Maryland Week, Volume 5 (Trouncing Turtles edition) ...

At long last, I’m back. My bad, blog peeps. My recent absence was not of my choosing. In a catastrophic (to me) event somehow related to the storms and flooding in Hampton Roads (where my office is) ... the blog went down.

And I had all kinds of fun, interesting stuff ready to feed you fine folks. My apologies for leaving you hungry. The good news is, my inability to blog did not negatively affect the Hokies today.

Tech did what the should have – whipping Maryland – which is nothing to turn your nose up at, considering that hasn’t always happened this season and the fact that the Hokies (thanks to Georgia Tech’s emphatic victory today) don’t have any hope of an ACC title.

This could have been one of those lethargic-type games for Tech. It wasn’t. They marched down the field on their first drive and scored.

The led 14-0 in the first quarter, 24-3 at the half. They had 484 yards of offense (427 after three quarters) and allowed only 236 yards.

Ryan Williams ran for 126 yards, giving him seven 100-yard games as a freshman and leaving him 30 yards from Darren Evans’ ACC rookie record.

Tyrod Taylor played maybe the most complete game of his career, hitting 13 of 23 passes for 268 yards and three touchdowns. He hit eight different receivers and ran eight times for 81 yards.

His 349 total yards are the most in 33 career games.

True freshman Jayron Hosley was a punt-returning freak oday. He returned six for 86 yards (and had a long, electric return called back).

Jarrett Boykin continues to be a beast of a receiver. Danny Coale, one heckuva pass-catcher himself, leveled a couple of really nice blocks for his ‘mates. And Dyrell Roberts – with a 27-yard diving catch, a 41-yard leaping catch and a speedy 10-yard TD catch and run – appears to have fully transitioned from tailback to receiver.

There’s a lot to be impressed with about these Hokies (even if it was only Maryland). This is still a very good football team, even if it won’t play for an ACC title.

What will it play for now that Georgia Tech clinched the Coastal? I’ll let the Hokies tell you themselves ...

(P.S. Bud Foster talks briefly below about that Memphis job you guys are all worked up over.)

HEAD COACH FRANK BEAMER

OPENING REMARKS: “I’m really proud of our football team, to come in here and get a win. I thought Maryland played hard. They’ve had some tough injuries and that quarterback (back-up Jamarr Robinson) came in and made some big plays against us. He did a nice job. I thought Maryland certainly didn’t give in. They played tough throughout. But I’m proud of our guys. We had a couple tough losses and we’ve come back and hung in there and stayed together. And hopefully we can play our best football at the end of the year. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’ll keep on moving in that direction.”

ON QB TYROD TAYLOR’S BIG DAY: “Tyrod did a nice job, made some plays, kept some plays alive, made some nice throws. Had a couple throws he’d like to have back. We didn’t get him protected well enough in the end zone there. That was a tough play. But as long as you’ve got Tyrod, you’ve got a chance. He gives us a chance to be successful on every play – every offensive play, in my opinion. I’m glad he’s on our side.”

ON TAYLOR’S RECEIVERS HELPING A LOT, TOO: “Oh, yeah. I saw about three or four nice catches out there. I mean tough catches, going to get it. That’s what you want to see out of those guys. We’ve got some guys with some height and some ability, and when they go up and battle for the ball, they’re becoming a more complete player for us.”

ON ALL THE GUYS WHO CAUGHT PASSES (8): “What I like to see is spreading it around and whoever’s open, let’s throw it to them.”

ON WHAT HE SAYS TO THE TEAM AFTER GEORGIA TECH CLINCHED THE COASTAL TODAY: “We’ve talked about just being as good as we can be. We’ve still got a chance for 10 wins. We’ve got work to do now. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ve still got a chance to do that and to become the best football team we can be. I can tell you this: I’m disappointed in the two losses right there in the middle, as our team is, but I’m not disappointed at all in how much effort and how much caring and how much this football team has tried to be a good football team – week in and week out. We haven’t always played as well as we’d want to. We had some young guys there that just needed to get a little bit of experience. I don’t like those two losses in the middle, but I like the effort and the caring that this football team has. I like that a lot.”

ON LINEBACKER JAKE JOHNSON’S DAY AFTER BEING BENCHED: “Jake’s made out of the right stuff. He’s an athletic guy and ... he just needs to continue to get experience. I think that’ll help Jake a lot. Adjusting to things and so forth, I think experience is going to be a wonderful thing for him.”

