Daily Briefing: ACC in shambles, Hokies, Cavs, ‘Skins, Vick, letter from Skeletor — packed today
"Publish this ... if you dare!"
THE NEW AP POLL IS OUT, AND THE ACC GOT THE FLOGGING IT DESERVED. Miami is the only conference team still in it, checking in at No. 17 after a road loss to Ohio State on Saturday. James Madison got 11 votes after its upset win over the Hokies. Alabama still holds the top spot, followed by Ohio State, Boise State, TCU and Oregon. You can see both polls here.
THE HOKIES ARE STILL TRYING TO COME TO GRIPS WITH SATURDAY’S SHOCKER IN BLACKSBURG. Randy King has a quote-packed look at what went wrong against JMU. Here’s my perspective on what happened. There’s a little overlap with the other day’s blog; apologies to the regular blog readers, but there are a thousands of subscribers who don’t know our community exists here. There is no longer a boring game on the schedule, that’s for sure. Should be an interesting week as Tech preps for East Carolina.
STRONG EFFORT BY UVA IN A 17-14 LOSS AT SOUTHERN CAL LATE SATURDAY. As Doug Doughty writes, the Cavaliers hung tough despite a far from perfect performance. UVa is off this week.
TOP DOG PICKING CONTEST
-If you were a contender in Week 2, please click this link for details of where everything stands. Week 3 starts tonight; fresh slate for everyone. Make your pick by clicking here.
NFL
-In a game that goes down to the final play, the Redskins beat the Cowboys 13-7 to give Mike Shanahan a victory in his debut as coach.
-Michael Vick looks terrific in relief of an injured Kevin Kolb, but the Eagles’ rally falls short in a 27-20 loss to Green Bay.
-Controversy erupts in Chicago as the Lions are denied a potential game-winning touchdown on a questionable call. Bears win 19-14 as a result. This ruling stung more than a few Top Dog pickers, unfortunately, who made a solid choice.
-Pete Carroll’s debut as Seahawks coach looks an awful lot like many of his games at USC did: With his team routing an opponent.
-TV tonight: Ravens at Jets (7 p.m., ESPN) and Chargers at Chiefs (10:15 p.m., ESPN).
NASCAR
-The standings are set for the Chase. Denny Hamlin leads the way, and he’s brimming with confidence that this could be the year.
-Congratulations to Brandon Dean, who caps his first Late Model Stock championship with a win in the Motor Mile Speedway finale.
BASEBALL
-The Giants beat the Padres 6-1 to move into a first-place tie in the NL West. It’s far from a two-team race, though, as Colorado wins its 10th in a row to stay 1.5 games back.
-TV today: Nationals at Braves (7 p.m., MASN) and Blue Jays at Orioles (7 p.m., MASN2).
MAILBAG
-From Chris VanCantfort in Radford:
In today’s story McFarling lied! “we all” were not “so fooled”!
Can we expect a published correction?…I thought not.
Those of us who were not fooled were too busy paying attention to the truth. The truth, as I’ve shared with you all many times, is this. Those of us paying attention noticed that the Hokies rushing statistics were bloated last season at the expense of several very weak teams. It was not as if the Hokies were effective rushing against quality defensive opponents.
The Hokies rushing against quality defenses was very poor (Alabama – 64 yds., Nebraska – 86 yds., UNC – 95 yds.).
McFarling and King are very fond of focusing on and hyping the Hokies last 5 games (all victories) last year. Here are the facts, if they bothered to pay attention: the last five opponents had a combined record of 26-37. The last five opponents had an average rushing defense ranking of 62 in the nation. Today McFarling specifically cited the Hokies “destroying” Tennessee (65th rushing defense ranking and 7-6 record) and “humiliating” Virginia (95th rushing defense ranking and 3-9 record)! Yes, McFarling drank the Kool-Aid big time! For that matter, so did King.
So, my original email of more than a month ago (see below and other emails exchanged with King, et al BEFORE the season) answers McFarling’s questions “How could we all be so fooled? How?”
Answer: “we all” weren’t! And those who were fooled simply were not paying attention.
Publish that McFarling…if you dare!
