In the last few years, I have done several months of contracting work in the Blacksburg area. We also worked on an energy savings project at Va. Tech. I must say the campus is beautiful. The area is also very nice. The basketball facility is outdated, but the football facilities are nice. We had free access to the athletics facilities during the football season and we were treated very good.
Agree with much of this, but as annoying as redneck VT fans are, they decidedly come in second in the "worst fan" category to uconn.
Uconn fans occupy a circle of hell entirely unto themselves.
eao1115 said:Damn - one guy says "I've read some disparaging comments on certain Hokie fan sites" with no link provided and no details and all angry hell breaks loose.
Damn - one guy says "I've read some disparaging comments on certain Hokie fan sites" with no link provided and no details and all angry hell breaks loose.
They probably don't like that they had to steal our offensive and special team philosophies to get good. Then, their faster and dumber version of McNabb only stuck around for two years and has spent as much time in the trainers room or prison since going to the NFL. It seems I don't care for them too much either.
Good point, I remember watching the 1999 Michigan game on youtube somebody posted on here, and remember Ed Cunningham the announcer mentioning that Coach P was one of the first coaches in 1999 to hire a Special Teams Coach in college football. Syracuse used to have a real good special teams unit from Quintin Spotwood, David Tyree, the last good special teams player we had was Anthony Smith. After Coach P left out special teams play was in the bottom 25% in college football till these past 2 years and we have never had a good punt block, return game,coverage teams, kicker, punter combo all be good since Coach P we have a couple of them excel at one point since, but not all of them.This point cannot be stated enough times for me. I remember back in the 90's when 'Cuse had NFL caliber talent like Harrion, Turner and Spotwood returning punts / kick-offs. They also led the Big East a number of years in blocked punts. It always killed me to hear the term "Beamer Ball" since Syracuse was using top-notch talent on special teams and making big plays there. It also sucked watching Michael Vick run Syracuse's offense.
V-Tech was a media darling who got all the attention for being nothing more but a Syracuse clone.
I also will never forget the ESPN. com story after V-Tech officialy left the Big East which stated that V-Tech and Miami took turns dominating the Big East. V-Tech's record in Big East games was no where near Miami's who won better then 80% of there league games. V-Tech's success was much more comparable to Syracuse whom they really competed with more intensely for being the second best team Behind Miami.
At the time of the split from the Big East, V-Tech was elevated to Miami's level and Syracuse was given no respect at all. The fact Syracuse fell off a cliff shortly there after added insult to injury.
I will always hate V-Tech more than any other school Syracuse plays in football. They are frauds, a media fabrication.
You just typed something I've said aloud a million times. I wish I could give this infinite 'likes'.This point cannot be stated enough times for me. I remember back in the 90's when 'Cuse had NFL caliber talent like Harrion, Turner and Spotwood returning punts / kick-offs. They also led the Big East a number of years in blocked punts. It always killed me to hear the term "Beamer Ball" since Syracuse was using top-notch talent on special teams and making big plays there. It also sucked watching Michael Vick run Syracuse's offense.
V-Tech was a media darling who got all the attention for being nothing more but a Syracuse clone.
I also will never forget the ESPN. com story after V-Tech officialy left the Big East which stated that V-Tech and Miami took turns dominating the Big East. V-Tech's record in Big East games was no where near Miami's who won better then 80% of there league games. V-Tech's success was much more comparable to Syracuse whom they really competed with more intensely for being the second best team Behind Miami.
At the time of the split from the Big East, V-Tech was elevated to Miami's level and Syracuse was given no respect at all. The fact Syracuse fell off a cliff shortly there after added insult to injury.
I will always hate V-Tech more than any other school Syracuse plays in football. They are frauds, a media fabrication.
And the good special teams goes back earlier than that. Qadry Ismail returning a kickoff for a TD against FSU in '91 came just a few weeks after Kirby Dar Dar ran a reverse all the way back on a kickoff in the game where we beat 5th ranked Florida (the game that caused Spurrier to never play an OOC game in the north ever again). Then, right around Tyree's time, there was JR Johnson who was the original beast gunner. Too many people forget about him because he never did anything after his time at the 'Cuse. He was a 225 lb 4.3 40 monster that could not be blocked on kickoffs and punts. He was never able to get the mental part of the defense down, so he wasn't able to make an impact there. And we can't forget how good Kevin Johnson was as a returner or Keith Bullock was in kick coverage.Good point, I remember watching the 1999 Michigan game on youtube somebody posted on here, and remember Ed Cunningham the announcer mentioning that Coach P was one of the first coaches in 1999 to hire a Special Teams Coach in college football. Syracuse used to have a real good special teams unit from Quintin Spotwood, David Tyree, the last good special teams player we had was Anthony Smith. After Coach P left out special teams play was in the bottom 25% in college football till these past 2 years and we have never had a good punt block, return game,coverage teams, kicker, punter combo all be good since Coach P we have a couple of them excel at one point since, but not all of them.
Wow. There are a lot of sour grapes and "hate"towards other teams on this board. Hating another team is a lot of wasted energy in my opinion. I am convinced that somebody could say that "U of Albany fans are arrogant!", and two pages of posts would follow, bashing the school and fans.
I do say that the VT program has been better than ours for many years. I don't like it, but it is the truth. Hopefully, we can crank it back up and play solid ball in the near future.
