Aaron McFarling of the Roanoke Times wrote a great article about Virginia Tech redshirt freshman tailback Darren Evans. The former high school standout from Indianapolis rushed for mind-boggling 61 touchdowns during his senior season at Warren Central High. Even more amazing, it was only the fourth highest single-season offensive output by a single player in U.S. prep school history. He averaged nearly six TDs a game.

Evans left Warren Central with four state championships and more individual records than you can imagine. Yet only two BCS schools offered him a scholarship - Virginia Tech and one Big Ten school. Whispers of “too slow” and “not enough moves” dogged him during the recruiting process, but this Saturday at Virginia Tech’s first Spring Game in two years, Evans will have an opportunity to silence the critics and prove that he belongs in the backfield of a big-time college football program.

But that isn’t even the real crux of the story. For the real heart of the story, read the Aaron’s article. Trust me, it’s worth the read!

There is finally some good news on the injury front! Tyrod Taylor sounds like he’s going to be just fine. Tyrod practiced yesterday and today so you can re-pack the car for Saturday as Frank Beamer and Mike O’Cain both think he will play in the spring game this weekend.

Also in the article by Randy King of the Roanoke Times is mention of a player that has really impressed me (and obviously the coaches too) this spring: Mr. Dorian Porch. While I suspected that he was going to play his way into the starting rover role this spring, I didn’t realize he was almost drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the second round out of high school. It appears the Hokie nation owes Mrs. Porch a big “thank you” as she talked Dorian out of the draft because she wanted him to get an education.

Keep up with the Hokies here and at VT.Fanfoc.us!

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No. 1 tailback Kenny Lewis is out for six months after shoulder surgery. No. 2 tailback Jahre Cheeseman broke his leg during Friday’s scrimmage and his surgery will sit him down until August. Tyrod Taylor’s sprained foot will keep him out of the rest of spring practice, which means we will be no closer to learning who will be the starting quarterback next season. Both Sean Glennon (r-sr.) and Taylor (soph.) had similar numbers during scrimmages before Taylor’s injury, but Glennon threw two picks (his trademark).

The tailback position does not concern me as much as the QB race. We still have two talented runningbacks in Josh Oglesby and Darren Evans, both redshirt freshmen. Plus, we have Ryan Williams, the nation’s No. 3 high school runningback, coming in August. And if all the things we’ve heard about this kid are true, then he’s the type of player that will make an impact immediately.

I’m still not sure what is going through Frank Beamer’s mind with regards to the QB battle. Glennon is entering his fifth season with the program, but has never played consistently. Taylor was thrust into the starting role after a game and a half into last season and played spectacularly, especially for a true freshman. This kid is a true talent that only comes along once every decade or so, and going back to a dual QB rotation would be a complete disaster for the Hokies and Taylor.

Taylor has more talent and natural athletic ability than Glennon and can make more things happen. I, for one, am willing to live his occasional mistakes because his play-making ability and big-play potential far outweighs the “steady as she goes” mentality with Glennon.

The coaching staff has to look at the bigger picture in addition to the obvious talent differential. I hope they are just entertaining the illusion of a QB battle and will name Tyrod the full-time starter before the season begins. Perhaps they assured Glennon that it would be an open competition to appease him. Whatever is going on behind the scenes, I sincerely hope that the coaching staff is keeping their future recruiting efforts in mind. What happens the next time a talented QB like Taylor comes around and Tech recruits him? The other schools will tell the kid, “Yes, Virginia Tech is a good football program, but look what they did with Tyrod Taylor - they made him share time for two seasons with someone who was clearly less talented. Come play for us and you’ll be THE guy.” If I were recruiting against the Hokies, that’s exactly what I would say to my QB recruits who were considering VT.

If Tyrod is as electrifying as everyone says he is, and we saw glimpses of it last season before he hurt his ankle and missed 2 1/2 games, then why don’t we let him prove it on the field? Platooning isn’t going to give him the experience he needs to develop. Glennon has a lot of experience and I’m sure the coaches are rewarding his four years of service and how his attitude did a 180 following his benching last season. But he’s not the starting QB for this team.

He had one statistically good season and while the team did well, the majority of the credit goes to Bud Foster’s defense, which was often times more of a threat to score than the offense. Last season, he struggled and got benched early. He threatened to transfer and cried and whined for a couple of days following his ousting. Then, he laid low before coming back as the starter when Taylor sprained his ankle. He stunk it up at home against Boston College, leading the Hokies to just one offensive touchdown. Though, he did play perhaps his best game as a Hokie in the next game at Georgia Tech.

