BLACKSBURG — Two weeks ago today, the word officially broke on Virginia Tech’s athletics Web site.

“Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer announced Sunday that redshirt sophomore Sean Glennon will be the Hokies’ starting quarterback when Tech opens its season on Sept. 2 against Northeastern at Lane Stadium ...”

A news scoop? Not even close. The official verification of a fact known to most is more like it.

Still, the brief, four-paragraph release, which included “news” that shouldn’t have surprised anyone, was enough to stir up some of the armchair QBs that play on TechSideline.com’s popular Internet message board.

Quite predictably, it took only minutes for some wisecracking poster to ponder what the over/under betting line should be set at for how many games Glennon starts this season.

One and done? Two and boo? Three and set him free? Four and no more?

Stopped laughing yet? Glennon probably hasn’t.

“Hey, I don’t pay any attention to that kind of stuff,” a grinning Glennon said. “All I know is this opportunity is what I’ve wanted since I came here

2 1/2 years ago. I’ve just got to focus on what I can do. As long as I play well and keep playing well, then that’s all that should matter. That’s all I can worry about.”

Glennon is smart enough to know that if he does his job and Tech keeps winning games, it won’t make any difference what his in-house competition — third-year sophomore Cory Holt and redshirt freshman Ike Whitaker — does this fall. Dittos for next fall, when Hampton High School’s Tyrod Taylor, touted as one of the country’s top QB recruits, shows up on campus.

“Not just to mention Tyrod, but Cory and Ike are big-time recruits, too,” said Glennon, a SuperPrep and PrepStar All-American himself coming out of Centreville’s Westfield High School in 2004.

“I wouldn’t have come to Virginia Tech if I wasn’t expecting to play against four-star and five-star recruits. I knew they were going to keep bringing in big-time recruits here, and if you’re scared of that then you shouldn’t come to Virginia Tech. … You should go to a I-AA school or something.”

That said, Glennon had to know if he was going to realize his lifelong dream of being a starting major-college QB, he needed to make it happen now. When Marcus Vick, who would have been this season’s starting QB, was kicked off the team last January, the door swung wide open.

Despite the fact that Whitaker and Holt are blessed with athleticism that make each a threat to either throw or run, pocket man Glennon won the

No. 1 job because of his overall consistency, accurate throwing arm and sound decision-making. The only thing he lacks is experience. He hasn’t played since his 2004 freshman season, when he threw 11 passes in four games while backing up ACC player of the year Bryan Randall.

So what. Bring it on, a confident Glennon says.

“I’m way more comfortable and confident than I’ve ever been before,” Glennon said. “I know I can do this. Now it’s simply a matter of going out and getting it done.”

Whitaker, who seemed to be the guy many of the fans wanted to win the job, said Glennon has acted like a guy on an urgent mission the past year.

“Oh, I definitely understand it,” Whitaker said. “He’s older, I’m younger. So if I was to start over him, who’s to say he’d get a chance or another shot? He’s doing good. Hey, I can’t say anything bad about Sean.”

Glennon turned many of his older teammates’ heads with his relentless work in the weight room. He bench-pressed 360 pounds in the late-summer testing period, which fell only 10 pounds short of Randall, who has the position record. Not bad for a guy who weighed 200 pounds and had the physique of a golfer two years ago.

“That impressed me a lot,” said Duane Brown, the Hokies’ fourth-year junior starting left offensive tackle. “You look at Sean — and he has gotten a little bigger — but you wouldn’t expect him to be that strong. I saw him in the weight room a couple of weeks ago, and he was setting this bench up like way up there, and I’m like, 'Man, all right, OK.’

“So he’s working hard. And that’s all you can ask of anybody — work hard and give it their best, and he’s doing that. He did that all summer. He’s been doing it since he got here and it’s paying off for him now.”

Now that he has his hands on the job he craved, Glennon has no plans of letting go. He hopes to eventually put a vise grip on the position. Hear that, Tyrod Taylor?

“I met Tyrod when he was here at camp” in early July, Glennon said. “I told him, 'Yeah, you should come here.’ I definitely didn’t try to sway him to go to Florida or anything like that.

“But I can’t really be thinking about that. Sure, if another Michael Vick comes in, it stinks. But I also understand — now, Tyrod is very talented — but even Michael and Marcus had to redshirt. … They couldn’t walk right in. In my freshman year, my head was spinning and I was messing up, and [then-quarterbacks] Coach [Kevin] Rogers said, 'Even when I had Donovan McNabb at Syracuse and Marcus here, they looked terrible.’

“I wish Tyrod the best, but I know that it’s going to be tough for him to come in here and play right away. But none of that is going to matter as long as I play well. If I play bad, then I’ll open up the door for him to come in.”

Senior fullback Jesse Allen said the pressure Glennon felt to win the job over his current competition, combined with the emergence of hotshot Taylor on the horizon, may have worked in his favor in the end.

“Sometimes that’s what it takes to raise a leader,” Allen said. “If that’s what it takes, just put Sean on top. And, hey, man, that’s good pressure.”