The AFP on WREL: Baseball season
AFP editor Chris Graham talks sports with WREL-1450AM’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan.”
The segment begins with a look at ACC baseball. Can the #1 Virginia baseball team continue its prolonged hot streak all the way to Omaha? That’s the question with the Cavs at the top of a deep ACC field of likely entrants into the 2011 NCAA Tournament.
NFL Draft talk wraps us up. Tyrod Taylor will be a good steal for whatever team picks him up later in the draft, according to Chris.
The AFP on WREL: Baseball season
AFP editor Chris Graham talks sports with WREL-1450AM’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan.”
The segment begins with a look at ACC baseball. Can the #1 Virginia baseball team continue its prolonged hot streak all the way to Omaha? That’s the question with the Cavs at the top of a deep ACC field of likely entrants into the 2011 NCAA Tournament.
NFL Draft talk wraps us up. Tyrod Taylor will be a good steal for whatever team picks him up later in the draft, according to Chris.
These go to 11: Stanford ends Hokies' streak
Stanford scored on its first four possessions of the second half to break open a tight Orange Bowl game with Virginia Tech en route to a 40-12 pasting Monday night. The loss ended the Hokies’ 11-game winning streak and sent them to their 19th loss in 20 games against top-five opponents under coach Frank Beamer.
“I think you give Stanford all the credit. They played better offensively than we did, they played better defensively than we did, and they played better on special teams,” Beamer said. Read more
These go to 11: Stanford ends Hokies’ streak in Orange Bowl
Stanford scored on its first four possessions of the second half to break open a tight Orange Bowl game with Virginia Tech en route to a 40-12 pasting Monday night. The loss ended the Hokies’ 11-game winning streak and sent them to their 19th loss in 20 games against top-five opponents under coach Frank Beamer.
“I think you give Stanford all the credit. They played better offensively than we did, they played better defensively than we did, and they played better on special teams,” Beamer said.
The game seemed to turn on a three-play sequence in the third quarter. Stanford was up 19-12 with Virginia Tech driving when quarterback Tyrod Taylor threw his fifth interception of the season. Set up at their 3, Stanford running back Stepfan Taylor broke through the line for a 56-yard run, and on the next play quarterback Andrew Luck connected with tight end Coby Fleener on a 41-yard touchdown that made it 26-12 Stanford with 5:49 to go in the third.
Luck threw two more touchdown passes in the fourth to seal the deal for Stanford, which came into the game ranked fourth nationally and finished its season at 12-1, its lone loss coming at the hands of #2 Oregon.
Tech had come in as perhaps the hottest team in America outside of the teams in the BCS title game, bolting through the ACC with a perfect 8-0 regular season and knocking off Florida State in the conference championship game after back-to-back losses to Boise State and James Madison to begin the campaign. Expectations had been higher for these Hokies, with the fan base clamoring for a run at the national title in Taylor’s senior season.
“I’m still proud of the way we played this whole season,” said Taylor, who completed 16 of his 31 pass attempts for 222 yards and a touchdown, and was sacked a season-high eight times. “I’m frustrated that we didn’t win our last game, but we had a heckuva season. We don’t have anything to hold our heads down about.”
Story by Chris Graham. More Virgina Tech sports at VaSportsOnline.com.
Rebound: How Hokies went from 0-2 to 10-2
Morale should have been about zippo. Virginia Tech, just a few days earlier a national-championship contender in the eyes of many, had just fallen to 0-2 following a loss to !-AA James Madison.
To the credit of the kids in the Hokie locker room, what they saw wasn’t how far they had fallen, but how far they could still go.
“After the game the seniors did a good job of motivating everybody, just trying to talk to them and let them know that we have to turn things around and said don’t hold your head up by the last two games, and we still had goals to reach which, was the ACC championship, and that we needed to start working with that – with coming out and beating ECU, and we did that, and got to Boston College and had a big win and just tried to keep the energy flowing and just the positive vibe going in the locker room,” said senior quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who has #12 Tech on a 10-game winning streak since the Sept. 11 loss to JMU entering Saturday’s ACC Championship Game matchup with #20 Florida State.
Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer had said back at the ACC Football Kickoff in July that the 2010 Hokies group was one that he really enjoyed being around, that win or lose he knew that his players would be back at it the next Monday with a focus on what they’d need to do to get a win the next game out. That feeling was put to the test following the loss to JMU.
“I’m not sure we ever got off track,” Beamer said. “We just had two tough losses within a week. Played on Monday, played on Saturday, and got beat. But I think we’ve got good kids. I think we had good leadership. I think there’s a strong caring within our program, coaches for players, players for coaches. If you got that, I think then you’ve got a chance to come back from two tough losses like that.”
It wasn’t an easy road back, to say the least. ECU, the Week 3 opponent, led Tech in the third quarter before the Hokies stormed back to win by a 49-27 final tally. Then in Week 5 Tech had to rally from a 17-0 deficit at N.C. State to post a win that wasn’t secure until the final minute.
The N.C. State win seemed to unleash the national power that we had expected Virginia Tech to be back in the summer. The only hiccup from that point on was a narrow 28-21 win over Georgia Tech on Nov. 4 that featured another double-digit comeback that was, like the State win, not secured until the final minute. Convincing wins over Coastal Division contenders North Carolina and Miami followed, and the Hokies ended the regular season with a routine 37-7 beatdown of in-state rival Virginia as a tuneup to the conference title game.
The winning streak has taken on a life of its own, to the point that it’s almost hard to figure that it’s the same program that seemed to be reeling after the improbable loss to JMU, which for its part struggled following the historic upset and didn’t even make the I-AA playoffs.
The seeds of the return to the title tilt were planted the Monday after that loss.
“I’ve said this a couple different times, but we practiced the same way Monday before Boise State, when we were all hyped up and ready to go, and we practiced the same way Monday after James Madison as we did the Monday of Boise. We went about our business, had good tempo. We were ready – I think everybody was ready to get back on the winning way and cracked what was wrong. We weren’t trying to find blame or pin something on anybody. We just wanted to correct what was going wrong and get it right and try to get some wins,” Beamer said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Taylor named ACC Player of the Year
Senior led ACC is pass efficiency
Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who has led the #12 Hokies to 10 straight wins and a berth in the ACC Championship Game following an 0-2 start, was voted the ACC Player of the Year for 2010.
Taylor, a senior, was the choice of 27 of the 57 members of the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association that voted. Russell Wilson of NC State was second with 19 votes.
Clemson defensive end Da’Quan Bowers won ACC Defensive Player of the Year.
Taylor leads the ACC in passing efficiency, having completed better than 60 percent of his attempts while throwing for 20 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He also is the Hokies’ second-leading rusher with 613 yards, and has two runs of more than 70 yards. Read more
Rebound: How Hokies went from 0-2 to 10-2
Posted by afp on December 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment
It’s all about attitude
To the credit of the kids in the Hokie locker room, what they saw wasn’t how far they had fallen, but how far they could still go.
“After the game the seniors did a good job of motivating everybody, just trying to talk to them and let them know that we have to turn things around and said don’t hold your head up by the last two games, and we still had goals to reach which, was the ACC championship, and that we needed to start working with that – with coming out and beating ECU, and we did that, and got to Boston College and had a big win and just tried to keep the energy flowing and just the positive vibe going in the locker room,” said senior quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who has #12 Tech on a 10-game winning streak since the Sept. 11 loss to JMU entering Saturday’s ACC Championship Game matchup with #20 Florida State. Read more
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with florida state football, frank beamer, tyrod taylor, virginia tech, virginia tech acc championship, virginia tech football, virginia tech jmu