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News With Commentary by HC Staff Wednesday, September 13, 2000 The CBS "Schedule" I have received several emails lately, telling me that CBS has updated their posted college football broadcast schedule, and that I need to do the same on HokieCentral. In the immortal words of the man with the lightning-rod rental car, "Not so fast, my friend." The CBS schedule linked above is not a final schedule. Networks don't have to stake their claim to broadcast a given game until twelve days prior to the game, so the schedule above is just a list of games that CBS has rights to, not really a list of games that they're going to broadcast. Proof of this is the fact that the "schedule" shows 5 Virginia Tech games, and under the terms of the contract between CBS and the Big East, CBS cannot show any given Big East team more than 4 times. More proof: the schedule lists two national games on November 25th (UGa vs. GT and UVa vs. VT), but then shows other games listed in the same time slots. That doesn't make any sense. I have contacted everyone I can think of to check into verifying the listed games, and all I can tell you is that the Miami/VT game is set in stone for noon on November 4th, and the Boston College game is likewise set in stone for 3:30 on September 30th. Other than that, the other games listed on CBS's page (Pitt, Syracuse, UVa) are still up in the air.
There was an excellent article by Randy King in Wednesday's Roanoke Times called By the numbers, defense doesn't add up. The article details how low the Tech defense ranks in the Big East and national statistics on a number of fronts: points allowed, passing yards allowed, total defense, etc. That sent me scurrying to the CNN/SI web site for a look at where Tech ranks in important offensive and defensive categories. At this point in the season, with most teams having played just 1 or 2 games, these statistics are still extremely volatile and simply out of whack in a lot of ways, but it's still fun to look at (all rankings are from CNN/SI's web site):
Wow, check out those defensive statistics. Numbers-wise, they're pretty awful, but we all know the defense isn't that bad. Prediction: although they're off to a hideous start, by the end of the year, the VT defense will be Top 25 in total defense (yards per game). It's also interesting that a team with the leading Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback can be ranked 85th in the country in passing offense. This will serve as argument fodder for the more ignorant fans among those who don't want Tech to win the Heisman (hint: the Coral Gables crew). But every Tech fan on the planet knows that Rickey Bustle's offense has never been about racking up big passing yards.
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