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. 

A bunch of us hacks braved the bitter cold (21 degrees with the wind chill right now in Blacksburg) and chatted with Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster after today’s practice, Tech’s first in preparation for the Jan. 3 Orange Bowl against Kansas. Foster said he turned down Steve Spurrier’s offer to become South Carolina’s defensive coordinator and plans to be back in Blacksburg next season.

But ... remember that West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez is interviewing for the Michigan job (according to reports), so if Rodriguez leaves, Morgantown could be an intriguing next step for Foster.

In the meantime, here are a couple things Foster and some players said that I couldn’t fit into my story that will appear in tomorrow’s print edition ...

“I’m staying here. It’s flattering to be offered a position, but I’ve got a great job here. I work for the best head coach in the country. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished here. As good as it’s been, I think we can continue to get better. We’ve got enough challenges right here, let alone for me to go someplace else and tackle some other challenges. I’m excited about being here.”

On how far he got in the process with Spurrier—“You get to a point in your career: Do I need to take another job to be a head coach, to spread my roots a little bit? I don’t know. I went through a lot of scenarios. Obviously, the money was a factor, but at the same time, money’s not everything. The people you work with, the people you work for. You tend to think the grass is greener on the other side, but it’s pretty green where you have it.”

“I talked to him [Spurrier] today. I told him thanks. He said, ‘Bud, I appreciate it. I didn’t think I was going to get you anyway. You don’t need to make a lateral move. But I was going to throw it out there and see.’ I told him I appreciate him considering me. I told him I was flattered and honored to be offered, but thanks but no thanks.”

On whether he was interested in the Northern Illinois job (it’s close to his hometown of Nokomis, Ill.)—“Nah. It’s home, but I like competing at the highest level. That’s what I want to do. I think I’ve got the abilities to lead a program at that level. I feel like I don’t need to take a step back to take a step forward. That’s my personal opinion. I’ve been doing it too long. I feel like I’m ready, whenever that opportunity comes.”

On him getting a raise at Tech, which seems like it will happen after Foster met with head coach Frank Beamer and athletic director Jim Weaver on Friday—“In today’s day in age, the head coaches are getting paid, and the assistants, our salaries are better than they’ve ever been, but there’s still a big discrepancy between the head coaches and the assistants. I think when you start seeing the Jimbo Fishers and some of these guys getting paid what they are, I think it’s fair that you get paid your fair market value. That’s just the nature of the beast.” (Fisher, of course, recently got a sweet deal from Florida State to stick around as its offensive coordinator and the heir apparent to Bobby Bowden.)

On whether his career would be incomplete if he was never a head coach—“No. I would like to do that. But I’m not going to cry myself to sleep. I’m going to my fifth BCS game. There are Hall of Fame coaches that have never done that. If that door opens for me, I’m going to step in it. But if not, so be it.”

DE ORION MARTIN ON FOSTER ...

“I couldn’t see him anywhere else. He’s the face of this defense.”

FS D.J. PARKER ON FOSTER ...

“He’s everything to Virginia Tech. We’re hard-nosed. The defense plays nasty and everything. I think without Bud Foster, they would lose a little bit of that swagger that Bud brings.”

Lots of angles to address before Saturday’s game.

I’ll have a story in tomorrow’s print edition on the development of Davon Morgan, a Varina High graduate and the only other Virginia Tech true freshman besides Tyrod Taylor who is playing right now. I’ll have my regular game preview in Saturday’s fishwrap, focusing on senior wide receiver Eddie Royal lobbying his coaches to get him the ball.

But first, an angle that seemed to surprise some of us hacks this week when coach Frank Beamer said right tackle Ed Wang could play Saturday at Clemson. Here’s the latest, based on what Beamer said moments ago on the ACC coaches teleconference ...

On how Wang looked yesterday in his first full-contact practice—“He looked rusty. I think he felt good. His ankle felt good. It felt good after practice. I don’t know if we can get enough rust off of there to be in this type of football game.”

In what ways did Wang look rusty?—“One-on-one pass protection. He hadn’t played football in seven or eight weeks. You can just tell with the pace of the game, how fast it is out there, he’s not quite back up to speed on that.”

Interesting stuff there. So it appears as though Tech might have to settle for Wang returning Oct. 13 at Duke—his originally scheduled return. I’ll have a quick story on Wang in tomorrow’s rag.

