Extremely High Tech

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 13, 1999 | by Barker Davis

After a dozen years of scandal and struggle in the boonies, the Virginia Tech Hokies are poised to become a power-house in college football.

Blacksburg squats in the foothills of southwest Virginia, a splash of concrete amid endless cow pastures and an unlikely locale for the nation's premier football team. But if Virginia Tech stays unbeaten and wins the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, Blacksburg will be pigskin central for the millennium.

"There were a few snickers when I came here in 1987 and promised we would compete for a national championship someday," says coach Frank Beamer. "But each time they said it couldn't be done in Blacksburg, I just pointed to Penn State and Clemson. Winning is a powerful recruiting tool. We've been to six straight bowl games, and maybe we're ready to take that next step."

That next step would be the school's first perfect regular season since 1918 and a trip to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl -- this season's BCS national title game. Considering that 110 years of Hokie football have produced just one Top-10 finish (in 1995), the Hokies' current No. 2 ranking is cause for exultation.

"If it works out that we get to play in the Sugar Bowl, great. If not, we're not going to commit suicide," says athletic director Jim Weaver. "It's all part of a process of establishing a national reputation. Look how long it took Joe Paterno to get the recognition his teams deserved. Penn State went undefeated three times before they got to play for the national championship.... We understand we're the new kid on the block."

Weaver has been criticized for assembling a relatively soft schedule -- including games against Division I-AA James Madison and Alabama-Birmingham -- that put Virginia Tech at the mercy of the BCS system. But most people forget that before Weaver arrived in 1997, the Hokies were better at filling rap sheets than stat sheets. During the previous two years, 19 players were arrested on charges ranging from attempted malicious wounding to rape.

"That was obviously an embarrassment to both the university and our alumni and part of the reason I was hired," says Weaver, who is something of a crisis-management specialist after cleaning up similarly sullied programs at Florida (in 1984) and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (in 1993). "We implemented a very rigid set of disciplinary guidelines for our athletes that seems to have resolved the situation."

Beamer, 53, has given his total support to Weaver's no-tolerance policies and already had hired recruiting coordinator Charley Wiles, known for his ability to spot character as talent. The results have been staggering. Wiles has sold Blacksburg to extraordinary talents such as senior All-American defensive end Corey Moore and freshman quarterback Michael Vick, who have helped the Hokies pulverize opponents by an average of more than 30 points. Only starting safety Lorenzo Ferguson has had a run-in with the law in the last 26 months. He was suspended for the season and since has transferred.

Nobody personifies the new, clean-look Hokies better than Moore, an overachiever of epic proportions and smallish stature. When Wiles asked Beamer to make the junior-college player his first recruit in 1996, the coach took one look at the 6-foot, 212-pound defensive lineman from Brownsville, Tenn., and almost fired Wiles on the spot.

But Moore lived under a pile of iron for two years in the Tech training facility, shaping himself into a 223-pound piston with 4.4 speed in the 40-yard dash. Last season the diminutive defender, who can bench 410 pounds, turned opposing Big East backfields into his personal sack smorgasbord. Moore recorded 67 tackles and 13.5 sacks, surging from anonymity to second-team All-American honors. Still, he spent the 1998 season frustrated by his teammates' lack of resolve. In the three games the Hokies lost, they blew leads of 17 points or more. For Moore, who plans to attend law school and become a sports agent after his National Football League career (or lack thereof), such lapses in discipline spoiled his individual achievements.

This season, as the team's captain and unofficial spokesman, Moore has promised to monitor the team's intensity on every play. And he almost single-handedly beat Clemson by forcing Tigers quarterback Brandon Streeter into two late turnovers that resulted in touchdown returns, turning a 14-11 fourth-quarter thriller into a 31-11 laugher. But Moore's most meaningful contributions may come in the huddle.

"It's my responsibility to let my guys know the consequences of a letdown before every snap," says Moore, who was livid on a recent Saturday after Pittsburgh passed for 405 yards and nearly mounted a second-half rally to crush the Hokies' dreams. "They don't just have to answer to the coaches. They have to answer to me, and I guarantee you I'm not as gentle."

"This is something special," continues Moore. "We've grown up a lot. We've matured on both sides of the ball.... And then you've got No. 7 behind center. That kid's special, man."