ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 10, 1996 TAG: 9608120116
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Are you ready for some football?
The 128th season of college football opens two weeks from today with the Pigskin Classic, as Brigham Young begins what could be a unique 15-game season. In these parts, the major-college season will begin in rare fashion, too.
Virginia Tech and Virginia are coming off bowl victories in the same year, which, when gridiron tradition and history are considered, is sort of like Tampa Bay and Seattle meeting in the Super Bowl.
It's never happened before.
The Hokies shared the Big East Football Conference title and won the Sugar Bowl, thumping Texas, where the football tradition is as long as its horns. The Cardiac Cavaliers, who always seemed to save their best or worst for last, topped Georgia late in the Peach Bowl after becoming the first team to beat Florida State in the ACC.
This season, the state foes will be playing, ``Can you top this?''
Tech enters 1996 with the nation's second-longest winning streak, 10 games, behind Nebraska's 25 and just in front of Tennessee's nine. The Hokies get a rush from a guy with an Ivy League name and Big 12 ability. If Cornell Brown isn't the most sack-happy player in Tech history, it's only because Bruce Smith already went there.
Virginia has a legitimate preseason Heisman Trophy candidate in Roanoke's Tiki Barber, who's the kind of guy Bob Dole could use on his ticket. He's young, appealing, loves a microphone and has lots of experience running, even though he's about as tall as Ross Perot.
At two schools where coaching longevity often could be counted on the fingers of one hand, Frank Beamer and George Welsh don't fit the mold.
When the Hokies open Sept.7 at the Rubber Bowl against Akron - why a nationally ranked team is playing next to a Goodyear Blimp hangar is another story - Beamer will coach his 103rd game at his alma mater. That's a record, topping Bill Dooley and Beamer's mentor, Jerry Claiborne.
Kerri Strug has nothing on Beamer, the darling of Blacksburg. Beamer is so hot he's renegotiated his contract twice in two years. This season, he won't be on a Wheaties box, but he will make $254,000 and change. Gee, that's $70,000 more than Dooley counted a decade ago.
Welsh, to be featured by Sports Illustrated in a preseason story - what took them so long? - ranks seventh among active NCAA Division I-A coaches in consecutive years at the same school. He's starting his 15th autumn at Virginia. He's already completed five more seasons than any other coach in UVa history.
Only Clemson legend Frank Howard has more ACC victories than Welsh. He has taken the Cavaliers to seven different bowls in nine years. How should Virginia consider what Welsh has constructed in Charlottesville?
Well, it took Jefferson 41 years to build Monticello just the way he wanted it.
The Hokies have a half-dozen players the NFL scouts really like - like in the top few rounds of the draft. While another alliance bowl berth might be too much to expect, nothing less than the Carquest - which has the Big East's third pick - will suffice. That's why the Hokies are approaching a school-record 15,000 season tickets sold.
Virginia has great legs on defense and in its kicking game. Even if Tim Sherman or Aaron Brooks doesn't go from a question mark to an exclamation point at quarterback, the Cavaliers should be in a bowl for the eighth time in a decade.
It stands to reason that one of the state rivals will be in the Gator Bowl on Jan.1.
The Jacksonville, Fla., game matches the second picks from the ACC and the Big East.
As Tech proved with 0-2 for openers last season, it's not how you start, but how you finish. In this year of the new TV contracts, in which schedules are configured by conferences with tube time in mind, that's never been more true for good teams.
Virginia's last five foes include Florida State. Clemson, North Carolina and the Hokies. Tech finishes with East Carolina, Miami, West Virginia and the Cavaliers. The UVa-Tech meeting, no longer just our state turkey, has become attractive enough to be shown the day after Thanksgiving on CBS.
Isn't that where Nebraska and Oklahoma used to play a Game of the Decade about every four years?
Whoa, Nellie. Times sure have changed. The Legends of the Fall are playing in our backyard.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB