Virginia Tech Hokies Football & Basketball News

BCO's College Football TV Viewing Guide

Welcome to the Six Pick Trick or Treat edition. While this isn't some World Wide Leader Superlative Saturday like "Monster" or "Show me", there are some intriguing matchups. This week due to some studying for certification I need for gainful employment, the column will run a bit short. I plan to make it up to myself by heavily drinking Thursday starting around lunch at the Bier Garden. This Six Pick will also be done A cappella, with only my limited knowledge and strong personal bias guiding me, to hell with cfbstats this week.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the greatest amateur weekend of the year, Halloween. So If you bail on the late games for parties to get your drink on and see some skimpily dressed ladies I understand and fully endorse this decision. If you're an old, married and tired father like I am then you will be on your living room sofa taking in the games. For those missing Herbie and Musburger I promise to watch for you, if you promise to post pics of all the lovely ladies of the evening for me.

The crazy 2010 season has left us no time to sweep around our own porch. Things are now a little more relaxed with the bye week. So let's take care of some outstanding items.

2010 Memorabilia Contest Winners

• hokietriana
• Zegolf
• HokieGal
• Linze2

2010 Trivia Final Standings

1. Winner - VTJawo 14
2. vtbaz 12
3. The Miz 11
4. RonMexicoRules 4
5. magduffs 2
6. furrer4heisman 2
7. hokieshark 1
8. 1MoreHokie 1
9. hokie4u2c 1
10. Hokie_Wolf 1

Standby for an email if you've won.

The Davey O'Brien Foundation released their semifinalists for the 2010 Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award today. It came as a surprise to me that Tyrod Taylor was not among the final 16 quarterbacks. Through eight games I believe Tyrod can hold his own against any quarterback in America. No, he isn't going throw for 3,500 or even 2,500 yards in a season, he doesn't play in an offense that generates gaudy or even flashy statistics. However, he makes the most of his opportunities and produces big plays.

The last couple of weeks the film study has focused on things we did wrong. Enough of that bunk, let's take an in depth look at our five touchdowns.

1st and Goal at the Duke 14

This is a simple four man pattern off of the play-action fake. Boykin runs a 5-yard in, Dyrell streaks down the middle of the field to the end zone, Andre Smith runs a post to the corner of the end zone and with no one to block Kenny Younger is going to leak out of the backfield into the flats.

The first thing I noticed about this play was the great protection. The offensive line nailed their blocks and Darren Evans chopped down the blitzing linebacker.

Duke man covered Andre Smith with a safety. Smith ran a fantastic post route and split the safety and corner helping over the top. It was an all too easy touchdown.

My full ballot is after the jump. Here's a quick justification of the movers, shakers and frozen.

• Oregon or Auburn? Oregon has looked more dominate, but Auburn has beaten better teams. I'm going with the Ducks because I'm infatuated with the Blur.
• Mizzou travels to Nebraska this Saturday; both tagteamed the state Oklahoma over the top rope. We'll know a lot more about each team after they play. For now Mizzou gets a huge bump, because they're undefeated. Nebraska's loss to Texas is an even bigger blemish on their resume after the 'Horns got dropped by Iowa State.
• Florida State drops because I should have bumped them down last week after they struggled with BC.
• Iowa's losses are respectable, as soon as they notch a quality win they'll move up.
• I didn't think I'd rank Virginia Tech before we played Georgia Tech, but then a lot of other teams lost and we started playing offense.

I know this ballot is a mess. Let me know what I need to change before Wednesday.

Your sights and sounds of Blacksburg or wherever Hokie Nation is headed.

I hope at some point, someone was wearing that pumpkin on their head.

via: @Slicktrip

Enter Sandman from the North Endzone, aka the happiest place on Earth.

@vtbeach

Good afternoon class, for today's math less we're going to have guest lecturer Brian Fremeau explain the Fremeau Efficiency Index. The floor is all yours Brian.

The principles of the Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) can be found here. FEI rewards playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punishes losing to poor teams more harshly than it rewards defeating poor teams. FEI is drive-based, not play-by-play based, and it is specifically engineered to measure the college game.