IT’S A STRONG LETTER, GOOD POINTS, BUT I’m not sure he needed to turn into Skeletor with the last line.
AND FINALLY, THE NONSPORTS FAKE NEWS
-This guy couldn’t be more right.
NO, ACTUALLY, THAT’S NOT THE FINAL THING
-Thanks again to everybody here for their thoughtful words. It’s awesome to know people care. I’m a little embarrassed about the whole deal but you guys have been great. I promise that’s the last I’ll mention of it. Thanks again!
September 13, 2010 - 8:32 AM
I heard Stinespring and Foster after the game on the locker room show. Foster at least took responsibility. Stinespring didn’t even do that.
It was all about execution, according to them. Seems to me I used to hear another head coach, the former one at UVA (AG) say that alot. It was never that the coaches had a poor game plan or didn’t prepare the players.
And of another coach, the late John McKay, who said he was “all for” the execution of his offense.
I think that applies here.
No doubt one of the greatest sports quotes of all time, BobH.
It’s amazing we have never heard of Chris Whathisname from Radford before. He’s Nostradomus and Kirk Herbstreit rolled into one. Can’t believe ESPN hasn’t picked him up yet for Gameday. Thanks Aaron, for “daring” to publish his thoughts. Experts are everywhere, they just don’t come out until one of their many predictions comes true. The Hokies got whipped. If you were there, it was easy to see. Didn’t block, didn’t tackle and turned the ball over. Can’t win that way.
Yes, that was a controversial call on the Calvin Johnson TD “erasure.” Why? That may be the difference in winning and losing a fantasy game for me, depending on what happens tonight.
I’d say the final 4th down call for Vick was controversial, too. It looks like Stinespring was calling plays for Mike on that 4th down sneak. Why in the world a coach doesn’t call a play to utilize a guys strength – his speed – is beyond me.
Get him on the edge. If he can’t get a yard that way, the other team deserves to win, but you can blame only yourself trying to ram him up the middle like they did. Philly might’ve pulled it out (forced OT, anyway).
#3,
It was a classic case of “just show up with the unforms on” for VT. That was all they thought was necessary to win the game. JMU had other ideas.
An NCSU assistant coach told me years ago (I won’t mention his name) that just about every coach in the country knows how to beat VT under Beamer.
1) Keep the VT defense off the scoreboard. 2) play even on special teams.
If you do 1 and 2 you will be in the game in the 4th quarter. Then, anything can happen. You can wait for VT to self destruct or if you get a 4th quarter lead on them, you have a 9 out of 10 chance of winning the game. VT seldom comes back from behind to win in the 4th quarter.
I might add to that, that when VT has come back it has been pretty miraculous. The comeback against Nebraska doesn’t happen without a defensive lapse, ditto for GT in 2004.
The greatest offensive games for VT under Beamer have been largely losses. Syracuse (50-42), the insight bowl against Cal, the GT game froma few years ago, where the playbook gets thrown out and the staff finally pulls out the stops because they are behind too far. heck, I would wager we don’t put 30 on BSU without getting behind 17-0.
The team that thought it was a national contender isn’t even the best team in its own state.
This one hurt. At least Temple was D1.
The thing is, when you’re 10th in one national poll and sixth in another to open the season, that’s an overflowing bucket of “fooled” people. I’ll be the first to admit I was among them.
Wow I’m not a Tech fan but Chris Vandelay needs to lay of the coffee and stick to the importing and exporting!
Aaron, it seems like every year there is one team that crashes the preseason Top 25 party and is grossly over ranked.
This year, it just happened to be Tech, and really, we won’t know until the season is over, but Frank might just rally the troops. We’ll know in 10 games, but I’m not holding my breath on it. The O-Line is just too bad.
I’d pretty much written off a couple recent seasons, when the October swoon hit, and things turned around somehow.
The way this program is, history is more on the side of turning it around than falling apart. Let’s be real. The ACC sucks.
O.G., Doesn’t he manufacture latex on the side as well.
