An unusually interesting August Camp is nearly closed, and our Hokies are now in official game preparation mode. So I figured now would be a good time to officially nail myself down with a few official letter-grades for 2007. Many of you have asked me how many games will VT win in 2007. I now fully suspect that our Hokies will win…..
…..either 8 games, or 10 games. I see this as a coin-flip or fenced kind of year, and unlike the Great War of World War I, we shall find no middle ground this year. We will however find our rejoinder in objective analysis of what we can realistically expect to field for the 2007 Virginia Tech football season.
The Hokie Defense:
BEST2VT asked me last Wednesday if this upcoming 2007 Hokie defense was the best ever in the history of college football? Not quite just yet, but this year’s Hokie defense is in the all-time conservation, and it may very well have a whole lot to say about being a Top-10 all-time stop-unit once this regular season is up. As this could be the first D-1 defense to finish number-one in Total Defense three years running since the highly flamboyant and rather talented Brian Bosworth, and the mild-mannered but even more talented Dante Jones, lead the Oklahoma Sooners to a back to back to back number one total defense rankings nearly 25 years ago.
To put it simply we have the deepest blue-chip laden defense of the entire Bud Foster era on our hands right now. By my count this Hokie defense enjoys fielding the services of at least four starting players who are next year Pro’s at some level or another. With just half a shot of 5% proof O&M Kool-Aid, that number might better be described as resembling five or six, at a minimum. I can see nearly the same quantity of future professional football players who will substitute in and out of Bud Foster’s 2007 stop-unit. In fact this defense has one Linebacker (Brett Warren), and one Defensive-End (Jason Worilds), who could start for 85% of the rest of all D-1 football teams, but must check in at the scorers table for Virginia Tech. There really is no weakness at all on this defense, and Bud Foster can do just about whatever he pleases with so much defensive depth (nine deep by my count), and it will take a very strong Guard-Center-Guard trifecta to run straight at our Hokies to have any version of success verses so much defensive speed and depth. Overall defensive letter-grade: A+ (no lower letter-grade will do for a 14 win quality defense)
The Hokie Offense:
The incoming objective facts are that we return eight starters from the 99th ranked total offense of a year ago. We return the deepest Wide-Receiving corps in the ACC, possibly in the nation, as I see four 2008 professionals in this group alone. We return two vastly improved Tight-Ends, we will enjoy a major up-grade at Center, we will still have possibly the best kept offensive line secret in the entire ACC at right Guard, we have the most elusive Running-Back in the ACC, we have a future pro at one Offensive-Tackle and a solid run-blocking Fullback. That much is crystal clear, but the rest of our 2007 offense is a subjective partly-cloudy day, that can presently only be described in terms of shades of grey.
Pure and simple, the loss of Ed Wang is a major major loss for 2007, and it leaves us one more major offensive-line injury away from possibly being crippled up-front. Unfortunately, I fear this one broken ankle has effectively reduced our ability to play against the top-4 or top-5 speed defenses we will see in 2007. It will at least partially mask the legitimate improvements Coach Newsome and Sean Glennon had engineered since last spring, and it has caused an deck-shuffling ripple-effect, as not only is right Offensive Tackle now something of an issue, so is the capacious void that the departure of Nick Marshman at left Guard has now created. This offense has A+ talent at Wide-Receiver, right Guard, and Running-Back, several B+ quality players, than several C+ quality players, to go along with less than C+ offensive line depth. I’m personally hoping for a total offense that improves all the way to 60th. Which is a major gain, to be sure. But that’s not much better than a flat C for a overall offensive letter-grade, and Branden Ore had better stay healthy. His health could easily be the x-factor that tips the balance of our 2007 season to either side of my aforementioned 8 or 10 win fence.
The Official Prediction Thread will debut this Thursday evening (as will a mini-me viewer’s guide to what to watch for when LSU visits Mississippi State that night). I’ll be back in a few with a look at what really is going on regarding our seemingly volatile special-teams, a look at the 2007 Tech schedule, and a discerning prediction on 8 or 10 wins. Then whether or not these ECU Pirates are ready to walk what will be a very emotional Orange & Maroon plank. (hint: for a little b’speak, check out the name of each pho-tog)
Tell me how you feel, tell me all about it, right here.
late-
b-st.
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