So…about January
THE GREAT THING ABOUT BRAIN SURGERY is the story doesn’t need a ton of augmentation. You get bitten by a tick and contract some rare mystery virus that turns your skin purple, people are gonna want some details. Brain surgery? Nah, they’re good.
“Sir, you’re a week late on your electric bill.”
“Brain surgery.”
“OK, carry on.”
I’m still fighting some headaches and haven’t yet been cleared to drive, but I’m feeling a lot better. I’m moving well, thinking clearly, reading and/or eating whatever I can get my hands on. I am deeply thankful for the support of so many over the past three weeks. It’s time to start clawing back into the real world.
SO, NOTHING HAPPENED IN JANUARY, RIGHT? Only massive coaching changes in Blacksburg, Lance Armstrong’s doping admission, the Manti Te’o saga, college basketball heating up and that little thing called the Super Bowl approaching in six days. Let’s try to catch up as quickly as possible.
HOKIES CHANGES
Like what I’m hearing out of new Virginia Tech offensive line coach Jeff Grimes. From Andy’s blog: “What I’m worried about is developing the toughest line in the ACC. And that’s something that is hard to measure and it’s one of those things that you can’t necessarily put a statistic with it, but I think you know it when you see it. That’s going to be my number one goal and approach. In order for us to do that, we’ve got to have the mindset up front, in order for us to do the things on offense, particularly running the football, we’ve got to have the approach up front that we’re going to dominate the game from the offensive line position. It’s the only way it works. It’s the only way your offense takes a physical approach. We’ve got to be essentially the big brothers of everybody else on the offense. I believe we’re the tip of the spear, so to speak, the first in to fight. And if we do our job with the right approach and the right mindset, then I think the other guys will follow.”
-To me, that was the biggest thing that was missing with the Hokies this year. Seems new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler is of a similar mindset as Grimes. Time will tell, obviously, but they seem to have identified what needs to change and are saying the right things about changing it.
LANCE
I’m glad he didn’t go to the grave with the “never failed a test” defiance. It’s just so sad that it took as long as it did, and so many innocent people had to get hurt and/or sued along the way.
TE’O
I’m still trying to figure out why so much has been made of this. Are there actually people sitting at home, mouths agape, eager for the next nugget of information to come out about a made-up girlfriend? Outside of Jay Leno and David Letterman (who get some room-service jokes out of the deal) and reporters who initially ran with the fake story and feel the need to set the record straight, I don’t get why any of this matters all that much.
TECH HOOPS
The Hokies have sandwiched four losses around wins over Georgia Tech and Wake Forest this month, including yesterday’s 77-70 defeat at Clemson. Next up: surging Miami in Blacksburg on Wednesday night. The Hokies clearly aren’t getting enough out of Robert Brown since conference play started, and the lack of depth has been killer. They’re playing hard, but it’s tough to see many wins left on the schedule.
UVA HOOPS
Good stuff happening in Charlottesville. The Cavs have won three straight conference games by 14 points or more and have yet to allow an ACC foe to reach 60 points. Big test coming to JPJ tomorrow night, as N.C. State visits at 7 p.m.
MONDAY HEADLINES: Antone Exum suffers torn ACL, will miss 6-9 months…Berman’s game story on Tech-Clemson…Miami crushes Florida State to move to 6-0 in ACC…Tiger Woods closing in on Farmers Insurance Open victory, will play final 11 holes at 2:10 p.m. today.
NAME THAT TUNE
Billy Joe McAllister Jr. showed up at the reunion
Clean-cut shaved, decked out in Armani’s best
In perfect spoken English he said ‘Nowadays I go by William’
And he talked about his new life and money he’d made out West
And he tried his hardest not to be that old boy we all knew
Till he pulled out that Earnhardt wallet on that chain hooked to his belt loop…
January 28, 2013 - 8:21 AM
Yay!! Glad to see you back, Aaron!
As for the song, I have no idea. Sounds like a country song, though and I ain’t no fan of country music!
