Message board reports out of Blacksburg say that the Tech students did not pick up all of their tickets for the Clemson game on Tuesday, and that Clemson has returned or will return some tickets that they were unable to sell, so there should be more tickets available for the public for the game against the Tigers. Neither of these reports have been verified from official sources, but it does indeed appear as if more tickets will be available to the public.

Any remaining tickets go on sale today, so if you're looking for tickets for the Thursday night clash, give the Tech ticket office a buzz at 1-800-VATECH4.

Channel 10 reported Wednesday night that Michael Vick practiced at full speed Tuesday. He is said to be "about 95%," and he should be 100% by the time of the Clemson game.

ESPN will no doubt do a good job of hyping the Thursday night matchup between the Tigers and the Hokies. They'll cash in on the Bowden name by promoting the Tigers as a team with a high-powered offense led by new coach Tommy Bowden, and they'll pump the Hokies as a defensive and special teams power house that takes on a new dimension with hotshot freshman QB Michael Vick.

Naturally, it's a good thing that a sellout appears likely for the game, because ESPN's Thursday night games are often played before less-than-capacity crowds, even when the matchup is a good one.

As a casual fan watching a game on TV, if I don't care about the two teams playing, a contest with a full, packed house is much more appealing than one played before a half-full mausoleum. And typically, the Thursday night Tech games in Blacksburg are loud affairs. Let's keep it going, folks. Show up and make noise!

In case you missed it, the new official capacity of Lane Stadium is 51,907. The UAB and JMU games were both sellouts, and that was the listed attendance for both.

Also in case you missed it, assuming that the Clemson game sells out, the only game for which tickets will still be available is the Boston College game. Ticket sales for Syracuse and Miami have been suspended until the students pick up their tickets later this season.

If the Hokies are able to sell out all six home games, it will be the first time in Tech history that the feat has been accomplished. Average attendance will hit a new high of 51,907, and the six games will occupy slots 9-14 in the list of top Tech crowds of all time. Slot 8 will be the 52,000 fans that showed up for the 1980 Virginia game, and the figures go up from there until they reach a high of 54,157 for the 1990 Virginia game.

The Virginia Tech media guide does not list average home attendance figures, so I can't run a comparison there, but a new record of nearly 52,000 would shatter last year's record of 49,045.

One hot item about future expansion was included in Jim Weaver's comments on this week's Virginia Tech Sports Today TV show. Previously, it had been reported that the 2100 or so new bleacher seats in the North (Cassell) end zone would eventually be expanded to about 4000 total seats, but that it wouldn't occur until 2002, when the South (score board) end zone was also expanded.

That struck me as kind of odd, since adding bleacher seats only runs about $500k for 2000 seats, if this latest expansion is any indication, so why not bump up the North end zone capacity next year? Why wait?

Weaver's comments on VT Sports Today indicated that the additional North end zone seats may be added in time for the 2000 season, instead of waiting for the 2002 season. Weaver was commenting that Tech plans to put a video score board (Jumbotron!) in the North end zone for the 2000 season, and that that effort may also include adding 20 more rows on top of the new bleachers (wow, that's tall) as well as "winging" the new bleachers with more rows of seats to touch the East and West stands.

Let me emphasize that Mr. Weaver said the Jumbotron addition "may" include seats in that configuration. He gave no indication of how many seats that would add, and of course, it's all subject to change.

I'll add his comments to the Lane Stadium Expansion Page here at HokieCentral the next time I update it, but that was the biggest thing that he said. Everything else (luxury boxes, South end zone seats, etc.) we already knew about.

The beginning of the college football season produces some skewed stats, because any team can put together a couple of good games, particularly with many power teams playing patsies. For example, when Penn State put up 70 points against Akron, it guaranteed that the Nitanny Lions were going to be ranked highly in the Scoring Offense category for a while.

Having said that, the Hokie defense is once again near the top of the NCAA statistics after games through September 11^th:

The Hokie D will encounter some stiffer competition in the next two games, as they line up against Clemson's new no-huddle offense and the always-competent Hoos of UVa. The national rankings of those two teams aren't exactly stratospheric (Clemson is 47^th in total offense at 397.5 yards per game and UVa is 80^th in total offense at 331.5 yards per game), but they're quality programs that should test the Hokie defense more than 1-AA James Madison and the offensively-challenged UAB Blazers.

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