BCO's College Football TV Viewing Guide

Correction: LSU is +6 vs Auburn

I’m bringing a full sixer to your living room this week. It’s tastier than last week’s sampler too. Keep your remotes in hand and be ready to start flipping at 3:30 and again at 8:00. A disturbing trend over the last decade is the lack of quality games at noon. Due to TV maximizing viewers, almost all the big time games are at 3:30 or later on Saturdays. To make it worse, this season has yielded a bad crop of Thursday night games. Trying to keep up with three games worth watching at the same time is a bit annoying. Speaking of crappy nooners, our Hokies face the doookies as the Jefferson Pilot ACC Network game of the week. The Hokie O will likely pile on the points and I expect the D will look a lot better this week with more favorable matchups. In two weeks the rest of the Hokie games will mean something, both in conference and nationally again. The Gobblers will be back in the Six Pick soon!

There's no guarantee that Hawaii Five-0 will stay on the air longer than the mascot mock stays undefeated.

The cutout is here (1).

My full ballot is after the jump. Here's a quick justification of the movers, shakers and frozen.

• Oregon remains at number one for now, but there will be a reshuffling next week after Oklahoma-Mizzou and Auburn-LSU.
• Should Ohio State be lower? They got whipped by Whiskey and the Miami victory isn't much to brag about.
• Nebraska: K-State made them look like world beaters, Texas made them look like doormats. Will the real Nebraska please stand up? They'll need quality wins to move up in my poll.
• I was waiting to see if West Virginia stumbled against USF like they've done 3 of the last 4 years. They did not, so welcome.
• K-State is here because they're 5-1, but they got clobbered by Nebraska and their best win is versus UCLA. Should they stay on?
• Should Virginia Tech be ranked? I slotted in UNC over the Hokies. The Heels are missing a quality win, but they don't have a bad loss (cough JMU, cough).

As you can see, I need your help. Let me know how I should reorder this mess before I submit my final ballot Wednesday morning.

The only letdown in an otherwise dominating performance against Wake Forest a Bud Foster defense that surrendered 21 points. Let's look at Wake's three scoring drives a little more in depth. Note that I use the word drive very liberally, because all the points came on three big plays.

1st Drive

1st and 10 at Wake 22

Wake's receivers are confused as to where they should line up after they get up to the line and motion. Quarterback Tanner Price calls a timeout before the play clock expires.

1st and 10 at Wake 22

After a little play action fake Price rolls out to his right. Steven Friday doesn't bite on the fake and applies immediate pressure. Price throws a low ball for an incomplete pass. Davon Morgan had the intended receiver blanketed in coverage

2nd and 10 at Wake 22

Wake center Russell Nenon snaps the ball, pulls to his left, and kicks out Lyndell Gibson who is over pursuing providing running back Josh Harris all sorts of running room. Both Eddie Whitley and Antone Exum are frozen for a bit while reading the play as it develops. There's no chance of them scraping to the ball and they both immediately start in pursuit down the field. Gibson needs to make that tackle at the point of attack and can't be taken out of the play that easily.

If gruesome is your thing, then the picture is after the jump.

Your sights and sounds of Blacksburg or wherever Hokie Nation is headed.

Enter Sandman and pictures of the homecoming parade are courtesy of the man, the myth, the legend, the @HokieTrooper.

"Sorry y'all, I was runnin' late." – '10 Offense

Yesterday our much ballyhooed offense, that we all expected to show up in the District, finally made good on the preseason hype.

Any you've met at some point, "What's a Hokie?".
"I am", Hoda Kotb.

Here's another question, "What's a Demon Deacon?", or better yet, "What's a Wake Forest?" Oh, it's a city... meh.

/anagram-ed

Set For Wake

...Are you? I'm pumped. Central Michigan was a welcomed breather from ACC play, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the chase for another championship. The last time Wake traveled to Blacksburg was 1983. Al Groh was the coach, I was in the womb, Thriller topped the charts–predictably Wake lost.

So Frat Week