Jim Weaver
The offense had a great start at Clemson. Weaver agreed 100% with the call to go for it on fourth down to try and get up 14-0. If you kick the field goal you are up 10-0, but then Clemson could still tie the game without scoring two touchdowns.
The defense played with a lot of tenacity. They had five sacks against a very good offensive team. Clemson has the best skilled position players in the conference. Weaver is very pleased with the way they played.
Clemson is a talented team, and you can't make mistakes and hope to beat them. Clemson had an interception return for a touchdown, and the Marcus Davis interception set up a touchdown as well.
There's nothing the Hokies can do about the bad calls in Saturday's game. All they can do is send the tape of the plays in question to the ACC office. Weaver doesn't see how the Sammy Watkins fumble wasn't clear.
The athletics department has saved money and they are prepared in case season tickets don't go well in any given year. They have a non-renewal rate of about 8-10% each year, but new buyers have always made up those losses.
The fact that the ACC is sticking with an 8-game schedule does not change their new contract with ESPN.
Virginia Tech will play Ohio State in 2014 and 2015. They play Wisconsin in 2016 and 2017. He's dealing with a number of teams right now for possible games from 2018-21, and he's hoping to get that done in the next couple of weeks. There are Big Ten schools involved in those discussions.
Weaver renewed the ECU series. Pittsburgh went from being a non-conference game to a conference game, so the Hokies needed another non-conference contest. Weaver and Terry Holland have had a very good relationship for a long time. Weaver likes playing ECU because their fans buy all 4,000 tickets they are allotted. Also, it's an opportunity for Tech fans in Tidewater to take a short trip to see the Hokies play on the road. Also, it's not a buy game for the Hokies, so it makes sense financially.
BYU was available for a home and home. Virginia Tech wasn't interested. They would have to bus to Greensboro to fly that far. Flying out of Roanoke would require a stop for refueling.
The Tech senior athletic staff is working on a long-term plan for the athletic department. They have a couple of meetings about that this week.
Bud Foster
Tech puts in a lot of preparation for defending spread type of teams such as Clemson, that use the slot tight end. Torrian Gray did a great job of studying it. The Hokies had a good plan going in. They had to stop the run and eliminate explosive plays, and overall they did a good job. The defensive players played really hard until the very end.
Clemson has dynamic playmakers at every position, and that makes them tough to stop. They have a dynamic quarterback, the best quarterback in the ACC (in Foster's opinion), and two of the best receivers in the country.
The Hokies set the tone on Clemson's first drive with two sacks. Luther Maddy had a great spring. He got hurt a bit to start the season against Georgia Tech and slowed down, but he has really come on the last couple of weeks. The whole defensive line has turned it up.
Kyle Fuller has been a whip type of player the last two years. This is his first full season playing corner. The safeties have really improved over the last couple of games. That has been a huge part of why the defense has gotten better the last two weeks. They've had great practice habits as well.
Other than hitting a baseball, Foster thinks the hardest thing to do in sports is play cornerback. You're on an island out there. You can have great coverage, but a perfect throw will still beat you.
Tech played a lot of three-deep against Clemson. It was an aggressive three-deep. It's a chess match out there.
Foster told the players on Monday morning that he knows they are improving, and that if they keep working hard, they will get even better. They'll have an opportunity to close strong.
Foster wouldn't discuss the Watkins fumble. They "got talked to" last week about saying things about the officials, so he would rather "keep my mouth shut".
Miami is a very young team, but a very talented team. They have great speed, and they are big and physical up front. Al Golden has done a good job. They are young and improving all the time. The Canes and Hokies are both in the same position, so it should be a great game.
Miami will have the best offensive line the Hokies have seen to date. They have a lot of guys returning from last year. They are big and physical up front.
Foster has always been impressed with Miami quarterback Stephen Morris. He plays smooth. He's a very good player with plenty of experience.
The Hokies have worked very hard since they played so poorly defensively against UNC. They are taking it one game at a time, and they've played very well since then. If the team keeps fighting, things will turn around.
It's a good time for a bye week. Foster went home after Sunday meetings for the first time since August 1. Tech isn't going out recruiting this week. The coaches are going to focus on Miami, because this game could decide who wins the Coastal Division.
The game is expanding, and there are so many athletes at quarterbacks these days. But the SEC is different. They play pro-style offenses for the most part. You see the en vogue offenses around the country, but not in the SEC. Defenses will come back up, but it will still come down to personnel and how teams match up.
Somebody has to win the Coastal Division, so it might as well be the Hokies. As far as Foster is concerned, the Coastal goes through Blacksburg.
Michael Via
Tech played hard on Saturday. Clemson is good. They have a good defensive front and great linebackers. Some things didn't go our way.
It wasn't a hard transition to center. He had played the position a lot in the past. The biggest transition is snapping the ball.
Things change a bit from position to position on the offensive line, depending on what position you play. Things aren't too much different between the center and guards. They are all interior positions.
Via doesn't have a preference on which position he likes the best.
Via thinks Caleb Farris will be back very soon. It's good to have the bye week right now.
The team knows that if they beat Miami, they will have a great chance to win the Coastal Division. It's always fun to play Miami. It's always a fast game.
Via feels like the offense had a great week of practice last week. They know there are criticisms. The coaches tell them what's going on, but it's not hard for the players to see it too. They just have to keep working hard to make sure the problems are fixed.
Via graduated in May with a degree in Fisheries Science. He's taking classes to maintain full time status as a student. He hasn't decided what he wants to do next.
Via likes to go fishing, especially in the New River. There are a few lakes around Greensboro, which is where he is from. If there was a team fishing completion, Andrew Miller and Trey Gresh would have a good chance to win.
