A week-long look at SMQ’s preseason ballot.
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20. Illinois
The Illini are a mixed bag: on one hand, they lose two of the best players in the conference, Mendenhall and Lehman, and carry the stigma of a one-hit wonder. But the Zook recruiting boost has dramatically upgraded the overall talent and depth, and this was still a pretty young team last year -- Juice Williams, while clearly improved from his abysmal freshman effort, was still a work in progress as a passer, sophomore Vontae Davis was rounding into first round material at cornerback, and future pros Arrelious Benn (freshman), Jeff Cumberland (sophomore), Xavier Fulton (junior, at a new position) and Will Davis (junior) were all just finding their footing as first-year starters. Add to that shirtless recruits Martez Wilson, a sophomore moving to linebacker after making minor waves at end, and D’Angelo McCray, who’ll start at defensive tackle after redshirting, [McCray has transferred; see comments -- ed.] and there’s no doubt last year’s surge was no fluke, physically.

Juice: All of a sudden, the man of the house.
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But doubt persists, largely because Mendenhall’s early exit is a potential back-breaker for the entire offense. Daniel Dufrene made something of a name for himself by busting the controversial 80-yarder at Ohio State, but actually had very few opportunities (50 touches, almost half against Western Illinois, Syracuse, Indiana, Ball State and Northwestern), and is a less reliable runner at this point than Williams. But Juice remained slightly below average as a passer, and his grasp of the offense at this point isn’t going to drastically improve, if it improves at all. Without at least a worthy complimentary threat in the backfield -- and Mendenhall, obviously, was much more than that -- it’s likely we’ve seen Juice’s ceiling, and the team’s.

19. Tennessee
Here is a victim of the format: I like the Vols, and in a power poll, they might rank among the top ten or twelve teams in the country. New offensive coordinator Dave Clawson has promised balance, but with a big, 1,000-yard back -- and a couple capable young ‘uns behind him -- and the most promising, experienced offensive line this side of Oklahoma (and maybe West Virginia), the personnel on offense bodes a welcome return to the straight-ahead, physical attack that defined the Vols in their late nineties hey day, as well as the last time they won a surprise division championship with a totally green quarterback, in 2004. The defense, as porous as it was for much of last year, would not seem to bear comparison to its usually fire-breathing predecessors, but the front seven remains as talented as ever (according to Phil Steele, probable starters on the line and at linebacker include PS#1, PS#6, PS#14, PS#5 and PS#8, for what it’s worth) and the equally talented secondary seemed to progress from flailing noobs to entrenched stalwarts after being torched by Alabama in October. There’s a dropoff to the new quarterback, maybe, but under normal circumstances the defending East champs should be right back in the thick of the race.

This particular edition of the SEC East, though, is not exactly normal. If Erik Ainge had another year (surely they would have redshirted the kid in 2005 if they had seen what was coming), UT would probably be considered a legitimate aspirant to the all-consuming Florida/Georgia debate. With Jonathan Crompton under center and Florida, Georgia and Auburn in the first three conference games -- to say nothing of the opening trip to UCLA and Alabama and South Carolina by the start of November -- the Vols are everywhere an afterthought, universally consigned to the usual New Year’s date in the Outback or Bowl Formerly Known as the Citrus with a minimum of three losses. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the conventional wisdom reigns here. As many potential contenders as there are in the SEC, even if Tennessee manages to upset UF or UGA early, the odds of surviving to even an at-large BCS bid are too long.

18. Virginia Tech
Here is a beneficiary of the format: I’m definitely down on the Hokies in general, and in a power poll, they probably wouldn’t rank in the top 25 at all. The quarterback is either a decidedly average, within-the-offense manager prone to making his own fans wail or a very young, probably one-dimensional sophomore; the running backs left spring either booted from the team or injured; the receivers are brand spanking new, and the only potentially viable option will miss the season; and any deference to the attrition-racked defense is out of respect for coordinator Bud Foster’s track record and its association with the dominant class of veterans that just graduated en masse. If the offensive line didn’t return almost intact, there’d be no hope of coherence on offense.

