Here we have VTech's Jeff Allen, expressing himself the only way he knows how on Valentine's Day. Jeff led his team in rebounds, and birds flipped last night.

Despite his valiant effort, Allen fouled out of the game, and was less than pleased as you can clearly see in the image. I'd hate to see how he reacted once he found out what the final score in the game was: Maryland (83) - Virginia Tech (73).

Maryland beats Virginia Tech [Winston-Salem Journal]

Meanwhile Virginia Tech is coming off a win last Thursday night against Maryland. That win broke a string of two consecutive conference losses and kept them alive in the race. Win this game at Miami and Tech would only have to beat Duke and Virginia in Blacksburg to advance to the ACC Championship game. Meaning your ACC Coastal Champion will probably be 6-2. Lose, and it's likely that there will be a scrum of teams at 5-3. Most likely a four-way tie at 5-3 in the Coastal Division. (In fact if Virginia Tech beat Miami but found a way to lose to Virginia and a few other things played out, we could even end up with the unheard of five-way tie in the Coastal Division).

In other game news, Wyoming is playing UNLV in the Mountain West, Buffalo hosts Akron, and some NFL team called the Patriots that no one ever heard of is playing another NFL team that no one ever hears anything about. Some quarterback named Favre? I think he's Dutch.

TCU (-2) at Utah- In case you haven't been paying attention Utah is undefeated at 9-0. They boast road wins over Michigan (back when that actually looked somewhat impressive) and a home win over Oregon State. Meanwhile TCU's only loss is at Oklahoma back in September. Since that loss they've played five games and given up a grand total of 42 points. Included in that run was a 32-7 beat down of then undefeated BYU. As a result the TCU defense is giving up only 10.7 points a game. Even more impressive? Their run defense is only allowing 37.8 yards a game. All of this means TCU's Gary Patterson is about to become the hottest coaching candidate you'd never heard of prior to this season.

As if that weren't enough a shot at the BCS is at stake for both teams. TCU, at 9-1, doesn't play again until November 22 when they host Air Force. Win and they've clinched a share of the Mountain West Title. Not to mention it will bolster Oklahoma's one-loss team standing a bit more in the process since they'd probably slide into the top ten of the BCS. Utah is 9-0 but still has games left against San Diego State and BYU. With the strength of the Mountain West this year, isn't there a pretty strong argument that if the Big East can get an automatic BCS bid with only 8 teams that the Mountain West, with 9 teams deserves one as well?

Maryland at Virginia Tech (-3)- Maryland is great as long as they play ranked teams, Virginia Tech is fine so long as no one pays attention to them. This game should be tubular! After losing their home opener to East Carolina people forgot about Virginia Tech. The Hokies reeled off five straight wins to claim first place in the ACC Coastal Division, rose back into the top 20 of the polls, and subsequently lost two straight games at Boston College and at Florida State. At 2-2 in the Coastal Division, Virginia Tech has to win to stay in the division race. Although, to be fair, someone is going to win this division with a 5-3 record and Tech already has the tiebreak over Georgia Tech and North Carolina. So maybe they don't need to win.

Maryland remains the biggest enigma in college football this season—leading the ACC Atlantic despite a loss to Middle Tennessee State and a 31-0 loss to Virginia. In addition to going on the road at Virginia Tech, Maryland closes out with home games against North Carolina and Florida State and a road game at Boston College.

Loud whispers out of Blacksburg mention that Sean Glennon could *FINALLY* have that elusive Breakout Year, but pretty much every fan knows it will just end up being a venereal disease. The fifth year redshirt senior might be the greatest practice QB in the history of Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (sorry Don Strock). But once he takes a hit, bad things happen. When the offense is already too young and has to pull running backs off the street due to two-year starter Brandon Ore hanging out with coke dealers and not working at 7-11 in the offseason instead to motivate himself, a good senior QB with three years of starting experience could keep things together. Instead, he makes watching two buffalo fornicate in the dark look entertaining. Sorry to be bitter, but his ineptitude contributed a large part to single-handedly squandering the greatest class of wide receivers that Tech has ever attained.

The running game has been VT’s bread-and-butter for as long as I remember. That was back in the late 80s/early 90s when kids got in free to watch them possibly win a close game against Bowling Green. Fifteen straight bowl games and not too many bowl wins later, Virginia Tech treads water somewhere between relevancy and overrated. However, something strange has happened of late. The running game stopped functioning.

Offensive Coordinator Brian Stinespring acts like Sean Payton after finding some Southwest Virginia meth and tries to run a dual-QB spread offense system when clearly the personnel are not present to run it. It does not take a UVA-Charlottesville diploma, or even a UVA-Wise one, (even though VT’s engineering program is much better) to figure out that their success depends on a mobile QB (sorry Jim Drunkenraper). From Maurice DeShazo to the new hotness, Tyrod “T-Mobile” Taylor, this has been the type of player to bandage the leaky sieve that is the offensive line or pick up the slack when your running backs and wide receivers might have just picked up their high school diplomas. Jahre Cheeseman stands alone as the next tailback to hopefully get this rushing offense back in gear, and with the help of a more experienced offensive line (or maybe Tyrod just makes them look better?), the offense might give fans something to look forward to this year. Just keep the clipboard in Glennon’s hands.

Scheduling-wise, the Fighting Gobblers and fans could be in for a rough year. Ballgames against Furman, Western Kentucky, and Duke are locks. It’s too bad every road game is in question, which includes trips to old buddy Butch and his band of miscreants, Nebraska, the Boston Jesuits, Free Shoes University, and The U. Whenever the Frenchies from Exit 118 on I-64 play the team off Exit 118 on I-81, it’s basically a lock as well since Al Groh is more concerned with tucking in his sweatshirt, churning assistant coaches, and recruiting future draft picks since they play in that 3-4 thingamajig. That said, I am a big fan of www.dontfirealgroh.com. At least, he isn’t the highest paid state employee in Virginia anymore; the usurper lives in Blacksburg. The Commonwealth Cup is getting dusty over here, but that could be because Brandon Ore left town.

The Hokies somehow have always exceeded expectations when there were little. My extremely cynical projection puts them with a 9-3 regular season record and another trip to the ACC Championship Game due to the ACC being the ACC. That game will be against Climpson or Wake Forest, who they fortunately dominate. So, another BCS game could be in their future, but an actual win is another matter. But everyone should look on the bright side: if Matty Ice did not pull that Thursday Night comeback last year, Sean Glennon would have started at QB in the BCS National Championship Game.

The lucky lasses were given a chance to interact with the coaches, explore the facilities, familiarize themselves with the plays and, of course, watch some of the players strip down to their underwear. Yes, apparently some of the Hokies players after showing off the new uniforms this year took it upon themselves to show their appreciation for their female fans by taking it all off. "It was a fun experience. The strip tease part, I never done that before, but it was fun entertaining the crowd," said defensive back Kam Chancellor to local station WDBJ7.

Stick it in, stick it in, stick it in, indeed.

Frank Beamer Hokies Show Skin For Adoring Ladies [Busted Coverage]
Hundreds of Women Attend Beamer's Clinic [WDBJ7]