With all of this newfound success, I think some of our fans are beginning to go a bit overboard. Some actions of our fans have left me disappointed, other times I’ve even been disgusted. Some examples:

• Sending Glen Mason e-mail after the Gophers’ win over Penn State: I know many of you may have done this. I ask you why. Do you honestly think Mason did this for us? He coached his football team well enough to knock off Penn State, and is bombarded by Hokie fans telling him what a wonderful job he did, and telling him he is now an honorary Hokie. We need to be bigger than this. Be glad Penn State lost, but don’t be obnoxious.
  
• Another e-mail caper - sending e-mails to the kids at the Penn State Daily Collegian: Yes, the columns were inflammatory and a bit immature, but at the same time, this is a newspaper written for the STUDENTS at Penn State, not the readers at HokieCentral.com. So what if they don’t like Virginia Tech? If Tech were in Penn State’s situation (tough schedule, tougher conference), I think we’d feel the same way. Also, the kid who wrote the first column was in the hospital with Meningitis when Hokie fans started bombarding the Collegian with nasty hate mail. It’s one thing to criticize, but quite another to send insults and venom. I wrote a very similar column last year about the University of Virginia. While it certainly wasn’t my best work, I stand by my right to say it, and I laugh at people that get angered over something so trivial.

Bottom line Tech fans, our beloved Hokies deserve much of the criticism they have received. Tech plays a weak schedule. This much cannot be debated. We also barely squeaked by a bad West Virginia team. Say what you want about how well they played, it never should have been close. Had Tech brought its "B" game, it would have won handily. Instead, the Hokies played timidly for 58 minutes and nearly cost themselves a BCS spot.

People were enraged when Tennessee took the No. 2 spot in the first BCS rankings. At the time, the Vols deserved it. They had lost to one of the best teams in the nation and had stormed back with convincing wins over the rest of their competition (except for Memphis). They play in the best conference in the nation, we play in one of the more mediocre leagues.

Tech fans were immediately up in arms, and they wanted something to be done. I personally received over 40 e-mails telling me I "needed to do something about this." What am I going to do? Mount a massive press campaign to win over Roy Kramer?

Oddly enough, I was contacted by a columnist from the Knoxville News-Sentinel for my opinion on the matter, and I told him if the records held up, Tech should get in to the Sugar Bowl. No later than hours after this quote was printed, I received e-mails from angry Tennessee fans telling me I didn’t understand anything about football and Tennessee would kick the Hokies ass any day. Lovely.

As wonderful as many of our loyal fans are, I’m begging you to stay civil. Don’t become obnoxious like UT fans. The BCS is not our birthright, it is something the Hokies must work for. Also, as fans, it is not "ours" at all. Frank Beamer and the team are the ones who will either get in or be left out of the Sugar Bowl. "We" will not do anything.

Take this season for what it is: a wonderful journey that could end up as a dream come true, or it could end in heartbreak. Either way, it is not the end of the world, and we as fans are not as important as we tend to think we are. Our only function is to cheer on our team. We do not win or lose games. The last thing we need is to get a reputation like the fans of SEC teams have. Tech fans have always represented class and dignity. Just because we are in the Big Time, let’s make an effort to keep it that way.