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| TSLMail #364- January 9, 2009 |
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Good Finish to 2008 Means Big Expectations in 2009 by Chris Coleman, TechSideline.com The final Top 25 rankings of the season were released on Friday, and the Hokies finished in the Top 15 in both the AP Poll and the Coaches' Poll. Since the beginning of the Beamer Bowl Era, this has been a common occurrence.
Here's a quick table that shows you how the rankings have been through the years.
In the 13 years Virginia Tech has ended the season ranked in the AP Poll, their average ranking has been 13.23. In the 14 seasons they've been ranked in the Coaches' Poll, the average sits at 13.07. As a result of their top 15 ranking to end the season, and the fact that they return 18 of 22 starters from the Orange Bowl, Virginia Tech will likely be a preseason Top 10 team heading into 2009. The Hokies will open the season in the Georgia Dome against Alabama, a team that also returns most of their starters and who is likely to be a preseason Top 10 team as well, if not higher. The ESPN hype machine will be back in full force. So far, a couple of very early 2009 preseason rankings have been released. Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com gives the Hokies an early #7 ranking, while he puts Alabama at #5. Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal Constitution gives the Hokies a #8 ranking and places the Crimson Tide at #4. If those rankings hold up over the spring and summer, this is going to be a big-time football game. With a Top 15 finish in both polls, that means the Hokies finished the season ranked higher than they started it. They started the year 17th in the AP Poll and finished 15th, while they jumped up from 15th to 14th in the Coaches' Poll. Overall, the pollsters had the Hokies pegged very accurately back in August when the first set of rankings were released. In fact, the Hokies' preseason and postseason rankings have been similar for each of the last four seasons.
As much as the analysts get laughed at by fans from every school, they've been very accurate with Virginia Tech's preseason rankings. Particularly in 2007, when both polls had the Hokies at #9 in the preseason, and that's exactly where they ended up.
If we judge by the last
four seasons, 2009 should be pretty good. It appears that the Hokies will start
off this coming season in the Top 10, and if that ranking is as accurate as the
preseason rankings of the last four years, we should be in for another great
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Updates From the Past Week
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Chris
Coleman and Jerry Miller kicked off 2009 this past Monday (sorry we're so
late getting it posted!) by discussing the ins and outs of VT's Orange
Bowl win over Cincinnati (WMA format, approx. 3.0 MB, approx. 13 minutes
long).
Ben
Barber stayed close to the Virginia Tech program last fall, attending
a junior college near Tech. He will officially become part of the program
when he enrolls in Blacksburg next weekend, 11 months after signing a
letter of intent with the Hokies.
After
starting out 0-1 in ACC play with the loss to Duke, Virginia Tech has a
very important ACC matchup on Saturday with in-state rival UVA. The Hokies
can't afford to begin conference play 0-2, and they need to find a way to
win this game in Cassell Coliseum.
Less
than a month remains until 2009 Signing Day and Virginia Tech currently
boasts 18 verbal commitments in the 2009 football recruiting class.
Targets remain on the board and the situations with commitments/2008
signees remain unsettled, so there certainly is more action to come before
the first Wednesday in February arrives.
With
another successful season of Virginia Tech football in the books, it's
time to take a look back. There were many storylines on both sides of the
ball this year, but today we'll focus on the offense. Slow starting as
usual, the Hokie offense turned into a competent unit by the end of the
season.
Former
Hylton (Woodbridge, VA) standout tight end Eric Martin will arrive
at Virginia Tech later this month, just under a year after signing a
letter of intent with the Hokies. Martin signed a letter of intent last
February and grey-shirted, so the long road to Blacksburg is almost
complete.
As
I was walking to the car last Thursday night, I reflected on the
accomplishments of the 2008 Virginia Tech football team and tried to think
of some way to capture them in my article. But so much has been said and
written on the subject already...there is very little I can add. The fact
that this team (of all the past Tech teams) won a BCS Bowl game and
captured the Orange Bowl trophy is still hard to believe several days
later. But they did it. In beating Cincinnati, the Hokies broke through
several barriers - Dolphin Stadium isn't cursed after all - and salvaged
some pride for the beleaguered ACC. And now with the Orange Bowl trophy in
hand, this young group of Hokies has set themselves up for a quite a
season in 2009.
Ben
Boggs' high school basketball career came to an abrupt end on December
4th, when he suffered a broken right tibia and fibula on a baseline drive
against Northside. A month later, the 6-4, 180-pound Hidden Valley
(Roanoke, VA) star is in a more positive frame of mind and very much on
the road to recovery.
The
show switched to its one-hour format Monday night, and the lone guest was
head men's basketball coach Seth Greenberg, who talked about the loss to
Duke, where he thinks the team is right now, and Saturday's game against
Virginia.
What
a season, and what a finish. What a pleasure it is to face the month of
January coming off a bowl win, without any drama. It's the first time
since 2002 that the Hokies finished with a win and didn't stomp somebody
in the leg doing it. As many gaps, injuries, problems and youth as this
team had, they still did what no Tech team has done since 1995: win a
conference championship and a BCS Bowl.
Starting
free safety Kam Chancellor told the media following the Orange Bowl that
he will be returning to Virginia Tech for his senior season. Chancellor, a
junior, played free safety this year. It was his fourth position on the
team in three years, if you count the few days he spent at quarterback
when he first arrived.
Virginia
Tech played solid defense in Sunday night's game in Cameron Indoor
Stadium, but they managed just 13 second half points in a 69-44 loss to #5
Duke. The Hokies must now use the rest of the week to regroup before
returning home to face UVA on Saturday.