AbsolutVT03

pitchfork. Too often anecdotal accounts like this go viral and are accepted at face value because people want to believe it and/or are too lazy to verify things. To be clear I'm not saying that that's the case here but I can appreciate wanting facts.

Was all of it on him? Of course not. But you can't go 1 for 13 in opposing territory and not draw criticism. Drones is never going to be an elite QB. But we need him to be significantly better than he was Sunday. He needs to be able to make the easy/open throws. He needs to protect the ball when we're in FG range. He needs to be able to contribute with his running. He didn't do any of those things consistently versus South Carolina.

more performances like Sunday. As I said below, my concern isn't his accuracy (which is what it is at this point) but his decision making and the lack of contribution to the running game. We didn't run him much and when we did he looked... slow. If he can't run the ball effectively then I'm not sure his passing ability is enough. Again I'm not calling for Watson. It's one game and I believe Drones is better than he looked. But if he doesn't play better then at some point you have to look at other options. If we're going to struggle at the QB spot then why not do it with someone who will be around next season?

the reason that coaches, schools, conferences, and advertisers have made millions of dollars every year. Without the players there literally is "no worth" because there would be no team. The joke is citing "facilities, dieticians, tutors, coaches, marketing etc." as if that somehow balances out everyone else in the process making millions of dollars.

are completely fabricated and don't exist and people know this... and they are still making money from various content creator sites. Like why wouldn't anyone just create a hot AI chick and fire up an OnlyFans? And then you have the AI chatbots that people fall in love with and think they are in an actual relationship with. Crazy stuff and hard to imagine what it will be like in 25-50 years.

point. Just kind of sad. Also Apollo Creed was completely dismantled by a Soviet Union fighter and died. On second thought maybe it is a fitting comparison.

Babe Ruth's jersey. Take a nap under your desk. Sleep with the cleaning lady. Basically everything George Costanza did.

place to live. Sydney in particular seemed like a good option. The real estate market is crazy but that’s the case in most cities especially in the US. Gas prices are way higher but Sydney has a ton of public transportation options that seem more comprehensive and affordable than most US cities. It also doesn’t hurt that the people there all seemed to be very fit and attractive. If I was a single 20 something I would move to Sydney in a heartbeat.

signing this guy is a big deal. And we can definitely use all the good news we can get right now.

but it still amazes me. People will just latch on to any random quote on any random Facebook page and take it as gospel provided it reinforces their already held beliefs.

So it becomes a bunch of speculation that only ramps up the farther Oregon advances. For me it's similar to Amoore in women's basketball or HH at Tenn. I'm not going to actively root against her but I'm not a "fan" either. She's just another player on a different team at this point.

the sport we're closest to breaking through in. Given that should we devote more money/resources to that (in all aspects)? I'm not arguing one way or the other just curious what your take is.

possibly more than any other team sport can be completely dominated by one player. You get a couple of shutdown aces and you'll be in just about every game. No slight to our other pitchers but if we had had another proven starter to pair with Lemley we would have been a much tougher team to beat.

have the most seeds and many of the higher seeds then you are more likely to have more teams advance. It's a whole perpetual cycle at this point. The SEC (and media) talk up the conference and so they get preferential seeding and benefit of the doubt. This leads them to getting more teams in and having more teams advance. This in turn allows the conference and the media to talk about how "superior" they are... which leads to more seeds, etc. And round and round we go. This was the blueprint they used in football and it worked so they've moved to using it in other sports as well. And I'm not saying the SEC doesn't have good teams. I'm saying that the conference as a whole is often rated higher than it probably should be. Our regional is a prime example. Alabama should have probably had to come to Blacksburg. And if they played in a different conference (or the SEC didn't have the inflated reputation) they probably wouldn't have hosted. And if that's the case do they advance especially given the controversial replay calls in our first game. The SEC has done a phenomenal job marketing and selling its brand that's for sure.

general are shady AF. I'd prefer they never win another game in anything. And I would love for us to stop playing them in any sport. No reason to give them more of a spotlight.

officiating should not be especially with replay existing. Also the umpires call balls and strikes so sometimes walks are on them.

it hasn’t really helped prevent controversial calls. And in many cases it creates more controversy. It should be used to correct egregious obvious errors but instead it’s used to analyze frame by frame moments of extremely close calls. At this point I’d just rather deal with the blown calls and keep the game going as opposed to having a 5 minute delay only to have the call either still be wrong or reversed despite no conclusive evidence. If we have to have it then give the officials a hard one minute timer and if they aren’t sure after that then the call stands play on.

weren't flush with it. The truth (as is often the case) is somewhere in the middle. It didn't help that a lot of our returning starters either stayed the same or regressed (for whatever reason). But I think most people would agree that we had enough talent to win more games than we did.

anyways happy birthday @AZHokie59

Seriously though... I'm not sure I get the joke. Why am I old exactly??

