the same principles we have always utilized - hard work and development of talent from unlikely sources. Coupled with some truly talented playmakers, we made a hell of a run for a couple of years and have maintained a fairly high level of achievement since. The only way we get back to that upper echelon is to make a run again, a perfect storm of hard work, developed talent, and a few special playmakers. It's hard to put that all together, and it's why 120-something teams fail to win a National Championship every year.
If you're going to say Bama has a rivalry with the SEC in general, I could site our rivalries with GT and Miami.
I think that a team has to 'practice' winning on the big stage if they ever want to win a National Championship. Teams learn more and become better by playing LSU on the road; not duke. I don't think it has anything to with the team being a 'rival', but simply with the players and coaches learning how to practice, play and coach leading up to/during a big game.
So, I disagree, I would prefer to keep beating UVA 38-0.
I think Miami is that premier rivalry - UVA doesn't have the winning tradition that those bastards at the U have, nor will they ever. What we need to do is play WVU every single year and have two nasty rivalry games each year with them and Miami and then finish each year by slapping the shit out of UVA in a meaningless game for them.
You are correct that LOLUVA doesn't have a winning tradition but they do have a very long WHINING tradition!
Also wining?
yeah the cheap boxed kind
Cue HokiESQ with a defense of Franzia in 3... 2... 1...
I think it's bigger than loluva. We need a more competitive ACC in general so that we have those big time matchups every couple weeks or so. The big boy powerhouses of college football play in big game atmospheres vs good teams every couple of weeks which really prepares them for the next big game on the schedule and/or prepares them for the post season.
We run through the acc year in and year out then we look like a different team once we play one of the big boys. If we had serious competition every couple of weeks then our big games wouldn't be that big because we would have already played in a few to prepare us. I'm not saying that we never face real competition, we just don't face it on such a consistent basis that the bright lights and big stage become second nature to our players.
Example: Our biggest game so far was bama. In my opinion, miami is the second "big game" of our schedule and look at how far apart those games are. Gt can be argued as a big game but in the realm of the bamas and miamis (top 10 teams), georgia tech gets marginalized to just acc implications, not really national implications like bama and miami. If we had a real challenge between those two games, we'd be much more battle tested going into the miami game.
I want UVA to lose every game it plays until it gives up, rolls into the fetal position crying, and just quits playing football all together.
^This
Because I love to see LOLUVA do l this:
Looks like Claire Danes cry face. Which is dynamically horrible...
whatever do you mean?
also this for your pleasure (read: torture)
http://clairedanescryface.tumblr.com/
As we saw this weekend, though, sometimes they even quit playing at the half.
My girlfriend's family lives in Charlottesville and they have bought season tickets every year for over a decade. They decided not to buy them this year and her father says he will not be a Hoos fan until Mike London is gone. They literally cheer against them now.
edit- typo
I feel something leaving my body. What is this... Hmm, cold, kind of slimy. Yep. I've seen this stuff before. This is respect leaving my body, never to return again.
I can almost understand that. I've hated Dan Snyder as the owner of the 'Skins since he won the bidding war and I vowed not to buy any merchandise for the duration of his ownership. That said, I can't deny that I am a fan of the team and cheer for them just as much as during the JKC era. Even if VT was 0-fer for the past 3 years, I wouldn't be a happy Hokie, but I sure as hell wouldn't root AGAINST my team.
So to your gf's father, I give a hearty "BOOO-Urns".
UVA being better and having a more competitive rivalry would make some of the talent leaving the state want to play for one or the other. Lets all not forget that ugly stat we don't like seeing which is our record vs the top 5 ranked teams. We need to keep the top VA talent at home for US to be more competitive on the national stage if that means splitting more with LOLUVA so be it but we have in state talent we are losing because there is no rivalry at all right now!
If we're not getting all the talent in the state now I doubt we get any more with UVA getting better. It's likely that they'd just choose UVA over us anyway in that case.
I guess maybe you could argue a big rivalry matchup with UVA every year could make us more attractive to some in state recruits but I think we're talking one or two every few years. To me at least, that's not significant.