BobH, I agree, I think the Hokies showed up thinking they had a cake walk and when they realized this was a real game, it was too late to turn it on. However, if it’s true that “An NCSU assistant coach told me years ago (I won’t mention his name) that just about every coach in the country knows how to beat VT under Beamer”, why haven’t they. Beamer’s record at VT is 187-94-2 and 163-55 in the last 17 seasons. That’s not too bad. I’d say not that many people have known how to beat him or VT.
BobH–I don’t know about your logic there…Every coach knows how to beat VT. From that abstract a level, every coach knows how to beat Alabama, Ohio State and everyone else, too.
At what point do teams put in place their “don’t let the defense score” offense? And, virtually every team at least talks about winning or breaking even on special teams.
If this is so simple, why hasn’t it happened more often?
It’s true that teams that fall way behind take risks to catch up, although the way that VT scored on BSU was driven more by turnovers than anything else. And, the way they didn’t score this past week was also driven by turnovers.
Finally, it looks like the way to beat this particular team is to load up the line, dare them to pass, and run the football against suspect defensive front seven.
@ #5 – Sounds like that NCSU coach, and all the others that “know how to beat VT under Beamer” have really schemed up a brilliant plan to win football games… you just have to keep the other team from doing what they are usually good at! Really? Did that NCSU coach really think that he was telling you any real or useful information in any shape or form that you weren’t capable of figuring out on your own with his magical “formula” for beating a coach who traditionally has a good defense and special teams? Whew, I’m glad that Mr. NCSU Assistant was able to figure that one out, or else nobody would ever be able to compete with VT… It’s a good thing that you didn’t let this coaches name out, I’d hate for him to be overwhelmed with lucrative coaching offers by teams who want to use his genius. If we’re not careful, the next golden tidbit of knowledge that this NCSU assistant coach will bestow upon us peons is that if we want to win football games, then all we’ve got to do is score more points than the other team.
I agree that VT doesn’t all that often come back from 4th quarter deficits… but are there really a bunch of teams out there that DO make a habit of coming from behind in the 4th quarter? Where are these teams that are consistently winning games by coming from behind in the 4th quarter?
I’m a Hokie Alum, Fan, the whole works. I try to look for the positive whenever possible when it comes to VT, but if this game last week wasn’t a sign that something in our coaching staff needs to be shaken up, then I don’t know what it’s going to take.
Please, just please, don’t tell me AGAIN that our problem was “execution.”
The ACC really did wonders for proving themselves as a basketball conference Saturday. Instead of stepping up, the whole conference seemed like a kid trying to go the wrong way on a water slide who thinks he is going to make it to the top, but ends up giving up, sliding to the bottom, and ends up just sitting in that foot and a half of fly infested water the rest of the day beside the Big East. Speaking the Big East, guessing Tech didn’t watch WVU and Marshall Friday night.
Saturday was weird in Blacksburg. It was like a hybrid of the 98 Temple loss and the Matt Ryan BC loss. The walk back to the car takes so much longer on those days.
Bad day for Kevin Kolb. He plays bad, gets knocked out, Vick goes Vick on everyone, and then McNabb gets a victory in Washington.
Skeletor confuses me. I’m not sure how you lied to him or that’s shared things with me many times before, but he is tricky like that I guess. But props for excepting the dare by the power of Greyskull and I might spend this afternoon teepeeing Snake Mountain.
Glad you’re feeling better and hope they figure it all out man. I know from experience it sucks when they don’t know, although hopefully for your sake they didn’t also drop in “that is so weird.” I got that one time in the ER, nothing like a doctor telling you they don’t know and you are bizarre.
Oh and didn’t Will Smith find a cure zombies? I think it was like zombie blood mixed with Tequila and pixie sticks, but I’m not positive.
Guys, its real simple. Don’t turn the ball over, don’t get burned on ST’s and you will be within a score against VT at the end of the game. Then anything can happen (a busted play, etc).
BSU turned the ball over twice but was able to keep the VT defense off the board. They actually outplayed VT special teams, And won. JMU turned it over none.
The myth about VT’s vaunted special teams is over. And the offense that was supposed to be so great this year is anything but.
Who can forget how we heard we were going to be seeing a “new and improved” Sean Glennon for 2 seasons and when he took the field it was the same deer in the headlights statue it was before.
I am not saying Beamer is a bad coach. His loyalty to assistants is a laudable trait but it can go too far.
