Rivalry Week, Volume 5 (Adios, Al edition) ...

And you people were worried about whether Ryan Williams could replace injured star Darren Evans? Ha!

Williams added to his astounding freshman resume today when he was named first-team All-ACC. He and Georgia Tech’s Jonathan Dwyer were the two first-team tailbacks, while Heisman hopeful C.J. Spiller of Clemson made the first-team as a return guy. He was a second-team tailback.

Three other Hokies made the first team: LB Cody Grimm, K Matt Waldron and P Brent Bowden. Tech also had five second-team selections: TE Greg Boone, OT Ed Wang, OG Sergio Render, DE Jason Worilds and FS Kam Chancellor.

Of the eight total all-conference Hokies, only Williams and Worilds (unless he leaves early for the NFL, which I doubt) will be back next season.

Williams, by the way, is now guaranteed to start 2010 as a Heisman frontrunner. After a career-high 183 rushing yards and four touchdowns (for the second straight game) against Virginia, he has joined (or is about to) some very rare company.

With 1,538 yards, he is already fourth all-time in ACC single-season history and needs just 95 more in the bowl game to pass Maryland’s LaMont Jordan (1,632 yards in 1999) for third place.

Williams needs 110 yards in the bowl  to break Virginia Tech’s single-season rushing record set by Kevin Jones in 2003. He has already broken the ACC freshman touchdown record (set by N.C. State’s T.A. McLendon in 2002) with 20 total scores.

His 19 rushing touchdowns are tied for the ACC record with Robert LaVette (Georgia Tech, 1982) and Don McCauley (North Carolina, 1970). Williams on Saturday became the first Hokies freshman to rush for 100-plus yards in four straight games. His nine total 100-plus rushing games ties Jones’ school single-season record. (Many thanks to Dave Smith and Bryan Johnston of the VT sports info department for these notables.)

How many ways can we say Ryan Williams is a super stud? He’s third nationally in rushing touchdowns and rushing yards and fifth in yards per game. He has 41 carries of at least 10 yards and 17 carries of 20-plus. Oh, and here’s another WOW stat on him: On 20 third-and-short carries (when Tech needs 1-3 yards for the first down), Williams is averaging 6.9 yards per carry.

How good is the Hokies’ backfield going to be next season when it adds Evans back into the mix? Nasty. And the guy handing off to them, the guy who’ll be a senior with 28 starts under his belt, is pretty good, too.

QB Tyrod Taylor is truly coming into his own (along with all those young receivers who have emerged and will be returning). With the win over Virginia, Taylor improved to 22-5 as a starter, passing Michael Vick for second-most victories by a quarterback under Frank Beamer. Bryan Randall’s 26 wins are the most.

Taylor ranks second nationally in yards per attempt (9.3) and 14th in pass efficiency. As a junior, he has accounted for 2,446 total yards and 17 total touchdowns with only six total turnovers.

Need more numbers? OK, a quick rundown on the Hokies: Tech ranks 15th in rushing (206.4 ypg), 27th in scoring offense (31.4 ppg) and 56th in total offense (388.3 ypg). The Hokies rank sixth in passing defense (161.4 ypg), 11th in scoring defense (15.8 ppg) and 13th in total defense (300.1 ypg).

That’s about all you need to know. Tech is playing pretty well on both sides of the ball heading into its bowl game. Oh, and which game will that be? Well, the Hokies are No. 11 in the latest AP poll and No. 12 in the mighty BCS standings.

There is still an outside shot Tech will get an at-large BCS invite, but it’s unlikely. Looks like the final two at-large spots will come down to four teams: Boise State, Penn State and Iowa. The only team in that list I think the three-loss Hokies could jump is the Hawkeyes.

If I’m right, Tech should fall no further than the Gator Bowl, but is more likely headed for a third trip to Atlanta this season. Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee and South Carolina are all potential opponents in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Seems to me Hokies (and Vols) would be most jazzed for that long-coveted UT-VT clash. We’ll see, but after Georgia’s big upset over Georgia Tech, the Bulldogs might make more sense for the bowl folks.