But that is just the point, when they left the Big East, they were not better than Syracuse. As I stated in my post, if you take an actual objective look at their Big East record, they were on par with Syracuse, they were certainly never on Miami's level. Syracuse beat V-Tech two of the last three times they played them and were 7-6 against them in Big East games (I believe) and 9-8 all time. Virginia Tech in reallity was never a superior program to Syracuse during their time in the Big East despite the respect they were given by the media as a national powerhouse. It may be just my opinion to say that they are as overrated a program as their has been in college football over the passed 15 years but I believe there is plenty of data to support that based on their actual on the field performance. It is also just my opinion but I believe that their fans suffer delusions of grandeur based on the over board amount of love they have gotten from the media over the years.
Case in point, both Syracuse and Virginia Tech had lousy records in major bowls (the BCS precursor Alliance Bowls) when both were in the Big East. Syracuse was 0-2 with lopsided losses to Kansas State and Florida. Virginia Tech was also 0-2 losing to both Nebraska and FSU convincingly. However, the rule that was instated to keep a lowly ranked Big East champion from getting an automatic bowl bid was commonly called the "Syracuse Rule".
For some reason, V-Tech always seemed to be immune to the criticism Syracuse faced regarding playing in the Big East conference or having a less then stellar record in major bowls. They also seemed to be spared any real discussion of just how bad their typical non-conference schedule was.
At the time of their departure, Virginia Tech had an almost indentical Big East resume as Syracuse but the national perception of both schools was vastly different. Trust me I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time and Mark Packer couldn't interview Frank Beamer enough times on his radio show to kiss his butt and never had a good thing to say about Syracuse football.
So yes, I am jaded with just cause with regards to the school that stole Syracuse's identity and became everyone's darling while Syracuse took the brunt of the oh' boy does the Big East suck discussions.
But that is just the point, when they left the Big East, they were not better than Syracuse. As I stated in my post, if you take an actual objective look at their Big East record, they were on par with Syracuse, they were certainly never on Miami's level. Syracuse beat V-Tech two of the last three times they played them and were 7-6 against them in Big East games (I believe) and 9-8 all time. Virginia Tech in reallity was never a superior program to Syracuse during their time in the Big East despite the respect they were given by the media as a national powerhouse. It may be just my opinion to say that they are as overrated a program as their has been in college football over the passed 15 years but I believe there is plenty of data to support that based on their actual on the field performance. It is also just my opinion but I believe that their fans suffer delusions of grandeur based on the over board amount of love they have gotten from the media over the years.
Case in point, both Syracuse and Virginia Tech had lousy records in major bowls (the BCS precursor Alliance Bowls) when both were in the Big East. Syracuse was 0-2 with lopsided losses to Kansas State and Florida. Virginia Tech was also 0-2 losing to both Nebraska and FSU convincingly. However, the rule that was instated to keep a lowly ranked Big East champion from getting an automatic bowl bid was commonly called the "Syracuse Rule".
For some reason, V-Tech always seemed to be immune to the criticism Syracuse faced regarding playing in the Big East conference or having a less then stellar record in major bowls. They also seemed to be spared any real discussion of just how bad their typical non-conference schedule was.
At the time of their departure, Virginia Tech had an almost indentical Big East resume as Syracuse but the national perception of both schools was vastly different. Trust me I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time and Mark Packer couldn't interview Frank Beamer enough times on his radio show to kiss his butt and never had a good thing to say about Syracuse football.
So yes, I am jaded with just cause with regards to the school that stole Syracuse's identity and became everyone's darling while Syracuse took the brunt of the oh' boy does the Big East suck discussions.
Yep, the same Big East that made VT. It was Rutgers and Temple along with Pitt of the 90s were the real culprits behind making the Big East being bad, imho. Miami, SU, VT, WVU, and BC all contributed with Miami getting the lion's share of the credit obviously.
But ultimately, Syracuse didn't do itself any favors by tanking when we could have seized the moment, instead of allowing WVU to also pass us by.
Here hoping the future brings us back to Baron status with HCSS and the ACC.
Cheers,
Neil
Yep, the same Big East that made VT. It was Rutgers and Temple along with Pitt of the 90s were the real culprits behind making the Big East being bad, imho. Miami, SU, VT, WVU, and BC all contributed with Miami getting the lion's share of the credit obviously.
But ultimately, Syracuse didn't do itself any favors by tanking when we could have seized the moment, instead of allowing WVU to also pass us by.
Here hoping the future brings us back to Baron status with HCSS and the ACC.
Cheers,
Neil
You're Mama's a Hokie
Agree, I've always felt this was the biggest thing that kept the Big East down. Typically a conference is viewed as being as good as its best team. But the Big East was never viewed quite as favorably, even when Miami was Miami. SU was always good, VT was always good. WVU and BC often made good headlines in one way or another. But when 25%, and for a few years (the brilliant Johnny Majors re-hire) 38% of your league is considered worse than anything in college football, MAC included, it always gave the league a black eye.
SU, for its part, could have also won the Fiesta Bowl or Orange Bowl. I know we played two Top 10, maybe Top 5 teams in those games, but we were no slouch either. So when your 3 loss conference champion loses one BCS game by 17, the other by 21, it's not really helpful. But not nearly as damaging as Rutgers, Temple, and sometimes Pitt.