@13 – “I am not saying Beamer is a bad coach. His loyalty to assistants is a laudable trait but it can go too far.”
in my opinion, you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head right there.
the other stuff about not letting the defense score and outplaying the special teams is basic common knowledge and applies to most any team, but you’ve scored a bulls-eye with your last sentence.
Been thinking about dropping off a book of stamps at the VT athletic center this morning. They’ll need additional postage after mailing in Saturday’s game.
Some peaple make comments on whos coaching they have> Never fitted a kid with a helmet.> never played the game (oh little league or sat the bench in high school.How about this the only time most of you saw the field was halftime with the band. Know your role and shut your mouth. Speaking from experience I do coach football played football and was damn good at it I havent seen 1 coach go out there make a tackle, fumble a football..All they can do is put the team in the best situation to win the game & thye did there job both weeks….. All teams have a bad year maybe its Techs turn We had a good run in the past few years im not jumping ship. I hope all of the bandwagon peaple do..
ACC play will be coming soon i’ll be there supporting “The Team” Coaches and Players…..
Hokie24, How can you say that at least part of the problem WASN’T execution when there were 3 critical turnovers?? Granted, I think Tech got outcoached, but coaches don’t fumble, throw INT’s and miss tackles. That’s not game planning or coaching. On the 77 yard screen pass, 5 defenders hit the ball-carrier but no one wrapped him up and made a tackle. That’s poor execution. I heard some people blaming the Boise State lose on the black uniforms. Maybe the JMU lose was due to the C-17 being late on the fly over.
@16 – mark… don’t make assumptions about people that you know nothing about. you have no idea who here did or didn’t play football themselves. those assumptions make your words look useless.
i can’t speak for anyone else, but i don’t believe that our offensive coaches did put VT in the best situation to win the game this past weekend. if that’s their job, and that’s “all they can do…” then they didn’t get it done this weekend. if they would at least take responsibility and not blame it all on execution again, then at least that would be one step in the right direction.
yes, VT’s tackling and fumbles have been issues in the last two games. the defense allowed fewer points in week 2 than it did in week 1, so i’ll give them the benefit of doubt. at least they are headed in the right direction in that aspect. but the offense did not improve production from week 1 to week 2 against what should have been lesser competition, and in fact scored 14 FEWER points against a 1-school than they did against the #3 team in the country. if our coaches were really putting VT into the best possible situation to win against a 1-AA team that we had beaten by a combined score of 89-0 in our last two meetings, should 1 or 2 fumbles really cost VT the game?
My thoughts on VT: there’s some real trouble with the team this year that a lot of pre-season hype glossed over or completely missed. They have some great weapons, but like my Detroit Lions proved when they had Barry Sanders…all that talent doesn’t do much when the O-line leaves holes big enough to drive a truck through, and couldn’t block the high school powder puff team either. I don’t think those are problems that can be readily coached away…the O-Line has stunk for years, and now it’s more apparent than ever.
Defensively, they ought to improve through the season as they gain experience…I sure as heck hope they do. If not, this is going to be a long year and the losses could hit 5 or more, no joke. ECU has a pretty nice offense and if they can put up points early Saturday, I look for it to be another long afternoon in Lane. Regardless, the best bet in the country is taking the Pirates to cover the spread…17.5 from Vegas is FAR TOO generous.
ACC? The Mountain West is better right now. Their performance Saturday as a whole did absolutely everything to solidify the popular opinion that the conference is a pretender top-down. A scant 2 BCS wins in more than a decade. VT, the arguably (at least before the JMU game) league’s best team has had just 1 win over a top-5 program in the Beamer era. Three of the league’s other best teams go on the road and lose…one absolutely destroyed, and one to a team that just lost to a FCS school. Awful.
