Illinois Hokie's Recent Comments
our running game is pathetic with the rotation
Our rushing offense is 42nd in the nation at 205.75 ypg, and our running backs are averaging 5.0 yards per carry after the loss to ECU.
I mean this with all due respect. It might be time to step away for a while. When a loss is negatively impacting your marriage, even for one day, I think you might have too much emotional investment. It isn't worth letting the lows bring you down this hard. It's isn't emotionally healthy.
You want to see Lawson after a game where Motley threw for 280 and ran for 80? The last thing we need is a manufactured QB controversy. Motley is holding down the fort u til Brewer returns.
It is definitely pick your poison. Bud certainly knows how to sell out to stop the run, and we did run the bear front against ECU. I think in general, when Kemp was in we were playing the extra corner, then when Summers came in and did his thing, we started trying to play the run. I just think Ruffin McNeil threw a wrinkle at us that Bud hadn't practiced against all week. Up until this game, Summers had played five snaps against Florida, and that's it. Look at all the write-ups for this game on here. I don't think any of the TKP staff even mentioned Summers. It reminds me of when Virginia tried to Trot out Vic Hall (?) as a QB against us a few years ago to catch us off guard, except this actually worked. We had practiced against the air raid all week, then ECU brings out a poor man's Cardale Jones. Kudos to McNeill for going against trend.
Maybe I'm just not as emotional about these things as I used to be. I've probably seen enough losses to teams I thought we should beat that it just doesn't bother me as much anymore. The analysis on this site helps with that, because it makes me understand exactly how things went bad.
Maybe we should have seen this coming when Reavis was dismissed. Most of the defensive issues with this year's team are in the defensive backfield, because our All-American corner is more injured than the coaches want to admit (we've been around long enough to see through the coachspeak, haven't we?) and behind him it's mostly freshmen leading the way. Sure, mobile QBs hurt us, but a mobile QB on a team like ECU, which forces us into our nickel package (and forces our nickel corner into pass coverage) is a double whammy, because it takes away the OLB that would usually have QB contain. It's one thing to account for a running QB in the flexbone. It's another beast in the Air Raid.
Still sucks we lost, and we should have won. The offense should have put more than 28 on the board today. That stall when the monsoon hit in earnest was the killer. The missed field goal in the red zone, Motley getting intercepted deep in ECU territory, Bucky dropping a pass on 4th and 2, those were all the difference. Even with the miscues, though, I'll take the offense I saw today over what we saw down the stretch last year. I like being in a position to say the offense let us down by only scoring 28.
And as for all the rabble rousing over the Beamer quote, after 29 years do we honestly not know what we've got with this guy? There has always been some underlying animosity between Frank and the fanbase, and it almost always has taken the form of these poison soundbites, where Frank paints a picture of how we approach football that is about the exact opposite of what we want to hear. Frank has seemed out of touch with modern football basically since he took over this program, and I still maintain on some level, its an intentional jab by a man with a very patriarchal view of himself, toward a fanbase he views with some ambivalence over having the nerve to criticize him. It's like the kindly old grandfatherly fellow you wait on, a don't realize until you're about to go to bed that night that he was basically telling you to go fuck yourself the whole time.
Beamer honestly views non-conference games as tune-ups for conference play. In his mind, the conference championship is the primary objective, and the way you win a national championship is to not have any stumbles in your tune-ups. And if you disagree with his assessment, he invites you to go fuck yourself, just like he did today. We've all seen this before, haven't we?
Is it time for Beamer to step down? Yes. And he's about to. Haven't we already had conversations about how it seems like the AD has started the process of saying goodbye? We're not gonna be the program that fires our hall of fame coach when he's already in the process of stepping down. His retirement might just come a year earlier than the transition plan called for if this season turns bad.
I'm disappointed we lost, but it hasn't somehow crushed my hopes for this season. Duke helped us out big time today, and we have an offense that fucked up a lot on the way to putting 28 on the board. For once, we might finally have an O capable of carrying the defense on occasion. We'll probably need that, and Motley and co. came up short today. I really hope that sticks in their craw the rest of the way. This is either gonna be 2010 or 2003.
And in conclusion, fuck ECU. That is all.
Perhaps, but It allowed Motley to pass for 221 yards in the second half. We had twice the yardage in the second half as we did in the first. Lefty found a way to move the ball when nothing was working in the first half.
I need to hear that quote in context. There's two ways to look at it. Either Frank is trying to salvage the sense that we still have most of our goals attainable (except making the playoffs) or he honestly feels that way all the time. I'm guessing the lead up to that quote will tell which it is. I personally hope for the former.