But Tech has won at least eight games every year for the last decade, and at least tean games all four years since joining the ACC. With the schedule, it’s hard to see short of an unprecedented collapse how it can possibly fall short of nine or ten wins again. Tech has survived for years without much explosiveness on offense, and most of the new starters on defense played a lot last year; the last three Hokie Ds have been so outrageously good, statistically, that the new edition can suffer some significant regression and still qualify as "good." Mainly, though, the unanimous opinion -- shared here -- is that whatever the Hokies lose, there’s still no other outfit in the ACC worth taking a flier on. Most teams in this conference -- all but Clemson, in fact, which Tech doesn’t play in the regular season -- still seem to be counting on winning games by dragging proceedings into the mud and grinding scoring to a halt, and none of them yet have matched Beamer Ball for that.

Johnson: Forgotten man, but not for long.
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17. Oregon
It’s encouraging that the Ducks pulled it together for a rousing bowl game, off the post-Dixon November that rivaled only the final months at Cal and Alabama for head-exploding frustration. Without that spark, I’m not sure I or anyone else could justify any faith in this team’s resiliency -- remember, the same team lost its last four and five of its last seven in 2006, mostly by wide margins, and the ‘04 Ducks missed a bowl by losing their last three. Three November collapses in four years = extreme caution, before you even begin to account for the departure of Dixon and Jonathan Stewart.

Everywhere but quarterback, though, the Ducks look alright. Assuming Jeremiah Johnson returns to ‘06/early ‘07 form after missing the last six games (he’s just shy of 1,000 yards on well over six per carry in essentially a year-and-a-half of splitting time with Stewart), or some combination of Johnson, Andre Crenshaw and incoming LaGarrette Blount adds up to Stewart’s Herculean junior production, UO already has very good talent at receiver (Jaison Williams, USC transfer/ex-blue chip Jamere Holland, tight end Ed Dickson) and on the offensive line (center Max Unger and tackle Fenuki Tupou were all-Pac Ten by the coaches). Patrick Chung and league sack leader Nick Reed were also all-conference on a defense that returns seven of its top nine tacklers; corner Walter Thurmond was snubbed despite a terriffic stat line for a DB (8 tackles for loss, 18 passes broken up, 5 INT) -- maybe that production is an indication that he was frequently picked on (the best corners are often invisible in the box score), but at least he made some plays, too.

Anyway, the point is, Oregon shouldn’t be significantly different -- except at quarterback. As the bowl game proved, the panicked decline that followed Dixon’s injury was a consequence of the circumstances of the moment and shouldn’t indicate the team will cease to function without a Heisman contender in the shotgun. That’s good news, because it won’t have anything close to that this time -- which, of course, is the bad news. The uncertainty of what to expect from Nate Costa or Justin Roper is probably the only thing keeping the Ducks from becoming a chic pick for the top ten and an at-large BCS spot behind USC. Despite my timid personal optimism for Costa’s potential -- itself based on nothing but the fact that the team apparently was much more confident with him in the No. 2 role before his own ACL injury kept him from replacing Dixon -- I’m not about to pull the trigger on that kind of expectation for any non-Trojan team in a league with so much parity.

16. Arizona State
The same holds for the Devils, who rank ahead of Oregon only because the two play in Tempe this year. ASU remains capable on offense, led by a durable, experienced quarterback who might turn out to be the conference’s offensive MVP, in spite of his line’s fundamental inability to keep him upright; when he has time, Rudy Carpenter has as many proven options to distribute the ball to as any QB in the league. They remain capable defensively, with a solid pass rush (via end Dexter Davis), long-in-the-tooth linebackers and a couple second-year guys in the secondary (Omar Bolden and Troy Nolan) generally assumed to have bright futures. The kicker, Thomas Weber, hit all seven field goal attempts beyond 40 yards as a freshman and comes back as everybody’s all-American (although -- and I have no empirical evidence whatsoever to back this up -- I’d be willing to bet that status is not the best indicator for previously on-target guys following the seasons that produced the accolades).

The real problem with Arizona State last year was its failure to stay within striking distance of the best teams it faced; taking it to Oregon State, Stanford and Washington is one thing, but Oregon, USC and Texas made quick work of the Devils in meaningful, hyped games that in reality were never in doubt. Again, that firing-on-all-cylinders version of Oregon doesn’t translate to the ‘08 edition, but with the addition of Georgia (a big step up in degree of difficulty from last year’s non-conference "heavy," Colorado) and a trip to Berkeley to play a non-foundering version of Cal, ASU will have to show some more big game fight to avoid another BCS snub.