The MAC attack is back! Welcome back to the land of the living, man. It is so good to have the briefing back.
I think Grimes is going to be a favorite of yours given your offensive line fetish every season.
Tough loss for the Hokies, but they fought hard. They can’t keep depending on Erick Green to carry the scoring load because eventually, it will wear him out, and team will double on him.
Anybody watch the pro bowl last night? I completely forgot about it and it sounded like another snoozer.
The ACC basketball is getting mighty interesting. I would have thought Miami would have destroyed Puke (God Almighty, that feels good to type it!), but naturally, Puke would bounce back to destroy the Eagles. I have thought that UVa was getting better in basketball with Tony’s defensive scheme (I think he should be the DC for UVa football team).
Lance Armstrong? Move on. He’s a liar and made us all fools.
Te’o? He’s the reason I stay away from Victoria’s Secret now…to many fake girls.
Realized that I listed to wrong team that Puke beat during the weekend, and it was the Turtles from College Park. Writing about Puke makes my brain cells work slower than my fingers. I also meant to say that I would have never seen Miami destroying Puke the way they did.
UNC, on the other hand, is having a down year…again. It seem to happen to Roy quite frequently in his career. I suppose it is not as easy to recruit all blue-chips players year after year, especially when UNC were able to hold on to the tournament players for as long as they were able to.
To be quite honest, I haven’t paid much attention to basketball. I guess I have short attention span when it comes to basketball. Perhaps I have fallen in love with football more than basketball? That would only make sense.
That, and I’m also taking classes, so that may have something to do with it.
Anyway, I’m just glad the A-mac is back in style and kicking, Zack Morris’ style.
Dope!
Glad to see you back.
Glad you’re back and doing well. Very proud of the UVA hoops team, the freshmen are making huge contributions. Also, watching the Hokies game yesterday, hopefully other guys are getting on track again. Eddie, Brown and Rankin all seemed to get some confidence. Also, A-Mac just wanted to give you a heads up and give you all something else to talk about. Penn State has dropped UVA from their football schedule this year and UVA is close to a deal to go play at Oregon this year… Oh joy.
Can’t say that I’ve ever seen anyone refer to any “great thing about brain surgery” but I’m very glad you’re feeling better.
I’ve actually spent some time thinking about stories that were missed on here over the past few weeks. The one local item that I wanted to at least opine about was a local HS girls basketball game last week between Floyd County & Eastern Montgomery. I may be mistakent, but I think the final score was 108-20, Floyd County. I hate to say this, but if it was a boys score, there probably would have been more publicity regarding what I would consider poor sportsmanship and running up the score. But even though it’s a girls game, I need to call a spade a spade and go on the record here. I’m sure their backups were also better than the losing team’s backups, but at some point don’t you just call off the dogs?!? That’s ridiculous, at least to me.
WELCOME back Aaron! Nice to hear you’re recovering well and easing yourself back into work.
Terrible news about Antone Exum. Hope he recovers quickly and can help us out against Bama.
Welcome back, Aaron. Billy Joe McAllister was the guy who jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge in the Bobbie Gentry song Ode to Billy Joe. That`s not the song though-just a little trivia.
Welcome back!
Great to have you back A-Mac!
AMac, very nice to see you back in the saddle. I’ve got to ask, though, no thoughts about the steroid heads – Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa being denied Hall of Fame credentials? As much of a baseball guy as you are, I figured that would be up there with the Lance Armstrong stuff. So, what did you think? BTW, do you have a vote?
Right now just count this as rumor but there is talk that Oregon is going to be the team that will replace Penn St. on the UVA football schedule this year.. Penn St. wanted out and word is that Oregon is working on breaking there deal with Nevada to play UVA.. I think this is about as bad as Tech opening there season with Alabama..
Only thing about the Pro Bowl last night that was worth watching is when Jeff Saturday (NFC) came out and snapped the ball to Peyton (AFC) one last time..
You Can’t Hide Redneck-Tracey Lawrence. Welcome Back AAron. I hope your health continues to get better.