We will never answer this debate but that's my point exactly that if we could keep a player or two a year especially the top ones were losing ala Hand that would make a difference for us nationally IMHO!
I agree with the notion that it doesnt have to necessarily need to be UVA but the ACC does need to step it up in general. Its doing better this year than it has in previous years with some exceptions....ahem North Carolina
I wrote this in a previous post- beating UVA is a program goal. The better UVA is, the better VT has to be to beat them. At the start of the decade it looked like UVA and UNC would push VT. Now? Not so much. Perhaps Miami will provide that challenge if they can avoid the NCAA death train.
From the stand point of making the team better if we have better regular competition, yes. From the stand point of needing UVA or the ACC to get into the championship, I don't think so. Every time we've been undefeated or had one good loss nearing the end of the season, we're usually in the top 2 or 3, regardless of who we actually played (until a Matt Ryan or Tajh Boyd shows up). It remains to be seen this year after starting unranked. We've got enough gravitas to get to the top 4 provided we win all the games.
Saying VT needs UVA to be competitive if they want to win a National Football Championship is like saying a fish should be good at baiting a hook if you want to win a National Bass Fishing Championship.
Bald eagle is back! You have to put this poor thing in a BC jersey that week!
We need to put a wall around the state for recruiting. If we could keep the top talent in-state each year, we'd be much better. There are plenty of other teams with whom we can play close games.
Sorry, but I want them to lose EVERY week by at least 80 points. I want them to lose their Spring Game in front of 16 people by 80 points. I can't help it. I don't want to, either. #LOLUVA4EVER
This is kinda how I feel. If it takes us losing all hopes of ever being the best team ever to make UVa the worst team ever, it's kinda hard. But there are other teams out there for us to play. I just want UVa to suck. I don't like UVa, that's all it will ever come down to.
Every home should have a doormat.
To quote my wife, "That's a great joke but I don't want any Hoo $**t in front of my home."
I'll side with your wife on this one. I do have a funny little story though. I once met a guy who was a die hard Redskins fan and he HATED the cowboys. He had the toilet bowl in his master bedroom painted silver and blue with a big ol' star right in the middle so he could "Take a shit on the 'Boys" every morning. I thought that was amusing.
I am also a Redskins fan, so is a friend from home (as well as most everyone else back home), but he related a funny Cowboy fan story:
The Redskins and Cowboys played a few years back and my buddy invited a bunch of people over to his house for the game. A mutual friend asked if he could bring another one of his friends, to which my buddy responded, "If he isn't a Cowboys fan, sure". Mutual friend said he was, so my buddy told him not to bring the guy. Mutual friend said he'd bring the guy anyway, to which buddy said that if he brought him, he'd send them both away. Mutual friend ended up bringing Cowboy fan, assuming that buddy wouldn't actually turn them away once the guy was standing in front of him. Mutual friend underestimated buddy's dislike for all things Cowboy. Buddy sent them away and didn't let them in the house. True story.
home =ACC
I was always told that if you have to explain a joke, it's not good. I have failed at comedy again.
Oh, I got the joke. And I think it's funny. But I couldn't have a UVA doormat nor could I paint the sabres on my toilet bowl because I know too many people who WOULDN'T get the joke...and I don't want to be confused for a Hoo
Disagree. VT does need solid, top tier competition every year to be validated in the national persepctive but that doesn't have to be UVA. That can be UNC, GT, Miami, whoever. But it does need a marquee match up every year in conference (preferably a consistent one to build some hype) and it needs to schedule one or two meaningful OOC opponents.
Oh... one other small detail. We actually have to win those games. Moral victories against top 5 teams don't mean jack outside message boards.
That rival doesn't have to be in-state. We would be much better off if Miami can continue to rise back to prominence so that we could annually have a top 10 rivalry game with them. Win that and we are right in the National Title talk. Beat a top 10 uva, and it wouldn't matter as much.
They're not even in the top ten in the ACC. Hell, they're barely top ten in the Coastal
Top ten in the state of Virginia? Right behind UVA-Wise?