Wherever Tech ends up, it will be without one key (albeit unheralded) member of the team. Special teams ace Zach Luckett tore the ACL and MCL in his left knee against Virginia. He will have surgery in 4-6 weeks and will miss spring practice. This is a big blow not only because Luckett has 17 tackles covering kicks this season but also because he was among the top candidates to take over for starting whip Cody Grimm next year. Grimm’s top back-up, Cam Martin, is also graduating. So it looks like the battle for that job in spring ball will be between another special teams stud, Alonzo Tweedy, and young talent Jeron Gouveia-Winslow.

One last thought: Sorry about my two-day absence. The crazy trip to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, then to Charlottesville for the game, then back to Blacksburg ... wore me out. And I’m in the midst of some serious high school wrestling preview work (I wasn’t supposed to have that duty again this year, but things change).

My apologies, then, that these post-game interviews are a tad stale. But no less interesting, right? Better late than ...

(And no, despite the title, I did not mention the firing of Virginia coach Al Groh. No need piling on the poet.)

WR DANNY COALE

ON WHETHER HE FEELS BAD THAT THIS WIN – AND THE PREVIOUS FIVE IN A ROW OVER VIRGINIA – COULD CONTRIBUTE TO AL GROH GETTING FIRED: “I mean, somebody’s got to win and somebody’s got to lose, and I’d rather be on that winning side. Luckily, we’ve gotten the past few. We played hard today and we’re happy to get that win.”

ON HIS BIG CATCH AT THE SIDELINE, DRAGGING HIS FEET TO STAY INBOUNDS: “I managed to see Tyrod scrambling. He was looking my way and I had a feeling he was going to sling it in there – and he did. It was one of the fastest throws I’ve ever seen him make, only where I could try to catch it. It was a perfectly placed ball and you just try to tip-toe the sideline and hope that you’re in. I was very close. I didn’t know exactly where it hit. Luckily it was in.”

ON RYAN WILLIAMS’ BIG GAME: “It’s always fun to watch him. He always puts on a show, so no disappointment there.”

ON WHETHER TECH SAW SOMETHING ON FILM THAT LED THEM TO BELIEVE THEY COULD EXPLOIT CORNER RAS-I DOWLING: “We just wanted to go downtown and make plays. We tried to do that early on. We got a few there and I think it helped the momentum a little bit. I think every game, we try to make plays down the field.”

ON TECH MAKING A STATEMENT WITH FOUR STRAIGHT WINS: “You want to make a statement every time you play. We’ve had a few good offensivegames here lately, but still have one more. We’re far from done.”

RB RYAN WILLIAMS

ON PICKING UP STEAM AFTER THE VIRGINIA FUMBLE AND HIS THIRD TOUCHDOWN RUN THAT FOLLOWED: “When you start to get momentum in someone else’s stadium, your rival, the other team starts to drop and you can just dominate from there. I think that play was the point where we could start dominating from there.”

ON WHETHER THERE WAS A LOT OF TRASH-TALKING SATURDAY: “A lot of trash-talking. For me, I don’t do none of that. I try to be civil with everybody. But everybody else, it was just, ‘Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.’ It was crazy. I actually thought it was going to be worse. I thought it was going to be more shoving and a lot more trash-talking coming my way. But the U.Va. defense, they really weren’t that bad to me. A lot of guys were telling me good run. No. 45, he called me Sonic (the Hedgehog). He told me to slow down. Other than that, the guys were real cool to me.”

ON CHANCELLOR SCOOPING THE FUMBLE AND WHAT THE OFFENSE SAID TO EACH OTHER WHEN IT GOT THE BALL BACK AT VIRGINIA’S 10-YARD LINE: “I told the offensive line, ‘You know what time it is.’ What I meant by that is, ‘Get me in the end zone.’ They know what time it is when we’re inside the 10-yard line. That’s just smash-mouth, get it in the end zone. I think those guys fed off my energy on the line. I try to be more vocal when I can.”

ON HIS CAREER DAY AGAINST TECH’S RIVAL: “That felt good. I wish I could’ve ended my last play without a fumble, but things happen. I began to start realizing I have to cope with things like that and I need to start carrying the ball high and tight when I try to make a move. I got touchdown-happy. As soon as I saw one man to beat, I really don’t think there’s one man out there (who can stop him). I’m that confident in the open field. ... It was a great defensive play, but it was cool with Jarrett (Boykin) and his hustle (recovering it for a touchdown). He was all the way down the field with me.”

