2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl - Va Tech vs. Tennessee

The CFN 2009 Chick-fil-A Bowl Preview - Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee

2009 Chick-Fil-A Bowl

Virginia Tech (9-3) vs. Tennessee (7-5)

Atlanta, GA, Dec. 31, 7:30 pm, ESPN

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Team Pages and 2009 Season
Tennessee | Virginia Tech 
 

- 2008 CFN Chick-fil-A Bowl Preview
- 2007 CFN Chick-fil-A Bowl Preview
- 2006 CFN Chick-fil-A Bowl Preview

National Rankings
T		VT
48th	Total Offense	55th
18th	Total Defense	14th
32nd	Scoring Offense	28th
26th	Scoring Defense	11th
43rd	Rushing Offense	15th
58th	Run Defense	52nd
47th	Passing Offense	98th
10th	Passing Defense	6th
41st	Turnover Margin	16th

Position Ratings relative to each other
T	5 highest 1 lowest	VT
3.5	Quarterbacks	4
4.5	RBs	5
3.5	Receivers	3
3	O Line	4
5	D Line	4
4	Linebackers	3
5	Secondary	4.5
4	Spec Teams	4.5
4	Coaching	4.5

Chick-fil-A Bowl History

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2008	LSU 38, Georgia Tech 3
2007	Auburn 23, Clemson 20 OT
2006	Georgia 31, Virginia Tech 24
2005	LSU 40, Miami 3
2004 (Dec.)	Miami 27, Florida 10
2004 (Jan.)	Clemson 27, Tennessee 14
2002	Maryland 30, Tennessee 3
2001	North Carolina 16, Auburn 10
2000	LSU 28, Georgia Tech 14
1999	Miss State 17, Clemson 7
1998 (Dec.)	Georgia 35, Virginia 33
1998 (Jan.)	Auburn 21, Clemson 17
1996	LSU 10, Clemson 7
1995 (Dec.)	Virginia 34, Georgia 27
1995 (Jan.)	NC State 28, Mississippi State 24
1993 (Dec.)	Clemson 14, Kentucky 13
1993 (Jan.)	North Carolina 21, Mississippi State 24
1992	East Carolina 37, NC State 34
1990	Auburn 27, Indiana 23
1989	Syracuse 19, Georgia 18
1988 (Dec.)	NC State 28, Iowa 23
1988 (Jan.)	Tennessee 27, Indiana 22
1986	Virginia Tech 25, NC State 24
1985	Army 31, Illinois 29
1984	Virginia 27, Purdue 24
1983	Florida State 28, North Carolina 3
1982	Iowa 28, Tennessee 22
1981 (Dec.)	West Virginia 26, Florida 6
1981 (Jan.)	Miami 20, Virginia Tech 10
1979	Baylor 24, Clemson 18
1978	Purdue 41, Georgia Tech 21
1977	NC State 24, Iowa State 14
1976	Kentucky 21, North Carolina 0
1975	West Virginia 13, NC State 10
1974	Texas Tech 6, Vanderbilt 6
1973	Georgia 17, Maryland 16
1972	NC State 49, West Virginia 13
1971	Mississippi 41, Georgia Tech 18
1970	Arizona State 48, North Carolina 26
1969	West Virginia 14, South Carolina 3
1968	LSU 31, Florida State 27

Alright, ACC, it’s time to show a little something.

The conference has been on the verge of doing big things ever since it raided the Big East for most of its best programs, but getting over the hump has been hard. Every time it seems like the basketball power league is about to make a big statement or a big move, something happens (like Georgia Tech and Clemson losing to mediocre Georgia and South Carolina teams, respectively) to bring everything back down with a crash. Virginia Tech has been one of the biggest problems.

When a league’s top team struggles in the big games, the entire conference gets a bad rap. Witness the punching bag that has become the Big Ten because of Ohio State’s recent woes in BCS games. It’s not like the Hokies have been bad, far from it, with four straight ten-win seasons and a chance for a fifth, but they’ve struggled in the really big bowl games, lost to Alabama to start this season (although it was a battle), and needed a near-miracle to get past Nebraska at home. Yeah, they beat Cincinnati in last year’s Orange Bowl to get over a big bowl slump, but that was greeted with a collective yawn. It was Cincinnati … whatever.

