THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 19, 1995 TAG: 9510190484
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER BIG EAST NOTES
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Virginia Tech's offense has often struggled to move forward this season, but at least it isn't going backwards as much as it used to.
The Hokies were seventh in the Big East in penalty yardage per game in 1994 and 1992 and last in 1993. The Hokies three-season average from '92-'94 was 69.1 yards per game.
``I used to go out and run them on Monday 100 yards for every yard of penalties, and it didn't seem like we were getting anywhere,'' coach Frank Beamer said.
Tech is the least-penalized team in the league this year, averaging just 5.3 penalties for 45.7 yards per game. Beamer said stressing ``intelligent recklessness'' in emphasizing reducing penalties has helped, as has putting penalties on a video and talking about them in team meetings.
Reducing the number of penalty yards has been important for Tech in a year when the offense frequently has been stagnant.
``I think it's been very significant,'' Beamer said. ``In a lot of those games we were hanging on. You take 50 yards and give it to the other team and that might have been the difference in the football game.''
ORANGE JUICELESS: The question for Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni was what is the most glaring thing the Orangemen have failed to do in their last two meetings with West Virginia.
``Score points,'' Pasqualoni fired back.
The Orangemen host the Mountaineers at noon Saturday with sole possession of first place in the Big East on the line. Both teams are 2-0 in the league.
On their last trip to the Carrier Dome in 1993, the Mountaineers won, 43-0. Last year West Virginia won at home, 13-0.
The Orangemen, the Big East's only ranked team at No. 20 in the USA Today-CNN poll, are the league's leader in scoring offense with 30.2 points per game.
STREAK OVER: It only took five seasons, but long-suffering Temple finally won a Big East conference game Saturday when it beat Pittsburgh, 29-27. The Owls had been 0-27 since the league formed in 1991.
Coach Ron Dickerson, who has won four times in three seasons, said it surpassed the 1987 Penn State Fiesta Bowl win over Miami. He was an assistant on the Nittany Lions' national championship team. Dickerson took off his national championship ring in front of his players after the Pitt win.
Although only 4,968 witnessed the game at Veterans Stadium, Dickerson described the postgame celebration as ``total chaos.''
``The guys had a cold bottle of champagne, I don't know where they got it from,'' Dickerson said. ``They opened it and the cork popped and the stuff came spewing out. I reached for it - the players know I don't drink - and I chugged some of it and the whole place went wild: `No way is coach drinking alcohol.' It was just sheer pandemonium, it was a great feeling.''
THE PITTS: Pittsburgh opened the season with an impressive road win over 1994 bowl team Washington State and then crushed Eastern Michigan. Then the Panthers pushed nationally ranked Texas to the final minute before succumbing.
Everything's gone downhill since. Saturday's loss to Temple was the Panthers' fifth consecutive defeat, and a once promising season looks destitute. Suddenly, a third 3-8 season in three years under Johnny Majors looks possible.
``It's very disappointing,'' Majors said. ``We felt going into the season we had a team that, with the possibility of things going well, we had a chance to have a fine season.''
Majors said the turning point was the Virginia Tech game, which Pitt led 9-0 at halftime and lost 26-16 while suffering a spate of injuries.
QUICK HITS: The Virginia Tech game at West Virginia Oct. 28 has been moved to a noon start and will be televised by the Big East network (WPEN locally). passing efficiency the first couple weeks of the season, has climbed to fourth in that statistic. He's completing 50 percent of his passes and has five touchdowns against six interceptions. . . .
The Hokies' 77 points Saturday pushed them from 104th nationally in scoring offense to 64th. . . . If two or more teams tie for the conference title, they are declared co-champions. The Big East has no tiebreaker, so members of the bowl alliance (Fiesta, Orange and Sugar) could choose whichever co-champion they wanted. ILLUSTRATION: Temple coach Ron Dickerson won't hear the 0-for-Big East stuff
anymore. ``Total chaos,'' he said of the celebration.
by CNB