Not that I actually expect them to be in the running -- the schedule is rather frontloaded, with Georgia, Cal, USC and Oregon coming back-to-back-to-back-to-back in one four-game, six-week stretch at midseason, so expect to lose track of the Devils before they hit a winning streak in the final month.

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Nos. 21-25: The Wildcards

Tomorrow’s All-Americans Today
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The rules for this team: all players are second or third-year guys -- no incoming freshmen or JUCOs -- set to start for the first time this year, or otherwise to contribute heavily after a redshirt year or a season (or two) as a backup. No one on the team was feted with awards or freshman all-America notices, and none has more than five career starts; many have none. Because they weren’t instant impact beasts, you won’t find many of these guys near the top of the preseason position lists, but you should expect to be well-acquainted with all of them by this time next year.

If your team’s budding star was left off, it’s probably because we know too much about him already. And what’s the fun in that?

QB: Nate Costa Oregon
The easy pick might be Tyrod Taylor, one of the few young, new starters we’ve actually seen a bit of, but Taylor -- like Kevin Riley at Cal -- is not assured of beating out an entrenched veteran. Costa is not assured of his job, either, with Sun Bowl hero Justin Roper vying for the spot, but given the handwringing and "if only" laments by Duck partisans who wonder if the team might have avoided collapse with Costa in the lineup (he was out for the year with an ACL tear) after Dennis Dixon went down at Arizona, he must be the favorite. Costa definitely has the size (6-1, 220), and allegedly has the athleticism to run the entire Duck offense in a way the more pocket-bound Roper (or, say, Brady Leaf) can’t. He’ll follow a solid string of successful quarterbacks at Oregon (Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, Kellen Clemens, Dennis Dixon) and, for a third year guy, has too much remaining talent around him to hide behind any claim of "rebuilding."
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Honorable Mention: Tyrod Taylor (Virginia Tech), Kodi Burns (Auburn), Jevan Snead (Ole Miss), Steven Threet (Michigan), Josh Nesbitt (Georgia Tech), Kevin Riley (California)

With Dwyer, get used to hanging on for dear life.
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RB: Jonathan Dwyer Georgia Tech
Most places, especially in the ACC, Dwyer would be ineligible for this list because he would have moved right into a starting role as a true freshman; at Georgia Tech, he was stuck behind workhorse Tashard Choice, didn’t start a game and only logged 82 carries. But he was impressive on those runs (5.3 per carry) and will get many, many more opportunities in Paul Johnson’s offense, wherein Dwyer is projected as a "B-Back," or fullback, which takes a huge share of the snaps right up the gut; if Johnson’s lumbering fullbacks at Navy could consistently average five yards on straight-ahead option dives, as they did each of the last four years, Dwyer will be a frequent terror on the second level.

RB: Jahvid Best California
Best was about as hyped but touched the ball even less than Dwyer as a true freshman -- just 28 carries before he was hurt in the tenth game -- but like Dwyer, he made the most of his chances, ripping off a 34-yarder in his first game, against Tennessee, and a 64-yard touchdown against Colorado State the next week, good for a 7.6 average. Marshawn Lynch did about the same off the bench as a freshman, as did Justin Forsett after him, and both went on to boffo seasons as the full-time starter; Best is a track guy and, unless he’s hurt again, a lock to become Jeff Tedford’s seventh straight 1,000-yard back in seven years.
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Honorable Mention: Chris Rainey (Florida), Greg Little (North Carolina), Kendall Hunter (Oklahoma State), Caleb King (Georgia)

WR: Deonte Thompson Florida
There was no reason to burn Thompson’s redshirt with the absurdity of receiving depth bestowed upon the Tebow Child, but Deonte was widely regarded as one of the six or eight best incoming receivers in the country last year, and allegedly measures in the upper reaches of the Harvin/Rainey Scale, speed-wise. The transfer talk is apparently behind him, and many soft, fluffy, perfectly-placed, satin-seamed touchdown balls to the front.

