Flash back five weeks to a rain-soaked Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va., with a hostile crowd bearing down on Boston College as the Eagles struggled for 56 minutes against an equally hostile Hokie defense.
Flash forward to sunny, 70 degree Jacksonville, Fla., and neutral Jacksonville Memorial Stadium, and it's clear the ACC championship is a totally different game than the one that ended with a miraculous four-minute BC comeback in October.
The weather may be the most striking difference between the two games, but it certainly isn't the only thing different about tomorrow's 1 p.m. match-up between No. 6 Virginia Tech and No. 12 BC.
To start, national championship hopes aren't on the line for either team this time - though a berth in the Orange Bowl is. It would be BC's first-ever BCS bowl bid, and its first trip to the Orange Bowl since a 37-21 loss to Alabama in 1943.
On the field, the biggest change will be Virginia Tech's addition of lightning-quick freshman quarterback Tyrod Taylor in a quarterback-by-committee system with starter Sean Glennon. Taylor, who was injured for the first meeting of the two teams, reminds BC coach Jeff Jagodzinski of former Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick - who torched BC in 2000 with 210 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground.
"One guy's a thrower and one guy's a runner, so we're going to have to do a good job containing both of those guys because they present different types of challenges for our defense," Jagodzinski said. Taylor is the first true scrambling quarterback the BC defense has faced this year.
While BC's second-ranked run defense will be charged with stopping Taylor and the ACC's third-best rusher, Brandon Ore, the BC secondary may be without its star for the third-straight game. Senior cornerback Dejuan Tribble did not participate in the team's stadium walkthrough and his playing will be a game-time decision, Jagodzinski said.
Both coaches admitted that weather played a factor in the first match-up between the teams, and that sunny days played better in BC's pass-oriented attack. Before piling up 167 yards in his final two touchdown drives, BC quarterback Matt Ryan had thrown for just 128 yards in the rain-soaked conditions. Better weather is certainly welcome news for Ryan, who has put up over 300 yards passing in each of BC's past four games.
2008 Woodie Awards
