Friday, January 05, 2007
Tough bowl trip
Randy King
Randy King's Tech Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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I'll start with an official apology here: Sorry for not checking in here last week.
That said, I had plenty of reasons for being a no-show.
First, I had a little ol' football game to cover. Remember the Chick-fil-A Bowl? I'm certain all of Hokie Nation would love to purge that fiasco from the memory banks forever.
Oh, well, nobody ever said Atlanta was going to be an easy trip.
At least, Tech didn't get beat until the second half. Well, I never led in the Big A. Two minutes after pulling into the Omni-CNN -- one of those swanky joints where they make you pay $22 a day to park your car -- I realized I had made a huge mistake by not working on my hurry-up offense enough.
Waiting for check-in, I sauntered outside to check out the surroundings around the downtown hotel.
Oh, there's the Olympic Centennial Park across the street, best known for being the site of the bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics that killed one spectator and wounded 111 others.
That was it for the impromptu sightseeing venture, however, as pressure started to leak through both side of the pocket. Talk about a dangerous crowd coming my way off both edges.
"I'm broke, man ... can you help me, man?" asks the first blitzer.
Being the nice guy I am, I reached in my pocket and flipped the dude a half-dollar.
Big mistake there. A few seconds later, I felt a tap on the back of my right shoulder. Talk about no pocket presence. Where did this guy come from?
Hoping not to be ruled down, I quickly spun and found a guy about the size of Mean Joe Green staring me down.
"Can you help me, man? Have any money so I can get something to eat?" he asked.
Packing a comma-plus stack in my back pocket -- hey, they say these bowl trips are supposed to be a reward, right? -- I reached into the front-pocket auxiliary fund and gave the rough-looking character a singleton.
Real cute, this is. I had been standing 20 feet from the hotel's front door for two minutes and was down a buck-fifty. The Roanoke Times will pay the 22 bucks for the car stowaway, but the bean counters sneer at the reimbursal of funds for charitable acts of such big-time philanthropists like myself.
Welcome to the big city, Southwest Virginia mountain boy, I laughed out loud. You're a sap, man! That's it. No more benevolence from this guy.
Retreating back to the hotel lobby, I got a "hey, man can you ... " from the left flank. "Sorry, man, I'm broke!" I snapped back.
Then came a wiry little guy popping open off a screen set by the back side of a building-support column.
"Give me five, man!" he basically ordered. I thought he meant a high-five, so I raised my hand anticipating a slap of skin.
"No, man, five dollars!" he said. "Help me!"
"Oh, help yourself, dude," I retorted.
He responded with several bad, bad words. I walked into the house to safety and shook my head. So much for leaving the building the next five nights. Hey, good thing the cats in the parking garage have my car keys, I thought. Talk about being in lockdown.
Yeah, right. Little did I know the Chick-fil-A media hospitalilty room at the hotel would have only Miller beer? That's water to longtime Bud drinkers.
Since a case of Clydesdales via room service was going for $72 -- well, $94 when you tack on the mandatory 20-percent tippage and delivery-charge damages -- I boldly ordered the car from valet parking just after midnight.
The guy whipped the recently purchased 1996 Oldsmobile Ciera around to the pickup area. As I watched intently, I noticed the valet jockey was taking an inordinate amount of time disembarking from my vehicle.
I started laughing when the dude finally climbed out of the driver's side window NASCAR style. I had forgotten to tell the car-parkers upon check-in that the left-side door handle was broken, meaning to open the thing you had to roll down the window and open it with the outside handle.
"Where's the nearest convenience store where I can buy some beer?" I asked.
"Take a right out of here, go seven blocks, take a left, and you'll find a place on Piedmont Avenue," the valet replied, his eyes crying for a tip that wouldn't come.
Talk about upset city. I drove right to the place without incident.
Nice joint here. A dangerous crowd of a dozen or so lurking in a pack on the left side of the lot. Another visibly stoked bunch was camped out on the other side of the lot. So what. I parked the car as close to the front door as I could get and walked in like I owned the place. I paid for the Bud 12-pack and headed for the exit. There, the same guy who had opened the door for me on the way in, returned the favor again.
"That will be five!" he hollered.
I kept walking straight to the car. I quickly hopped in and hit power lock. Man, good thing I drive a new car.
Cursing me profusely and basically telling me that I'd better never ever show up again at the the mart where's he's doorkeeper, the dude went out of control and started pounding on the car and driver's window. I cranked the car up, mashed the gas pedal down, and threw it into gear so fast that I laid a little rubber and smoke leaving the premises.
That guy was lucky he still had a foot. I was lucky to still have a life.
I brought the car back to the valet boys. It never left the garage again until check-out time.
