College football: Week 2 running thread

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/73671/is-old-dominions-taylor-heinicke-the-best-quarterback-in-virginia

Hard to say he isn't at this point.

 

Stay classy. Or classless.

 

My brother-in-law is a high school coach and they had field turf installed.

The school is a smaller one, about 350 students 9-12, but the district did the math.

Field turf installation runs about $600,000 and the field lasts for about 10 years.

Half that cost is preparing the ground and the rest is for the carpet.

A local construction company donated the dirt work, so the district's cost was $300,000 but even with that maintaining a grass field, for 10 years, costs way more. I think his district calculated that it was about $100,000 a year to keep it up.

So you can spend a million bucks, or $600,000 plus you get tons of good press for installing field turf.

Easy choice.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing what color her turf is.

 

I'm not saying he's not, but the 2012 rankings of the passing defense each QB faced are also relevant:

11. Alabama (VT's opponent)
12. BYU (UVa's opponent)
109. ECU (ODU's opponent)

And here's a picture of David Watford during the UVa-BYU game. He was shitty, but there are non-football-related things in this picture that could lead to shitty offensive stats:

 

You can also play soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, etc., on it without destroying it. Field turf is the Cafetorium of the 21st century.

 

HCC is one of my alma maters, so go Blue Dragons. When I was going there Shaun Hill was the quarterback and the entire defense signed with FCS schools, a few did pretty damn well in the Big 12, yet they were only a middle of the pack Jayhawk Conference team.

 

The extra cost of grass is worth it if you don't have a ton of traffic on the field. The best playing surface is a well-manicured grass field. That's why all the SEC powers have it and why most outdoor NFL teams have gone back to it.

I count 18 of 25 outdoor NFL stadiums on grass now and most of the ones that are not are in cold-weather climates where the concern is most likely field conditions in December and during playoff time.

I'd get an artificial surface if I was in New England for that reason. But not Houston or Miami. That's for sure.

One of my local schools argued for turf. The coach insisted on keeping grass. For years, he spent time out of every day working on "my field." He said it was therapeutic for him to be out there, alone, fertilizing, killing weeds, mowing or whatever. He said he saved the school a bunch of money doing it himself and you'd swear they had a top-of-the-line landscaping company working on it.

 

Damn, I'm old moment: In my early years here, I covered Hill in a games in which he played for Parsons High School and games in which he played for Hutchinson.

Hutch won the 1998 game in which he was 17 of 30 for 217 yards, 3 TD, 2 picks.

The 1999 game had Hill vs. Bob Pesavento, who went on to play at Colorado. Pesavento was 21 of 37 for 300 yards, 1 TD. Hill was 7 of 17 for 191 and 2 TD. Hutch won by three.

 

Yeah. And Thomas didn't have as bad a game as his stats suggest. But that's still a fair question, whether or not the ODU kid is the best QB in the state. For shits and giggles, anyway.

Good luck tomorrow. How long before the superdouche U.Va. fans start walking back to the parking lots? Halftime? ;D

 

Hey, that's longer than the superdouche you're talking to lasted at last week's game! (Of course, that was because they kicked everyone out of the stadium.)

It is a fair, interesting (to me and you, at least) question. Heinecke is legit. He also has barely played anyone in his career. Thomas, despite his bizarre regression, has done well against top competition. Hell, Mike Rocco (still a QB at a Virginia school!) won at Florida State. And Watford was making his first career start last week. I'm not ready to crown Heinecke based on some good stats in a video-game offense against FCS schools and one good game against East Carolina.

I'm also admittedly biased based on seeing the byline. Ian Cohen is a UVa graduate who seems to hate the school. He once claimed that Virginia fans were longing for the days of Al Groh. It would take a winless season for this UVa fan to long for Al Groh. Al Groh had a couple of good years, got the job when Jerry Sandusky was rumored to be the favorite and sired the quarterback who won the biggest game in school history. And he convinced a large portion of the fan base to stop wearing ties to games. That's the sum total of his positive contributions to the school.

 

Also, we'll have a chance to do a direct comparison between Thomas and Heinecke - the Hokies play ECU this year. (They also play Western Carolina. North Carolina Central must have asked for too much money.)