Luther Maddy
Maddy is looking forward to going home to South Florida to play the Miami Hurricanes.
Maddy sprained his ankle against Georgia Tech, but he feels a lot healthier now. He finally started feeling better before the Duke game. The pain is almost gone, and he's been able to make some sacks.
Clemson is one of the harder offenses to defend. The defense did a great job, and they showed everybody that they could play well against a team like Clemson.
Earlier in the season, Tech wasn't playing as well defensively. They were tackling poorly, and the effort was up and down. They've fixed their tackling and leverage problems and are playing better as a result.
Most of Maddy's friends are Miami fans. They don't know who to cheer for next week. He likes the smack talk.
Blacksburg is much different than Florida. It's easier to focus on school and football at Virginia Tech.
Maddy really had no choice but to come to Virginia Tech. He didn't have any other major offers. Tech took a chance on him. He got an offer from the Hokies the day before Signing Day. He was the last recruit of the class. There is a big chain of recruits from his high school to Virginia Tech (David Clowney, Mark Leal, Jayron Hosley, Dadi Nicolas and Maddy).
Maddy is a little bit shorter than most defensive tackles, and he didn't play that much before his senior season. He had a great senior year. Now there are schools in Florida that are calling his high school coach and apologizing for not recruiting him.
Maddy didn't have a heavy coat before he came to Virginia Tech. The warmest thing he had was a sweater from Wal-Mart.
Maddy took part in the snow ball fight with the cadets on the Drill Field last year, and that's the coldest he's ever been. He had never been hit with a snowball before, but it was a good feeling.
When he first showed up on campus, Maddy weighed 286 and he could bench press about 340. Now he's 288 and he can press 380. The whole strength and conditioning staff is great. Maddy was kind of weak coming in, but he's improved. He's lost some fat and added muscle. He got a long stronger over the summer.
This has to be one of Maddy's best games. He's had it circled on his calendar since the summer.
Maddy would rather play the entire game, but once the Georgia Tech game began, he started to like rotating. It keeps everybody fresh.
Tech needs to do a better job in the redzone. They needed to hold Clemson to field goals. They tried their hardest, but they couldn't keep them out of the endzone for some reason.
On Clemson's last touchdown to make the score 38-17: "That was a very important part of the game. We should have stepped up."
Maddy knows that Tech fans are frustrated. He asked fans to stick with the team, keep supporting them, and they will start winning again.
Frank Beamer
That didn't feel like a 3-touchdown game on Saturday. If you take about 8 plays out of that ballgame, and have maybe 4 of them go Tech's way, he thinks they would have won the game. But they didn't go Tech's way, and the Hokies didn't help them go their way at times.
Things went like Beamer thought they were going to go early in the game. Early in the third quarter, the Hokies got stuck on their own side of the field. They stayed in a hole. Clemson got good field position too many times.
There wasn't much decision about whether or not to go for it on 4th and 1. He knew it was going to take more than 10 points to win the football game. He thought they had a chance to get momentum. It was the thing to do. They had a little play off tackle, and they didn't go down and get the middle backer, and all of a sudden he was hitting Holmes right in the hole. It was poor execution. It was a play they should have been able to execute.
Tech had some turnovers, and they didn't take advantage of some other opportunities. Tech tried a double pass early in the game, but Logan Thomas threw it low to Marcus Davis, who wasn't able to deliver the ball. Beamer thinks that play would have gone for a touchdown. You've got to take advantage of those situations.
They are close. Beamer told the team on Monday that there were about 8 plays, and if you get half of them turned around, then they would be feeling a lot better. Every part of the team has been good at some point, and now they just need to all be good together at the same time.
Clemson has a good offense. Beamer really likes a lot of the things they do, with the counter action. But what makes Clemson good and Oregon good is great people with great speed. The scheme is one thing, but Beamer thinks you have to have the right people to make that. When you look at Clemson, they have a great tailback, great wide receivers, the quarterback is playing great, etc. That's what makes it. They've always been able to recruit well at Clemson.
Beamer thinks the wide receiver pass in the fourth quarter was a good call. It was wide open earlier in the game. Maybe they shouldn't have gone back to it. But those kind of plays have a chance of giving you a lift, and Beamer thinks that's part of a good offense.
Beamer thinks recruiting is going well. Losing guys early like David Wilson, Ryan Williams and Jayron Hosley have hurt. Tech hasn't done some things they need to do to win. They are close. The team is still working very hard.
There are a lot of things involved in the offense. Everybody knows they need to run the ball better, and they are working to do that. They have a couple of freshmen tailbacks who don't have experience. When you play your third center, things don't always get blocked as well as you'd like. Tech isn't looking to blame, they are looking to find ways to be successful.
Todd McShay stays on TV by being controversial. That's part of it. But when you talk about the Tech offense ... Cam Newton played in a similar offense. Beamer doesn't quite understand where McShay was coming from. (Related article: McShay cooling on Logan Thomas)
There have been some tough calls going back to the Sugar Bowl, but things will all even out.
When asked about evaluating coaching performances, Beamer said: "We're going to talk about Miami and what we need to do to get ready for Miami. That's what I'm interested in talking about. I'm not interested in talking about our coaches right now."
Mark Leal is a valuable guy. The Hokies have a lot of confidence in him. He has a lot of value as the #2 quarterback.
It's a good time for a bye week. It will help some guys get healthy. Hopefully Caleb Farris will make it back for the Miami game. Other than that, the Hokies are fairly healthy.
Tech is going to work Laurence Gibson some and give him a chance to earn some playing time. Whether its guard or tackle, they're going to give him the chance to prove he can help.
Monday was Day 2,887 of Virginia Tech’s continuous possession of the Commonwealth Cup.