DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997 TAG: 9708270753 SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: 82 lines
Saturday's Virginia Tech-Rutgers football game is made for TV, but not for coaches.
Neither Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer nor Rutgers' Terry Shea like opening with a conference game. Normally Labor Day weekend is a virtual holiday for teams in major conferences, who schedule a sure win to get the season started off right.
But by Saturday afternoon, Tech or Rutgers will be a game down in the conference standings.
``There's got to be another way to do it,'' said Shea, who is coming off a 2-9 season only to open with a team that went 10-2 a year ago. ``I'd certainly prefer we play a couple of conference games, or at least one. There's very few teams if you look across the country who open with a conference game.''
The Hokies get that dilemma in triplicate, following Saturday with Syracuse and Temple - although there is a bye week before Syracuse. The Hokies have a trio of non-conference patsies in Arkansas State, Miami of Ohio and Alabama-Birmingham later.
Saturday's 12:30 p.m. game at Rutgers will be televised by ESPN.
Stith in holding pattern
Tech has a logjam at tailback, and sophomore Shyrone Stith from Chesapeake - Tech's second-leading rusher last year - is still waiting to see whether he will redshirt this year. Beamer said the decision has been complicated by the limited work junior Lamont Pegues has seen in the fall because of injury. Pegues is expected to be senior Ken Oxendine's backup.
``We're telling Shyrone right now to keep practicing and playing like he's going to play,'' Beamer said. ``It's hard to sit a guy down when you have that much confidence in him.''
Homeward bound
Tech has five players from New Jersey, but just one starter in receiver Michael Stuewe, who grew up less than five minutes from Rutgers. Stuewe said he attended one Rutgers game the whole time he was growing up - the 1992 Tech game in which the Scarlet Knights mounted a furious fourth-quarter comeback to win on the last play of the game, 50-49.
``Rutgers was losing by something like two touchdowns or three touchdowns and my father and I left the game, and by the time we got home Virginia Tech had lost it,'' Stuewe said.
Youth movement
The Hokies return just nine starters on offense and defense, the fewest since 1985, or before Beamer's tenure began. Half of the 44 players on the offensive and defensive two-deep roster are freshmen and sophomores, including three true freshman and a redshirt freshman on the second-team offensive line.
``Do I seem nervous today?'' Beamer said when asked about the composition of his backup line. ``That's one of the reasons right there. You don't want freshmen as backups, and for one reason or another we're short in our offensive line right now.''
One of the true freshmen backups is Troy Smith, an offensive guard from Virginia Beach's Green Run High.
A further indicator of the Hokies' youth is that only three regular starters from the 1995 Sugar Bowl team remain just two years later.
Quick hits
Virginia Tech assistant athletic director for football operations John Ballein said as of Monday, eight of the 10 players from last year's Hokie team who began the summer in NFL camps remained employed in professional football. The four Hokies who were drafted and stuck were Jim Druckenmiller (San Francisco), Antonio Banks (Minnesota), Torrian Gray (Minnesota) and Cornell Brown (Baltimore), although Banks is on injured reserve. Free agents Jay Hagood (New York Jets) and Waverly Jackson (Carolina) earned roster spots, while Billy Conaty (Buffalo) and Myron Newsome (Carolina) were placed on their teams' practice rosters. Bryan Jennings and T.J. Washington were the two who were cut. ... Flanker Angelo Harrison has moved ahead of returning starter Shawn Scales. Scales missed considerable time during fall camp with a pulled hamstring muscle. ... Beamer said no one on the two-deep is expected to miss Saturday's game because of injuries.
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