ON ALL HIS CRAZY RECORDS: “I think I’ve done the unexpected. I really don’t try to set any goals. ... My main goal was to do my best to try to help the team win. And I think I did that very well. That’s the only thing I really wanted. Yardage, touchdowns, ACC teams, none of that really mattered to me. ... I’m a team player. But everything else feels great. The offensive line blocked great throughout the year. The wide receivers did a heckuva job going downfield all the time. It feels good to have guys like that willing to block and do their part so we can execute the plays.”

ON TECH’S STATEMENT OFFENSIVELY THE LAST THREE GAMES: “I think Coach Stiney, he gets a lot of the bad about our offense and what he does and what he doesn’t do, but Coach Stiney is a great coach. He calls the plays and it’s our job to execute them. When we don’t execute them, that’s when points don’t get scored. But when we do, incidents like this happen. Our offense is 10 times better than what it was last year. I think the biggest thing about this year is Tyrod is very confident. He’s very confident in all our receivers. ... Just having a quarterback who’s confident and who can play plays with his arm or his feet, it just makes the plays run that much more smooth.”

FS KAM CHANCELLOR

ON QUIETING VIRGINIA’S CROWD AND PLAYERS: “It was real loud early in  the game. They were talking a lot of trash. After the fumble, our offense started getting key plays and it started being a lot quieter and they weren’t talking a lot of junk. The defense needed to make a big play to turn the energy around, and that’s what I did.”

ON WHETHER HE HEARD MUCH TALK: “No. 18, he was one dude who was saying, ‘It’s going to be a long game.’ I was like, ‘I know. I know it’s going to be a long game – for you.’ ”

ON SEWELL RUNNING WILD EARLY: “They caught us on a lot of quarterback draws, kind of got us off-guard. But we adjusted to it in the second half. We tried to blitz them from opposite directions, so every time he cut it up, we had somebody to make the tackle right there.”

ON WHETHER HE THOUGHT HE GOT IN MIKELL SIMPSON’S HEAD BY HAMMERING HIM ON THE RUN BEFORE HE BOBBLED THE OPTION PITCH: “Yeah, that’s what it was. I saw him take his eyes off the ball. He was expecting the hit first and it kind of messed him up. I said a few things (after the first hit) but that’s on the field. It ain’t fit for print.”

ON DOMINATING THE RIVALRY: “Ever since I’ve been here, we beat them. U.Va. always gives us their best shot, no matter what their record is, so I respect them for that.”

QB TYROD TAYLOR

ON HIS PASS TO COALE AT THE SIDELINE AND COALE SAYING IT WAS A DART: “At the time, I couldn’t tell. They said it looked fast. I talked to Coach O’Cain and he said I put some heat on it. I was just trying to put it into a tight spot and he made a great catch.”

ON WHETHER TECH SAW SOMETHING THAT MADE THEM TRY TO EXPLOIT CORNER RAS-I DOWLING: “We knew they were very aggressive in the secondary. Actually, I’m good friends with both of the corners. It was just very competitive out there. It wasn’t we were just trying to pick on one guy. It was just good play-calling and our receivers got a chance to win and I got the ball to them.”

ON HIS INTERCEPTION IN THE END ZONE: “It was a miscommunication between me and Dyrell, but I take the fall for that one. I shouldn’t have thrown it up like I did. But I thought he was going underneath. Dyrell said he couldn’t, so he went over the top. We’ll just build off that and get ready for the next one.”

ON ANOTHER BIG DAY BY RYAN WILLIAMS: “He’s a great back. You can give it to him in any situation and you know it could be a big play. The thing that has impressed me a lot is his pass blocking. He hasn’t let too many guys get to me.”

ON HIS CONNECTION WITH COALE: “He did a good job of winning on one-on-one routes.”

ON TECH’S STATEMENT WITH FOUR STRAIGHT WINS: “I think the way we’ve been winning lately is still proving to people that we can play with the top teams in the country. I’ll take my team against any team in the nation.”

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