But don’t forget: these are the Hokies. They start strong and then fade. If they follow their normal pattern, it is best to play them early in the year, while everyone is still high on Virginia Tech.
I may have to look into getting tickets for this game.
Brendan Loy
But October 2 is early enough in the season that VaTech shouldn’t have started its annual slide yet. Look at their schedule: Central Michigan (post-LeFevour) 9/4, James Madison 9/11, East Carolina 9/18. The only conceivable stumbling block is ECU, especially since it’s a potential “trap” game with Boise being the next game (after a bye week) … but ECU is also a home game for VT, and the Pirates aren’t THAT good, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that VaTech would come into an October 2 game against Boise with a 3-0 record, and probably ranked in the #5-8 range, since they’ll start around #7-10 but a few teams previously above them will have lost by then (another advantage of waiting).
Brendan Loy
That said, I would support moving the vaTech game to Labor Day if doing so involved canceling the Toledo game currently scheduled for the following Saturday (paying Toledo whatever $$$ is needed to make the game go away) and replace it with a late November or early December game against another quality AQ opponent. Of course, that assumes Boise could find such an opponent willing to schedule them, and at this late date no less. But c’mon, Boise vs. USC at the Coliseum on Championship Saturday?? How AWESOME would that be? And it could be a national semifinal!
Brendan Loy
Or better yet, Boise vs. Ohio State in Columbus, or Boise vs. Penn State in Happy Valley, on Championship Saturday. That would benefit both teams, since Big Ten teams always suffer from not playing that day… and that way I could actually root for the Broncos. 🙂
Ohio State would just need to cancel a game with Marshall, Ohio U., or Eastern Michigan, or Penn State would need to cancel a game with Youngstown State, Kent State or Temple. Then the two canceled teams (Toledo and whoever) could schedule each other. Problem solved. (Er, unless the other cancelled team is also a MAC team, and already has Toledo on its schedule… d’oh.)
Wow. I like that! But what would that do to you, Brendan? 😉
And yes, the VaTech slide shouldn’t have started yet. I’d prefer a later start myself.
Brendan Loy
Alas, the UCLA game is December 4 this year, because ND is at the Coliseum the previous week. I forgot about that.
But I think Cal has an open date…
Brendan Loy
Never mind, Cal does need one more opponent, but they’ve got Stanford on December 4. Most of the Pac-10 seems to have wised up to this December 4 problem already.
Iowa??
David K.
In fact Brendan ALL the Pac-10 teams wised up. The Oregon-Oregon State game is also playing that week, on Thursday night rather than on Saturday for TV reasons. All the Pac-10 teams finish with rivalry games in December this year.
But don’t forget: these are the Hokies. They start strong and then fade. If they follow their normal pattern, it is best to play them early in the year, while everyone is still high on Virginia Tech.
I may have to look into getting tickets for this game.
But October 2 is early enough in the season that VaTech shouldn’t have started its annual slide yet. Look at their schedule: Central Michigan (post-LeFevour) 9/4, James Madison 9/11, East Carolina 9/18. The only conceivable stumbling block is ECU, especially since it’s a potential “trap” game with Boise being the next game (after a bye week) … but ECU is also a home game for VT, and the Pirates aren’t THAT good, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that VaTech would come into an October 2 game against Boise with a 3-0 record, and probably ranked in the #5-8 range, since they’ll start around #7-10 but a few teams previously above them will have lost by then (another advantage of waiting).
That said, I would support moving the vaTech game to Labor Day if doing so involved canceling the Toledo game currently scheduled for the following Saturday (paying Toledo whatever $$$ is needed to make the game go away) and replace it with a late November or early December game against another quality AQ opponent. Of course, that assumes Boise could find such an opponent willing to schedule them, and at this late date no less. But c’mon, Boise vs. USC at the Coliseum on Championship Saturday?? How AWESOME would that be? And it could be a national semifinal!
Or better yet, Boise vs. Ohio State in Columbus, or Boise vs. Penn State in Happy Valley, on Championship Saturday. That would benefit both teams, since Big Ten teams always suffer from not playing that day… and that way I could actually root for the Broncos. 🙂
Ohio State would just need to cancel a game with Marshall, Ohio U., or Eastern Michigan, or Penn State would need to cancel a game with Youngstown State, Kent State or Temple. Then the two canceled teams (Toledo and whoever) could schedule each other. Problem solved. (Er, unless the other cancelled team is also a MAC team, and already has Toledo on its schedule… d’oh.)
Wow. I like that! But what would that do to you, Brendan? 😉
And yes, the VaTech slide shouldn’t have started yet. I’d prefer a later start myself.
Alas, the UCLA game is December 4 this year, because ND is at the Coliseum the previous week. I forgot about that.
But I think Cal has an open date…
Never mind, Cal does need one more opponent, but they’ve got Stanford on December 4. Most of the Pac-10 seems to have wised up to this December 4 problem already.
Iowa??
In fact Brendan ALL the Pac-10 teams wised up. The Oregon-Oregon State game is also playing that week, on Thursday night rather than on Saturday for TV reasons. All the Pac-10 teams finish with rivalry games in December this year.