WR: Ronald Johnson Southern Cal
RoJo was about as high profile as a cornerback recruit can be, but his freshman contribution was limited to seven mostly short, unexciting catches and most of the kick-returning duties. But he took two of those -- one against Stanford, for a touchdown, and later at Arizona State -- for 47 and 33 yards. SC needs more consistency from its receivers, and Johnson is the best bet to emerge as the reliable deep threat in a group of mostly bigger, possession-type guys.
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Honorable Mention: Terrance Toliver (LSU), Damien Williams (Southern Cal), LaTerryal Savoy (Michigan)

Johnson: If all else fails, at least he’s got a nice fan site.
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TE: Andrew Szczerba Penn State
It’s way too far out to mean anything, especially among a group of players who haven’t played a snap, but Szczerba is the early favorite among tight ends in the 2012 Draft, and he received unanimously rave reviews for hauling in five passes in the Blue-White game. With trouble magnet Andrew Quarless in front of him, Szczerba is always just one DUI or impromptu club brawl away from his big break.
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Honorable Mention: Aaron Hernandez (Florida), Zach Pianalto (North Carolina)

OT: Blake DeChristopher Virginia Tech
Redshirted last year, but moves into the Hokies’ right tackle spot with the scouts’ full attention.

OT: Kyle Hix Texas
Teammate Tray Allen may have a brighter future in the long-term, but he’s still projected behind Hix on this fall’s depth chart. Hix played in every game as a true freshman and pulled his first start in the Holiday Bowl, which, considering the competition, also happened to be the Horns’ best offensive effort of the year.

OG: Bryan Bulaga Iowa
‘Scuse me while I whip out a PS# -- for Bulaga, it was PS#5 among incoming linemen last year (sixth by Rivals), and he wound up starting the last five games on the Hawkeyes’ train wreck of a line. He didn’t singlehandedly right a foundering ship (Jake Christensen was sacked 19 times in those five games), but it set a groundwork for the expected sophomore leap.

OG: Joseph Barksdale LSU
Hyped defensive tackle recruit earned plenty of time at guard as a true freshman -- no small feat on the Tigers’ line -- and looks like he’s going to settle in at right tackle for the next three years.

C: Kris O’Dowd Southern Cal
A top-rated, five-star guard, who immediately moved into the lineup as a stopgap when senior Matt Spanos went down at midseason. His three starts qualify him as one of the old men of this year’s line, since only one other lineman (guard Jeff Byers, who could have made this list three years in a row beginning in 2005) has more.
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Honorable Mention: Butch Lewis (Southern Cal), J’Marcus Webb (Arizona, nee Texas), John Moffitt (Wisconsin), Orlando Franklin (Miami)

The most interesting matchups of the season, chronologically.
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There aren't many teams more vexing from a preseason standpoint than Nebraska, though the stark divide between the Huskers' talent and results under Bill Callahan -- and, honestly, in the last two years of Frank Solich's administration -- has hardly led to much indecision among the summer pronostoscenti. The magazines have not only decreed the Big Red fourth in the Big 12 North; it's a decisive fourth unanimous except for noted contrarian Phil Steele. Kansas and Colorado, less physically gifted teams that nevertheless sent the Huskers home victims of humiliating scoreboard assault last year, are much favored, and none but Steele dares consider NU for the top twenty-five.

Both results are virtually unprecedented in the last 40 years, but they're understandable on the heels of six years of steady underachieving, despite the relatively dreadful recruiting at the end of the Solich era and the potential payoff of the marked upswing in talent under Callahan, whose classes from 2005-07 all rivaled those from Oklahoma and Texas as the best in the conference (according to Rivals), and easily outpaced the rest of the North. Bo Pellini may be walking into a much better-stocked kitchen than Callahan, but until his results pass inspection, skepticism is inevitable.

Nebraska? Wasn't that kitchen full of rats the last time we were there?
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On the other hand, take Virginia Tech, another team moving forward warily, but for exactly opposite reasons. Where the dichotomy between potential and recent results led to a strongly pessimistic view of Nebraska, the loss of every significant Hokie skill player -- including all of the expected up-and-comers in the spring, who will begin the season on the injured list -- and the core of veteran leadership on the most consistently dominating defense in the country over the last three years has caused barely a ripple in the summer consensus: Tech is a unanimous favorite to win the ACC Coastal, and to finish somewhere in the high teens to low twenties in the final polls.

When you're planning to fight the last war, continuity seems like everything. It trumps talent, ambition and innovation. Continuity is the reason Virginia Tech is expected to look like Virginia Tech more or less always looks, regardless of a red siren lack of experienced personnel. In the same way, the lack of continuity, despite advantages in experience and talent over most of the rest of its conference, dooms Nebraska to another year of stultifying mediocrity, of 'rebuilding,' until the Huskers, too, have reestablished a track record of success in the face of any and all levels of attrition. So thinks Athlon, anyway, which chalks up Nebraska as a near-certain 'W' for Virginia Tech, not even bothering with the courtesy of considering the home team a potential toss-up. That's pretty certain for this time of year.

