2008 Virginia Tech Hokies College Football Predictions Courtesy of Alex Smart, A Professional NCAA Football Handicapper featured on Touthouse.com. If you are betting on college football games this season be sure to buy Alex’s college football picks and guarantee a winning NCAA season.

Virginia Tech Hokies (11-3, 7-1 in 2007, 1st place ACC Coastal)
The campus of Virginia Tech was absolutely rattled following the on-campus murders in the beginning of the fall semester last year. Football was the perfect remedy for a campus and a town that needed to heal. Thank goodness the Hokies went 6-1 at Lane Stadium. Though nothing could be more difficult than healing those wounds from last year, HC Frank Beamer will have a harder time producing victories this year than he did in his 11-win campaign a year ago.

2007 Highlight: How could we pick anything but that first game back on the field? Emotions ran high, as even the East Carolina supporters that made the trip up to Lane Stadium had to cheer when the Hokies ran out of the tunnel. To the Pirates credit, in a game that many thought they were going to get run out of the building in, they stood tough from start to finish. The Hokies won 17-7 that day, but the outcome of the game was second to the fact that it was the first step towards returning to normalcy.

2007 Lowlight: In a rare non-conference match-up between two top-10 teams, Virginia Tech traveled down to Baton Rouge to take on the #2 and eventual BCS National Champion LSU Tigers. An offense that sputtered in their first game against ECU had an even worse outing, but DC Bud Foster and the defense had absolutely no answer for anything that LSU was doing. The Tigers rolled up an unheard of 598 yards of offense against a stout VT defense, and smacked the Hokies 48-7.

Offensive Outlook: Depending on your vantage point, it could be a good or bad thing that the Hokies return both of their quarterbacks from a year ago. Sean Glennon has been known to make too many mistakes, while Tyrod Taylor can be wildly inconsistent. Beamer hopes that both have improved in the off-season, though some in Blacksburg think that Taylor could be redshirted this year to save a year of eligibility. The rest of the skill position players must be replaced from ’07, but the entire offensive line remains in tact. The returning wide receivers have caught a combined five passes in their college careers, and true freshman running back Ryan Williams might be the best option available in the backfield.

Defensive Outlook: It feels like it doesn’t matter who keeps graduating from Virginia Tech. The Hokies will always have a strong defense. Foster has his work cut out for him this year, having lost three starting defensive lineman, All-ACC linebackers Vince Hall and Xavier Adibi, and CB Brandon Flowers from his ’07 squad that was clearly the best defense in the ACC. The captain of this unit will have to be Macho Harris, who is one of the best defensive backs in the nation.

2008 Preview: Suddenly, a game at East Carolina looks a bit more demanding after the Hokies were nearly shocked in the opener last season. If they can get past that, the team should be 3-0 going into the most important stretch of the season. VT plays four out of their next five on the road, including three conference games and a trip into Lincoln to take on the Cornhuskers. It’s going to be a difficult road for the Hokies this year, but if “Beamer-Ball” continues to thrive, they should still be players in the race for the Coastal Division crown.

2008 will be a success if… Foster can replenish his defense in a hurry. There are a lot of highly touted prospects on the defensive side of the ball, but they need to gel quickly for the Hokies to be successful, especially if Glennon and the offense don’t improve upon their 28.7 PPG average from a year ago.

They may not be an 11-win team like they were last year, but it’s very possible for Tech to repeat their 7-1 mark in conference if they can survive that road trip with only one blemish in the middle of the season.

Prediction: 9-3, 1st place in ACC Coastal

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