Orange Bowl

[Cobrabit]

The team certainly showed a lot of character and leadership this year. It all paid off in another ACC Championship and a trip to the Orange Bowl. This is certainly one of my proudest moments knowing how the players rallied around themselves after JMU and weren't going to let this season go down the drain. While it may be a season that will go down as a "what if", VT has a chance to win 12 games for the first time in school history.

Most likely opponent being projected: Stanford

Hopefully this thread will serve to contain game analysis and predictions over the next month. I'll have to look a little harder at whichever opponent is indeed heading to the Orange Bowl to take on our ACC Champions once the selection show is over tonight, but at first glance, Stanford will be a great matchup for a good game.

 

[757Hokie83]

Stanford will be a tougher matchup than UCONN would have been, for sure. But i am so much happier that we got Stanford. Playing UCONN in the Orange Bowl would have been a big lose-lose situation for us. At least with Stanford, we have a chance to get some respect.

 

[hokiehighsuperfly]

I'm glad we didn't get uconn, but Stanford should be tough. I would rather see the challenge and if we can pull this one out then that would say a lot about the team after the rough start.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

I have never been so impressed with a group of seniors as I have been with these guys. I also put #5 ahead of #7 and just behind #78 in my Virginia Tech pecking order. This man has transformed into a clutch player, incredible leader and better player.

I wonder where that came from:

(I read this over on the Gobbler, and since it has no inside info, I assume I can post it here, from ilhokie)

I read the message board everyday and rarely post, but I just had to write this one down to share.

My young son and I flew in from Chicago on Saturday and watched the ACCCG standing in the middle of the FSU crowd (we bought tickets outside the stadium which were in the Golden Chief section) and had a great time watching the Hokies win! My son had his #5 "Taylor" Jersey on outside of his coat and is just a huge Tyrod fan.

After the game my son wanted to see if we could get Tyrod's autograph. I let him know I thought the chances were pretty slim, but we walked over to the corner where the award ceremony was taking place and caught one of the oranges that was tossed into the crowd by the players. While we were standing there watching more of the oranges fly into the stands, a lady in the stands saw my son's shirt and asked did we know that just ahead of us was Tyrod Taylor's mother. My little guy walked up and introduced himself and asked her if she would autograph his program. She thought that was very cute and asked him if he would like to get Tyrod's autograph (she had a really neat signature with her name followed by Mom of #5). After he answered with an enthusiastic "Yes" she asked us to meet her by the team buses after the game.

We had a bit of a problem finding the VT buses and ended up by the FSU buses at first and then made it to the other side of the stadium to find the VT buses. Right when Tyrod's Mom she saw my son, she immediately said "there you are" and brought him to the other side of this little barrier that separated the families, players and buses from the rest of the fans. She took my son around to all the players as they came out of the locker room and introduced him to the players and helped him get an autographs. Ryan, Darren, Jayron, Danny, David all signed his program and then Tyrod came out. She asked Tyrod stop and take a picture with him and autograph the program.

It was an amazing experience and one that neither my son nor I will ever forget. Our players and their families are really, really awesome.

While all this was going on a gentlemen walked up to me and started to talk to me and was extremely nice. I finally had to stop and introduce myself and ask him his name ( I was just kind of wondering why a complete stranger would just walk up to me and start being so nice) and it was Tyrod's grandfather - Walter Dunn. We just talked about VT football and the game while all the autographs, pictures and little conversations between my son and the players were taking place.

Tyrod - what a nice kid and a great family. Can't say it enough, that was an amazing experience.

He comes from an awesome family.

 

[vtpoop]

I loved these two tidbits from the Tech Talk Live Show last night.

- Taylor felt like the voting for conference player of the year was too close between him and Russell Wilson. He felt like he deserved it, and he wanted to go out and prove it against Florida State. Coach Stinespring put him in a position to make plays.



- Taylor wanted another shot at FSU. Some FSU fans got his number before the game and were texting him and calling him. He didn't answer because he didn't recognize the numbers, but he would text them back and ask who was calling. They'd start in with their trash talk, and he just texted back "thanks for the motivation".

Also, Kyle Tucker had a great blog about Rashad Carmichael playing in the second half and keeping up the spirits of Kyle Fuller.

 

[hunzworth]

i read that on another board also. having a young son myself ( who loves tyrod& knows most if not all the players by name) it really made me realize how special it is to have guys like him around the program. i'd much rather have my son look up to a 2 loss tt than an undefeated CN.

 

[amszete]

Nice post Six - thanks for sharing that!