Frank Beamer has done a tremendous job with the Virginia Tech program in his 27 years at the helm. He has taken his Hokies’ teams to 20 straight bowl games and six BCS games. He took his ’99 team with Michael Vick under center to the BCS National Championship game against Florida State, which they lost. 46-29, in the 2000 championship game played at the Sugar Bowl in N’awlins. Beamer’s team fell off last year finishing 7-6. But he’s solid coach, good man and he runs a very good football program. Beamer is 66.He is 216-104-2 in his career at Va Tech (67%)
Logan Thomas returns for his senior year as signal caller. The Hokies face the Crimson Tide in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on Saturday, Aug. 31, @ 5:30 PM ET/4:30 CT on ESPN.
Talk about a prototype quarterback, Thomas is 6’6″, 254. He’s got a cannon and pretty good wheels. He’s not incredibly fast, but moves pretty well and throws pretty well on the run. Last year, he was not great, throwing for 18 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. He did throw for almost 3,000 yards, but completed only 51.3% of his passes. The talent is there, but the consistency needs improvement. In the spring game he threw two pick sixes to the second team defense. One was for 98 yards and the other was for over 50. He threw a third interception too. I don’t know if you can teach better accuracy, but maybe new OC Scott Loefler (Auburn OC in 2012) can get Thomas to make better decisions. Alabama’s defense is going to be tough, and the corners and safeties will be chomping at the bit to step in front of a Thomas pass and take it to the house. The line is big, but they have a lot of work to do the rest of this preseason to become a solid unit. They have some size; most of them are300+. They’re pretty high on their freshman left tackle Jonathan McLaughlin, who is 6’5″, 313. He’ll be facing the likes of Adrian Hubbard, Ed Stinson and Jeoffrey Pagan among the loaded Tide defensive front, so he’ll have his hands full. The Hokies do have good size though up front.
Beamer said after the spring game that his defense should be very good and they’re going to have to carry them for the first part of the season. There are a couple of playmakers on offense. D.J. Coles is back from a knee injury and he looks pretty good at wide out. On the other side, Demitri Knowles looks like a pretty good player at flanker. Ryan Malleck is a very solid tight end whom they will use a lot in the passing game. Tailback didn’t look great in the spring game, but it didn’t look like the line was doing much run blocking. Trey Edmunds is the starter. He’s 6’1″, 216.
The defense looks pretty good though. I don’t know if it was Thomas or the offensive line, but their second unit on defense really played well. Their starting secondary is very good. Antone Exum hurt his knee pretty badly in a pickup basketball game in the winter. They hope to have the senior cornerback back for the first game. He’s questionable. He had five ints last season. The guys back there now who are listed as ones on the depth chart are corners Kyle and Kendall Fuller (brothers, Kyle a senior, Kendall a frosh in place of Exum), free safety Detrick Bonner and rover Keyshoen Jarrett. They are very good players. Tariq Edwards (6’2″, 234) is the leader of the front seven at inside linebacker. The Hokies run a four-three under heralded defensive coordinator Bud Foster, who at some point should get a head coaching job, maybe when Beamer retires. Foster is 54. They have some pretty good size up front, so they’ll test the somewhat new Alabama offensive line besides returning starters left tackle Cyrus Kuondijo and right guard Anthony Steen
The Hokies special teams are always good. Looks like they have a good kicker and punter and their return game looks pretty good.
Should be an interesting first game for both teams. It’ll be hard on the Va Tech defense unless their offense can get some drives and scores. A.J., T.J., Derrick Henry or Kenyon Drake and the wideouts might wear them down by the fourth quarter. But this is a competitive team. Should make some noise in the ACC. Will be a good watch.
PGA
Not going to delve too much into the specifics of the Wyndham Championship at Greensbore, N.C. (Sedgefield CC), but I’ll pick a winner: