This year's schedule in football looks pretty exciting. We have known who the opponents would be for a while but now we know who we get at night, who we get on short weeks, and who we play back to back. To start it is going to be a Monday night game vs. Georgia Tech which hopefully will set the tone for this season. If you recall the last time we had Georgia Tech on the schedule for the first game of the year it was the infamous lightning game where Lee Corso's car got struck just a few hours after picking Georgia Tech with the upset. I was "lucky" enough to be present for this game that wasn't. There is nothing quite like waiting until the kids are on the field to kick off before the refs call it when you could see what was coming from miles away.That was in 2000 and we were coming off a National Title run. Not much has changed since then, except that we are now in the ACC, Paul Johnson has brought the least entertaining brand of football to Atlanta, and now you can find college football on any night of the week. This is an early test for the Hokies and one that I expect them to pass fairly easily. First of all the game is at home and we have already shown that we can stop GT's tricky offense. The only worry I have is that we typically don't show up for these early season tests in the best shape mentally and it has hurt us many times in the past. That being said I just don't see an Al Groh lead defense ever stopping us. Should be exciting no matter what.
After that we get to the out of conference games which include (in order) Austin Peay, at Pittsburg, Bowling Green, and Cincinnati at FedEx Field. Austin Peay and Bowling should be easily dispatched as they shouldn't have any where near the talent that we possess. We do have to face Austin Peay just five days after GT but come on, I didn't see another jmu happening any time soon, if nothing else there are enough guys still on the team that went through that game to remind the others never to take an opponent lightly. Pittsburg could be interesting because over the last couple of years in the Big East they had our number especially at home. I still think we have the talent advantage in this one and we should come out on top. That leaves the Cincinnati game and another one which I think we should handle fairly easily. Cincinnati hasn't performed that well since we met them in the Orange Bowl in 2009 and I haven't heard much about their incoming recruiting class. All in all the out of conference schedule is one of the easier ones in recent years. As always though if we don't come into each game with the proper amount of focus there will be a few upset opportunities that we have to avoid. We should be favored in all of these games and I predict we will be 5-0 at the end of this stretch.
That leads us into the thick of ACC play. We start off with a road game against UNC and hopefully that will mean a strong start. From everything I have read about UNC they have not been able to maintain their recent success in recruiting and they have had a huge question mark at the head coach position until December when they hired Larry Fedora. Fedora seems like a decent coach as he had some good seasons at Southern Mississippi but we all know that the reason UNC was thriving in football was because Butch Davis and his boys were cheating to bring in big name recruits. Once you take cheating away it seems like a pretty tough job to recruit football players to Chapel Hill, we will get to see early on how Fedora plays at a higher level and it will be interesting to see if he can build a winner without the kids that Butch was getting.
After UNC we get a home game against dook. Although dook has figured out how to score in football and they played us close in 2011 I don't think this years game will that close. I expect the Hokies to be better on offense and defense this year and unless dook was hiding some major fire power last year I don't think they will be able to hang this year. In my opinion we should be 7-0 at this point as long as we health on our side. A lot of this season will hinge upon health and the biggest deciding factor will be the health of Logan Thomas. If we lose him for any stretch of the season your guess is as good as mine as to what we would be able to do without him. Mark Leal looks like he has a good arm and seems to be like a smart player, but he just doesn't have the experience and if he were in the game the offense would have to switch to more of a running, option based offense because I don't believe with his height he could be as efficient passing as Logan is and will be this year. Fingers crossed.
From there we head to Clemson and the first of a three game stretch that I think will decide our season. We all know what happened against Clemson this year and most of us wish we could forget it. The fact is we have to figure out why we played so poorly against this team and what we can do to change the outcome this year. In the two games last year we looked over matched and out coached at almost every position. I personally believe that we can do more with our talent and Frank Beamer is 100 times the coach that Dabo Sweeney is. Time will tell I guess but for whatever reason, last year we just didn't have it against these guys. Hopefully they watch the tape of Clemson's bowl game because wvu definitely figured out how to score against them. Our guys should have all the motivation they need from last year to take it to these guys but you never know. Clemson still recruits well and if there are able to put that horrible bowl loss behind them Clemson could be very good again. This one is a toss up to me, I think we could win, but I was very confident going into the rematch in the ACCCG and we all know how that ended up. If I were a betting man right now I would have to bet on Clemson just because of last year's results. The tape doesn't lie and I can't be sure we will be improved enough to say we can win this one for sure.