Perhaps this whole situation and the last decade of VT football is proving one thing: 99-00 was a fluke. If it was not a fluke and VT had really moved into the elite level of college football…where are the BCS wins? Where are the wins against top-5 opponents? They aren’t there. One BCS win over Cincinnati, and a home win over Miami…and that’s it. Just 2 ‘signature’ wins in terms of what defines an ‘elite’ program. Sure, they’re won 6 conference titles…but outside of that, just 2 signature wins? Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the VT program as a whole and re-assess exactly what they are: a top-25 program that can flirt with the top-10, but that’s about it. They’ve peaked and have hovered there for more than a decade, but have not, and apparently cannot, take the next step with their current routine and staff. Maybe that’s acceptable though…hoping for 10 wins and a decent bowl game and the occasional conference title. Maybe that’s all that’s possible…who knows. I know we won’t see much more without significant changes though.
Speaking of my Lions…the call was right, the rule stinks. But, the injury to Stafford may well prove more damaging to their season than a rule biting them and taking their best chance to win a road game in several years. The Eagles look to have a lot of trouble if they don’t switch to Vick at QB. I think he gives them their best chance at winning.
how many schools are there out there with winning records against top-5 teams?
don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see VT get more opportunities to play and compete with top-5 teams, but just think about that logic about a team’s record against top-5 teams for a second… would a top-5 team really be a top-5 team if they didn’t win most all of their games? and if top-5 teams win most of their games, doesn’t that mean that most all other teams will have a losing record against them?
i’d have to guess that there aren’t many teams that have winning records against top-5 teams when they aren’t top-5 themselves.
@21 – OtherJohn – one thing that you are absolutely right about… the offensive line has been sub-par for years. the players change each year with graduation and such… but the offensive coaches haven’t changed. simple logic tells me that if changing the players each year doesn’t change the results… but the same coaches are still there… then shouldn’t some of the unchanged variables be tinkered with if we really want to change the results?
it’s kinda like folks who talk about how all of their past relationships have been so bad and can’t figure out why. i hate to break it to those folks, but the only common denominator in all of your past bad relationships is looking at you in the mirror
it feels like we may have a little bit of this mentality going on at VT.
ahh crap… the smiley face was supposed to be between “mirror” and “it” in my last sentence. i didn’t know it would be out of place like that. my bad.
I’m trying to figure out a way to fix that for ya, hokie 24, but it looks like you put it in the right place when you typed it in and the computer system just put it wherever it wanted.
Context is key. That’s like when my cheesing mug shot shows up in the paper under some hard-core headline: “Marcus Vick has to go!” I need a serious-looking backup mug.
Justafan,
When a kid as talented as Tyrod Taylor is still floating the ball instead of zipping it, when he is still locking on to the primary and ONLY receiver, when he is taking a sack instead of throwing the ball away, he is not getting coached properly. The int Tyrod threw he locked onto the receiver. The floater to Boykin and numerous other ones are coachable techniques.
Tyrod’s fumble is again a coachable mistake. You hold onto a ball with better technique, particularly on a wet field.
90th in offense isn’t going to win you games, it is going to lose you games. It is that simple.
Boy I miss the call in show…..what fun I could have tonight
@18 – Justafan – sure, execution was certainly a part of the problem, but what caused the lack of execution? in my opinion, the lack of execution in Saturday’s game could be credited to the openly publicized lack of full-contact practice during last week’s practices. the players themselves have been quoted as saying that they were hoping for more full-contact practicing last week and didn’t get it. if the lack of full-contact is going to be credited for our bad tackling and fumbling, then that’s fine. but who’s decision is it to practice in an in-effective way? are you sure that’s not “game planning or coaching?”
LOL Jason! Thought you were from Arlington, though.
hokie24…regarding the top-5…you’re right, there aren’t many opportunities to beat top-5 teams because top-5 teams don’t lose often. But, just 1 win in nearly 20 tries? That says something. If VT was more like say 6-10…I don’t think there would be a concern about VT not being up for big-game challenges. But just one win is a good indicator that one or more of the following areas of the VT football program needs improvement for VT to move into that ‘elite’ category of football teams: coaching, playbook and/or play-calling (coaching), player talent (recruiting), player execution (goes back to coaching…also on the players for discipline…but that can be linked to coaching as well), or we just always play a team that is flat-out better than us in all respects and that’s why we can’t beat a top-level team.
