There's not much going on around here - I haven't been able to make it by a spring football scrimmage yet, so I can't report first hand on what's going on there, and things have been relatively slow off the field as well (and as we learned in 1996, when so many football players got in trouble, quiet times off the field are a good thing).

The team scrimmaged Wednesday afternoon, and I have yet to see a report on the message board about what went on.  However, I did listen to Sportstalk With John Hale Wednesday evening, and he was doing the show on location at Lane Stadium.  The 5:05-5:20 segment of the show was with Tech Director of Media Relations Jack Williams.  I missed the 5:30-6:00 slot, but I did catch the first part of the 6:10 slot, which featured Mike Burnop.

Jack Williams talked with John in general terms about the team - offensive line is a big question mark, lots of assistant coaches with new assignments, etc.  Nothing really earthshaking there.  For those of you who aren't up to date on the coaching situation, when offensive line coach J.B. Grimes left recently, the "assistant" offensive line coach, Bryan Stinespring, was given the offensive line job.  The Hokies then hired Tony Ball from Louisville.  They plugged Ball in to coach the receivers and reassigned Terry Strock, who had coached the receivers for years, to tight ends coach, which had previously been Stinespring's primary duty.

So, even though the Hokies only have one new coach (Ball), they've got three coaches at new positions.

One interesting note that Jack had for Hokie fans is that this year, the crowd for the Spring Game will be seated on the East (students) side, instead of the customary West (press box) side.  The wooden bleachers on the West side are being replaced with aluminum bleachers (imagine that on a November day in Blacksburg!), and the refurbishment necessitated the move over to the East side.

Once again, the Spring Game is on Saturday, April 18th, at 2:00 p.m.

By the time Burnop came on the air, the scrimmage was well underway, and Burnop and John Hale were very frank:  the offense was looking bad, in particular, the offensive line.  According to John and Mike, the O-line was getting schooled by the D-line, down to the point where even the center/quarterback exchange on the snap was a dicey proposition.

We went through this same routine in the spring of 1997.  The offensive line had massive problems with the defensive line last spring, too, and it manifested itself during the regular season in an offensive line performance that was decent, but not up to Tech's usual standards.  This year, with All Big East performers Gennaro DiNapoli and Todd Washington gone, the Hokies will once again enter the season with an O-line that is a big unknown.

Offensively, it could be another long season.  Our hope lies in the fact that our tailbacks (Stith, Pegues, and Kendrick) are more explosive to the hole than Ken Oxendine was last year, plus the receiving corps should be deeper and more talented than last year's.  Only time will tell how the mix is going to fall out.

I hate losing to them in anything.  There, I reported it.  Let's move on.

Jenis Grindstaff announced his destination on Wednesday:  the University of Tennessee.  The former Virginia Tech guard even dropped by a UT message board to say hello to fans of his new school (Well!  He never stopped by HokieCentral!  Sniff, sniff.)

This announcement comes as no big surprise, because it reunites Grindstaff with assistant coach Chris Ferguson, who was Grindstaff's primary recruiter for Virginia Tech.  Ferguson left the Hokie basketball staff last year, after Grindstaff had already signed with Tech, and some people theorize that Ferguson's departure is one of the reasons that Grindstaff soured on Tech.  I doubt that Jenis left Tech just so he could follow Coach Ferguson, but it certainly helped UT that Ferguson is on their staff.

Jenis's commitment to UT does disprove one theory, namely that Jenis left Tech to go play in the ACC.  UT is in the SEC, of course, which is no slouch of a basketball conference itself.  But although the SEC is a fine conference (Kentucky, anyone?) Tennessee isn't exactly a Mecca of men's basketball, so many Hokies, me included, are no doubt still scratching their heads and wondering just what went wrong for Jenis at Virginia Tech.

While he was on Sportstalk With John Hale on Wednesday afternoon, Jack Williams did touch upon the subject of Jenis Grindstaff, saying that Jenis spent an hour in Jack's office after the announcement of his transfer, and never once did he say why he was leaving.  If time goes on, and Jenis never speaks, the reasons for his transfer will remain a mystery in the minds of Hokie basketball fans forever.

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