It's what the situation called for, and was nearly enough to lead a comeback. I don't look for it to be a trend.
Hard to fix when the refs are manufacturing them.
Stats at the half:
Motley: 8 for 15, 60 yards, 4.0 YPA, 1 TD, 0 INT
61 rushing yards, 5.1 YPC
Total Offense: 146 total yards, 3.8 yards per play
These refs...
I think Beamer Ball is Frank's official brand, not affiliated with VT maybe.
A wide receiver screen that works.
Lord, we thank thee...
He was not awarded a medical hardship waiver. I think he went one game over the threshold. They could definitely apply for a hardship waiver if he doesn't play any further snaps this season, and coming off an ACL tear, he'd very likely be granted one. They've become almost automatic as long as the guidelines are followed.
Dagnabbit.
I'm not really sure I agree or disagree with either side. It's like if two buddies got in an argument. I'm not picking a side. I'll continue to read Andy's articles and I'll continue to be an active member of the TKP community.
I think this is the new phase of TKP. This place has arrived, and reporters covering VT will notice themselves getting beaten out on stories and sources. How everyone gets along now that TKP is a major player in VT football coverage remains to be seen.
One thing is for certain. Preak redux this ain't. It's a professional disagreement, and one that o hope opens a dialogue about TKP's place in VT football sports reporting in general. This day has been coming since the day the AD started credentialing websites.
Well the whole thing started because the guy who did the Purdue Q&A here refused Andy's request for a Q&A. I'm guessing Andy probably has contract issues preventing him from doing a joint Q&A, and the same guy refused to work with both parties. TKP is getting to the point where it's going to start ruffling some feathers of traditional sports journalists because of the market penetration they're getting, so I really think stuff like this is inevitable. Journalists are going to have to view TKP as a competitor in the same space, though it's up to the individual journalists how they proceed with that.
Any Midwest presence?
I'd bet because this is the first time the TKP Q&A's caused him to miss out on his own intended candidate for a Q&A. You'd usually don't notice competition until it costs you something.
Cardale is a classic example of how invalid a 3-game set of stats can be
For REAL. But good lord, who would have thought THAT three game set was unreliable? Perhaps Jones needs the hype to rise to the occasion and has a hard time self-motivating for the more ho-hum games. That's just wild speculation, though.
One of my three favorite chicken joints. Fantastic.
Dude, you could post a weekly update on the state of french's back hair and you'd still get my money. I'm in this for the long haul. I'm actually considering upping my donation. What you guys do here is beating the shit out of every other college football site on the planet. I meant it when I said I have an emotional investment in what you guys do here. When I spot your shirts in the stands on TV, it makes me unreasonably excited.
Also, absolutely no disrespect calling this a blog. Wasn't intended as a slight at all. I'm just saying you're still existing in an exclusively online space, so I could see cross-promotion with newspaper-affiliated journalists being beneficial. Yes, newspapers are increasingly an online medium, but I think there's an audience that relies on "print journalism" that doesn't frequent exclusively online content (what I'm calling a blog; like you said, hella ambiguous term), and you could benefit from cross-promotion there. I agree that in this situation you made a good call based on how it shook out. I would say, if you're unilaterally saying you don't think print journalists should post their stuff here period, ruling out a tit-for-tat arrangement of citing TKP for a source (which Bitter did do on occasion) then I think you are eliminating a potential source of promotion for your endeavor.
Well played, sir.
I can't go either. That's why I didn't try to pull this at the last second like an eBay bid-sniper.
ECU spotted us 14. The refs then spotted ECU 21. That was the worst officiating I've ever seen, and that is not hyperbole. It would not surprise me at all to find out those refs had been bribed. It is that bad. Every official on that squad should be fired. They have no business officiating little league football. They weren't even trying to be ticky-tack, they were throwing flags that had no basis in reality. A PI on Chuck Clark when he didn't touch the receiver and the ball was uncatchable. A horse collar tackle when the ball carrier fell forward. Huelskamp ejected on the exact same type of play that ANOTHER AAC crew correctly non-called in the Mempis/Cincinnati game because THAT crew understood you don't make that call while the QB is in the process of sliding, only of the QB is already on the ground. Stealing a fumble recovery from Adonis Alexander and refusing to review it.
We could beat ECU. There was no way we were beating these crooked refs.
Fuck ECU. Fuck the AAC and their bush league bullshit. I hope the conference folds worse than an origami swan.