Beating Tennessee wouldn’t be like beating Florida or Alabama, but a loss would give more ammo to the SEC fans to use in the my-conference-is-better-than-your-conference debate. The Vols are average and certainly weren’t among the SEC’s elite, while it could be argued that Virginia Tech really is the ACC’s best teams. In the streakiest of bowls, the ACC won four straight in the early 1990s, the SEC won five straight from 1996 to 2000, the ACC got back on a roll with four straight wins, and now the SEC is currently holding a four-game winning streak including a Virginia Tech loss to Georgia in the 2006 game. But a Tennessee win would mean more than just keeping a good run alive; it would make the first year under Lane Kiffin a major success and could show just how strong the sleeping superpower might be.

Considering all the problems of the last few seasons and the mediocrity that set in, going 7-5 in a true rebuilding year isn’t bad. And the season was better than it might appear in the record books with a near-miss loss at Alabama, who needed two blocked field goals to save the dream season, a good fight in a 23-13 loss at Florida, and a four-point loss to Auburn. The home gack against UCLA can be chalked up to it being the second game of the season and the offense not quite knowing what it was doing, but there was a 42-17 blasting from Dexter McCluster and Ole Miss that wasn’t pretty.

Kiffin and his staff have been able to get the passing attack back on track, got a nice year out of the defense, a great year from the O line, and were able to pull off a blowout over Georgia and an overtime win over Kentucky on the way to seven wins. This isn’t a perfect team by any stretch, but it’s athletic, has strong potential, and has nothing to lose. This is gravy time in Tennessee; a win would the season on a high note while a loss wouldn’t be a shocker showing how the team needs to mature a bit more and needs to keep building. On the other side, a loss for Virginia Tech could be an indictment.

Virginia Tech might be the best team not in the BCS. The Hokies gave Bama all it could handle in the season opener, played in the Georgia Dome, lost the most important ACC game of the season at Georgia Tech in a 28-23 fight, and fumbled away a heartbreaking loss to North Carolina that should’ve gone the other way. The Hokies destroyed Miami, rallied to beat Nebraska, beat the eventual Conference USA champion, East Carolina, on the road without a problem, and ripped up Boston College. If Virginia Tech can’t beat Tennessee, or a mid-range SEC team, this year, when will it?

The Chick-fil-A, a.k.a. the Peach, has a recent history of being a total and complete dud, with five of the last seven games being decided by 13 points or more with three total annihilations including last year’s 38-3 LSU win over Georgia Tech, 2005’s 40-3 LSU win over Miami, and 2002’s 30-3 Maryland win over Tennessee. If this is going to be a blowout it’ll likely be a Virginia Tech romp, but Tennessee under Kiffin has turned into a wild-card. It’s the last college football game of 2009 and caps off a big day of games. It might not turn out to be the best of the lot, but it’ll be a game that’ll be talked about throughout the offseason no matter what happens.

Players to Watch: Why wasn’t Ryan Williams in the Heisman race? The Hokie freshman had to do more to carry his team than Mark Ingram did, he outgained the Heisman winner 128 yards per game to 119 and 19 touchdowns to 15, and he only ran for four fewer yards despite playing one fewer game. When 2008 star, Darren Evans, went down for the year with a knee injury in a preseason practice, Williams quickly took over with two touchdowns against Alabama and a run of nine 100-yard games in 11. More than the consistency, he got better as the year went on finishing off with four touchdown against NC State and 183 yards and four scores against Virginia. While he’s not nearly as fast as Mississippi’s Dexter McCluster, he’s the type of speedy, quick-cutting back who gives the Vols fits. Tech will mix up its running formations, but it’ll be Williams who’s the focal point of the attack no matter what.

Needing to be a key run-stopper when Williams finds the crease, and needing to be a spy on whatever Tech QB Tyrod Taylor is doing will be Eric Berry, the Thorpe Award winner and one of the best safeties in college football this decade. Taylor has to know where he is at all times and has to throw to whatever area he’s not in. Berry isn’t just a master of baiting quarterbacks into ill-timed throws; he’s also fantastic with the ball in his hands and a threat to take any interception all the way. But in this game, his main job will be to keep Williams and Taylor from making good runs into great runs. Tennessee will take its chances against Taylor’s arm and the Tech passing game, but it’s going to sell out against the run and that means Berry will have to be one of the game’s most productive playmakers.

