Bill Roth started the show by discussing the many Hokies that are in the running for or are involved in the presentation of upcoming national awards. Coach Beamer has been named the Coach of the Year in District 1 by GTE as voted on by the National Football Coaches Association. District 1 encompasses the East Coast. There was no mention of whether a national winner would be selected from the five districts. Other district winners hailed from Miss. State, Marshall, and Stanford.

Corey Moore is a finalist for 3 national awards (Bednarik, Lombardi, Nagurski) as well as the Dudley award, which is presented to the state collegiate player of the year. Coach Beamer will accompany Moore to the Dudley and Lombardi presentations during the upcoming week. Roth announced that Moore would receive an award on Wednesday, December 1 from a major national publication, but he was not free to disclose any details in advance.

(Note from HokieCentral: Moore won the Dudley award by a narrow margin over UVa’s Thomas Jones, and the major award was the Football News’s Defensive Player of the Year.)

Roth also mentioned that the Hokies made the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, that there was a new and improved Hokiesports.com site which includes video clips of last Friday's happenings, and that the Gobbler Town Tavern in Christiansburg would be hosting a Q&A session with Roth and Burnop after the BCS announcement next Sunday.

SCHEDULING UPDATE

Jim Weaver was the first guest. He first fielded the recurring strength of schedule question by confirming that the OOC schedule next season consisted of Akron, UVa, Central Florida, and ECU, and that would not be changing. He stated he was working hard on a "preseason" game, which might be the Kickoff Classic in the Meadowlands or an on-campus affair. There was no further explanation of how an on-campus game might be possible, or who possible opponents might be. Weaver stated that Akron and CFU were 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 games that were necessary to balance the 7-team Big East schedule.

(Note from HokieCentral: for full future schedules as we currently know them, see HokieCentral’s Future Schedules link on the Football Page.)

A caller asked Weaver how players were nominated for the Heisman. Weaver said he thought it was mainly unofficial promotion by the national press. He said not to worry, that he had been assured Michael Vick would be in the thick of the race next season. Weaver noted that on Monday Night Football, Boomer Esiason had stated that he could not wait to see Vick play in the championship game.

Weaver encouraged a caller to go to New Orleans, even without tickets. There will be a lot of events surrounding the game, and the game will be shown on closed circuit TV in the New Orleans Arena (across the street from the Superdome) at a cost of $15 per person.

Another caller inquired about UConn's possible membership in the Big East football conference. Weaver said that they had applied for membership, that some preliminary discussions had taken place with more coming soon. He concluded that it was premature to speculate about how the talks would end up.

MASSEY AND THE BCS

Kenneth Massey joined the discussion for about ten minutes. He stated that he had run a scenario where Nebraska won 999 - 0 through his computer model, and that VT still remained a solid second. In his opinion, VT is a very solid #2 in at least three of the computer polls. Since National experts have calculated that Nebraska would need to lead VT in 6 computer polls to have a chance, Massey is very confident that VT to the Sugar is a done deal. Of course VT is 3rd in the Seattle Times ratings, and is not likely to move up.

Massey would like to see a system where the BCS ratings are used as a guide, but not the final determinant. He recommends something similar to the RPI ratings for college basketball, where a committee makes the final decision.

BEAMER'S SEGMENT

Coach Beamer was on for the last hour, and fielded many of the same questions you have heard him field from the media in the past few days. He commented again on the Christine Brennan article stating that she would turn off the TV on a VT - Florida matchup. The coach thinks she would be missing a great game involving an up-and-coming team that does things the "right way." He says that even with some negative response, VT could not buy the advertising it is receiving right now, and that it will benefit admissions and engineering as well as athletics.

Frank also fielded the recurring question about expanding the recruiting territories. The answer has not changed. Now that VT's profile is higher, he wants to actually tighten up the recruiting area a bit. They will still focus on VA, FL, NJ, MD, and PA, where they have ongoing relationships with coaches. It is important to know as much as you can about a kid because you can't afford mistakes with only 85 scholarships.

Roth pointed out that recruiting nationally might be a liability for Notre Dame, which had not really built a recruiting base in the midwest. Frank said a highly recruited player from that part of the country had sent film to VT, and that they did make an exception for outstanding players outside normal recruiting areas that made a special effort to contact VT.

Bill asked Frank about the Hall of Fame induction dinner, which Beamer will be attending next week. Two inductees have close ties to VT, Frank Loria and Jerry Claiborne. Bill said he had a feeling that Loria might be on Frank's staff if he were still with us, given that they had played together. Frank quipped, somewhat seriously, that he might be on Loria's staff. Frank talked at length about how Claiborne had influenced many of his philosophies about strong Defense and Special Teams.

Frank said they would mix the defenses on Peter Warrick. He said he thought the "Terror Dome" nickname for Lane Stadium had started to catch on, and that if it was good enough for Corey Moore, it was good enough for him. However, he thought a stadium nickname contest in the off season might be worthwhile.

In response to question about Ryan Angelo, Beamer said the redshirt fullback from Florida was doing OK, but needed to turn it up a bit. Overall he thought the position was in much better shape than it was a year or so ago.

Beamer agreed that Kibble had struggle the last couple games, but said the fact that he was somewhat "erratic" on punts had been of benefit in the past, because it did not allow the other team to plan a return.

In response to a question, Frank said he hoped FSU would trade film on all 11 games. He did not see any sense in sneaking around trying to get more film than the Seminoles had on VT, and that it would not be addressed until the official BCS announcement. Besides, the staff will be focusing on recruiting for the next week or two while the players get a well-deserved rest.

One caller did not like the four consecutive runs in the red zone when BC stopped the Hokies on 4th down. Frank said their philosophy was to knock the other team backwards down there, but that the runs up the middle had set up the Vick bootleg later in the game.

Besides Michael Vick, Frank noted that Davis, Witten, Parham, Bird, Cyrus, Taylor, the TE's and the OL had stepped up their game this year. He said he first talked with Shane about the possibility of going undefeated over the summer when they looked at the schedule and thought they had at least a "toss-up" chance to win every matchup. He did not consider it seriously until about the fifth or sixth game when he saw the offense had come together and that the team was balanced in every phase of the game.

Roth noted the Hokies had led in the fourth quarter of the last 23 games they have played. Frank said the new found offense/defense balance helps you keep those leads.

When asked about kickers next year, Frank mentioned Carter Warley and Bobby Peaslee. He said they WOULD have a good kicking game when they set foot on the field.

Go Hokies!