Orange versus Blue game

Brian wasn't able to watch the Orange versus Blue game, and I see the folks over at Gobbler Country and The Key Play are falling over themselves to gleefully gloat about how horrible the game was. "DERP, they said it had just hailed but it looks sunny to me on ESPN3!" Apparently they all found time to watch the Orange versus Blue football game rather than the UVA/VT Baseball game in Blacksburg today. Says something about VT baseball, I suppose.

Here's a helpful picture to illustrate the thought processes (or lack thereof) of our friends in Blacksburg:

Anyhow, as I sat through the intermittent freezing, warming, and hailing through the (embarassing) lacrosse game and into the Orange versus Blue game, I thought I'd give my thoughts. Actually, I agree with a lot about what they're saying 'cross the blogoverse, minus the derp.

1) No quarterback stood out. Ahhh, You could tell Metheny and Rocco learned from Marc Verica. They’re like Brett Favre- brilliant for awhile, but then… boneheaded, just boneheaded mistakes. And when they’re good, they’re not good enough to make up for the boneheadedness like Favre was. Watford looked like he had potential, but this ain't high school ball. This is the big leagues. He just needs some time, though, he looks like he's mobile and the way the offensive lines played today, he's gonna need to be. Strauss gave the most consistent performance of the day, in my humble opinion, but that's akin to calling yourself the best dressed man in Montgomery County.

Look, Joe Montana sucked as a quarterback. Weak arm, couldn't laser it. Fact. But Bill Walsh and Bill Parcels evolved the game around his weaknesses, and who can argue with the results? You either get someone like Aaron Rodgers, who can be mobile and make up for the deficiencies in an offense line, or you gotta be able to change the offensive game to suit 'em, like Joe Montana.

I don't envy the choice Mike London has to make here. Do you go with Metheny or Rocco? They have playing time. Or do you go with Watford and start from scratch, bumps and bruises all, and mold him into the QB he has the potential to be?

2) Sloppy! Illegal formations, twice. Unsportsmanlike conduct in a football game when you're PLAYING YOURSELF? Sheesh. Unacceptable, really. Swanson picked up a punt Perry Jones dropped and thought he'd taken it into the end zone for a TD... nope. Cost Orange 15 yards and they had to turn it over. Hope Swanson got to do some laps or pushups. He seems like a good tight end- had an awesome play at the end of the game, his arms are about ten miles long and he proved how that can be an asset- but given the amount of penalties from last season, Mike London needs to stomp on this sort of behavior immediately. How many games could've at least potentially been won on the margin of a penalty or two last year? What were we, third from the bottom in the NCAA on penalties?

3) On the note of sloppiness again, cranking it up a notch. Again, I saw some of the same things this year as last year- two steps behind a thrown pass. One step behind a miss tackle. Again, things on the margin. Gotta tighten the screws!

4) The running game su- well, it would suck if it existed.

Now that my armchair quarterback schtick is done, there were some awesome plays today. Great early touchdown by Perry Jones, who went flipping over a blocker and into the end zone. Outstanding interceptions by Chase Minnifield and Dom Jones, the latter for a pick-6. Not as great news for Rocco and Strauss respectively of course, heh, but the defense doing what it ought. Steve Greer looks like he's working on being a less-shaggy version of Clay Matthews- first UVA game Greer got to sit in on, he watched Clay Matthews take apart the Cavalier offense, so he's seen the model to emulate. Rodney McLeod had some good hits. As I said, if they can tighten the screws on the defense, they should work well this fall.

Mike London's got his work cut out for him, though, that's fer damn sure. I'm calling it 5-7 for the year now; 7-5 if we're lucky. We can do it- in the meantime, though, we need to just be patient. Look at how long it took Frank Beamer to bring Tech back around- took him, what, six or seven years to get a winning program- and THAT was while his Hokie birds were being fed a steady diet of cupcakes.

Guess we'll find out how the next step is going to progress in another five months!