Florida State=28, Virginia Tech=22

Today’s word is Moral Victory…

Moral victory
(noun)
[countable]

A moral victory occurs when a person, team, army or other group loses a confrontation, and yet achieves some other moral gain. This gain might be unrelated to the confrontation in question, and the gain is often considerably less than what would have been accomplished if an actual victory had been achieved.

Do I believe in moral victories?

Negative.

Do I believe that when you are paid $2,328,000.oo annually that ^that^,  flimsy, yet occasionally morally substantive term is precisely how Frank Beamer must spin Thursday nights outcome vs. #8 ranked Florida State?

And do I believe that 2012 Virginia Tech football has officially been reduced to that?

Affirmative; as it is Frank’s job to get this 4-6 and outright downtrodden Virginia Tech football team back up and ready for a 2-game or 120 minute sudden death single elimination tournament.

Ends=means

There simply is no other way.

And yet, did Virginia Tech just play its BEST game of the year?
(more below on that)

Pre-game Enter (what):???
#91 Matt Roth sure looked ready to play –didn’t he? And does anybody know what the name of the voiceover music that ESPN substituted for our signature Enter Sandman was? Pretty tribal beat is all I can ante up. It was not quite Metallic(a) enough; and such was all together inappropriate to change –although it did stand on its own two feet. Was that some kinda reality show theme or what? (1 FREE month of TSL Pass to anyone who can answer my question with a (LINK)

M*A*S*H

Note as well the ESPN report on LT3’s bum ankle (left) as you can see in the external wrap/brace. As reported exclusively in last games Eye in the Sky.

Last couple of games Duration:
Note the not so subtle elements of the old-school WT-6 (wide-Tackle-six) defense at times in the last handful of quarters of play. The wider dLine splits, the signature 3-deep secondary look. Likewise note the overload or forty-six crowded line-of-scrimmages look and in the increase in dealing Linebackers or zone-blitzing. I even saw a even or 60-look with our ‘backer (B.Taylor) down in a 3-point stance as a duplicate End-De on the short-side of the field! As we all know, cornered animals always revert to what they knew first.—which is not always best. In Bud’s case that is a very Patton esque’ “…attack attack attack! And when in doubt attack again” version of defense.

1^st quarter, 10:01 remaining:
Think LT3 still ain’t part Te? Watch this epic open-field cut-block by LT3 after he fumbles the hand-off to C.Full’ on the end-around. I’m not sure you’d wanna risk it routinely; though LT3 can indeed block like a mother on the every once in a while scripted reversal of field – or maybe from a Wildcat set to oh say a J.C.Coleman or Demetri Knowles; both of whom can flat out fly.

1^st quarter, 7:39 remaining:
Far-out! Notice the new throwing foible of LT3 as he sidearm’s the 3^rd down throw to J.C.Coleman out in the right-hand flat. Think those overthrows on the same type pass to Phillips last game vs. Miami had anything to do with that? Shooters have to shoot their way outta a slump in hoops and throwers need to just keep right on winging it instead of guiding the ball in gridiron terms –as this is a surefire sign of a Pivot who is a few pints short of full in terms of self-trust.

1^st quarter, 7:30 remaining:
If you are momma Tweedy reading this Eye, don’t. As I was about to file a missing persons report on your son on this KO coverage for Vah.Tech as the Seminole up-man stole him good and hard on this F.S.U. return. Tweedy played a pretty dang good game in run support however, although his pass coverage is still left wanting and that is precisely why you do not see him at Whip as often as some of you would like (case in point 2^ndQ, 2:52 remaining).

FIGHT the power!!!

1^st quarter, 5:19 remaining:
The book is out on poor #55 or one Mr. B.Benedict; as I’ve seen this on film for several weeks. As this poor kid of the “nerve damage” and “catastrophic” knee injury fame just can not come up outta his pass-blocking stance properly at times. All it takes is a slip-move left or towards BB’s bad right-side and you are right on through and on your way to LT3. BB –just like Mr. Scott- is “…giving you all he’s got” it’s just that sometimes that knee does not unlock and this is precisely what happens when it won’t.

1^st quarter 3:59 remaining:
Ok, all of you Dan Brown symbologists, how gangstar or playar was all of this outta #1 of F.S.U.? Criptology one-o-one if you ask me. (see: above pic)

“Clean up your room!”

2^nd quarter, 15:00 remaining:
Pretty good hint and a half that this was not a fake FGA; or at the very least not a a fake FGA over to the F.S.U. right-hand side. As nobody would intentionally drop their waist-wrap hand warming sleeve and just leave it laying there –to trip over- if the fake FGA call was on and going that way.

That’s on Sherm’ however folks. Make no mistake here men. It is Coach Sherm’s own damn fault that MD-2o-2o is allowed to paint himself pink and get away with this level of cat-synonym chicanery on blocking calls all season long.

After seeing that video of Will’s,  I’d call MD-2o-2o pathetic, though that’s not fair to pathetic people everywhere.

2^nd quarter, 9:08  remaining:
Damnation if #98 D.Hop and L.Maddy have not been playing better of late. They are both finally healthy and they are A-gap brigands indeed. Amazing just how much better they have made the dLine and how much better the dLine is when we let J.Gayle attack up field. Ditto Tweedy off the edge and my home-body Dadi; whenever he gets into the game –as with any 4 up and 6 down team, what does it matter at this point? Why not play balls to the wall hell-bent-for-leather and take this twenty-twelve back to it’s initial 46 Buddy Ryan origins?

