Virginia Tech Preview
November 18, 2002 01:22 PM | General
November 18, 2002
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia (7-3, 4-1) resumes Big East Conference play Wednesday night at No. 13-ranked Virginia Tech (8-2, 3-2) hoping to keep its modest winning streak intact.
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| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez believes Virginia Tech will be well-rested and healthy for Wednesday night's game. |
After losing 40-23 to No. 1-ranked Miami on Oct. 26, West Virginia has won two straight against Temple and Boston College and comes into the Virginia Tech game having won four of five conference games. The Mountaineers are currently third in the Big East standings behind Miami and Pitt, and one game ahead of the Hokies.
Standing in the way of West Virginia’s two-game win streak is a Virginia Tech team that doesn’t lose very often at home. Tech is 69-23-1 at Lane Stadium under current Coach Frank Beamer and is 29-7 in its last 36 Big East home games.
Tech owns a 31-16-1 record under Beamer in night games and Virginia Tech is 10-3 in its last 13 games against West Virginia.
“Playing in Lane Stadium at night will present a tremendous challenge for our football team,” said West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez. “Very few people have been able to come out of there with a win. But our football team is excited about the challenge.”
WVU’s last win in Blacksburg came in 1992 when the Mountaineers outlasted Tech, 16-7. Last year in Morgantown, Virginia Tech handed West Virginia a 35-0 loss.
In order to turn that result around, West Virginia is going to have to contend with Tech’s nationally ranked rush defense that is allowing just 80.2 yards per game.
Sophomore linebacker Mikal Baagee (5-10, 217, So.) is Tech’s top run-stopper with a team-high 78 tackles that includes nine tackles for losses.
Free safety Willie Pile (6-3, 211, Sr.) leads an active secondary with 67 tackles and three interceptions. Junior defensive end Nathaniel Adibi (6-3, 261, Jr.) leads the Hokies up front with nine sacks and 13 tackles for losses. Defensive end Cols Colas (6-0, 239, Jr.) shows six sacks and 13 tackles for losses.
In all, the Hokies have generated 39 sacks and 80 tackles for losses in 10 games this season.
In its last two games, however, Tech’s defense has allowed more than 1,000 yards of total offense in losses to Pitt and Syracuse. In the Syracuse game at the Carrier Dome, the Hokie pass defense gave up an astonishing 403 yards to Orangemen quarterback Troy Nunes and comes into Wednesday night’s game giving up and average of 242.5 yards per game through the air.
The Hokies were a banged up defensive unit going into the Syracuse game and Rodriguez believes the extra four days have given them time to heal.
“It’s probably a bad time to play them simply because they’ve had time to get some of their top players healthy again. When you look at the injury factor they really got hit hard the last few weeks,” he said.
“Mentally and physically we needed the rest,” added Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer. “We had some key injuries and we should have a couple of those guys back for this ballgame.”
Of those key players Beamer mentioned, Hokie linebacker Vegas Robinson (6-0, 245, Jr.) is one of them ready to return to action. He was nursing a bad left ankle.
“He’s a guy who has a little experience and he’s a guy who when he tackles people they stop,” said Beamer. “He’s a guy who can fill a hole and sometimes that is as important as making the tackle.”
Tech’s offense was once a grind-it-out, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust type of attack, but it has since become more wide open with the rapid development of quarterback Bryan Randall (6-0, 213, So.). Randall completed 23-of-35 passes for 504 yards and five touchdowns in the Syracuse loss. His 504 yards were a Big East record and finished just 23 yards shy of Don Strock’s 30-year school record of 527 yards against Houston in 1972.
“Bryan I think has thrown very accurately throughout the season,” said Beamer. “What made us feel good in the last game was when people do want to go one-on-one with us we had the ability to make some plays. Hopefully that will continue.”
For the season Randall has completed 102-of-158 passes (64.6 percent) for 1,539 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Junior Ernest Wilford (6-4, 217, Jr.) has emerged as one of the conference’s top pass catchers with 33 receptions for 716 yards and six touchdowns. Wilford is coming off an eight-catch, 279-yard, four-touchdown performance at Syracuse on Nov. 9.
One reason Tech has gone to the air recently is a hamstring injury sustained by sophomore running back Kevin Jones (6-0, 212, So.) against Pitt. Jones has gained 708 yards and scored nine touchdowns in nine games before being sidelined. He provides a great compliment to Hokie starter Lee Suggs (6-0, 198, Sr.), who comes into the West Virginia game having gained 1,021 yards and scored 14 touchdowns in 10 games.
Suggs needs just one more touchdown Wednesday against West Virginia for an NCAA record streak of 24 straight games with at least one rushing TD. Suggs has 48 career touchdowns to his credit.
Blocking for Suggs and Jones up front is a retooled offensive line anchored by junior center Jake Grove (6-3, 292, Jr.). Senior left tackle Anthony Davis is Tech’s largest blocker standing 6-foot-4 and weighing 322 pounds.
West Virginia must also contend with “Beamer Ball” – Virginia Tech’s rich special teams tradition developed by its head coach. Since 1987, Tech has blocked 95 kicks in 184 games under Beamer’s direction (49 punts, 25 field goals and 21 extra points).
During the 1990s, the Hokies blocked more kicks than any other team and has started the new decade with 19 blocks.
West Virginia hasn’t been immune to “Beamer Ball” either. Two years ago in 2000, Tech blocked a punt and a PAT in a 48-20 victory. Two years before that in 1998, the Hokies blocked two more kicks and has blocked eight total against WVU under Beamer’s watch.
One bright spot in last year’s 35-0 loss in Morgantown was the fact that West Virginia was able to get through the game without having either a punt or a field goal blocked.
This year, West Virginia is a completely different team. The Mountaineers are coming off an impressive 24-14 win over Boston College in Morgantown on Nov. 9 to run its conference record to 4-1. West Virginia accumulated 397 yards of total offense against the Eagles and is one of just two teams in the Big East (Miami is the other) to have had at least 300 yards of total offense in every game this year.
“Our players are playing with a little bit of confidence right now and we’ve played pretty well the last several weeks,” said Rodriguez.
Avon Cobourne ran for 138 yards and scored a touchdown and backup Quincy Wilson added 100 yards on 17 carries against the Eagles. Cobourne leads the conference with 1,409 yards on 266 carries. Wilson has gained 671 yards on 109 carries for an impressive 6.2 yards-per-carry average.
Quarterback Rasheed Marshall has completed 109-of-212 pass attempts for 1,154 yards and eight touchdowns. He has also gained 545 yards and scored 10 touchdowns as a runner.
Sophomore Miquelle Henderson leads West Virginia with 38 catches for 421 yards and two touchdowns. However, Henderson suffered a sprained ankle in the BC win and is listed as questionable for Wednesday’s game.
Junior linebacker Grant Wiley leads an improved defense with 107 tackles and 10.5 tackles for losses. Senior James Davis is credited with 98 stops and 12.5 tackles for losses, while senior Angel Estrada is third on the team with 93 tackles and 7.5 tackles for losses.
“They’re a much improved football team and they are playing with a great deal of confidence,” said Beamer of West Virginia. “They’re playing very hard, they’re playing very tough and I think Rich and his coaching staff has done a really good job with their football team.”
Kickoff for Wednesday night’s game is 7 p.m. ESPN2 will televise the game nationally (Steve Levy, Rod Gilmore and Alex Flanagan).
