Thoughts on the National Championship, a familiar game

Well I lost my bowl pick'em and got reprimands from friends from SEC schools after Auburn beat Oregon 22-19.

This game did look familiar though from the point of being a fan of the Hokies playing games against top 5 schools. Oregon came in as a team getting a ton of rushing yards (303.8 y/g) but their offense bogged down to a scrambling QB trying to make plays while running for his life and the team only garnered 75 rush yards. Oregon's defense was able to hold off for the most part in the first half but when it came time for the defense to make stops in the second half seems like they were worn down. Oregon's defense was very good against the run this year, a lot better than ours this year, in giving up only allowing 117.6 rushing yards a game but Auburn was able to get 254 yards.

Let's look at some of the big game losses against top 5 teams during our latest era from 2007 to now which I like to call "the era of no legitimate reason to rush the field." I call our current era that because we are a prominent enough team dominating our conference that there aren't that many teams that we should be surprised to beat that would play us at home. The Hokies are always known as being a strong rushing time but rushing yardage wasn't there in games against LSU(71), Alabama(64), and Stanford(66). Similarly the Hokies defense normally stout against the run but allowed a lot of rushing yards to LSU(297), Alabama(268), and Stanford(247). You know what our offense ended up being in those games, a scrambling QB running around trying to make plays while we couldn't get a consistent running game. I was down at Baton Rouge and we got straight blown out but against Alabama(+1) and Stanford(-1) the margin was about even at halftime.

The difference between Oregon's national title game and our last 2 games that ended in wider margins could be explained by a couple of things. One thing it can't be explained away is talent as both Oregon and VT get similar talent according to Rivals as if you take the past 5 final ranking of classes(the players that would be red-shirt seniors this year) the average ranking for VT is 25 and for Oregon its 24.8. I'll throw the angry mob a bone and say that offensive coaching seems to be a good difference, there were some great play calls by Chip Kelly but still a good bit of those smart plays were blown up by Nick Fairley. I have to say that Oregon had a good bit of luck staying close in the 2nd half in that there were at least 4 drops/bad throws that would have been TDs or huge gainers by Auburn and against VT it seemed like Luck didn't miss on any big pass opportunity. For the national championship game we can say that it was really close and that with a couple of different bounces of the ball, or knees not hitting the ground, we wouldn't have to hear about how dominate the SEC is even though they really do have the best teams.

This year Oregon was better than VT because of a lot of things going wrong with us on defense personnel wise but on a regular year we are about even. They both have 9-15 bowl records, similar size stadiums, comparable fervency of fan bases, comparable good years of football history, and level of national exposure. VT has more conference titles but Oregon has 2 more wins against top 5 teams. Both programs have made it to the national title to put up good performances and lose. This is the last time I'll talk about Oregon.

The big question is what it takes to fill the empty trophy case reserved for the national title. I feel VT for the past few years has been right below the top tier of football programs but realistically we aren't on the same elite level of an Ohio State or Alabama yet. VT has been progressing up from being thought of a team most likely to be ranked in the 20s in the big east days to a team most consistently to be ranked in the low teens.

The great thing for VT is that we can get to a national title. We get consistent flow of talented players with great coaching while playing in a weaker league which has given us at least 10 wins and a legitimate shot every year to get to the national title or a big BCS game. Bottom line our program is based on running the ball and stopping the run; until we can run the ball and stop the run against elite programs it's going to take luck to win the national title, or big game, against an elite program.

Only 235 days until football season starts and I'm hoping we go to Bourbon Street and at least get lucky.

Last thought: When was the last time VT has had a stud DT similar to Nick Fairley, Terrance Cody, or Glen Dorsey?