But like you said, the face in the mirror of VT football is the only real common denominator, and at some point, folks need to take a look at that reality. Beamer has done wonders for VT and taken the program to heights they never expereinced before his arrival, but it appears that they have reached a glass ceiling that they cannot break and despite all sorts of offensive and defensive talent, they keep falling short of reaching that next level. Whether it’s those dang October swoons, slow starts, or inability to beat a top-5 program…they always seem to fall just short of climbing the football ladder. Maybe some fresh faces on the sidelines is what the program needs going forward. I only hope that VT does not experience the decline that FSU did when Bowden hung on a few too many extra seasons…and like Penn State seems to be going through now with them losing ground to the rest of the Big 10.
OJ, Be careful what you wish for. Eleven or twelve years ago, UVA fans were thinking the same things about Welsh that you are about Beamer. It has taken all this time for UVA to apparently get back on track (with a few glimpses of promise since then).
Yeah OG…I know. Perhaps 10-11 wins and getting shelled in a BCS game every few years is the best we can get and hope for. If so, then no changes are needed.
My mistake…that’s Geoff…not OG. I need to quit quitting on the caffeine and just realize that my dependence upon it is crucial to my staying sharp.
OJ – You won’t find me disagreeing with your post at #29. I think the arrival of Michael Vick started the influx of super-high-end talent at VT. I think that we still get great talent, but I do think that we’re still a little uncomfortable many times with how to best utilize them. while I don’t like a 1-19 or whatever record it is against top-5 teams, I’m glad that we play them. we’ll never improve if we don’t continue to play against that level of competition. i’d rather play them and lose than not play them at all.
I would love to see this coaching staff achieve a national title and be considered in the company of elite teams in college football. but i’m also realistic enough to see that there’s something missing in our coaching staff to take us to that next level. honestly, i think Beamer can accomplish these goals, i really think that he wants it, but he may need to shake up his offensive staff and upset some gentlemen that he considers good friends to make that happen. i think his loyalty to his staff is great, but sometimes I think it bites him in the rear-end too.
Hokie 24,
Excellent points! Plus, when people bring up JoePa they forget that he did make changes. One of which is that the best players play whereas before he always gave the nod to upperclassmen.
But, keep in mind, VT was good before Vick too. We won the Sugar Bowl in 1995 and not against sisters of the poor Cincinnati but against perennial power Texas. We went to the Orange Bowl the next year. Point being VT didn’t just start being good or getting good players when MV1 arrived.
Perhaps Sean McDonough was more than right on in his announcing of the Nebraska game last year. I don’t think Sean had seen us very much before that game (although who can forget that he was the play by play guy in the WVu 22-20 win in 1999). His words were “How in the world does Virginia Tech win 10 games every year with an offense like this?”
Spoken by a guy who has seen alot of great football teams on the field.
Thanks BobH.
I agree that VT was a solid team before Vick, but Vick was a talent like nothing many people had ever seen. His success at VT changed the caliber of players that came to VT.
But yeah, I remember that 1995 year beating Texas in the Sugar Bowl… and I also remember that 1995 started out 0-2…
I took the time to go back through VT’s schedule and results in the Beamer era, and what I found confirmed my earlier thoughts that they are a top-25 program, but not really top-10 except for rare flirtations.
Against teams ranked 1-5, VT is a paltry 1-17, with an average loss margin of 15.6 points. VT is generally, on average, not even close.
Against teams ranked 6-10, VT has fared slightly better: 4-12. But that’s still a dismal 5-29 against teams ranked in the top 10. And the average loss margin in those games is 16.5 points. For their 5 top-5 wins, the average margin of victory is 11.
But, VT does extremely well against teams ranked 11-25, with a solid 31-13-1 record under Beamer. The average margin of victory in those games is a healthy 18.6 points per game. In their losses, the average margin has been 12.8 points.
What it shows is that VT is not an elite program, and despite nearly 3-dozen attempts to beat top-10 programs, it’s a near sure-fire bet that they won’t…no matter how good the team actually is. It seems more psychological (for players and coaches) than anything, because I don’t think that VT is really that bad of a program that they just can’t beat top-10 programs with any regularity…but seem to have no problem at all with lesser-ranked teams. Maybe it really is the talent level though, because if they constantly recruit a sub-20 team, maybe the best they can ever hope for is to beat 11-25 ranked teams and maybe, every so often, win one against a top-10 school with better talent.
