Illinois Hokie's Recent Comments

There's another angle to this, and I'm surprised nobody seems to have brought it up. (They might have; there's been a lot to sift through in the last 24+ hours and I might have missed it.)

Mook retweeted CC's announcement. This was what he added:

That first word... "finally"... in all caps. That tells me something. That's someone who wasn't just waiting for something, but was pushing for it to happen. He did it again when he retweeted Kumah's announcement:

And here's what he said about Sean Daniels:

"All you needed was a chance." In other words, it was the program, or the man in charge of it, holding you back.

Oh, and another person who retweeted all the announcements? Trevon Hill.

I know a lot of people are dismissing the idea of these being Beamer's recruits leaving, because we're entering year four of the Fuente era. But these are also Beamer recruits leaving after Fuente kicked a couple of high-performing Beamer recruits off the team. If someone were trying to push a narrative that Beamer recruits won't get a fair shake under Fuente because they aren't his guys, the time to sell that narrative is after the dismissal of Adonis, Mook, and Hill.

And if there are players who are genuinely upset about those dismissals, the time to walk away from the program is when you can do so without having to sit a year.

I'm not trying to paint a room rosy picture about this. These losses are bad. And I'm not trying to blame Mook or Trevon. They feel they got a raw deal from this program and have a right to vocalize it.

What I'm trying to say is, for all the people who seem to be running around pulling their hair out, screaming, "What is going on?!?" it seems to me the answer is staring us in the face. These dismissals created a rift in the locker room, and the players who side with the players who were dismissed are leaving, even if they were getting playing time.

I wonder if this is what Tre Turner's "business is business" tweet was about.

It wasn't just the play calls. It wasn't even mostly the play calls. It was the entire way Stiney designed his offense. He wanted to throw a dozen different looks at opposing defenses to confuse them. The problem was, we ran two, maybe three plays out of each look. As soon as the opposing defense figured out the keys to look for, we were pretty much stopped dead... unless we had somebody like Tyrod taking snaps, who could improvise something out of a busted play that was usually better than what we'd get if the play worked. Stiney never understood that it was far better to be able to run twenty different plays out of the same look than to be able to run one play out of twenty different looks.

S&P+ says the 2018 offense runs circles around the 2017 offense... 44th vs 96th. In fact, the 2018 offense was ranked higher than the 2016 offense, at 51st.

He wanted to cut Torrian's pay to put all position coaches on the same salary. For years, the defensive coaches made more than the offensive coaches. That sent a message about priorities, and readjusting everyposition coach to the same salary corrected that.

Definitely don't think you're trashing the program. I'm responding, narrowly and specifically, to the comment you made about how every year can't be a rebuilding year, and how I don't think that idea applies to the state of VT football at all. We had two good years followed by a horrible one. That's not a perpetual state of rebuilding.

And coincidentally, I completely agree with Joe's sentiment. This is a completely winnable schedule, and failure should be met with significant administrative action. However, I'm also prepared and almost expecting for any potential catastrophic failure to be entirely shouldered by the defense. And if that happens, the problem, in my mind, isn't Fuente - unless he refuses to take what will most likely be a wholly necessary and wholly unpopular step in response.

10-4...9-4...6-7...

Where is this steady decline you speak of?

We had a great year in '16 with an absolutely wrecking ball of a QB, and gave Clemson everything they could handle in the ACCCG. Then said wrecking ball made a Highlander 2-level bad decision and went pro, but the next season we go 9-4 breaking in a redshirt freshman at QB.

We haven't had a steady decline, we fell off a cliff, almost exclusively on the defensive side of the ball.

We can lament how bad we were this year without making up a fake narrative about the state of the program.

I saw the bye in September and thought, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Then noticed the second bye in October. I'll gladly take it.

Welp, we can't hang with the best team in the country on their home court.

Okay, on to the next one.

There's always gonna be some ethanol burn with whiskey, but it shouldn't be the dominant characteristic. If it is, the bourbon you're drinking is either too young, or possibly a high rye mash bill. (Rye has a different type of burn than the alcohol, usually more of a spiciness.) Two reasonably affordable bourbons that are notably smooth are Buffalo Trace and Four Roses (yellow label).

But just speaking practically, if your bourbon is too hot, add a half teaspoon to a teaspoon of water instead of on the rocks. It's counterintuitive, but chilling the whiskey doesn't soften the burn. If it did, we'd just keep it in the freezer. The trick to getting around the burn is hitting the sweet spot of dilution, where you put the ethanol to bed a bit but haven't blunted the flavors. I'm guessing the reason why you don't care for whiskey on the rocks is that your bartender just scoops a whiskey glass full of the same ice they use for a rum and coke. It'll cool your whiskey off quick, but you go hurling past the right dilution point and wind up with bourbon flavored water. Ice balls or large ice cubes (about 1.5 inches per side) are a much better option because they melt much more slowly while chilling the whiskey about the same as a glass full of ice. But if you can't get that at your local bar, ask for it with one ice cube. Swirl the whiskey as it melts, until it's at least halfway melted. It'll take a while, but if you're drinking whiskey straight you shouldn't be in a hurry.

If none of this works for you, straight whiskey might just not be your thing, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Is it safe to say the OL has seen the biggest improvement under Vice, out of all the position coaches Fuente brought with him?

Go Big Blue.