*

Because I know most of you can’t get enough Taylor tidbits, I’ll have some leftovers later today in this space from my story that ran in today’s print edition. That includes the highlights of an excellent interview last night with quarterbacks coach Mike O’Cain, one of the most helpful coaches I’ve ever been around.

So keep an eye out for that. Time for me to start hacking away on this Morgan story now.

Oh, and be sure to join me at noon for our “Lunch With ... “ chat. It’s a couple clicks back on the main sports page. And you don’t have to be eating lunch to do it, lest some crumbs fall in the keyboard and short-circuit it.

One more shill job, if I may: Our “Coll Cast” video will air later today on the site. Mike Harris, Jeff White and myself aren’t exactly Jim Lampley, Lennox Lewis and Larry Merchant, but we try. 

It’s a question that ought to be asked, even though a precise answer is hard to pin down.

Tech junior tailback Branden Ore was a first-team all-ACC selection last season. But he has struggled in this season’s first four games because of a bad offensive line, rushing 65 times for 205 yards and two touchdowns. His 3.2 yards per carry are 2.3 fewer than the first four games of last season*, when he rushed 73 times for 399 yards and six touchdowns. Ore’s lack of production is clearly the fault of this season’s crummy line. Or so says one school of thought.

The other school: The line wasn’t great last season, either, but it was good enough to help Ore rush for 207 yards against Southern Mississippi and 203 against Clemson. He gained 6.8 yards per carry in those two games combined. But in eight games since that Clemson game, Ore has failed to rush for 100 yards.

He closed last season with 79 against Miami, 72 against Kent State, 5 against Wake Forest and 42 against Georgia. To be fair, Ore hurt his ankle in the Wake Forest game and didn’t play against Virginia the next week. His per-carry average in his final four games of last season: 2.6. His per-carry average for all of last season was 4.7.

By the way, his numbers this season: 70 against East Carolina, 28 against Louisiana State, 82 against Ohio and 25 against William and Mary. So Ore’s rushing numbers haven’t been great for his past eight games. Do you blame him? The line? Both? What say you, fine readers?

“All we have to do is give him a little crack,” Tech coach Frank Beamer said, which sounds like something the cops on “The Wire” would say before they tried to get Bubbles, that lovable drug addict, to give them some information on Stringer Bell.

The Ore-related stat that jumps out the most (and kudos to former colleague David Teel for pointing this out at today’s walk-through) is this: Ore rushed 10 times for 25 yards against William and Mary, which faced Delaware in its season opener. In that game, Delaware’s Omar Cuff rushed 30 times for 244 yards—an astounding 8.1 yards per carry. Cuff’s numbers since then: 21 carries for 93 yards against Division II West Chester (Pa.), 14 for 56 against Rhode Island and 27 for 109 against Towson. So we’re not exactly talking about The Second Coming Of Red Grange here.

* Chuck Klosterman-style footnote here: When comparing the first four games of last year with this year, you have to consider the opponents. Last year: Division I-AA Northeastern (finished 5-6), North Carolina (3-9), Duke (0-12) and Cincinnati (8-5). This year: East Carolina (1-3 with only win over North Carolina, also 1-3), Louisiana State (4-0, legit national title contender), Ohio (2-2, including a loss to Wyoming) and William and Mary (2-2, with wins over VMI and Liberty). 

We’ll go strictly with football in this one, gang.

First up is right guard Brandon Holland, who will start and play the first quarter in place of Sergio Render, who coach Frank Beamer disciplined for an undisclosed infraction.

“It’s a chance for me to show [the coaches] and show the team and show everybody else that I can play,” said Holland, a sophomore. “I think that’s the main thing that’s really just holding me back, me being too inconsistent. I’m looking forward to changing that on Saturday and showing everybody that I can play.

“My main thing is playing too high. When I play lower [with bent knees], it makes me a better football player. It gives me more power coming off the ball. If I stay low, I think I won’t have a problem with anything.”

What happens when he plays high? 

“I just don’t get enough push that I need to, as much push as coach wants me to, to move the play vertical and have the play push vertical.”

As for the line’s overall struggles, Holland said, “Everything that happens up front is on our shoulders, and we take full responsibility for that. It’s up to us to create those holes and create those cracks for [tailback] Branden [Ore] to run in.”

*

Next is sophomore whip linebacker Cam Martin, who is one of three new starters on defense, along with rover Kam Chancellor and defensive end Orion Martin, Cam’s older brother. I had a story earlier this week on Chancellor’s struggles, but Cam Martin also sputtered earlier this season. He said he is coming along now, and he said a lot of his early season problems stemmed from his positioning on the field.