I guess it’s open for interpretation.
In my opinion, “elite” changes from year to year, and according to all ranking and poll voters, “elite” changes from week to week. Has VT been among the elite? Yes, they certainly have. Are they so far this season? Not anymore. Did VT really become less of a team because of Saturday’s loss? Did their players change? Did Tyrod or any other players lose any ability? Or did they just play an awful game? Would VT lose again if they played JMU again this year? The last two times that VT got a chance to play a team twice in the same year, they convincingly won the second meeting after losing the first (Boston College in 07 and 08). This is all just more proof that rankings and polls are about as useful as voting for the homecoming queen. I think that pollsters forget that this is supposed to be a sport, not a statistics assignment. If the pollsters were really as all-knowing about who’s better than who as they think they are, then we wouldn’t even have to play the games. Don’t get me wrong, when you lose to JMU, you shouldn’t even sniff the rankings for a good while. But what sense does it make for JMU to receive top-25 votes for beating a team who now received no top 25 votes? Does anybody see the problem with this logic?
For example… imagine this conversation between 2 AP voters…
Voter1 – “Yes, I’m voting for JMU for the top 25…”
Voter2 – “why?”
Voter1 – “Because they beat VT.”
Voter2 – “Oh ok… so VT is in the top 25?”
Voter1 – “No, I’m not giving VT a top 25 vote.”
Voter2 – “why not?”
Voter1 – “Because they lost to JMU…”
Doesn’t anybody see how screwed up the ranking systems are? And then we want to base the success of a program on rankings? No thanks.
But I’ve heard the word “elite” thrown around a lot by college football talking heads lately… So what makes you part of the “elite?” How many teams are allowed to be considered “elite?”
If elite is based on wins vs top ranked competition, I just don’t think that you’re gonna find very many teams, if any, that have winning records against top 5 or top 10 teams. If there were a bunch of teams out there with winning records against top teams, then they are either improperly ranked too low themselves, or they are consistently playing teams that are overrated. Statistically, it just wouldn’t make sense to have any teams consistently winning against the top 5, unless they are consistently higher than their competition in the top 5 themselves.
I’m gonna look for some stats on which teams are the best/worst against top-5 and top-10 teams. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but I’m guessing that I won’t find many teams, if any, that win the majority of their games against top-5 teams. I think the results will be interesting… if I could ever find this data!!
If this statement below is true, then VA Tech’s football program is better than any coach but Beamer could make it, and they are truly lucky to have him! Virginia Tech is located apart from any large city, in a climate that is awful during the winter, and has a stadium that seats 30,000 less than the super stadiums. Find me any coach anywhere, at any time, who could beat that record under those conditions! [The drawback is Beamer's time when Tech had around 20 arrests in a 20-month period, however.]
“against teams ranked 11-25, with a solid 31-13-1 record under Beamer.”
hokie24 Maybe you should go coach the Hokies So we can bash you when a 18 to 22r old doesnt do his job . Good luck buddy haha
hokie24, the most I did because it’s too time-consuming was to look at the two programs that folks keep mentioning VT with due to the ten-plus wins per season streak. Looking from 2003 through 2009, I reviewed the records for VT, Texas, and USC.
Texas went 2-3 against the top 5, 2-2 against the next 5, and 13-0 against teams ranked outside the top 10. USC had records of 1-1, 7-1, and 14-1 respectively. VT had 1-5, 4-0, and 10-4, respectively. Overall, Texas is 17-5, USC is 22-3, and VT is 15-9. Those are not including bowl games.
The other notable stat I looked at was losses to non-ranked opponents. Texas had 5, USC 7, and VT 10.
@39 – mark, mark, mark… why would i get chosen to be the coach when you’ve already made it clear how “damn good” of a football player and coach that you are in post #16?