My feeling is that Glennon had his shot. It’s Tyrod Taylor’s time. We lived with the mistakes and growing pains of the Glennon era, now it is time to do the same with Tyrod - he is our QB for at least two more seasons, so let him make this his team. Glennon will be a good backup.

According to a release on HokieSports.com today, rising senior runningback Branden Ore is no longer on the team. This frees up the backfield competition to include incoming four-star recruit Ryan Williams to compete with Kenny Lewis Jr., Josh Oglesby and Jahre Cheeseman.

Read the release.

Update: ESPN is reporting that Ore was kicked off the team because “Hokies coaches grew weary of player’s attitude.” While ESPN summarizes that this will hurt the Hokies 110th ranked offense, I think it will help the team because there is one less player who isn’t giving 100 percent to the team and it opens the door for some fresh legs to show us what they can do.

ESPN Article

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ESPN released it’s “way-too-early” preseason college football top 25 poll today and the Hokies are ranked No. 11. OK … first, it is entirely too early to have a preseason college football poll of any kind, but I give ESPN’s Mark Schlabach credit for admitting as much. That being said, it is the off-season and college football junkies are already going through withdrawals. So, releasing a preseason poll gives us something to talk about and debate.

I was listening to Greg Roberts Live on WFIR this afternoon and he was incredulous that Virginia Tech was ranked so high. He also said that he thought the Hokies would have to scratch and claw their way to get seven or eight wins next season. I like Greg and I respect his opinion, but I think he’s missed the mark here.

I boldly - some would argue foolishly - predicted the Hokies to go undefeated next season in my Feb. 9 blog post and part of me really believes that they can. But, I am also a realist and understand just how difficult that would be, especially with road games against Boston College, Florida State, Miami and Nebraska. I’m not backing off my prediction, but if the Hokies drop two or three games, I will not be surprised. But to struggle to win seven or eight game? I think that’s a bit of a stretch.

Roberts, who is a Virginia Tech grad and former punter for the Hokies, pointed to the huge personnel losses on both sides of the ball as his main arguments for his prediction. Yes, Tech loses three defensive linemen, one all-conference corner and two all-conference linebackers. But this is not the first time Tech assistant head coach and defensive coordinator Bud Foster has had to reload his squad. Remember, Vince Hall and Xavier Adibi saw considerable playing since their freshman years because Foster lost his linebackers from the previous season. Hall started 12 of 13 games as a redshirt freshman and Adibi played in seven games, but missed six because of a torn tendon in his right biceps muscle. Those guys had immediate impacts and the players waiting in the wings have the same potential. Sure, they may not been as good as Hall and Adibi, but Hall and Adibi weren’t just good, they were great. The guys replacing them are very good and have the potential to be great.

As for the offense, I addressed the loss of personnel in an earlier post, but again, all four of the receivers came in at the same time because Tech lost guys to the NFL or graduation. We have two 4-star and two 3-star WRs coming in, plus two better-than-average TEs in Sam Wheeler and Greg Boone, so as far as the passing game goes, I’m sure it’ll take some time to gel, but I think it’ll be just fine by the middle of next season. Hmmm, let me rephrase; it’ll be as fine as it can be under Bryan Stinespring.

The offensive line is another year older and they are monstrously big, and scary strong. I think this will be a much-improved group. The running backs should be one of our most reliable and certainly our deepest position. Again, I covered all of these positions already, so if you want more detail, read my Feb. 9 post.

The bottom line is that I have a difficult time seeing the Hokies struggling to get seven or eight wins. I give the coaching staff and their recruiting skills much more credit that Roberts’ apparently is. Virginia Tech’s football program has reached a point in its evolution where it doesn’t panic when it loses a lot of guys - they just plug in guys they have molded and prepared and nine out of 10 times, they step in and pick up where their predecessors left off. Of course there is an adjustment period, but thanks to the coaching staff’s preparation, it is usually a very brief period, thankfully.

As for Tech’s No. 11 ranking - I think that Schlabach is using the same logic - the Hokies have the personnel to simply reload as they have proven in the past. I’d say that No. 11 is about right.

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Bad news Hokie fans … YouTube has seen fit to delete the vthokiefans user account. This was the source of so many videos we have come to love and watch repeatedly. We are working on new solutions, but it will take some time.

However, we do have some videos on a Veoh account, but it is nowhere near as comprehensive as the YouTube account. Currently, we have all of the 2007 football games with the exception of LSU and Kansas. We also have all of this season’s basketball games that we had before. Below are the links to the football and basketball channels:

• Hokies Football Highlights
• Hokies Basketball Highlights