Welcome back A-man, glad you are doing better.
Don’t have time to comment much this morning, but welcome back Aaron. Pace yourself old boy and stay in recovery mode.
Aaron, totally agree on your Te’o take. As for VT B-ball, I think the inside no-game is more of a problem than Brown’s difficulties.
Happy you are back. For what it’s worth, be patient with your recovery. What you went through is no joke.
About January:
1. Lance is apparently still in denial as plenty more has come out indicating he wasn’t really coming clean with Opra. I don’t know that I care that he cheated when so many others were, too. I do care that he is a worthless bully and scoundrel. Perjury, etc., is worse than the cheating business. I hope he gets really and truely humiliated financially as well.
2. Hokie Hoops. We all knew it would be a tough year. I love JJ and how the team is playing. No drama, no pouting, no hysteria on the sidelines. I still say this was a good decision.
3. Hokie Football. Everyone neglects to realize that Beamer calls the shots. Hope for some sort of offensive uptick (I interpret as a desire for the spread formation) is not a happening event in B-burg. Beamer hired more of the same philosophy (pound the rock) and the tough guy attitude of the new coaches is no different than the tough guy attitude of the past coaches. Will we go from a 20 pass a game to 60 pass a game offense? Not likely. Will new faces yield a new result? We’ll see.
4. Exum. Thank goodness he did not declare for the NFL. He gets to do his rehab a VT and we’ll see how it goes.
5. Fake Girl. I think this is a story only because the “media” bought it hook line and sinker and are looking for someone to blame who is not the “media”. Every parent tells their kid to watch out for on-line relationships. This one is a poster child example. Glad it wasn’t me but how in the world does anyone expect this kid to be so sophisticated when we all believe our own children could fall victim?
Ode to Billy Joe: I HATE THAT song. Thanks for ruining my day by bringing it up. Let’s romanticize suicide some more!
Rant of the day over until CR posts.
Once again, glad to have you back.
And big thing of January missing:
1. Danica and what’shisname as an item.
2. Legs Lindsey and Tiger. Really?
Welcome back, milk the recovery as long as you can. As for the basketball team, when you can’t shoot and play defense, bad things happen. Also, when you want to run an up tempo game and the ball handler is always ahead of the wing players, you don’t generate many easy baskets. As I’ve said all along, offensive linemen have a different mindset and apparently the new OL coach agrees. I think the Hokie linemen are about to be introduced to the real world of training and blocking. Again, welcome back and good health for years to come.
Regarding Manti Te’o, the biggest “story” here is probably what “could have” happened, not what happened. For instance, what if the Tuiasasopo character had more nefarious intentions and used the ‘truth’ to blackmail Te’o? And what if those connections had an impact on the outcome of the national championship game?
Normally I wouldn’t think something so crazy, but this story was all about unthinkably crazy and unexpected twists from the start. Toss in the fact that Te’o missed more tackles in in the first half of the Alabama game than he did for the entire season, and also made several bad defensive calls that led to missed assignments on those early drives, and it makes me wonder —- particularly after he admitted that he knew the truth and lied about it for a month beforehand.
I truly doubt this is the case, but the angle hasn’t been raised anywhere in the media (ESPN’s huge financial stake in the BCS doesn’t lend to journalistic integrity here). Further, the fact that Te’o could open himself up to a complete stranger and potentially put himself or his team at risk has to be a HUGE warning flag to the folks in the NFL. If he is truly that gullible, I don’t see how it doesn’t impact his draft status, even if he can tackle like a Mac truck.
Something else that occurred during your absence. The same day deaths of Stan the Man and the Earl of Baltimore, two baseball legends. Barely remember seeing Stan on TV the last couple of years of his career, but what a great player. Saw Earl many times at Memorial Stadium, my all-time favorite manager. Enjoyed him as a commentator also. When the song Talkin Baseball came out I bought a record at the stadium that had the Baltimore version of Talkin Baseball on one side (it had an aerial view of the stadium on that side) and a song called The Earl of Baltimore on the other (that side had a picture of Earl). When I got home after hearing of his passing I had to dust off the old turntable and listen to it again.