Given the circumstances, of course, there's nothing certain about either team's prospects, in Lincoln or over the course of the season. In war terms, between the new brain trust at Nebraska and the green troops in Blacksburg, neither army looks the same in strategy or firepower. Expectations -- those holdover assumptions from "the last war," 2007 -- are good for three weeks, in Nebraska's case, through games with Western Michigan, San Jose State and New Mexico State, but the story of the ground gained or lost in 2008 is in complete flux until a real, competent enemy shows up on Sept. 27.

To that point, as through most of the Callahan era, the Big Red is a blank slate. But 4-0 in September, with the program's best win in three years as a jumping-off point for the conference gauntlet, immediately establishes Pellini's Huskers as a revived, hungry threat. If they're feeling confident now, the last thing Missouri and Kansas want to see is the old sleeping giant lifting its weary head on the horizon. Nebraska needs that before Mizzou comes in the following week.

We'll know a little more about the wisdom of the Hokie backers by then, and whether their rhetorical investments in another ten-win season were justified. Tech has division rivals Georgia Tech and North Carolina in the weeks just prior to its Midwest road trip, and the fate of the Coastal might be more or less sealed in those games, whether the Sean Glennon/Tyrod Taylor question is or not. If this is an ambitious team -- which Tech's success since joining the ACC gives it every right to be -- 4-0 entering the Nebraska game is a minimum. Five-and-oh coming out of Lincoln raises the bar another notch, where just meeting expectations is a clear enough warning to cynics who pay too much attention to things like depth charts.

A too-soon look at next fall, sans the inevitable injuries, suspensions and other pratfalls of the long offseason.
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What’s Changed. The big, flashing, burning question is this: to what extent, exactly, is kicking ass a birthright for a Frank Beamer/Bud Foster defense? The track record is pretty good: Foster’s last four defenses, beginning with the Hokies’ first year in the ACC in 2004, all finished in the top five nationally in both scoring and total defense, an absurd run of anti-productivity; Tech led the nation in total defense in ‘05 and ‘06 and might have led last year if not for the 598-yard, 48-point evisceration at LSU in September, which has no comparison (even the blinged-out, championship-bound USC offense in 2004 only scored 24 on 373 yards in that season’s opener). By every measure, VT is the dominant defensive program in the country over the last four years.

The rub: four-year starter Vince Hall is gone. Three-year starter Chris Ellis is gone. Three-year starter Xavier Adibi is gone. Three-year starter Carlton Powell is gone. Two-year starter Brandon Flowers is gone, a year early. Two-year starter Barry Booker is gone. Two-year starter D.J. Parker is gone. That’s six of the starting front seven, seven of the top ten tacklers the last two years, almost 200 career starts, a dozen all-conference selections and a couple all-Americans leaving en masse. Four of those guys (Flowers, Adibi, Ellis and Powell) were drafted in the first five rounds in April; two of those who weren’t (Booker and Hall) were all-ACC, anyway. The core of the units that have been so strong is thoroughly depleted, and Foster’s touch was not exclusively golden before they arrived: in 2002 and 2003, the last years in the Big East, Tech was middle of the pack defensively, and really suffered in ‘03, when it allowed 30 points in four of the last five games (all losses).

The least you should know about Virginia Tech...

2007 Record • Past Five Years

2007: 11-3 (8-1 ACC; 1st/Coastal) 2003-07: 50-16 (32-9 ACC/Big East)

Five-Year Recruiting Rankings*-

2004-08: 41 • 14 • 32 • 29 • 18

Returning Starters, Roughly

10 (6 Offense, 4 Defense)

Best Player

Macho Harris was a top-rated gem out of high school and has lived up to every star: he’s consistently rated among the top cover guys in the country and has nine interceptions over the last two years, two of them returned for critical touchdowns in scares against Cincinnati and East Carolina. With Brandon Flowers bailing for the pros a year early with the rest of the defensive stars, Harris carries the "everybody’s All-American" torch by himself.