Next up is Miami on the road and another very winnable game. This is a Thursday night game in Miami and we all know that last year's game was a little to close for comfort at home. But these teams bring the best out of each other and I think VT's best is still ahead of Miami's at this point. Miami had another good recruiting class but they lost a ton of guys from this year's team and who knows when the sanction bug will finally bite them. Also Al Golden seems to be a really good coach especially considering what he did at Temple but it should take him a couple of years to build that type of team in Miami. And the type of player is completely different from one school to the other. The kids he had at Temple probably fell right in line with what he was preaching because they probably didn't have opportunities elsewhere. At Miami he is going to be managing much bigger egos and it will be interesting to see if the kids in South Beach respond as well. Lastly we get a couple of extra days to prepare for this one and I expect the guys to be focused for this fight. Prediction to this point: 8-1.
Then there is Florida State, at home, on Thursday night. This game should be the biggest of the year by far. I know we will have been tested by the time we get to this one and if we can get past any early struggles there is a very real possibility that we could enter this game undefeated along with Florida State. If that is the case you are looking at a top five match up at Lane Stadium in the middle of the season. That scenario sounds amazing to me and I am going to do anything I can to get a ticket to this one. Lane Stadium is definitely going to be rocking that night no matter the records and I am sure every Hokie who can will be in Blacksburg. As for the match up, it is a little hard for me to call. Florida State had a very good team last year and they have the second ranked recruiting class heading in to this season. They also lost some key players but they should be very strong again overall. My head says Florida State but my heart says Hokies and although I am not sure we will be undefeated to this point, I think the Seminoles will be sent home with at least one defeat. The conditions at Lane Stadium in this type of situation are hard to match and I don't give any team very good odds at beating us. So we could be looking at 9-1 to this point and with a win against a possible top five team we could be in that 3-8 range where who knows what could happen in terms of bowl selection.
That leaves two games. At Boston College and at home for uva. Both of these game should go our way in a big way. Boston College is a shell of the program that was with Matt Ryan and Tom O'Brien. They still are a division one team and we have to play them on the road after some big games on Thursday nights. But we have some extra time to recuperate from the Florida State game and if we are in the spot that I predict we should be able to maintain focus and head in to BC with zero distractions. If that happens I don't give the Eagles much of a chance. As for our little sister, I just don't see it happening for them this year. Even if we lost every game this year heading in to this match up I would still predict us to win and win big. I know Mike London is a good coach and he has a couple of good recruiting classes under his belt. But last year he won 8 games with seniors that he didn't recruit and got obliterated by the Hokies at home. If you recall London won a championship at UR with somebody else's seniors and we see where that program is now. Say what you want but it seems to me that he left that cupboard pretty bare. I don't know that that will happen again at uva but I do think this year will be a huge test for uva's football program. They have gained slightly in recruiting but it seems as though Frank and Shane have shut the door on that situation. Now it is down to system and development and this year could make or break him at uva. I will never give a wahoo team much of a shot against us, especially when we are at home.
So I predict us to be in great position by the end of the regular season and if all goes as planned we should end up right back in the ACCCG against either Clemson or Florida State. I know I am very optimistic and all of this is pure speculation. But I also know that the clock is ticking on Frank Beamer being able to coach this team and I know he wants to win one before he is gone. That doesn't mean that that will happen by any means but I think the writing is on the wall that this could be a great year with a once in a life time quarterback and Frank probably doesn't have many of these runs left in him. I expect to see much more aggressive offense and special teams. As well as a return to form for the defense, last year had some good improvement, but if we really want this year to be good are defense better become dominant again. Now we wait and see what the spring brings. I hope it brings health,strength, and mental toughness. And if it does bring all those we are in very good shape. Go Hokies!
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