One great news I read on Twitter this morning:
UNC and Kentucky have agreed to renew their rivalry. Hello! That is, indeed, great news because I think those two blue blood programs are among the best (maybe not this year), but I think this is exciting for college basketball.
As for UVA-Oregon tilt, from what I understand, it is pretty much a sealed deal. I feel bad for London because I don’t know if UVa has the ability to even slow down Quack Attack, Chip Kelly or not.
Welcome back, Aaron! Glad to have you back around.
I’ll only chime in on VT hoops…the depth and lack of pretty much anything outside of Green hurts. Their schedule realistically only has 2 or 3 more wins in the regular season: home games against GT and Clemson, and a roadie against Wake. Outside of those 3 games, it’s really, really hard to see any winnable games. 12 games left, 5 are against ranked teams (Miami-2, Duke-2, NC State) and another 4 are against UNC, UVA, FSU, and Maryland. Looks like everyone guessing around a 12/4 win total will be pretty spot-on, barring some sort of epic collapse down the stretch, or a sudden burst of talent.
#17 Zman, I hate to disappoint, but no rants for you to anticipate. I’ll discuss with you, though.
1. Lance’s huge mistake was in make a comeback. Had his hubris not reached Jordanesque levels, he could have remained a legend, and the authorities would have let him be, and the ‘haters’ would have remained a minority. Since his ego ruled, though, the ‘haters’ were proven correct, and he’ll end up losing 95+% of his fortune. The thing that now gets hushed is that everybody was dirty. The cadence used to be Lance was the only clean one, now it’s been flipped to pretend he’s the dirty one. IIRC, one of his victories included the following six finishers also being proven dirty. Bottom line? Nobody in the US ever really cared about the TDF except the years when Greg LeMond (remember him?, the true clean one?) or Lance were kicking everyone’s butts.
2. Hokie hoops? Seth Greenberg worked as hard as any coach I’ve seen to build a Hokie program, not just make the tourney. If he ranted on the sideline? So what? He was more successful against UNC & Duke than anybody ever dreamed of us achieving. Winning the big games & not being afraid of ‘the elite’ resonate with me. Johnson? I really hope he ascends a roller coaster rise, because he’s heading into the shark infested waters. Both this season, and next year, when he’ll get some mid-major guys in to replace Erick Green. I like him – Johnson – and I hope he defies the probabilities.
3. Hokie football? The old staff didn’t have the inherent capacity that it seems the new staff possesses. Like I said before, being afraid of change means you’re afraid to succeed. The world (of college football) changes around us constantly. You’ve got to move ahead to keep from falling behind. I never expected (though I wished) Beamer would choose new assistants that didn’t reflect his mindset. It’s illogical to expect such. What I expect the improvement will be is that we’ll now have the equivalent of a B+ student running the new positions, as opposed to the D students we had before, who were liked because they were nice to everyone.
4. Agreed.
5. The Teo story is not what’s now reported, the Teo story is that he perpetuated the falsehood, and the ND loving football media swallowed it so willingly. Had that happened with Antone Exum? It would barely make the RT, and nothing else. You’re right, it’s nonsensical, in a way. The focus should be on the complicity of the media, not the incredibly naive/dumb kid. I will say this – If you’re the middle linebacker at Notre Dame, and you can’t score some… uhh… girls… on campus? Seriously? Middle linebacker? NOBODY? No girls on campus, where, you know, you can actually reach out & touch them? Notre Dame doesn’t have frat parties? Notre Dame doesn’t obsess over their jocks? You can’t find ANY living breathing girl in South Bend to take to McDonalds on a Friday night? Hmmm…
No rants, just discussion…
Nevada wants out of the game with Oregon. At least it will be a home game for the Hoos if it does happen.
Pretty close to a rant but you did disappoint me.
