Trouble in Hokie Nation
Virginia Tech was ... exposed ... on Saturday.
And right there on regional TV and all.
The Hokies of this past weekend are clearly not where they have been in recent years at quarterback, for example - nope, Sean Glennon is not Michael Vick, Marcus Vick or even Bryan Randall.
Glennon's numbers on Saturday against Georgia Tech in a 38-27 loss - 27 of 53 for 339 yards - were very much deceiving, almost as much as the final score was, given that the Yellow Jackets built a 38-13 late in the third quarter.
Nope, Glennon is not going to beat anybody with his arm - or his feet, what with his four sacks on the day giving him away there.
That one of those sacks led directly to a third-quarter Georgia Tech touchdown that turned a 24-13 game into a rout has to worry Tech fans - as does the eerie similarity between those game statistics and the season-to-date stats of now-former Virginia starting signal-caller Christian Olsen.
(The lead-footed, light-throwing Olsen has completed 34 of his 63 pass attempts in 2006 for 270 yards - while being sacked two times.)
Another reason for alarm - the 6.1 yards per play that Georgia Tech was able to gain on Saturday, which is about 50 percent higher than the season average of 4.1 yards per play that Frank Beamer's boys have allowed in what could be a harbinger of things to come.
After posting easy wins over Northeastern, North Carolina, Duke and Cincinnati, the Georgia Tech game was the start of a five-game stretch that next takes the Hokies on the road at Boston College before returning them home for contests with Southern Mississippi and Clemson before going back out on the road for a matchup with Miami.
The remaining four are no question winnable - but it wouldn't take much for any of those games to be losses, either.
Has it been that long since Tech fans were gearing up for a return date in Jacksonville?
Seems like an eternity ago now.
- Chris Graham