now but that hasn't been the case in the ones I've had. But I did get ear protection which helped dampen the sound. I just pretended like I was listening to a really bad garage band practice. The small space bothered me more. I knew it was going to be tight but I wasn't prepared for the top of the tube to be so close to my head. I've had several since then and they weren't bad. But I'm not sure about five in one day. In some ways it would probably be better to get them over with. Maybe get some Xanax or Ativan to help with any anxiety?

regards to consistency. I don't care if officials are calling it tight or letting them play just be consistent in both directions. If you are calling touch fouls on one end then don't let them hammer people on the other. Same with things like holding and pass interference in football. A recent example would be the umpires in the VT/UNC game that got heated. I have no problem with them tossing the VT batter for the bat slam or the VT player for chirping at the first baseman after the inning. But if you're going to eject them because of an earlier warning then you have to toss the UNC pitcher for throwing behind the batter and you have to toss the UNC player who was out of the dugout screaming and pointing. And to be clear I wasn't advocating for officials to not make calls at the end of a game. I was just acknowledging that it's not often possible to put yourself in a position where they can't impact the result. The football game versus Miami is a great example. Yes you can argue that it shouldn't have come down to the final play. But we were an underdog, on the road, against a top 10 team. The chances of us blowing them out to a point where officiating doesn't matter were slim to none. And in the end the officials screwed up and it cost us a major win. Sure you can point to plays or calls earlier in the game and play what if but at least in this specific instance the officials literally changed a win to a loss in spite of the rulebook.

Just that from a casual fan perspective it seems like playing South Carolina and then UCLA would be more manageable than Alabama and Oklahoma. But that doesn’t matter now. You gotta play the teams that are put in front of you.

I’m not arguing we should or shouldn’t have hosted. I understand the sentiment and don’t disagree with it. But at the same time unless you are a top five team your fate will always be left up to the committee in some way. Obviously we did ourselves no favors by losing to Pitt and Clemson. But we even if we reversed those results we still could have been snubbed. We would have had a more justified argument but that wouldn’t have changed anything. Outside of the elite teams everyone’s resume will always have warts. And a selection committee can pretty much pick and choose which warts to ignore or emphasize. And next year the criteria used to exclude us from hosting might not factor in at all. We see it in college basketball every season. It’s similar to a point I’ve made previously regarding officiating. When a bad call (or calls) play a major factor in a loss people like to say “don’t leave it up to officials” which in theory makes sense. In reality unless you are blowing a team out then you are always vulnerable to a bad call impacting the outcome. Again I get it. Control what you can control. I just think that argument is overly simplistic. Just a a random thought I had on a rainy Monday morning.

end up with a more favorable draw. Seems weird but that’s the nature of big tournaments seeded by humans.

we got the worst of both worlds here. No host and a juggernaut if we make it out of the regional.

Super Regional versus Oklahoma seems like a crappy draw. I admittedly don't follow other school's softball much but it seems like UVA might have gotten a better seed in terms of a more manageable path?

struggle because of the weather and that causes you to put some batters on that you probably wouldn’t normally and that makes you less confident and then it kind of snowballs from there. Rarely do you see 8 runs on three hits at any level of ball which kind of reinforces the weather part. I’m sure the mental aspect came into play as Clemson crept closer but it was most likely the weather that started the avalanche.

not consider it a “big” game. It wasn’t on the national stage and it wasn’t a win or season’s over game. It was a run of the mill conference tournament game. We’ve won plenty of those in softball but they aren’t considered “big” because we won.

it in no way addresses what I said.

game? It seems pretty clear that Lemley was impacted. You don’t see an ace pitcher walk that many batters in a row and not consider external factors. Regardless of how “iffy” our pitching has been it doesn’t explain what happened in that inning. Sure in any game the weather impacts both teams. That doesn’t mean it impacts them both equally.

the accuracy is paramount? Because if not then it’s not really relevant.

much the weather played a role in that. But complaining that we didn’t insert one at the right time is silly.

terms of this season but a big game? Nah. And that’s the problem with the whole big game complaints. Games that wouldn’t be considered big if we won suddenly become big if lose.

the weather is a huge factor. Lemley throws 10 strikes across 5 batters? Does that seem normal?

question is will we be ahead.

better place right now. Regardless of his "personality" (which never bothered me) he knows football and could coach. With Pry I'm worried we went in the opposite direction. Got a guy with a personality that people like but isn't really a good coach. Don't get me wrong I hope he turns it around and I'll support him as long as he's here... but I think he's a substantial downgrade from Fuente and have since he was hired.

gold standard for factual information.

be ** Edited by AbsolutVT03 at 5/7/2025, 2:51:46 PM

throw behind the next batter with no repercussions. As soon as it happened it should have been immediate when it happened. Complete failure by the umpires there.

the VT dugout should have been gone. All I ever want from officials is consistency. We didn’t get that in this situation and it will hurt VT today.