Say what you want about fake girls friends but it is pretty clear that the kid leads with his religion and isn;t about getting some. He may be too shy for a relationship and/or something else. The school helped him stay quiet too. Funny the school didn;t jump out with the truth either.
I will never buy SG as the answer for many reasons, primarily as I saw him as only out for himself the last couple seasons. We have discussed this before and you won’t change my mind. Right now I am on JJ’s side and will give him some time. I like what I see even if i would like to see us win more.
VT is going to pound the rock. VT has always wanted to pound the rock in the Beamer era. Like I said, we’ll see if new faces help. I am not convinced that our coaches were the problem or that new coaches are the answer.
Good to have you back AM.
I was at the VT/CU game yesterday and came away very unimpressed with VT’s soft 2-3 zone which yielded far too many open looks for 3′s which CU capitalized on.
Though the process for us VT fans seemed rather drawn out my impression is the new hires are exactly what the O needs. I detect an intensity from these guys that has been lacking from the more stoic Stinespring and Newsome. I hope Bud will have some company next year hyperventilating on the sidelines…
Tech’s hoops problem is not limited to the up-tempo system. It’s the attacking mentality that has infected the players. Rather than attacking the basket in hopes of drawing contacts (and whistles in their favor), they settle for jumper after jumpers, giving up chances to collect 2nd chance offensive rebounds. I have noticed the same issue cropped up again, this year as last year, they would stand around and watch Erick Green dribble and try to make something out of nothing. Playground basketball can only carry a team so far.
Defensively, their footwork and head swivels are not there. They tend to get lost in screens instead of fighting through it or roll off to the next guy to guard. They don’t always crash the board when trying to collect defensive rebounds. I have seen them try to deflect the ball back up in the air too often. Sometime it goes back in their hands, oftentimes it doesn’t.
I also think the charging/blocking calls are getting way out of hands, even if it does favor Tech, because so many times those are judgmental calls, and they sometime looks too…sketchy. I would actualy be in the favor of getting rid of those altogether.
#25 Z, disappointed you equate length of post with a rant. I didn’t say Teo had to be a ‘playa’, but my point is that Teo can’t find ANY girl in South Bend, you know, a real live breathing person, than someone who he ‘dated’ online for three years? Three years? Hee hee, okay. No good cleaned up gal who wanted to go to Mormon chapel with him on Sundays? None? Nobody to hold hands with and stroll across campus? Not in three years? Seems really odd to me. Especially when his teammates laughed at him about his pretend girlfriend before any of this even got nationalized.
As for VT’s focus on the running game, I said all along I expected that Frank would stay within his (sort of) comfort zone and hire somebody like Loeffler. I didn’t say that would be best, or even what I desired, just that I knew what we’d get. Just because we’ve always done it doesn’t mean it is the best for us. I hope for the best. It will be the last coaching changes Frank Beamer makes, so we’ve got to make the best of it for a few years. We had problems that were always defended by the ‘ten win’ mantra. Maybe they’ll be fixed and maybe they won’t. Anyone should understand that if you don’t try to fix the problem, it will never get fixed. Fear of change is a paralyzing thing, and college football changes whether a coach or fan wants it to do so or not.
#27 Trev, my concern is that the other teammates might actually be regressing because they’re content to let EG do all the scoring. I had hoped that Eddie & Raines would step up to help Green in preseason. It looks like Eddie has done pretty well at that, but nobody else has progressed the way that Green has progressed. There will be some tough losing streaks coming up, unfortunately.
CR: Te’o's romantic life doesn’t interest me one damn bit and I really don’t care about it any more than I care about Tebow’s virginity. Not my business and I just don’t get the “voyeur factor” that passes for “human interest” stories.
VT football does interest me and I am hoping that new coaches result in more wins and more meaningful wins. Like I said, we’ll see.
When they discuss the read option – spread offense on ESPN as the “future of the NFL” I pay attention the comments “Not every athlete can run the read option because they don’t have the combination of arm strength and foot speed” and “You don’t see many old running QBs”. Certainly the single season emergence of RGIII, Wilson, the K-man, etc., makes for exciting football. We have a candidate in LT but he struggled this past year even if his stats mask some of it.