ON TRUE FROSH JAYRON HOSLEY’S PUNT RETURNS: “I thought he had a great day returning the ball. We had some pretty good blocks. The one (in the back) they called on us, I thought, was real close. I wish we hadn’t done that. But Jayron, he breaks some tackles and he’s explosive back there. And then we’re trying hard to block for him, too. A little bit of that paid off today.”

ON WHAT HE SAID TO FRIEND AND MARYLAND COACH RALPH FRIEDGEN AFTER THE GAME: “I told him I’m thinking about him and, ‘Hang tough.’ I know he will. He’s a good, good coach. He’s a super-good person. He runs a good program, does it the right way. There’s a lot of good in Ralph Friedgen. He’s had a tough year. He’s had some tough injuries that’s hurt him. Sometimes it just goes that way.”

LB CODY GRIMM

ON HIS REACTION TO GEORGIA TECH CLINCHING THE COASTAL DIVISION: “We’ve got a lot to still play for pride-wise. I think we’ve got one of the better teams since I’ve been here and we’ve got to prove it. There’s still a ton to play for – winning a bowl game. We’re playing for pride and bowl games. It didn’t work out for us, but stuff happens.”

D-COORDINATOR BUD FOSTER

ON THE ROAD WIN: “It was a good win for us. We came up here and didn’t really know what Maryland was going to run (because of its QB situation). But it wasn’t about them; It was about us. We needed to come out and be a better football team this week than we were last week. That’s what we emphasize each and every week and I’m just really proud of our kids’ effort.”

ON THE TEAM NOT QUITTING EVEN WITH ACC TITLE HOPES DIM (AND NOW DEAD): “I don’t know why you’d quit just because we’re out of the running for the ACC championship. There’s a lot of football to be played. We’re a good football team and still have a chance to be an even better football team. We’ve still got a lot to play for. Most importantly, we’ve got to play for each other. That’s what it’s all about. These guys worked hard. They work year-round. They make a lot of sacrifices and commit to each other. That’s really what we need to go out and play for.”

ON JAKE JOHNSON’S PLAY AFTER BEING BENCHED: “I’ll find out on the film, but it was fairly simple today. Not a lot of motions and things of that nature, but Jake, he’s a good football player. I just want him to be consistently good. It doesn’t matter if it’s him or anybody else. But I’m happy for him. He had a nice sack. The best thing you can do for your football team to improve is competition. That’s one thing we have right now is good competition at most of our positions, and that makes everybody better.”

ON WHETHER HE HAS HEARD FROM MEMPHIS ABOUT THEIR COACHING SEARCH: “No. (Speaking to Washington Post reporter Mark Viera now ...) You started the whole deal, asked if I was interested in the job. Yeah, I might be, but now it’s all over the dadgum place. But I haven’t heard from them, no.”

WR DYRELL ROBERTS

ON STARTING TO REALLY LOOK LIKE A RECEIVER NOW WITH SOME OF HIS ACROBATIC CATCHES LATELY: “Yeah, I think I’ve got the transition pretty good. I learned the position pretty good and I’m thinking as a receiver and not a running back now.”

ON THOSE CRAZY CATCHES: “It feels good to know I can contribute and my team doesn’t think I’m shaky at wide receiver like last year. Last year, a couple opportunities I had, I didn’t capitalize. This year, to be able to make plays and have my team count on me, it feels good.”

ON GEORGIA TECH CLINCHING THE COASTAL AND WHAT NEXT FOR THE HOKIES: “Really, people were counting us out of the ACC after we got the second loss or third loss. We can’t sit around and dwell on not going to the ACC. We’re working on 10 wins . That’s all we’re trying to do, just win out and have a good foundation to build off next year.”

ON WHETHER PART OF THE GOAL, TOO, IS TO WIN BIG AND MAKE SOME STATEMENTS THE REST OF THE WAY: “Oh, yeah, of course. We want to make a statement and let people know when we click on all cylinders, there’s no telling what we can do. To be able to come out and get a convincing win the way we did is a big confidence booster.”

RB RYAN WILLIAMS

ON BOUNCING BACK FROM CONSECUTIVE LOSSES: “We come out with the same mentality all the time. That’s to play our best game. When we do that, we feel like we can beat anybody. We came out here with a great team win, offensively and defensively. Their quarterback (Maryland’s) played a heckuva game. A heckuva game. I wasn’t expecting that. But we come out with the same mentality. We try our best to play our ‘A’ game.”

