Hello, and welcome to another season of Virginia Tech Football! (About time, ain’t it, y’all?) Another long, interminable offseason has come and gone, thankfully enough, and it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty of Tech fans’ favorite time of year. Well, at least it’s my favorite time of year.

Many of you will recognize my name from the now-retired "Weekend Rooting Guide" series. This year, I'm doing something different. Each week, I’ll take a look back at the previous weekend’s Big East games, and a look ahead to the next weekend’s upcoming games, with maybe a few national games to watch thrown in. Hopefully, you’ll think it’s informative, insightful, and down-right funny. I know I sure as [heck] do.

And with that being said, let’s charge on ahead……

Frank Beamer dove far down into the depth chart in the hopes of finding a squad that would match up evenly with the Arkansas State Indians. He wasn’t able to. In a scene that resembled Wounded Knee more than it did Blacksburg, the Hokies jumped out to a 35-0 lead by the end of the first quarter, as fans were forced to think up creative ways to keep the game interesting. "How about….Virginia Tech points vs. Arkansas State total yards?" (We still led in that game, 56-55, with only a few minutes left in the half.) The second half ended up resembling a Pop Warner league game; you know, the kind where everybody has to play. Even the scout team quarterback, (That Dog) Will Hunt.

Coach Beamer kept the playbook simple this time around. REALLY simple, letting his defense and special teams score a good percentage of the points. DeAngelo Hall must’ve been one of the most unhappy players in the second half, having to fair-catch 6 more touchdowns on punt returns. But the running backs were happy, gaining 288 yards on 41 carries. When asked about the vanilla play-calling, Frank had this to say: "I really didn't want to show a lot in the quarterback play in this game. I figure if the quarterback situation was resolved, then those boys over on the Football Board at TSL would have nothing to argue about. That sure would be a shame, I'll tell you that."* He had no concerns about the Lounge Board posters, however, probably because they were drinking heavily, and couldn’t tell the difference between jersey numbers 3 and 11 from the stands.

The 63-7 blowout vaulted the Hokies into first place in the conference because, well, nobody else has played. But that won’t be the case after this weekend, as all 8 teams plus Connecticut are on the gridiron.

In a game featuring a true Division 1-AA team, and a should-be 1-AA team, the oddsmakers have cancelled all bets except the over-under, which is set at 3,000 fans. The Owls have installed a no-huddle spread offense in the offseason, which is good because they need to be able to pass, for two reasons: (1) RB Tanardo Sharps’ output sputtered last year, falling from 1,038 yds/10 TDs to 771 yds/1 TD, and (2) as we all know, nobody runs on Richmond. (Don’t groan, y’all knew it was coming.)

Boston College will try to do their Virginia Tech imitation on Connecticut, in a game that should be just a warm up for them. Returning more starters than anyone else in the Big East, the Eagles should be much improved this year. But can they challenge for the conference title? We’ll likely know by October 10, as the first two Big East games for the Eagles are Miami and Virginia Tech. Oh, wait, you thought I was going to talk about the UConn game? Why bother. It should be as much of a snoozer as Tech-ASU last weekend.

I can’t say it any better than ESPN’s preview did: "The good news is that 18 starters return from last year's team. The bad news is that 18 starters return from last year's team." Rutgers shows a new life in the TV commercial game, but it’s unclear how the product on the field will turn out. One improvement could be at RB, where sophomore Clarence Pittman (who gained 368 yards in a high school game) could be an improvement over Dennis Thomas (who gained slightly more than that over all of 2001). They should really be better if they can get LB Tony Soprano in the middle, but at the cost of bullets and body bags to the athletic department.

This is a simple one. If Pittsburgh plays like they’re playing Virginia Tech, it’s a blowout. If they play like it’s anyone else, they’ll struggle, and win. Interesting little trivia: Pittsburgh has the second longest active win streak in the nation, having won their last 6 games. That should go to 7 this weekend, as they have 8 returning starters on each side of the ball, but they must address questions at QB and WR. Sound familiar?

Far be it from me to critique someone else’s schedule (OK, I can do that this year), but Miami deserves a nice little pastry to start, considering they have OOC games against Florida, Florida State and Tennessee this year. If they go undefeated, there’s no doubt they should be the national champions again. Is that unrealistic considering they lost 11 players to the NFL? You be the judge: they return nine players who were 1^st or 2^nd all Big East last year, including QB Ken Dorsey and WR Andre Johnson. Go figure.