As the 1999 football season approaches, there are a number of items on the Hokie football team's plate that I'd like to see get taken care of. This is arguably the most critical season in Virginia Tech football history (at least until next year), and there are a lot of important milestones that this team can achieve.

With national attention focusing in on the Hokies, and with the senior-laden defense and special teams that Tech is putting on the field, 1999 is a rare chance for the Hokies to truly shine on the national stage.

And with conference realignment possibly looming on the horizon, it is critical to the future of Virginia Tech athletics that the Hokies build a top-caliber, winning football team, because football is the sun around which the rest of the collegiate sports world orbits. By building a nationally-renowned football program, Tech won't need to worry as much if and when conference realignment or the implosion of the Big East conference rears its ugly head.

One step forward, two steps back. Every time the Hokies win the Sugar Bowl, knock off Miami, or scrape the Top 10 in the rankings, a loss to Cincinnati, Miami of Ohio, or Temple puts the Hokies back in their place and makes them the object of ridicule.

No more. It's time to stop. Tech has proven that they know how to win the big games, but the Hokies have yet to prove that they know how to win the little games.

The Hokies will understandably take criticism for a soft schedule this year, and there is only one thing to do about that schedule: whip the teams on it. I'm not suggesting running up the score, but I am suggesting winning big against inferior opponents. No close games (a la Akron in 1996), or heaven forbid, losses allowed.

I saw a discussion on the UVa message board a couple of weeks ago where one of their posters asked the question, "When was the last time we lost a game we were really supposed to win, against a far lesser opponent?" The other posters on the board thought long and hard, and the answer came back: "Maryland, 1990."

That's a loooong time ago. It's time for the Hokies to establish the tradition of soundly thrashing the JMU's, UAB's, Temples, and Rutgers of the world, without letting up.

I think I read somewhere that Tech started the same eleven players on defense every game last year. That's incredible. Contrast that with the offense, which played three quarterbacks (one of which was a converted safety), lost one of its best offensive linemen early in the year (Josh Redding), and got so thin at fullback that they started a walk-on (Jarrett Ferguson) and moved Houseright over from linebacker to back him up.

The Hokies have already lost a skilled, experienced Whip linebacker to legal trouble. Lorenzo Ferguson was dismissed from the team for stealing and forging checks. Now Tech has to play a skilled but inexperienced player at a key position on the defense. It will hurt. It might not be obvious, but it will cost the Hokies some plays on defense.

Frank Beamer created it, Bill Roth coined the phrase, and the Tech Sports Marketing department jumped all over it to create a sorely needed national identity and a successful season ticket marketing campaign.

Virginia Tech's football team has crowned itself the king of special teams play, and the Hokies and their coach are actually threatening to remake college football with their emphasis on game-breaking special teams play. For now, the rest of the country is playing catch-up, and the Hokies need to cash in the great competitive and marketing edge that they have built for themselves.

No further explanation necessary.

The Hokies have lost two in a row in embarrassing fashion to their in-state rivals. Neither one of these teams has beaten the other three times in a row since the Hoos pulled it off from 1987-89. It's not time for them to do it again.

Tech needs not just to win this game, but to win it big over a UVa squad that has been depleted by graduation, legal troubles, and academic casualties. Not to mention that they'll be out in Utah the week before the Tech game, playing a very tough BYU team.

It's time to drop the hammer on the Hoos, Tech. Hard.

In the latest HokieCentral poll, 2 out of 3 voters agree that this is the game to win this year - not UVa, and not Syracuse.

Tech has beaten the Canes four times in a row, and although the odds might seem against pulling it off a fifth time, it is critical that it happen. Next year, the Hokies lose their entire starting defensive line, and pulling off a win in the Orange Bowl may be next to impossible.

It's time for Tech to strike while the timing is good. Plus, beating Miami falls in line with the next goal….

The Hokies have had some good years in the Big East and have won a couple of Big East championships, but they have never gone undefeated in Big East play, and they have never won the conference outright, without having to resort to a tiebreaker.

Accomplishing this feat would not only make an impressive statement, but it would finally shut up the Syracuse and Miami fans who rag on us for never having won the conference outright.

Yeah, sure it would.

The conference needs it. The Hokies need it. It's time to win another BCS bowl, a feat that only the Hokies have accomplished in the Big East since the conference started round-robin play in 1993.

Preferably, the win would come over a current, hot national power. The Sugar Bowl win over Texas in 1995 was nice, but now that it's four years in the past, it is clear that the win was just a blip on the national radar.

A BCS bowl win over the likes of Florida, Florida State, or Nebraska would go a long way towards cementing Tech's reputation as a national power. The Hokies have elbowed their way to a seat at the big table, and now it's time to prove they belong by knocking off the big boys. Since we don’t play the top teams during the regular season, we'll have to do it in a bowl game.

In 1990, a very good but not great Virginia football team started the season out ranked in the teens. From that point on, they whipped some sorry teams and were the recipients of one of the most unusual years in college football, a year in which every team in front of them in the rankings lost.

The result was that the Hoos rose to #1 in the land and spent three weeks there. In the end, they weren't able to do much with it, and they haven't been there since, but it's a very nice feather in their cap, one the Hokies can't claim.

If Tech can win some games and get lucky with higher-ranked teams losing, the Hokies could very well wind up #1 at some point in the season. It's not likely, but it could happen. And yes, the boo-birds and schedule-questioners would come out of the woodwork, but at least they would be talking about the Hokies.

If you're going to win the national championship, you have to play for it.

Well, duh.

Even losing a national championship game would be a good experience, and good for the program, in the long run. It would teach the coaches, the players, and the fans how to prepare, play, and perform at that level, and it would teach them what the experience entails.

Plus, it would create phenomenal publicity and coverage for the team. Even if the talking heads on ESPN and elsewhere spent all their time saying that Tech didn't belong there, at least they would be talking about the Hokies, and not (yawn) Florida, Florida State, Nebraska, and company.

To be accepted as one of the top teams in college football, you have to play in the important games. And there's nothing more important than a championship game.

Of all the goals to set for a season, this is the holy grail. It's a tall order, given that the Hokies have a freshman quarterback at the helm, and it takes not just talent and coaching, but tons of luck.

I think that winning a national championship is more of a long-term goal at Virginia Tech, but who knows what could happen? It's not out of the realm of possibility that it could happen this year. After all, Georgia Tech did it in 1990, without really fielding a dominating team. I would venture to say that Tech's 1999 team is more talented than GT's 1990 championship team.

It's difficult to play at the highest level and win in your first attempt, but stranger things have happened. If Michael Vick plays well, the team jells, no major injuries happen, and Shayne Graham has a clutch year, it might all come together.

And then what would we do for an encore?

There you have it, twelve goals for the year. Sure, we could come up with others, but I wanted to throw these twelve out there for your consideration.

At the end of the year, I'm going to post a follow-up to this article and recap how we did against these goals. If we accomplish eight or more of these goals, then it will be a very good season. Anything less, and we might find ourselves grumbling a little, depending upon how bad things get.