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I am going to take your comment and alter it to my experience, because we did almost the exact same thing, but had very different experiences:
Left thunder valley around 6 and the walk in was painfully slow. We went in at gate 3 and found our at 8 (2 hours!). We (my UT friend and I) sat on the Tennessee side and I was treated relatively poorly, but better than a lot of others once UT started rolling. My friend apologized to me a lot and at one point said "I'll back you up if you want to push that guy down the stadium." I still had a good time and laughed it off. Felt worse for the one UT girl in front of us who was constantly sexually harassed by older guys that were 60+ years old! She left at half time. For the record, I heard multiple people say there were fights of UT fans with other UT fans. No sure if anyone here witnessed that on the VT side or not.
As someone who has been to a couple of BMS races I was a little frustrated with the concession lines. I pulled out of Thunder Valley on Sunday around 11:15 and by 3 I was in Winston-Salem, NC (can't believe it took me longer to get back to Winston-Salem the day after than it took you to get back right after the game. Also, why didn't we car pool?!).
I had a similar issue. 2 kids in the club meant I had to "buy" the tickets separately instead of being able to enter their codes at checkout and had to hope that the tickets next to the first set would be available. The system really needs some improvement. I gave my feedback to the ticket office but who knows if it will makes its way up the chain.
Ford's specialty IMO
I appreciate your insight/opinions on these penalties, the rules, and the play of Teller. Have a leg.
Yep, Teller is all kinds of nasty. He was bulldozing UT lineman when the play called for it...If only he could get his stupid mistakes under control.
Extra #phrasing on this comment
Good eyes, French, better than mine.
I just keyed in on Mihota taking away the pitch and then, two seconds later, tackling Dobbs before he does any damage.
....and calls him MustacheChamp.
Week 2 wasn't as fun, because he only got 10 points: http://cfarena.blogspot.com/2016/09/who-did-fsu-kicker-outscore-week-1_1...
But UMass and Iowa State show up on both lists.
And I'd take you up on it....
From what I was told, Bristol papers were saying they made upwards of $40m (I was reading between $35m-$38m) for this one game alone. If those numbers are true, there's absolutely no way they don't do this again.
In fact, I would love for BMS to work out a deal with VT and Tenn to make this an ongoing rivalry. Battle at Bristol every 4 years to ensure every incoming class for VT and Tenn is assured to play at the track once before they graduate. Sure, they not make the full amount they made this time, but there seems to be a financial incentive to do this, and Bruton Smith doesn't strike me as someone who would let a potential financial windfall pass him by.
All I ask is that they clean up the issues we saw this time, and if we do it again, treat it like the neutral site it should be.
True, but they did have an adequate number of beer vendors and they even had the price of water listed on their shirt. Why not require them to include 10 waters or something each time they refill their beer cooler? The water issue was really unacceptable and dangerous.
I could have swore that I saw a couple of refs punch the ball out of our guys' hands on a couple of those fumbles. NCAA might want get on that.
When asked to bring meat for a cookout, Steve Addazio brings a $.50 pack of hotdogs.
Eh, two scores is a manageable margin. Moreover, sometimes you run certain plays to set up other plays. It's possible our o-line issues with Petitt/Teller dictated our play calling more than it should.
From the stands, it seemed they would not let the kids play. It was bad enough that the sympathetic UT couple next to us would shout when VT did something good that there must have been something unsportsmanlike VT did on the play and to toss the laundry.
Sacked the UT QB? that's not sportsmanlike. Good run, that was not nice, throw the flag, etc, etc.
The UT LB blocking late/in the back, flag picked up and the announcers agreed it should have been called.
We folded and then tried to come back but, we certainly were not the beneficiary of gift calls and did get called on some quite questionable calls.
Frank Beamer to the team after the game: "It's alright guys. It's just a preseason game anyway."
Too many rules in place to protect players, IMO. It just gets so confusing, what type of contact is legal and what type is illegal? When am I allowed to block this way or that way? Is the ball in the zone or out of the zone? Where is the zone? Teller had his back to the ball, how was he supposed to know? As for the roughing the passer, when is Dobbs a runner and when is he a passer (Zumualt's (sp?) hit on Logan comes to mind)? I want to try and block this pass, but maybe I shouldn't, my momentum and arms may contact his head, so I guess I'll just stop and let him make the play (and it is so easy to stop 220+ lbs running full speed). And even though this isn't about protecting players from injury, the inelgible receiver calls are so inconsistent, I don't think anyone, players, refs, or coaches understand when it should/shouldn't be called, or maybe coaches are trying to get away with it, because the refs miss it so much. But what about pass/run option plays? I guess the OL has to assume it is a pass play? I mean, I just want to watch football, and the players just want to play football, can we do that?
Anyway, I had fun at Bristol, especially up through the 1Q. I think we are going to have a good season. I said on another thread, OL is my only concern. I think Fuente and Co. understand continuity is important, but they clearly aren't getting the performance they want, and so they are going to try and get it one way or another. I'm okay with that; I trust that. They know Teller is the better player, and they know Gallo is the better center. But those guys obviously need to be made a point that they aren't performing up to expectations (maybe with Teller it is just as much an off the field thing as on the field, either way, off the field performance counts as well). Fuente and Co. care about the short term, but the long term is more important to them, as it should be. I trust that their decisions and coaching will pay dividends, and if it doesn't, then they will be held accountable by the fan base, and we will be having this same conversation about a new coaching staff in 4-7 yrs.
I'm still going with the prediction that we win the Coastal. We've got enough talent, and enough pieces in place to make it happen. It starts this weekend against BC!
There won't be a next time, I'd be willing to bet.
Just curious why you think that? I am not sure if I would make it back but I imagine that was a pretty profitable game and something they would want to consider again in 5-10 years.
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9 years 10 months
# | Ask TKP: What's your one positive and negative takeaway from Battle at Bristol? Thanks for the response, certainly seems like a plausible reason. You've at least confirmed there was a real issue and it wasn't caused by my BAC.
Steve Addazio doesn't know exactly what he wants to order when he gets to the front of a long Chick-Fil-A line.
I will say I'm a little discouraged by all the hand wringing over the coaching staff right now.
We just played the #17 team in the nation in Game #2 of the first new head coach of VT in 30 years and we showed legitimate potential to be a good team. We have holes and we had issues, but we knew we were going to have holes and issues coming into this season. The fact we came out blazing and really have ourselves to blame for the game ending up where it did is really, really encouraging going forward. The issues we have are correctable. For the most part, this is the same offense we had the last 2 years, and right now the sum of the parts is lightyears better than it has been before.
If the refs were bad, they were bad for both teams. The venue itself was definitely set up for the benefit of Tennessee, but the game on the field was played fair. Our errors are to blame for what happened. Maybe Tennessee would have still come back and the game would have just been a closer loss, but that wasn't because of anything other than our own miscues and mental mistakes. Those will be fixed, and we're going to be a better team down the line because of games like this past weekend.
I'll say this... VT is not a team I'd want to have on the schedule 2 years from now. If you hope to beat us, you better do it now, because once we fully grasp what the new staff is teaching, we're going to be TOUGH.
UT did not need any help
they are a pretty good teamVT gave them the ball 5 times.
FTFY
Isaiah Ford sitting down Cam Sutton. Should've been hit in-stride for a TD. pic.twitter.com/ynFmlVMBdp— Shane Alexander (@Alexander1Great) September 11, 2016
This is what burned looks like.
As I watched the game, I thought the officiating was good. No complaints there, I definitely did not feel that the officiating cost us this game in any way.
Steve Addazio says "Chokies"