Well, not the Orange Bowl itself, thank the Lord. We are in a much nicer locale than the dingy neighborhood where the dumpy Orange Bowl stadium is located. Instead, gang, you are looking—LIVE!!!!!—at the Hyatt Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, the media hotel for the Orange Bowl game between Virginia Tech and Kansas.

I’m staying down the road at a Courtyard in Plantation, Fla., ostensibly so I can save the Times-Dispatch money, but really so I can get a load of Marriott points. Arrived in town last night, and it’s beautiful here: sunny, breezy, the whole bit.

Just finished churning out some tripe for tomorrow, and before I get to my leftover quotes from today, I must apologize for my recent absence in this space. Obviously, there hasn’t been much football stuff to blog about, but surely I could have stopped by to give you some basketball tidbits. Unfortunately, for you and me, we’ve had some technical difficulties with the blog lately—which are not yet completely resolved, because all of my posts from October and November have been deleted.

But you guys are interested in what’s happening here and now, so away we go with some leftovers from today’s interviews with Tech’s offensive players (oh, and as a bonus treat to atone for my hiatus, here is an awesome story on Southern California coach Pete Carroll) ...

WR JUSTIN HARPER

On Kenny Lewis Jr.—He’s one of those guys that’s sitting back, waiting his turn. What better time to get the starting job in the Orange Bowl? He has a chance to really break out and show the coaches what he has in store for the future.

On Lewis being a 23-year-old true sophomore—We’ve always accepted him like he’s a senior just like us. You’re never going to look at him as a freshman or a sophomore.

More on Lewis—He looks at the young guys on the team like he needs to take care of them. He’s a great leader. You can tell he’s going to be a leader later on. Next year, you could see him being a senior leader. He’s just going to be a junior. Kenny’s going to have a lot of responsibilities.

RB KENNY LEWIS

On getting a chance to start the Orange Bowl because starter Branden Ore is suspended for the first quarter—We would all like to be on the field more, but what can you say when you’re behind a guy who can do what he can do? I know when I get my chance, as long as I make the best of it, I’m doing OK. I get to start the Orange Bowl. What else could you ask? I’m going out there like this is the Super Bowl for me.

On his expectations for quitting baseball to join Tech’s fooball team—I set the bar real high, because I know I can play at this level. If I didn’t, I would have come back. From Day 1, me and my father knew I was coming back. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but I knew that I was coming back. I’d call him every day and tell him I wanted to come back.

WR EDDIE ROYAL

On Kansas cornerback Aqib Talib—He’s built like a safety. I haven’t seen a corner that big since Jimmy Williams. For somebody to be that big, you’d think he’d be a safety. But he’s got the hips to play corner.

QB SEAN GLENNON

Does Talib change the way he approaches the game?—It can’t. That’s what Kansas wants us to do, but we can’t let that happen. He’s obviously earned his respect, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to shy away from him. We’re going to have to come at him, or we’re feeding into what they want us to do.