Looking at Virginia Tech vs. Boise State
National Football League
Draft King Analysis
August 17, 2010
Lou Pickney, DraftKing.com
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We're just 16 days away from the start of the 2010 NCAA football season, with games scheduled to start on Thursday, September 2. There are a number of games on tap, with a double-header slated for ESPN with Southern Miss at South Carolina and USC at Hawaii. Perhaps the best game from a matchup standpoint that night will be on ESPNU with Minnesota playing at Middle Tennessee State.
The marquee game of the opening weekend will be a neutral site game between Boise State and Virginia Tech at FedEx field in Landover, MD. Boise State faces the risk of being over-hyped after years of being put on the backburner, but they will face a strong, east coast opponent on ESPN on Labor Day evening. I emphasize east coast because the school's wins in consecutive seasons over Oregon were overlooked by many, in no small part I suspect because of the bias against teams that play in the Pacific Time Zone.
The bias exists for two reasons: exposure and time. Night games in the PDT/PST time zone can run late, particularly for people in the Eastern Time Zone who might want to head to sleep by 10 p.m., well before some of the night games on the west coast get going. Also, the primetime ABC slot for Saturday night games tends not to feature games from the Pacific Time Zone, at least not nationally.
Moreover, the spotlight ABC west coast game is usually not available outside of the region (since ABC doesn't want to cannibalize itself and its affiliates) save for those willing to go the PPV or ESPN GamePlan route. In short, it can be more of a challenge for those who want to see Pac-10 (soon to be Pac-12) or WAC or Mountain West action than it is to see teams from midwest or eastern conferences.
There are clearances for some of the western teams via networks like Versus, but there's a big difference between a viewer having to actively hunt down a game on the 600 tier of DirecTV and someone being able to watch the SEC game of the week on CBS on free over-the-air television. Economics drive this, and I'm not writing this to criticize the situation -- it's just the reality of the marketplace.
From a draft standpoint, the top player to watch in the Boise State/Virginia Tech game is Hokies RB Ryan Williams. He won't be eligible to enter the NFL Draft until 2012 at the earliest, but he is coming off of a fantastic freshman year where he ran for 1,655 yards (an ACC freshman record) and scored a whopping 22 touchdowns. He received his opportunity to be a feature back right away due to an injury suffered by Darren Evans, and he's likely to be splitting time at running back with Evans this fall.
That's not necessarily a bad thing for Williams, since him being asked to carry a heavy load for a second straight season wouldn't help him from a long-term durability standpoint. Williams carried the ball 293 times last season, including a heavy-duty 32 carry game against NC State.
Williams scored two TDs against Alabama's stellar defense last year in his NCAA debut, and Williams is as good as any other running back in all of college football in my opinion. As for the Broncos, in my NCAA Football 11 dynasty with Marshall, Boise State WR Titus Young won the Heisman Trophy (without any help from me). There's no way that will happen in real life, but it will be interesting to see Young in action against Virginia Tech's secondary.
Boise State will enter the season ranked #3 in the AP poll and #5 in the coaches poll. Virginia Tech is going to be a tough test, particularly with what is likely to be a mostly pro-Virginia Tech crowd in the stands. But Boise State will be in primetime in front of a national television audience with no other college football competition slated, and a victory over V-Tech would cement their spot as a realistic contender for a spot in the BCS Title game.
Finally, there is a really adorable video out there where someone spliced video of a young child playing into coverage from the 2007 NFL Draft. Check it out here. It's cute and has some great timing with the edits and the comments from the desk crew.