Plausibly-Rendered Origins

You might think maroon and orange is a terrible color combination, if you’re like my mom, but it’s certainly an improvement on their 19th Century predecessors: black and gray (at least there’s no need to colorize old team photos). They chose "burnt orange and Chicago maroon" to go with a completely nonsensical nickname, born of a bizarre student cheer in 1896: Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, Hy. Techs, Techs, V.P.I. Sola-Rex, Sola-Rah. Polytechs - Vir-gin-ia. Rae, Ri, V.P.I. - - - Give them this: anyone who’d propose a cheer without a word of actual english must be one creative, open-minded individual.

- - - * According to Rivals.

Still, with the Lunchpail pedigree and Foster’s guidance, this is probably the best bet to emerge again as the stiffest defense in the conference. Run-oriented safety Kam Chancellor started every game, and Cam Martin played when Hall missed four games at midseason; Macho Harris has the reputation as the best returning corner anywhere, with the nickname, accolades and high draft projections to back it up. The youth on the line means the top five streak should definitely end, but they shouldn’t fall out of the top 20 overall, either.

What’s the Same. I dunno, maybe the best thing that ever happened to Sean Glennon was getting benched after starting 2 of 10 under insane pressure at LSU –– when he got back in the saddle a month later, he delivered a 10:1 TD:INT ratio over the last seven games of the regular season, six of them in-conference wins (the loss being the last-minute collapse against Boston College), and had probably the best two games of his career against Virginia and a week later in the ACC Championship, where he threw three touchdowns. Sean had apparently turned a corner, one that led him right into a vicious night in the Orange Bowl, where he completed less than half of his passes, was picked off twice and finished with an efficiency rating under 100 for the first time since LSU.

It’s Tyrod’s world, sooner or later.
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Actually, Glennon did this in 2006, too, with a pair of fine games in late wins over Wake Forest and Virginia before laying a three-interception egg against Georgia in the Bowl Formerly Known as Peach. So it’s understandable that nobody’s getting too carried away about Glennon’s "ceiling," or counting on him to beat out Tyrod Taylor, a five-star OMG! recruit who kept drawing aesthetic comparisons to Marcus Vick (for, uh, good reasons, mostly) and might have never given Glennon another opening if he hadn’t gone down against Duke.

Coaches are not looking to cast Glennon aside, given his experience and winning record, and both shared reps with the first team in the spring. Fine. They can say what they want: everyone will be surprised if the rotation that evolved over the last month of the season doesn’t yield at some point before midseason to the full-on Tyrod Taylor Show. Neither guy is a proven passer over more than a couple games at a time, but Taylor hardly had a chance to throw as a freshman and would be a real disappointment if he didn’t achieve Glennon’s not-very-high level as a passer in Year Two. His future and athleticism add a different dimension to the offense and give him a chance to run away with this derby.

The Cheeseman Stands Alone, Breaks a Bone. The Hokies’ running back situation looks so bad coming out of the spring, it’s destined to be one of those elements that sneaks its way to respectability and then some kind of late breakout despite the odds. That’s how they do –– especially with four starting linemen back, one of them (Sergio Render) with as bright a future as any player on the team.

To be clear, there is no evidence for that prediction whatsoever. The running game generally was well below the Tech standard with Branden Ore carrying the load the last two years without the usual complement; there were a couple intriguing options after Ore was kicked off the team in the spring, until both of them –– Kenny Lewis and the deliciously-named Jahre Cheeseman –– were knocked out of practice with bad injuries (shoulder surgery for Lewis, a broken fibula for Cheeseman) that could linger well into the fall. That left Dustin Pickle, a melanin-challenged former walk-on and career special teamer, as the top tailback by the end of the spring. Incoming Ryan Williams was the No. 3 running back in the ‘08 class by Rivals, as well as the "best in space," and if he can’t beat out a couple gimpy career backups and a fifth-year senior just now earning a scholarship, "reversion to the mean" will not save them from a new low on the ground.

Overly Optimistic Post-Spring Chatter. Yet another completely depleted area that has to be filled immediately: wide receiver. Now sans longtime corps leaders Eddie Royal, Justin Harper, Josh "Hur Hur" Hyman and Josh Morgan, the returning receivers have three career receptions, all by ex-quarterback Ike Whitaker in garbage time last September. Like the running backs, they are chlorophyll green, so much so that Macho Harris spent the first six practices at flanker, just to see what might happen. Unlike the running backs, though, the receivers at least had a young ‘un emerge as a potential answer in April –– and not the guy anyone expected:

Give this guy a pen and tell him where to sign. Hand him a scholarship. Make it fast, too. Because Brandon Dillard is hard to catch.