OJ – i’ve looked for stats against top ranked competition too, but those numbers are really hard to find in a format that you can look at without spending hours and hours compiling them together! and then when you do find it, it’s hard to tell if that’s against teams that ended the year at that rank… or were only at that rank at the time of the game… it’s so many ways that different stats people see it. thanks for gathering up what you’ve got there. VT, Texas, and USC are probably 3 good teams to compare to each other. I would venture to say that VT plays as tough, or tougher of a schedule than Texas, and certainly a tougher schedule than USC, so it doesn’t surprise me to see your numbers reflect that. that’s not saying that VT is any better than Texas or USC at all… but VT isn’t far behind based on your numbers over that length of time.
my only point that i was trying to make about records against top 5 teams is that NOBODY that regularly plays against top 5 teams has a winning record against top 5 teams. if they did, the rankings just wouldn’t make sense… you know what i mean?
I do get what you mean, and looking at what I was able to find with Texas and USC, it appears that even those two programs, vaunted as they are, can’t do better than 0.500 against fellow top-5 programs, though I would expect that since USC and Texas are perennial top-5 programs, whereas with VT they are generally top-10ish.
But you’re right, compiling the stats I did find took a while, and I had to try several different sources to find data that used the rankings at the time of the game.
I looked up another school that’s been good in the 03-09 time period, Florida. They’ve actually got a winning record against the top-5 at 6-3. They also went 6-3 against 6-10, but only 6-6 against 11-25, with 5 losses to unranked teams. So their top-10 record is 12-6, and overall top-25 record is 18-12.
Perhaps VT suffers from a similar situation I notived years ago when comparing the rosters of minor leage hockey teams to NHL teams. There was a pretty stark difference one could see when looking at player profiles: 2 inches, 20 pounds. Generally, the pros had extra height and weight compared to minor leaguers…and maybe the same sort of factor is at play for VT when compared to the schools like USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, etc…where VT just is not able to recruiot the same caliber of players as those schools, and will always be at a slight disadvantage on the field (and in the minds of voters), except for very rare situations where enough things come together like the 99-00 season.
It’s sort of for that reason that I highly dislike that there is not a playoff in division 1 football. I do not see how anyone can logically argue that Boise State is legitimately the 3rd best squad in the country. They have a soft schedule that will allow them to finish with either an undefeated record or maybe only one loss. That should not grant them the ability to potentially challenge for a national title though. If they played a full season in the SEC or Big 10, they lose 3 or 4 of those games, easy. That’s not to say they’re not a good team, but they’re not among the best programs out there…they’re riding their ability to play up to the level of better schools in single-game situations and their ability to pound their weaker conference foes through the rest of the year.
OJ – it sounds like you and I see college football in very much the same way. i 100% agree with you about the need for some sort of a playoff in division 1 football. i will never, ever understand how a bunch of writers and a couple of computer programs, that can’t possibly be capable of watching all of the games, are somehow capable of accurately deciding which two out of 120+ teams are the best two and are the only two that have a right to play for the championship.
basically, the way that champions are decided now in my opinion is very similar to the way that high schools choose prom queens, a simple popularity contest, and it sucks. conference champions are decided 100% on the field (except in rare cases like the Big12 and their 3-way tie 2 years ago)… why can’t the national champ be decided the same way?
Love the research guys. O.J. — if you’ve got time to compare the rosters of minor league hockey teams to NHL teams, surely you’ve got a second to email your shipping address to aaron.mcfarling@roanoke.com. That pilsner glass and night light are still sittin’ here waiting to be sent to our own version of Jimmy the Greek (without the racial insensitivity).
OJ – that’s interesting with Florida too. a winning record against the top end teams, but closer to .500 as the reach the lower end of the top 25. is that because they play more ranked teams within their conference that may not be in the top 5? is it because when they do play a top 5 team, that their opponent isn’t an SEC school and the SEC is perceived as stronger? who’s to say? it’s really hard to tell. there’s so many ways to look at these types of numbers.
Aaron, I had replied to an e-mail you sent to me while I was out of town. I did send it via my Blackberry while standing inside the Barracks Rd Kroger though, so maybe that’s why you didn’t get it. I’ll send another one…
Cool man, we’re all set. Sorry if it arrived before and I missed it. That’s been known to happen with me.
It was probably some secret Wahoo conspiracy to deprive me of that kickin’ Pilsner glass. There’s a beer waiting in the fridge for its arrival…