 2^nd quarter, 4:34 remaining:
Boy-o-boy did C.Fuller #83 take one for the team –Marcus Davis take note. As the F.S.U. Fs basically speared him through the signature skill-position opening in his facemask on this very short-Post route over the middle. That’s not illegal folks; though that is however how you intentionally break someone’s nose or how your cause that skin divot to appear right between and above the eyes that never ever heals up until after the season ends and the lid is removed -so the skin can breath- for keeps. This is indeed a slicing 9-iron upside C.Full’s head and “eight-three” took it like a champ. Wish we had #83 for another year; as I am pressed to nominate seeing a skill-position guy improve this much in just inside of 12 calender months worth of football in the last decade; give or take.

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Longfield Management (Lo.FM)©
Virginia Tech:
positive= |||| ||||  (1 FSU penalty)
negative= |||| |||| |||| | (1 VT fumble, 1 VT penalty)
neutral= ||||

Florida State:
positive= |||| |||| |  (1 FSU fumble recovered by FSU, 1 FSU TD)
negative= |||| |||| ||||  |||| (1 FSU INT, 1 FSU Safety, 1 FSU penalty)
neutral= ||||

As you can see, the Lo.FM nearly verbatim predicted a tight game going right down to the wire and that is precisely what we got. As you can also see, Florida State did all it could late in the game to gift-wrap this one just in time for Black Friday next week. As the passing call outta the FSU endzone that gave Virginia Tech a chance to take the lead on a FGA -as opposed to tying it up at 20- is about as boneheaded as it gets. Even archeologists everywhere who have never worn a jock think that’s a dumb play. FSU however notched that one single solitary scoring play on a Lo.FM when Mr. Green kicked in some turbo-jets in his feets that would make any F-18 proud and suddenly turned a corner that he had no business turning and that turned the tables on Virginia Tech for keeps. And yet how did Virginia Tech very possibly play its best football of the season –and somehow still get beat?!?

***

     IF all I told you was that Virginia Tech had held the last two Sunshine State teams to a staggering 4 of 26 on 3rd down conversions (or 15%) what would you say Virginia Tech’s record would be? How about if all I told you was that Virginia Tech has won the Box Score war 7 outta 10 times this year; including beating Clemson by 111 total yards, Miami by 74 total yards, and Florida State by … you guessed it another 74 total yards! Basically that’s code for a grim and gutty 10 point Hokie win, a 7 point Tech Triumph and another 7 point Vah.Tech victory when you break it all down to its most basic elements on most days. And that is the rule of thumb worst-case scenario folks. Worst!

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.”
-Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill-

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is going on here men?!?

How in the “Wide Wide World of Sports” did we get to four hyphen six overall and on the brink of bowling or post-season elimination? Here’s why…

• Turnover Margin: 93rd best at -0.6 per game after a six year run on average of +0.69 per game is like gargling peanut-butter flavored sand while standing on your head.
• Almost NO clutch plays generated from this years team; note the near perfect abstinence from making clutch plays -as opposed to shooting ourselves in the foot; which we can not seem to miss- on Longfield Management situations this season. When the chips get big-n-blue we fold our 2; 10, J, Q, K, on-suit -instead of drawing one- and going for broke. Instead of that we just go home.
• “You can’t have fun without the fundamentals.”
  -Earvin “magic” Johonson Jr.-
  Yup; when tackling and blocking both continue a post-2007 downward trend; and then hit rock bottom, and then start digging; you Sir(s) have a problem.
• Too much too soon … yes I know it is tough to take back the biggest Lockeroom in the land, an epic and luxurious players lounge –fair ’nuff. As the one thing know about genies is that they don’t like bottles; and they like going back into the same even less.  However, this causes entitlement to creep in and entitlement softens the head and the heart alike. When it comes to facilities, be careful what you wish for — or fund next.
• T.Clark, N.Dew, B.Aromire, Farrow, T.Norma, now possibly Mr. Manning, J.Williams, J.Lewis, B.Laiti, D.Patterson, R.Young, J.Goins and Ju-Ju Clayton. All have said “PEACE-out” to Virginia Tech for one reason or another. (NOTE: do you see the downright defensive trend there as well folks?)
• “Spare the rod spoil the child.”
  -Proverbs, 13:24-
  That’s what happens when you leave Sunday players out there at a Friday or Jr.High level and simply feed them a diet of proverbial reward/encouragement based carrots when what they really need is to get all Zen and get cracked upside their N.F.L. heads with the playing-time fueled encouragement stick.
  

  “1 on 1″

Note that that amounts to 3 chickens, 2 eggs, and 1 quiche — as things that are top-down (or coaching related), compared to things that are bottom-up (or more parts player related) goes. What is that all code for you ask?

The word you are searching for is textbook enabling. Why do you let the mouse guard the cheese? Why do you pour the alcoholic another drink? Nothing good can come from appeasement folks. And 4-6, then 4-7 and then 4-8 would be most appeasing if not outright victorious … and that’s the moral of today’s O&M story folks –allegorical play-on-words, very much intended indeed.

“LETS GO!“

“Hokies!“

bourbonstreet**