Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 27, 1993 TAG: 9310270030
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Virginia Tech athletic director Dave Braine said Tuesday he and Beamer made a preseason pact not to discuss the seventh-year coach's job security publicly until season's end. Tech's season so far, Braine said, has made private state-of-the-program discussions moot.
"I don't see any need to," Braine said.
Braine, a former football coach who used to meet with Beamer each Sunday during the season to discuss the previous day's game, doesn't even do that anymore. When Beamer overhauled his staff after last year's 2-8-1 season but kept his own job, some viewed Braine as the orchestrator.
"I'm staying out of his hair," Braine said of the absence of regular meetings. "I felt maybe it was . . . a little bit overbearing. There was an awful lot of pressure this year. I figured I'd kind of cool it."
The Hokies' performance, barring a total collapse in the season's last four games, all but assures Beamer will remain Tech's coach. Two months ago, the most frequently asked question about Tech's program was what Beamer had to do to keep his job.
Now, Tech is a 20 1/2-point favorite to clinch a winning season against East Carolina on Saturday, it's in the bowl picture and is ranked 24th in the USA Today/CNN coaches' poll.
"If at the beginning of the year somebody would've told us [that] we'd have our destiny in our hands, we'd have been pretty happy with that," said Braine, who said he wasn't skeptical about Beamer's ability to turn the program around. "If I didn't believe these things could've happened, we would've done something [last year]."
\ BOWLING: The Peach Bowl plans to send two scouts to Saturday's Tech-East Carolina game to look at the Hokies as a safety valve in case its prearranged pairing falls through, Tech spokesman Jack Williams was told. The Peach Bowl agreed to match the ACC's No. 3 team against the Southeastern Conference's No. 4 team. But with 7-0 Auburn ineligible, other possible No. 4s - Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Arkansas, for example - are not sure bets to achieve the required six victories over Division I-A competition.
In two weeks, Tech plays Boston College for third place in the Big East. The New Year's Day Carquest Bowl will take a third Big East team - probably, but not necessarily, the third-place finisher. Beamer is trying to tell the Hokies that this week's game is as important as the BC affair.
Beamer was a Hokie defensive back the last time Tech was ranked during a season, in 1967. That year Tech started 7-0, finished 0-3 and didn't go to a bowl.
"I think this is the week," Beamer said. "Any team in our conference who can win their four out-of-conference games and win three or four games within the conference, they're going to go to a bowl every year, and a nice bowl."
\ CROSSED WIRES: Remember Beamer's tirade at fullback Joe Swarm during the Temple game, when Beamer thought Swarm was running onto the field to fight, and Swarm thought he had heard somebody call for the extra-point team? Well, Swarm lived to tell the story.
"[I was] kind of scared," said Swarm, whom Beamer cut off every time he tried to explain what he was doing. "The thing that worried me the most was, I didn't know what I did. He was red. He was telling me, `No, no, no fighting. No, I don't want to hear it, no fighting.'
"At the time, it was kind of embarrassing."
Swarm said Beamer apologized, and said he understood Beamer simply didn't want a repeat of the benches-clearing brawl against Maryland.
\ INJURIES, ETC: Tailback Dwayne Thomas has a sore shoulder but should play Saturday; same with linebacker Vernon Dozier. Receiver Jermaine Holmes is questionable with a sprained ankle. Defensive tackle Bernard Basham has two sore ankles but should play. Beamer said quarterback Cody Whipple, who is redshirting, injured a knee in practice and is being evaluated.
\ CONFUSION: Tech's offsides penalties against Rutgers, Beamer said, were partly because Rutgers' defenders were yelling the word `set' - a word Tech uses in its offensive cadence. There's a rule against that, Beamer said.
"You don't use words in the other guy's cadence. It's up to the officials to sort that out," Beamer said. "I'm not accusing [Rutgers], but the word `set' came right before we were getting ready to call it ourselves. We use it every time."
\ SIGN LANGUAGE: Tech quarterback Maurice DeShazo often successfully directs his receivers on improvisational routes if he's rolling out or has been flushed from the pocket. It's not all happenstance. He threw a touchdown pass to Steve Sanders against West Virginia in a situation that called for Sanders to bend a hook route upfield if DeShazo was scrambling. Sanders said Rutgers figured out what he and DeShazo were doing and took away the deep route, so on one play Sanders came back to the ball and caught a shorter pass. Now, Tech will adjust.
"Maurice and I talk about it," he said. "We kind of switch that up a little bit."
\ ETC: Freshman Willie Wilkins has changed positions again, this time moving to linebacker. He has been moved from quarterback to safety to receiver to linebacker since arriving at Tech in August . . . Beamer said former walk-on William Yarborough, who played cornerback until moving to free safety this year, will see some time at corner now that Tyronne Drakeford is hurt . . . Tech has 18 scoring drives at home this year that have lasted less than three minutes. "We try to go out there and control the tempo of a game, but you can't help it if they turn a 5-yard catch into an 80-yard touchdown," Sanders said. "It also helps us out because if we need a quick touchdown, we know we have the players and the ability to go out there and do that."
by CNB