Providing more evidence in his case of earning a scholarship for his final two college seasons, Dillard set up a touchdown with a 49-yard run on a reverse and caught a 25-yard TD pass to spark the White team to a 24-3 victory in Virginia Tech's Maroon-White spring football game at Lane Stadium.

"I don't know," Harris said. "I believe after this, they're going to have to negotiate or something. They're going to have to work on something because Dillard is one of the impact players now."
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Dillard allegedly ran a 4.28 in the forty this winter, whatever that’s worth (non-verifiable sub-4.4 times should always be met with suspicion, as if 40-times meant anything, anyway), and Harris not only admitted Dillard was the fastest player on the team, but guessed he was "hands down...the fastest guy in college football right now." That is hyperbole. But if Dillard starts the first game, as expected, yeah, he should probably get that money.

Viriginia Tech on You Tube. Michael Vick put Virginia Tech on the map, but the Hokies made national noise for the first time a few years earlier, specifically in the fourth quarter of the 1995 Sugar Bowl against Texas:

Click on for the first, second and third quarters.

See Also: You are there for the complete Sean Glennon Experience. ... Whoever thought of Enter Sandman entrance is a kind of motivational genius, though you can always count on Chris Fowler to geek it up for the viewers at home. ... How do you get good at something? Practice practice practice. ... And maybe Brenden Hill is just, you know, a really big Neil Diamond fan.

You don’t get to say this much about the amateurs, but with Brandon Dillard, it’s time to get paid, son.
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Best-Case: It helps dramatically that –– like some of the old Big East slates VT ran away from –– the schedule has only one team that finished anywhere near last year’s final polls, Boston College, and the Eagles will be without the league’s player of the year. The toughest dates will be against former powers fallen on hard times: Nebraska, Florida State, Miami, all on the road. Actually, up-and-coming East Carolina and North Carolina, based on strong efforts against the Hokies last year, might be about as dangerous. Tech may be a favorite in all of those games, but with no reliable skill players and a rebuilding front seven, there’s a loss in there somewhere. At best, this could be the most underwhelming 11-1 team you’ve ever seen; even optimistically, whatever the record is, whatever happens in the ACC Championship, the relatively cushy route should preclude any notions of a mythical championship run. Really: look hard at the schedule and remember I said that when you start to think, "Well, maybe..." in November.

Worst-Case: Expecting any team with as many holes as Tech brings into the season to go 5-1 against the toughest part of the schedule is over the top, even if it doesn’t look like a very daunting stretch on paper. East Carolina or North Carolina is an upset waiting to happen; Nebraska, Florida State and Miami can match up with the Hokies athletically and Boston College must be a toss-up after last year’s nip-and-tuck split. It’s not too hard to pick four losses out of that group, and maybe another one from the hard-to-peg trio of Georgia Tech (the Hokies will have little time to scout the Jackets’ slippery new offense before the third game), Maryland and/or Virginia. A 7-5 finish would be Tech’s worst in a decade, but looking at the gaping question marks, that’s not too far out of line.

Non-Binding Forecast: Poorly Attended, Pirate-Themed Weekend in Tampa or Bust. Almost unbelievably, as harshly as I want to react to the major personnel losses, the layout lends itself to success. For all the attrition, Tech is still the preseason favorite in the Atlantic and a strong contender to repeat as conference champion, if only by default. The new look ACC was designed to feature the high-flying Florida schools, Miami and Florida State, hook the Sunshine rivals up in Jacksonville every year for a blockbuster championship and throw itself in with the other elite football conferences. Turns out it was really built for Beamer Ball. The Canes and Noles have foundered, the league champion is 0-4 in BCS games and the rest have followed Virginia Tech’s stodgy lead: the ACC passed less, gained less and scored less, by wide margins, than any other major conference in 2007. That profile couldn’t fit a team more snugly than it does the Hokies, and as long as they can drag games into the mud, the consistent inability (or unwillingness) to fly high offensively is a manageable burden, and the conference championship is a very attainable goal. I can’t credibly predict more than two losses from a slate of games that, aside from maybe resurgent Nebraska in Lincoln, Tech should definitely be favored to win. Don’t get carried away, but the Hokies should be right there in the BCS mix in early December, as usual.