WHAT ABOUT FOOTBALL: OK, enough of my travelogue adventures. I've tried to stay away from those stories the past few years when folks began to tire of the chronicles of the since-departed John Engelberger-model Chevy Lumina.
Hey, I know you folks could care less about the problems of the media. So let's talk about the woes of the Hokies in the wake of their second-half el folderol against Georgia.
Suddenly, all that talk about a possible national title run next season has gone hush-hush. Tech has big issues. All come on offense, particularly at quarterback and offensive line.
Now, a lot of questions must be addressed and answered before next September. The list includes such things as:
Will Glennon be Tech's No. 1 quarterback next fall?
Face it, the kid was awful in the bowl game. He'll tell you, too.
All the good will Glennon had built up with an already skeptical Tech fan base in the season's second half was wiped out in a 9-minute-plus span of the fourth quarter in which three of his four turnovers translated into 18 game-deciding points by Georgia.
That said, Glennon has been and still remains the Hokies' best QB.
Can the others challenge Glennon?
Obviously, bowl-game backup Cory Holt isn't trusted by Frank Beamer & Co., or he would have been beckoned from the bullpen to replace the totally shaken Glennon at some point.
Then there's Ike Whitaker, who didn't even make the bowl trip. Whitaker watched the game from a Virginia-based alcohol treatment facility, where he's been housed since mid-December. The redshirt freshman with immense skills will be released sometime next week. He will be in second-semester classes and, barring some kind of relapse, he will rejoin the team for spring practice.
This is Whitaker's shot. He's got to get clean, stay clean, and then try to clean up behind center in spring workouts.
The other option is Tyrod Taylor, the five-star recruit out of Hampton High who according to many who have seen him play, has Vick-like talent.
Taylor's shot at playing next fall would have been greatly enhanced if he could have finished high school early. That way he could have enrolled for the upcoming second semester at Tech, thus allowing him the luxury of going through four weeks of spring practice to learn the offensive system and get in tune with his receivers.
Without the benefit of spring practice, Taylor will have to be some kind of Superman in order to learn fast enough and be good enough in August preseason practice to be an immediate factor, much less win the starting job.
When asked at Tech's Media Day last Aug. 5 if he thought his three QBs in camp should feel pressure to win the No. 1 job for this past season with Taylor's arrival on the horizon, Hokies offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring scoffed at the question. His answer certainly revealed his mind-set about the chances of a true freshman coming in and playing immediately.
"The end result is there is a lot of difference in stepping on this field than any other field you may have stepped onto previously," said Stinespring, who, of course, couldn't mention Taylor's name due to NCAA rules.
"You've got to step on the field, you've got to make the adjustment to college, you've got to go to classes ... the time constraints, the level of competition. And the bottom line is you've got to work yourself onto the field, and when you get on the field you've got to produce."
What about the O-line?
A major Achilles Heel of this past season's club may not be a whole lot better next season. The Hokies' front got beat badly by Georgia's stout front four in the second half of the bowl game. In his defense, Glennon didn't have much time to throw the ball. Plus, standout tailback Branden Ore was rendered almost useless by the lack of running holes provided by his blockers.
The right side seems set with tackle Duane Brown and guard Sergio Render, who made a lot of progress as a rare true freshman starter on the line. Ryan Shuman will move from left guard to his natural position of center, where he most think he will be more effective than departing senior Danny McGrath was this past season.
Who's going to man the left side, or more importantly, the quarterback's blind side?
Rising junior Nick Marshman figures to fill one of the two vacancies left by the loss of seniors Brandon Frye and Brandon Gore. The 6-foot-5, 357-pound Marshman started two games and had 171 snaps going into the bowl game.
The other spot will be up for grabs for a bunch of guys with little or no experience. The grab bag includes: redshirt freshman Brandon Holland of Roanoke, who got all of 16 snaps in three games this season; redshirt sophomore Matt Welsh (17 snaps in three games); and freshman Aaron Brown and Clark Crum, both of whom redshirted this past season.
Beamer has repeatedly said he likes the offensive linemen who have committed to Tech for next season. Will any of the kids be able to play immediately. Possibly. But how effective can they really be?
Got to find a kicker
Record-setting Brandon Pace will have to be replaced. Beamer has lauded the practice work of Jud Dunleavy. Fact remains, though, the rising senior has never kicked in a game under pressure. It's a little different atmosphere than kicking field goals with no rush in practice. Kickoff-man supreme Jared Davelli is also a candidate.
Punter Nic Schmitt is headed out the door, too. Rising redshirt sophomore Brent Bowden, who has yet to play in a game, is the leading candidate to become Tech's first right-footed punter in 12 years.