“Where I’m playing, you see all the action inside [toward the inside of the field from where he’s positioned] and you want to go in there and stick your head in and make a play, make a tackle,” he said. “Then as soon as you do that, they [the ball carrier] bounce right outside of you. So it’s just basically like coach said: You’ve got to keep your leverage and just control what you control. If you’re out there and you have outside leverage, you need to keep outside leverage and not worry about what’s going on inside. You have 10 other guys on the field that are supposed to be taking care of their assignments.”

He further explained the concept of outside leverage, which is basically when he is in good position to make a tackle on the outside edge of the play. 

“If somebody’s coming to block you and you’re outside, but you see the running back cutting in, you can’t just stick your head in because he can easily cut outside of you, and it go from being a 1-yard gain to being a 40-yard gain,” he said. “I think that’s what me and lot of the other guys on defense fell into in the LSU game and earlier during the year.

“I’m still not perfect. But I’m focusing more on doing my individual assignment. If all 11 of us do our individual assignments, we’re going to be a really good defense.”

I asked him how he focuses on keeping his leverage and not straying into a teammate’s gap. 

“I think it’s just you’ve got to keep disciplined,” he said. “A lot of the guys, including myself, we just lost discipline [at LSU]. We wanted to stick our heads in and make plays. Things are going bad, and a lot of us felt like if we make a play, then we can turn things around. That’s where we messed up. We fell into that trap, and a lot of us didn’t do our assignments and turned a lot of small gains into a lot of big gains.”

I thought the last thing Martin said when I chatted with him Tuesday was perhaps the most interesting.

“You just have to maintain your discipline, remember what you were coached and not try to be a playmaker all the time,” he said. “Sometimes, just doing your job and not making a tackle is better than putting your team at risk and going in there and making a tackle. Because you’re not always going to make the tackle. Sometimes, you’re going to miss and they’re going to get outside and go for a long one.”

*

That’s all for now, gang. Will probably have more for you tomorrow. As always, feel free to pass along any thoughts, feelings or general missives in the comment space on this page. Later. 

Ahhhhhhh ... good afternoon, everybody! How are you today?

What a tremendous Thursday. Beautiful weather here in Blacksburg, and even though I’m stuck inside doing work, I’m listening to the dulcet tones of Mike and the Mad Dog on wfan.com—always a welcome reminder of home for me.

In this, the first of two posts today, we’ll address some light-hearted stuff, then get to some more Xs and Os football stuff in the second post. And away we go ...

- Washington Post Lord of Lethargy Adam Kilgore and I were the third and fourth customers when Moe’s Southwest Grill debuted at 11 a.m. today. We arrived outside at 10:45 and waited for the doors to open. Granted, some select V.I.P. customers were allowed to eat at Moe’s in the past few days, as a part of employee training—a torturous sight for those like Kilgore and myself, who have longed to take a burrito to the face since we arrived here in early August and saw Moe’s construction underway.

- Moe’s lived up to our lofty expectations. They even deliver! Kilgore and I both slammed Joey Bag of Donuts burritos with sides of tortilla chips. As we were polishing off our meals, we saw Tech right tackle Ed Wang pull into the handicapped parking space on the street outside. Turns out Wang gets a handicapped tag because of his broken ankle. But he said he won’t have the tag for much longer, so there’s some consolation for your offensive line worries, Hokie Nation—your starting right tackle is no longer legally handicapped.

- The line was snaking almost out the door when Wang arrived, and the poor guy didn’t have enough time to wait because he had to bolt for a test. Kilgore and I both encouraged him to think about his priorities before making such a foolish decision, but Wang seems to have more regard for academia than Kilgore and I did during our college daze at Syracuse.

*

A couple extra things from my story in today’s fishwrap about Nekos Brown ...

1. I asked Brown what his first name meant, because it sounds Greek even though he is not. Brown said he always wondered that, too, and he looked it up on the Internet when that silly technological fad first came out. “When we were in class, this was like fourth grade, I was like, ‘What the [heck] does my name mean?’” he said.

His curious online discovery: “It’s a cat, like a Chinese cat or something,” he said. “My mother and my aunt came up with that name, because you’ve heard of Neko before, but you’ve never heard of Nekos. Added the S to it to make it unique.”

I laughed at Brown’s response. Was he serious? Chinese cat? “If I was typing my name on Google,” he said, “you see football stuff, and the next page—if you [search] in [Google] images—the next page will be like all cats and mythical creatures and stuff like that. Crazy.”