People who hate our line play forget that a primary strategy aginst the read option is to hit the QB. When in doubt, hit the QB. After a fake, hit the QB. Don’t know who has the ball, hit the QB.
I prefer the Oregon approach of a play every 18 seconds.
Hooters is closing-come on guys. Anyway, since Seth made it back on the blog I thought i would check on how Harrell was doing at Louisville. He averages 18 minutes a game-6th on team-6 points and 4 rebounds a game as a freshman on a top 10 team. How would that translate to a Tech that has very little in the way of an inside game. Plus, arguably DFS might have stayed if he knew he would be playing the 4 with Harrell at 3. This could have been a pretty good team but Weaver choose to run a popularity contest and ran the program into the ground.
Man, I am so glad to see you are back writing. I have checked your blog every days for weeks waiting for good news. Please take it easy and give yourself time to heal. Good thoughts and prayers.
Sara Bailey
CR, Eddie is an okay player. He is verstalie enough to run point if Green needs to sit to catch some breath, but he is also a head scratcher for me. He can be absolutely brilliant one moment and then mystifying the next. His consistency needs to be there in order to draw attention from the other team and take the pressure off Green. So far, it’s been evenly split.
Raines is so frustrating to figure out. His bulk and size should make him a bully down low, but for some reason, he hasn’t been consistent. What he needs is a big man coach who can work with his techniques and his triple-threat to get respect from bigs on the other team.
Rankin tends to make the most horrible decision in shot selections. He is, at best, a mid-range shooter, but insist on trying from behind the arc, which tends to give him very low % yield.
Marshall Woods is the most promising player. His foot injury was unfortunate, but I think give him time to bulk his frame, I think he can be similar to Tyler Hansborough if he learns how to have a nose for the ball.
The class that JJ managed to secure verbals are interesting. JJ has signed two fellows that are over 6’8″, which is huge because that has always been a problem under SG, lack of heights. Their development is dependent on having a big man coach, and I don’t know if JJ has that on his staff.
#33 Trev, the problem with the recruits coming in is that if they play to their top potential, they’ll contribute about what Raines does now. If you know what I mean. Not a leading man in the group, not even close.
Woods does show potential. The hope for him is next season, because a broken foot takes a while for recovery. I liked his style prior to the injury, he shows promise. I don’t think you mean he’s got the same ceiling as Hansborough, but rather the same style of game, right?
Welcome back Aaron!
No, CR and Z, the Hokies aren’t going to be throwing 60 passes a game. What I expect, not so much this coming season but I’ll hope anyway, the next season, after the Newsome effect fully wears off is good ol’ late 90s early 00s slobber knocking football. The defense will no longer have to play not to lose but can once again play dominating D. If we can just get the special teams coach to learn how to block kicks again.
I’m still not up for paying $45 plus the mandatory gift to the Hokie Club so I can watch Austin Peay but I may be willing to do scalpers prices for a good game.
Aaron, it is great to see you back and writing again. Take it easy big guy and I hope your headaches will soon be gone and the only time you get another one will be when you are filling out your tournament bracket.
The only way to judge potential recruits is to watch them in an AAU setting. If recruits are judged only in a HS conf setting the level of overall talent they are playing against is not talented enough to accurately assess their skills. In AAU ball the size and talent level is more equal so a better assessment can be made. We need shooters, not throwers. We need players that know how to attack the basket and score. At this point in time we only have one shooter. SG was a lot like Beamer, recruit athletes and mold them. You can’t mold a pure shooter, either your one or your not. We have one. He has better recruit more. I don’t even see DFS on Fla’s roster.
Glad to have you back A Mac!
Hansbourgh was known to be a bully on the low posts. That’s what Raines need to do.
Glad your back!!
I completely missed yesterday’s blog. Too much darn work! Welcome back Aaron. Happy to hear that you’re on the mend.