Photo by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech quarterback Sean Glennon (right) speaks with position coach Mike O'Cain. It was announced Tuesday that he would be the starter.

BLACKSBURG -- His 4,124 passing yards rank seventh on Virginia Tech's career list, and he's far from a long shot to wind up as the school's all-time passing leader.

He's won 72.7 percent of his games as Tech's starting quarterback. He was the MVP in Tech's 30-16 rout of Boston College in last December's ACC championship game.

At most other major-college football programs around the country, Sean Glennon would be the man heading into his senior season.

At most places, yeah. Not here, though.

Despite all the good he has accomplished in his Tech career, Glennon still remains as some sort of pariah to a good portion of a fervent Hokie Nation.

After leading Tech to a 10-2 regular season in his first year as a starter in 2006, Glennon turned the ball over four times in the second half -- two of the miscues came under severe defensive duress -- as the Hokies blew an 18-point lead and lost to Georgia in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. In the weeks to follow, Glennon's e-mail box was littered with hate mail from fans.

Last September, Glennon was pulled early from Tech's second game -- an embarrassing 48-7 spanking at eventual national champion LSU -- and lost his starting job to freshman Tyrod Taylor. Glennon, who had no chance to perform in a game in which his porous offensive line couldn't have blocked a statue, arrived at his apartment in the wee hours the next morning, only to discover that his Toyota 4Runner had been basted with eggs.

The next week, as the new kid, Taylor, took over his job the next week against Ohio University, Glennon stood on the home sideline as some Lane Stadium fans booed when his mug shot appeared on the giant scoreboard video screen in a taped public-service announcement.

The ultimate fighter

Most guys couldn't have handled such boorish treatment. But Glennon isn't just any guy. Just ask his teammates.

"All that stuff just tells you how much heart Sean has and how much he wants to win," junior tailback Kenny Lewis Jr. said. "When the people hate him and when everybody turns their back on him, he's still fighting. I can remember when people were trashing Sean and he was still positive, you know, [saying], 'We can do this.'

"He should be appreciated more. It's easy to pick favorites, man, but if people knew the inside story on Sean it would be a lot different. A lot of people look from the outside in, but being there with Sean every day from the inside out, he means a lot to this team."

Senior defensive end Orion Martin said it's a testimony to Glennon's character how he has continued to battle on and off the field.

"I can't even imagine what Sean's gone through," Martin said. "People calling him, giving him hate messages, it's unreal. All I know is he's one heck of a leader on this team."

Glennon said the barrage of shots he's taken from fickle fans has made has made him a tougher person.

"After that Chick-fil-A Bowl, I took some of that stuff hard. ... After LSU, I took some of the stuff hard," Glennon said. "But since, and I'm not lying to you when I say this: It doesn't bother me anymore. Now, literally someone could walk up to me and tell me how much I suck, and it literally would not ruin my day whatsoever.

"I get messages, I get people shouting out their car windows or whatever. It's almost a bad thing it has come to this, but I've gotten so thick-skinned that I can literally smile about it and then it's out of my memory."

One of the smartest and most well-spoken players ever to don a Tech uniform has decided he's not going to let the chorus from some village idiots ruin his college days.

"My mom [Nancy] had a tough time with it," Glennon said. "She went to the Ohio game last year and I got booed, and she was done. She would come to the games and just keep my dad [John] company on the ride down, but during the games she would go to the Drill Field and sit and read a book. Then after the game we would all go out to dinner."

Last time around

Sean Benjamin Glennon will be the starting QB when 17th-ranked Tech takes the field in Charlotte, N.C., in Saturday's season opener against East Carolina. The 23-year-old finance major from Centreville, Va., has hopes of being nothing but money this fall for an offense that's desperately looking to identify its playmakers at wide receiver and running back.

Glennon won the starting job after battling the dual-threat Taylor during spring practice and recently completed August drills. The Tech coaching staff have placed so much trust in Glennon that it plans to redshirt Taylor this fall.

The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Glennon, whose frame, smarts and throwing arm make him a viable candidate to be on some NFL team's roster as a backup next fall, said he hopes to write a great final chapter for his team and himself in Blacksburg.

"This is the way I wanted to go out," Glennon said. "Now, if I go out there and wet the bed, it doesn't mean anything, what I did in this camp.

"Step 1 has been accomplished, but there are more steps to go. My destiny lies in my own hands. I have a lot of faith that the [offensive] line is going to play and it's my job to make the skill positions better, so I don't want to use that as an excuse. My goal is to walk out of here as back-to-back ACC champions.

"I'm hoping with the ACC championship, that I won a few fans over. I'm not worried about individual records. But if I could be the guy that brought two straight ACC championships -- the first guy, I think, in Tech history to win back-to-back conference championships -- well, that would be a pretty good legacy. That would be something I'd proud of."

Perhaps it would be enough to finally make an entire Hokie Nation adore the guy.

Talk about a story.