Hokies Travel to Chapel Hill Minus Wilson, Drager

Coming off seven straight wins, the Hokies look to continue their winning ways. The Hokies can continue their quest for the ACC Coastal Division with a win in Chapel Hill.

The Tar Heels have had their share of distractions this season with many of the suspensions but have still found ways to win. North Carolina has been able to elevate themselves to 6-3 (5-2) and still have a chance to win the Coastal themselves. They've done so with 31 scholarship players who have missed at least one game due to suspension and/or injury. They'll be without Johnny White their leading rusher who went down last week against North Carolina. However, leading the ACC in team pass efficiency, T.J. Yates has quietly led the team to a 5-1 since starting 0-2.

Dwight Jones, their leading receiver has 716 yards this season averaging 17.9 yards per reception and 4.4 reception per game. The lack of a running game stems from all those injuries. Now, the Tar Heels who have 1118 yards rushing for the year lose the player who had nearly 3/4 of those yards. White was sidelined for the season with a collarbone injury after a season total of 720 yards.

Meanwhile, the Hokies are traveling down I77 and Rte 52 passed the likes of Tobaccoville and King Tobacco minus some key players themselves. David Wilson, who pretty much won the Georgia Tech game on his kick return for a touchdown, will be out with a case of mono. Defensive end Chris Drager will miss the game due to injuries suffered on a hit in the Georgia Tech game.

The Hokies have had trouble starting out strong. Doing so, would force the Tar Heels to abandon any attempt to run at which point the Hokie defense can focus on Yates and the passing game.

Go Hokies! And Happy Veterans Day!

TSF Poll.. Horned Frogs??

My apologies for the late update. I was in Vegas making billions of dollars playing craps.... Ballaz roll like that. Here's this weekend's TSF poll.

TCU gets a first place vote bouncing them all the way to #2. LSU jumps to #5 and the Hokies make the top 15 despite really struggling against Georgia Tech. Temple is bowl eligible and makes the cut while Baylor falls off.

TSF Poll
#	TEAM	Points
1	Auburn (2)	73
2	TCU (1)	71
2	Oregon	71
4	Boise St	67
5	LSU	63
6	Stanford	57
7	Nebraska	55
8	Michigan St	51
9	Ohio St	49
10	Oklahoma St	46
11	Wisconsin	44
12	Utah	42
13	Virginia Tech	33
14	Alabama	30
14	Iowa	30
16	Mississippi St	28
17	Arkansas	27
18	Missouri	25
19	Nevada	22
20	Oklahoma	18
21	Arizona	16
22	South Carolina	9
23	Arizona St	7
23	Temple	7
25	USC	6

3 Key Plays - VT vs. Georgia Tech

The 3 Key Plays segment was started to cover which 3 plays during the course of a Hokies game had the greatest impact on the outcome of the game. In other words, if these 3 plays would have had a different result during the game, the game would likely have been won by a different team. With that in mind, on VERY rare occasions, there is one play that changes the entire outcome of the game. It is so huge that whichever team benefits from this play is nearly certain to win. The VT vs. GT game last night had a play like this, which makes listing two other plays (in a game full of big plays) pointless.

1) With just over 4:00 left in the first half, Georgia Tech held a 14-7 lead and had driven down to the Hokie 6 yard line where they faced third and goal. GT had all the momentum, having recovered a Jayron Hosley fumble on a punt return and driven the ball down like this. They were on the verge of dealing a huge blow to the Hokies. The stadium didn't have any energy as the crowd half-expected the Jackets to go up by at least 10 pts heading into halftime. Incredibly, Coach Paul Johnson called for a pass play on this down and QB Joshua Nesbitt threw off his back foot allowing SS Davon Morgan to run under the route at the goal line and pick off the ball. This ended the scoring threat and kept VT in the game, but even more importantly, on the return, when Nesbitt tried to tackle Morgan along the sideline, his arm caught Morgan's knee at just the right point where it broke the arm. Nesbitt was out for the game and likely the season.

Now we can all sit and listen to the interviews from the Hokie players talking about how've really "come together" and they never give up and the coaches talk about how they didn't play well at times but played well enough to win. And we can all revel in a big win on national TV. But none of that hides the fact that the Hokies came out in yet another big game as flat as a pancake, for about the 15th straight time (QB Tyrod Taylor aside). And if Nesbitt hadn't thrown that interception and then gotten hurt trying to tackle Morgan, Georgia Tech would have won and we'd be throwing our hands up in the air about Coach Stinespring's inability to understand how to effectively run the ball on a Cover 2 defense with deep zone coverage instead of continuing to try and throw deep passes. We'd be lamenting how, despite the extra time to prepare and the visit to Iowa, blah-blah-blah, the young Foster-led defense still was unable to deal with the triple option and gave up far too many huge plays. The sky would be falling and all would not be right in the world, but for this one play.

Fortunately, this one went the Hokies' way, and while I feel bad for Nesbitt and hope he has a speedy recovery and a future at perhaps tight end in the NFL, I sure am happy that VT was the beneficiary on the one key play of this game. Or I would have had to puke up all that delicious scotch I drank last night.