ON WHETHER THIS OFFENSE WANTS TO MAKE STATEMENTS: “I guess. When you lose games, you try to come back the next game and go full blast and to come out and just dominate the next game. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it don’t. In the past two games, we did very well trying to get the ball down the field and put points on the board. It feels good to come out and do that.”

ON SCORING ON TECH’S FIRST DRIVE: “It felt good to get back in the end zone again. The smell of the end zone is like one of my favorite smells. It was cool. I was happy. I haven’t been there the past two or three games.”

ON WHAT AN END ZONE SMELLS LIKE: “The crowd roaring, man. You just feel it, man. You just get happy, man.”

ON HIS ADJUSTMENT TO THE MUDDY FIELD: “Just to run hard. Run hard and try not to be as agile as I usually am. Like in the third quarter, when I tried to cut back and I slipped, that was touchdown. All I saw was green and nobody could’ve stopped me.”

ON TYROD TAYLOR’S GAME: “Really no mental errors ... he threw the ball well, ran the ball well, made some good reads as far as reading the inside zones. He played a heckuva game. He’s had a lot of good games ... but this is one of his best.”

ON THE RECEIVERS GOING TO GET BALLS: “Our receivers did a great job. I guess he just trusts our receivers to go get the ball and that’s what they did.”

ON GEORGIA TECH CLINCHING: “Me personally? I don’t care. There’s nothing we can do about it. There’s no use being like, ‘Aw, man!’ They beat us, so they deserve to be there. Props to them and I hope they take it all the way.”

ON VT’S FOCUS NOW: “To get 10 wins. That’s what we’re striving for right now. If we get these 10 wins, then I don’t know how many years it is – I think it’s 5 or 6 that we continually did it. That’s our focus right now, to get these 10 wins.”

ON ALL THE TALK OF 10 WINS AND WHETHER THAT’S A LEGIT MOTIVATOR FOR PLAYERS: “I come out every game and just try my best to help the team win. That’s all I can do. I can’t control anybody else’s mood out there or what they do. If it motivates them, then more power to them. But to me, football is self-motivation.”

LB JAKE JOHNSON

ON ADVICE AFTER BEING BENCHED: “Life has it setbacks. Every great athlete goes through stuff at one point in their life. I feel like this is my time that I fell back but I now I just need to rise up against it all.”

ON HOW MUCH BETTER HE FELT TODAY THAN AFTER THE LAST GAME: “It felt a lot better. I got in there, made some plays. It felt awesome.”

ON PUMPING HIS FISTS WILDLY AFTER HIS FIRST SACK: “After that, I was just like, ‘I’ve still got it.’ I know what I can do when I actually play to my level.”

QB TYROD TAYLOR

ON HIS BIG DAY AND WHETHER IT WAS HIS BEST EVER: “I think it was one of the better games. I still had a lot of mistakes out there. I can go back and look at film and build off that ... misreads early in the game. We had a chance to run them again and ended up hitting them.”

ON MARCHING DOWN THE FIELD ON THE FIRST DRIVE: “It was a great way to set the tone for the game.”

ON HIS REACTION TO GEORGIA TECH CLINCHING: “Just to go out there and keep winning these games we have left.”

ON SCORING BIG TODAY AND BEING COMFORTABLE: “Yes, but we still didn’t execute like we wanted to in the second half. Our plan was to put more touchdowns on the scoreboard. We ended up scoring with field goals, but of course we wanted to change those to touchdowns.”

ON WHETHER THE PLAYERS ARE TRULY MOTIVATED BY THE 10-WIN BRASS RING: “We are motivated by it. Every week, the plan is to go out there and win. That’s more motivation than anything. At the end of the year, if you do have 10 wins, that’s a great goal to accomplish.”

ON WANTING TO MAKE SOME STATEMENTS THE REST OF THE WAY: “Yes, that is the plan. We have tough games ahead of us, but it’s always good to put points on the board to show people that we are the real deal.”

ON HIS RECEIVERS MAKING GREAT GRABS: “They played great today, made a lot of plays in the air against good defenders. It was my job to get the ball around them and they did a great job of just making a play. That’s what we preached all week.”

ON COMPARING HIMSELF THIS YEAR TO THE PREVIOUS TWO: “My comfort level with the passing game is very high. I believe my receivers, I believe they can play with any defender in the nation. I believe my line is going to block. It’s just my job to put the ball in their hands.”

ON DYRELL ROBERTS’ PROGRESSION: “He’s way better. He’s come along very well. I like the way he’s playing. I like the way all my guys are playing, but Dyrell has really stepped up his game and is becoming one of our better receivers.”

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