Friday, August 20, 1999

Holy Smokes!  Temple, Rutgers Games to be Televised

According to a late Thursday press release on www.hokiesports.com, Tech has signed a deal with ESPN Regional TV to broadcast Tech's games with Rutgers and Temple.

As the linked article states, Tech cut this deal with ESPN Regional outside the boundaries of the Big East Conference package or a national broadcast.

This is just more evidence that Tech football is a hot commodity that is getting hotter, and that the Tech athletic department is capitalizing on the heat.  First they jumped hard on the Beamer-Ball wave and rode it to record-setting season ticket sales, and now they have struck an independent deal to broadcast games.

The article contains good info on football game times and broadcasts, and I have used this info to update the home page and the Football Page.

The news gets better.  Buried deep at the bottom of the article is the notice that the Pittsburgh game will be the Big East Game of the Week.  That sews up a commendable 9 TV broadcasts for Tech's 11 football games.

As one astute poster on the message board pointed out, the conferences are no doubt noticing this as they ponder expansion.  What's that about Tech having no TV market?   Stick around.

 

Tech Notes

  • The Jake Houseright knee watch is getting to be a yearly event.  After a Wednesday report that Jake had injured his knee and was undergoing arthroscopic surgery, the news Thursday was that no ligament or cartilage damage was found, and that Jake just has a sprained knee.  He should be able to return to practice in a couple of weeks, or as one media outlet said, in time for the JMU game.
  • In case you missed the report, the Hokies held a football scrimmage on Wednesday.   For details, see the www.hokiesports.com scrimmage report.
  • For you worry-warts, Justin Ditmore reported on Channel 10 that freshman wide receiver Andrae Harrison has reported to Tech and is working out with the team.  Harrison was late reporting because he was finishing up a summer school math class that he needed for admittance to Tech.  Justin showed some clips of Andrae running patterns, but unfortunately, the ball was not catchable in the clips Justin showed, so we didn't get to see his hands (well, we saw his hands, we just didn't see him catch a pass with them, know what I mean?).  Justin showed some quotes from Coach Beamer, who basically said that Andrae has the size, speed, and hands to play, he just has to "get the learning part down."

          

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