Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times

University of Virginia fan Clyde Smith (right) argues over whether Virginia Tech or UVa has a better national football reputation with Tech fan Eddie Turner at a restaurant in Lynchburg where a group takes up several tables each day to discuss Virginia football. Both men will be going to the game. Their friend, Mike Salmon (center), a Miami fan, listens in.

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LYNCHBURG -- Clyde is screaming again.

"If the game is close in the fourth quarter, just pack your stuff up and go on back to Bleaksburg!" he shouts. "Cause in the fourth quarter, we turn it on!"

Around the table sit 14 other men, half Virginia Tech fans, half Virginia fans. It is Wednesday afternoon, and they are on lunch break from work. They've heard this all before from Clyde. Yet still they come, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, just to hear it again.

"Bass fishing is not NCAA sanctioned!" Clyde shouts. "They have no national championships! They have no national championships! They're probably the only school in the ACC that don't have a national championship in anything!"

Clyde's last name is Smith, but it might as well be "from Forest." That's how he's known by sports fans throughout the state -- "Clyde from Forest" -- after his famous phone call to a Virginia radio show in September.

Clyde, 64, told football coach Al Groh that he ought to resign and was quickly booted from the airwaves. Back then, after UVa's disappointing loss to Wyoming, Clyde was championed as an unflinching voice of the frustrated masses.

Now, however...

"Who is your vote for coach of the year in the ACC, Clyde?" asks a grinning Eddie Turner, one of the Virginia Tech fans at the table.

"Groh," Clyde says, sheepishly. "When he beats Tech."

The outlook has obviously changed in Charlottesville. UVa has become the surprise team in the ACC, winning nine of its past 10 games. Largely for that reason, today's Tech-UVa game is being billed as the most significant matchup in the history of the rivalry. The winner will claim the Coastal Division title and earn a spot in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.

But a Virginia win would also do something else. For the first time since 2003, Clyde would have a year's worth of ammunition.

And for the Tech fans at this table, that would be disaster.

You see, Clyde does just fine with minimal ammunition.

Eddie: "What positions do you think you're better than us?"

Clyde: "Offensive line, running back ..."

Eddie: "Offensive line, you're better."

Clyde: "Our defensive line's better than Tech's."

Eddie: "No you're not. We're the No. 5 defense in the country."

Clyde: "Who?"

Eddie: "Tech."

Clyde: "We are No. 18 overall!"

Eddie. "We are No. 5 overall! No. 5! That's a lot better than No. 18!"

Clyde: "You're not better than we are! You're not! We've got a better line! We've got a better running game!"

Eddie: "How many yards rushing do you think y'all will have?"

Clyde: "Whatever we want to make!"

Clyde owns his own plumbing business. He talks and dresses like a blue-collar man. But his friends say he is one of the wealthiest men in the Lynchburg area, and much of that wealth goes to support UVa athletics. Football games, basketball games, baseball games -- he attends all of them. He has 10 tickets for today's game.

"Hey, you got an extra ticket for me, Clyde?" asks Russell Millner, one of the Tech fans.

"We don't want you up there!" Clyde says between bites of lasagna. "We don't need you! We don't want no Hokies up there!"

"There's going to be plenty of Hokies up there," says Dean Farmer, a Tech fan. "You can bet on that."

"I'll give you $500 for a ticket, Clyde," Russell says.

"Huh?" Clyde says. "If I had a ticket, and it was a Hokie there ... I'd strike a match to it and let it burn up!"

The group roars with laughter again. The rest of the lunch crowd at La Villa Da Toto, an Italian restaurant in Lynchburg, doesn't seem to mind the noise. Most likely they are used to it, just like the breakfast crowd at Carol's Place in Forest, where Clyde and his friends eat and debate every morning.

Clyde: "Like the man said on ESPN the other night, Mike Gottfried, Tech hasn't seen a defense like Virginia's since they played LSU!"

Eddie: "So you're comparing your defense to LSU?"

Clyde: "If we do it's a blowout! That's what it was down there! You're 1-14 against top-five teams, 4-22 against top-10 teams! No more needs to be said!"

Dean: "We're 7-1 against Virginia in the last eight meetings. Don't forget that!"

Oh, Clyde hasn't. Clyde rarely forgets anything.

Clyde: "No coach ever told us the band was better than the football team. That's what they told you up in Blacksburg, when Miami of Ohio beat you [in 1997]. They said the band was better than the football team."

Eddie: "That's an opinion a lot like yours, Clyde. It has not much merit."

Clyde: "He did beat you pretty bad."

Eddie: "He did? I think he beat us by 7."

Clyde: "And you got beat by Temple, too."

This is the Clyde the group loves, the one that dips deep into the archives for arguments. The Tech fans at the table laugh and roll their eyes when he brings up UVa's 8-4 record against Tech from 1987-98.

Thanks to their recent success in the series, the Hokies have all the easy comebacks.

For now.

Eddie: "We're going to turn the pit bulls loose on the field Saturday. That's what we're gonna do."

Clyde: "Well, we got the net that's gonna catch 'em, too, buddy."

Eddie: "What's the net?"

Clyde: "Chris Long."

Eddie: "That's the only player you got."

Clyde: "No, sir. We've got a whole bunch."

Eddie: "Who?"

Clyde from Forest pauses. He is no longer screaming. He is smiling.

"You'll find out," he says.