On Monday, during the Big East coaches teleconference, Frank Beamer announced something that surprised almost no one: Al Clark will not be ready to play for the BC game, and Nick Sorensen will get the go-ahead, instead.

First-hand observers of recent Tech practices were reporting that Al has been limping noticeably and didn't appear to be healing fast enough to play Thursday. Coach Beamer saved us all much gnashing of teeth by ending the suspense and giving the news about Sorensen.

Someone asked me what I thought of all this. Many message board posters were wringing their hands over it, but it really doesn't worry me too much. Those of you who were here for last season heard me praise Sorensen for his performance in the Alabama-Birmingham and Gator Bowl games, and I have more than once said that I think Nick's a good quarterback.

Nick is a good quarterback. His only failing is his limited playing time at the position and his unnerving tendency to occasionally underthrow the ball, and I mean way underthrow it.

Last year, he missed a wide-open Ken Handy in the UAB game by a large margin, and in the Gator Bowl, he threw the ball into the dirt five yards behind an equally wide open Sean Sullivan, who was gallivanting down the middle of the field all by himself.

But then again, that was a pretty nice pass he threw to Andre Davis in the Pitt game (it was broken up in the end zone by a nice defensive play). So who knows?

The interesting thing is, Al isn't that great of a passer himself, so it's not as if our offense depends upon the long ball. If Nick can hit the short stuff and not throw interceptions, and if we can get the running game going halfway decent, then the Sorensen-for-Clark trade is just about break even, skill-wise.

What cannot be foretold at this point is whether or not Nick is the warrior and the leader that Clark is. Nick probably does pretty well with those two characteristics, but you've got to be special to match Clark in those two departments.

I'm satisfied with these developments for two reasons:

1. Unlike last year, Coach Beamer has taken an injured Al Clark out of the lineup. Last year, he wouldn't do it, and Nick was our backup then, too. And this isn't UAB or Arkansas State. This is Boston College, at Boston College, and it's for first place in the Big East. That's how confident Beamer is in Sorensen.

2. How many teams in the country can go three-deep on their quarterback depth chart and still put a good, experienced quarterback on the field? Nick's not a grizzled veteran, but he has played a couple of games, and he has practiced in the system for three years, minus his time on defense.  We've got a good idea of what he can do.

Take out WVU's or Syracuse's first two quarterbacks, and watch their fans start sweating bullets. We're fortunate to have Sorensen, Hokie fans. That's why I'm not panicking over these events. If anything, I feel lucky.

Obviously, I'm feeling good because of our defense, too. We already know that this defense can crush mediocre offenses. What we get to find out on Thursday night is how well they do on the road, against a good running back (BC's Mike Cloud), a good offensive line, and an experienced quarterback (Scott Mutryn).

With Al out, I now call the Boston College game pretty much a toss-up, because there are just too many unknowns. How well will Nick play on the road against a quality opponent? How well will Tech's no-name defense do against a good offense? Will the Boston College crowd be rowdy, and inspire their team? Or will Tech's suffocating D rise to the occasion and bring home victory again?

I'll have more thoughts on Thursday.

I told you at the end of my Pitt game report that I love Thursday night games, because they're such a showcase. It gives a college team the opportunity to show the nation how good they are and what they're all about.

This past week, Syracuse discovered that there's a huge downside to having the whole country watch you. When you screw up, you're not doing it in front of a small regional audience, with ten other games on the tube that day. No, when you mess up on Thursday night, everybody knows it.

Last Thursday, Syracuse lost the ESPN Thursday night game to N.C. State, 38-17, and the Orangemen looked bad doing it. They looked poorly coached, poorly motivated, and when the going got rough, they looked like quarreling quitters.

And they paid for it big-time in the polls this week, dropping from 11th to 24th in both polls. It's unusual for a team to plummet 13 spots in the polls after losing, and I can only think that it's mainly due to the fact that they showed their posteriors on a national stage, in front of a national audience, with, as I like to say, "God and everybody else" watching.

The good thing is, we don't have to worry about the Hokies letting up. Tech is a team that doesn't take being on center stage for granted, and the Hokies know how important it is, and how to take advantage of it. Don't be surprised to see the 1998 Hokies bring their best to national TV Thursday night.

(I decided to retire the "Turkey Bites" headline, unless some of you out there really like it and want me to keep it)

• On this week's Virginia Tech Sports Today TV program, it was announced that Tech will hold basketball's Midnight Madness on Friday, October 16th, beginning at 11:00 P.M. in Cassell Coliseum. The men's and women's teams will have three-point shooting and dunk contests, and the 1973 NIT champions will be honored.
  
  As part of the ceremony honoring the '73 NIT champs, former Hokie Allan Bristow's jersey will be retired. This retirement answers the critics who said, when Ace Custis's jersey was retired in 1997, that if Ace deserved it, then Bristow deserved it, as well. The Tech athletic department apparently agrees.

• Student tickets for the October 31 game with WVU went on sale last week and sold out in just a few hours. Many students didn't get tickets, leading to an uproar on the message board, and in fact, the WVU tickets have been extremely hard to get, in general.
  
  Tech sold over 18,000 season tickets, plus 14,000 student tickets for WVU, plus 6,000 tickets that were distributed to the Mountaineers. That leaves only 14,000 tickets for the general public (an extra 2,000 seats will be set up in the end zone, leading to a total of 52,000 seats for the game), and a good portion of those were snapped up ahead of time by season ticket holders as single-game purchases.
  
  The WVU tickets are proving to be one of the hottest tickets of all time for a Tech football game, and if the Hokies top BC on Thursday, look for those WVU tickets to go supernova. A Tech victory over BC would most likely set up a clash of unbeatens at Lane Stadium on October 31st (although WVU has a tough home game with Miami to get through the week before the Tech game).

• Be sure to check out GalaxHokie's Hokie Hotline Notes. Among other things, the notes contain important details about some incredible press coverage that the Hokies will get if they can knock off BC.

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