Brown is right. Type “neko” into Wikipedia, and you learn the word is actually Japanese for domestic cat. Type Nekos Brown into Google images (with no quotes), and you find Brown’s pictures on the first row, then, a couple rows down, you find this.

2. Then again, if the meaning of his first name isn’t exactly cool, Brown makes up for it by having the smoothest father of anybody I’ve ever met. His dad is, of course, Chuck Brown, the D.C.-area go-go music pioneer who sang “Bustin’ Loose,” the 1978 hit that former Daily Press colleague Dave Fairbank boasted is part of his extensive musical catalogue.

Here are some Chuck Brown links ...

- His official Web site (note that he plays in Richmond Oct. 27). The song on the site gives you a good idea of what go-go music sounds like.

- The music video for Bustin’ Loose. Who knew they had music videos back then?

- Another video, this one with DJ Kool, of “Let Me Clear My Throat” fame.

- A live performance in Brown’s hometown of D.C. 

Didn’t have room for this in my notebook that will run tomorrow ... 

Tech still needs one more non-conference game for next season. Two years ago, Bowling Green asked that next season’s game at Lane Stadium be moved to 2012.

Tech athletic director Jim Weaver said Bowling Green’s conference, the Mid-American, is working with the ACC to find another MAC team to fill the spot. Weaver said he’s not sure when the leagues will give Tech an opponent.

“I can’t tell you when it will be because I don’t know,” he said, adding that having a scheduling hole this late is not typical. “But it’s not the only time it’s happened, either.”

I know I’ve been blogging very infrequently lately, but back-to-back games against Ohio and William and Mary don’t exactly inspire an avalance of prose.

But we’re back now, and Virginia Tech is diving head-first into the athletic cesspool that is ACC football.

At its worst, the conference has looked brutal this season in non-league play. Louisiana State hammered Virginia Tech, Nebraska beat Wake Forest in lovely Winston-Salem, Maryland lost to West Virginia, North Carolina State lost to Central Florida, Wyoming beat Virginia, East Carolina beat North Carolina and Oklahoma slammed Miami (though the Hurricanes rebounded nicely with a win over Texas A&M).

On the other hand, the conference actually seems interesting. Who is the best team in this league anyway? Boston College and Clemson are the lone remaining undefeated teams. Virginia Tech joins them in the top 25, mainly because its only loss came on the road against a team that could easily win the national title. But the Hokies haven’t exactly proved their worth yet.

And what to make of Virginia? With games upcoming against three beatable opponents—Pittsburgh, Middle Tennessee State and Connecticut (with just Middle Tennessee on the road)—the Cavaliers could be 6-1 and riding a six-game winning streak into an Oct. 20 game at Maryland. Is it impossible to think that Chairman Al Groh could lead Virginia to the ACC championship game? Not in this league this year.

*

The one thing we know for certain, gang, is that Thursday will be one of the greatest days of the fall. In the morning, at 11, Moe’s Southwest Grill opens its downtown Blacksburg location, on Main Street, across from Sharkey’s. I will be there promptly at 10:55, along with Washington Post Lord of Lethargy Adam Kilgore, Virginian-Pilot Count of Consumption Kyle Tucker and Norm “El Head de Red” Wood, of the Daily Press. Then, in the evening, at 9, “The Office” airs its one-hour season premiere on NBC. ‘Tis one of the few network television shows that is a must watch.

*

Back to football. Heading into the ACC portion of the schedule, true freshman quarterback Tyrod Taylor has played eight and a half quarters—two and a half at LSU, pretty much the entire game against Ohio and two against William and Mary. Do you think that’s enough to prepare him for conference play?

Sudden thought, gang: When I hear Tech’s coaches consistently insist that their line is improving—in the face of factual evidence that, to some degree, indicates otherwise—I can’t help but think of “Little Miss Sunshine,” the movie in which a dysfunctional family enters its homely looking daughter in one of those weird, little-girl beauty pageants, afraid to tell her, for the entire movie, that she just doesn’t have what it takes to win.

I keep waiting for Frank Beamer to pull a Greg Kinnear—when Kinnear, at the end of the movie, fights off the plastic-faced pageant host and dances on stage with his daughter during her ridiculous routine.

