I'll have a mailbag Friday, some miscellaneous things over the weekend and then begin to look ahead to 2012 starting early next week. But first one more day of looking back at the Sugar Bowl.

It has been over a week since Virginia Tech's 23-20 Sugar Bowl loss to Michigan,so things have had time to marinate. But there were a couple things I wanted to address on the blog before taking a larger look back at the season and then moving forward to 2012.

After eight days in New Orleans, I'll be traveling back to Blacksburg today, so blogging might be at a minimum if anything happens.

Over 2,000 readers were on today's live chat. As you'd expect, a few of them were testy. Read the replay below.
Sugar Bowl recap with Andy BItter

Where to start? How about a link to my very-rushed game story on deadline.You can read it here. I'm also planning a live chat Wednesday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. I'll have a link up tomorrow morning. I hope you can be there to discuss the game.

NEW ORLEANS — The Hokies corralled Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson. They stood strong in the trenches, matching the Wolverines’ physicality. They even got a great game out of their third-string kicker. Until the overtime.

You're looking LIVE at the uppermost reaches of the Superdome, which is where the press box is. If you were upset about your ticket locations through the school, I assure you we have worse seats. Also, it's kind of cold. And the oxygen is thin. If I have any typos, that's the reason.

After a month of buildup, it's finally game day. This is the post to get you started. * Here's my game advance in today's paper about how Virginia Tech's reputation is on the line tonight. * Some keys to the game. * Columnist Aaron McFarling writes that this is a big game, and you can't change your mind about it later.

A couple of links from this morning: * Columnist Aaron McFarling wrote about Jarrett Boykin, and his small role in "The Nutcracker," here. * I had a blog post from yesterday's practice and did a live chat, the replay of which is available here.

Virginia Tech moved its practice out to the Saints' practice facility in nearby Metairie because the NFL was in action in the Superdome today. The only news that emerged was that nobody on the team missed curfew on New Year's Eve. "I'll tell you, our kids have been great," head coach Frank Beamer said. "Since the first night, everything has gone really well."