*

By the way, and as if you didn’t know it already, all those comparisons between Appalachian State and William and Mary were just lip service. Even though Appy State lost on Saturday to Wofford, the Tribe still doesn’t rate with the Mountaineers, who have won back-to-back Division I-AA national titles. William and Mary is now 10-16 since its last trip to the I-AA playoffs in 2004. 

*

With our Angelo State Rams off last week, we turn our attention to another football program that doesn’t get much: the Apprentice School in Newport News. Even after leaving the Daily Press earlier this year, I still try to keep up with the Builders. Their One-Man Sports Information Machine, Jim Heath, was kind enough to keep me on his e-mail list.

Anyway, the Builders lost 35-14 last Saturday at Emory and Henry. They are 1-2 heading into Saturday’s 1 p.m. home game against Salisbury.

On a related note, I challenge anyone to find a better logo in college football—Division I-A, I-AA, II, III, NAIA or USCAA, which Apprentice belongs to for most sports—than Builder Man, the ship-building talisman for Apprentice. 

You could make the case that right tackle Ed Wang’s broken ankle is the most significant development of Virginia Tech’s season.

Granted, Wang had never played offensive line before, so there is no telling how much his presence would have helped the Hokies, whose line’s early season struggles have been well documented. But remember that Wang’s replacement, Nick Marshman, is a natural guard who probably will move back inside when Wang returns (the coaches are hoping for Oct. 13 at Duke).

Think of how much Marshman playing left guard would have helped that spot. Right now, Tech is using Richard Graham (St. Christopher’s School) and Matt Welsh there. If Marshman stayed at left guard, the versatile Graham could be available to spell Wang at right tackle. Again, all of this assumes that Wang didn’t get injured. But I’m just trying to paint a picture of possibilities for you.

I feel like I’ve written a billion stories on the offensive line this season, but it is the most important make-or-break aspect of this team. We’ll have two more offensive line stories in tomorrow’s print edition—one big-picture piece on the reasons behind the line’s recent struggles and a smaller-picture story on Wang’s recovery.

Here are some leftovers from the Wang story ...

- Wang on why he wanted to come watch practice most days, even when his injury prevented him from doing anything—“I feel like I just had to keep myself feeling a part of the team and not wander off and do my own little thing.”

- Wang said he never wanted to take a medical redshirt and always wanted to try to come back this season.

- Wang on his recovery at this point—“Right now, I’m just walking, and there’s no pain right there.” He is scheduled to begin jogging today.

- On the noticeable change in his leg size—“My [left] calf shrunk when I was in the cast, because I didn’t move for two weeks. I’m just trying to get it back now. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m going to try to strengthen my ankle up again, just all my joints, all my leg muscles.”

- On the hardest part of his rehab—“I think the hardest part was in the beginning, trying to get my motion back. My foot was real swollen. My ankle was real swollen. Couldn’t move it. So that was the hardest, just being able to push myself and get the motion back in my ankle.”

- On the frustration of the injury, considering he gained 40 pounds in the offseason to switch from tight end to right tackle—“It was frustrating, but then again, that comes with football. You can’t expect to play and not get injured ever.”

*

ANGELO STATE UPDATE

After posting this blog, I realized I failed you, my fine readers, by not providing the weekly update on our Angelo State Rams. They won on homecoming last Saturday, and we’ll let the fine prose of Angelo State’s sports information staff take it from there. (And yes, Angelo State’s opponents were the Central Oklahoma Bronchos—which is an alternate spelling of Broncos. Weird league, that Lone Star Conference.)

The Rams are off this coming Saturday before hosting Midwestern State on Sept. 29 in another Lone Star Conference game. 

This was scheduled to appear in today’s notebook in the print edition, but the item about Ed Wang returning to pads bumped it. So here it is now ...

When former starting quarterback Sean Glennon entered Saturday’s game with 4:45 remaining and the Hokies up 28-7, there were a smattering of boos amidst the cheers from Lane Stadium’s crowd. Earlier, some fans booed Glennon when his image appeared, ironically, in a video encouraging polite fan behavior.

“Sean Glennon deserves our respect,” Beamer said yesterday . “He doesn’t deserve to be booed. … I think that’s over the top a little bit when you start booing in a college stadium.”

In his postgame press conference, Beamer made a point in his opening statement of praising Glennon, whom he replaced with Tyrod Taylor.

During the game, Glennon signaled offensive plays from the sideline. When Taylor’s 6-yard touchdown run gave Tech a 14-7 lead in the third quarter, Glennon was the first player to chest-bump Taylor when he returned to the sideline.