Offensively for the Vols, everything revolves around the type of game that senior Montario Hardesty can come up with. QB Jonathan Crompton turned in a good year and stopped making a slew of mistakes, but that was partly because Hardesty carried the workload of the offensive production. Extremely quietly, considering Ingram won the Heisman, Hardesty came up with a terrific 1,306-yard, 12-touchdown season and took on even more work over the final two games carrying the ball 32 times for 171 yards and a score against Vanderbilt and 39 times for 179 yards and three touchdowns in the key regular-season finale against Kentucky. There might not be a lot of flash and dash in Hardesty’s runs in this game, but he has the potential to plow his way to a big game to keep the chains moving and give Crompton more opportunity to work. That’s why …

Virginia Tech will win if ... it’s able to keep Hardesty to well under 100 yards. Hardesty ran for just 60 yards against Memphis, but that’s because he wasn’t needed much in the easy win, and let’s not count the 97-yard day in the blowout over Georgia; he would’ve hit the 100-yard mark if needed. Tennessee is 5-0 this year when Hardesty runs for 100 yards or more and 2-5 when he’s under. Florida kept him to 96 yards, and the game was close, but Ole Miss only gave up 55 yards as Tennessee had to start throwing after getting blown out. Virginia Tech has a very nice, very unappreciated set of linebackers that need to focus fully on stopping Hardesty early. That’s easier said than done against a good Tennessee line that will pound away with its big line, but if the Hokie run defense that has had problems at times can make Tennessee start throwing, that plays into the hands of a good secondary that should be able to hold its own against the Vol receiving corps.

Tennessee will win if ... this game becomes all about Tyrod Taylor. Williams has yet to be shut down cold by anyone, but with a few weeks to prepare and a tremendous coaching staff that will be able to find the weakness to attack, expect the Vols to bring everyone and Smokey to focus on Williams and keeping him from coming up with a big game. That’s easier said than done, everyone tries to do that, but Tennessee has the defensive tackles to stuff everything inside and the linebackers to keep the big runs to a minimum. Taylor has become a more-than-competent passer and he has shown a flair for dramatic. When forced to throw, he has come through time and again this year with 268 yards and three scores against Maryland, 327 yards and two touchdowns against Duke, and on the year throwing 13 touchdown passes with just four interceptions. However, the Tennessee secondary is far better than the Virginia Tech receiving corps and will win the game if this comes down to the Hokie passing game vs. a pass defense that’s eighth in the nation in pass efficiency D and tenth in yards allowed. The key to all of this is Dan Williams, the fantastic Tennessee defensive tackle. If he’s having a big game, everything else will fall into place.

What will happen: Chalk this one up for the Tennessee assistant coaches. Virginia Tech isn’t as one-dimensional offensively as it might appear and is even more balanced stat-wise than Tennessee, but it can’t win this game if it doesn’t run well. Crompton isn’t Peyton Manning, but if given time he’ll carve up a Virginia Tech secondary that faced three quarterbacks who can throw (Duke’s Thaddeus Lewis, NC State’s Russell Wilson, and Miami’s Jacory Harris) and had problems with two of them (Lewis and Wilson). Crompton won’t put up big numbers, but he’ll have an efficient day and will end up winning the MVP honors, while the Vol coaching staff will have drilled into the linebackers the importance of reading Williams’ cutbacks.

CFN Prediction: Tennessee 23 … Virginia Tech 17 ... Line: Virginia Tech -5

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Best Hokie Bowl Moment: Meeting Florida State for the national championship in the 2000 Sugar Bowl was quite an accomplishment, but whooping a one-loss Texas team in the 1995 game was even better. Led by big plays from receiver Bryan Still and an attacking defense, the Big East champs won their tenth straight game, earning a second helping of national respect.

Best Volunteer Bowl Moment: UT’s postseason resume is comprised of 30 New Year’s Day bowl games, including seven Sugar Bowls, six Cotton Bowls, four Orange Bowls, three Fiesta Bowls, and two Rose Bowls. Your dad and granddad might disagree, but none was more significant than the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, which guaranteed the Vols their second national championship. Big days from Tee Martin and Peerless Price catapulted Tennessee to a 23-16 win over Florida State in the maiden BCS championship game.

Virginia Tech Bowl History (8-14)

2009	Orange	Virginia Tech 20, Cincinnati 7
2007	Orange	Kansas 24, Virginia Tech 21
2006	Chick-fil-A	Georgia 31, Virginia Tech 24
2005	Gator	Virginia Tech 35, Louisville 24
2004	Sugar	Auburn 16, Virginia Tech 13
2003	Insight	California 52, Virginia Tech 49
2002	San Francisco	Virginia Tech 20, Air Force 13
2001	Gator	Florida State 30, Virginia Tech 17
2000	Gator	Virginia Tech 41, Clemson 20
1999	Sugar	Florida State 46, Virginia Tech 29
1998	Music City	Virginia Tech 38, Alabama 17
1997	Gator	North Carolina 42, Virginia Tech 3
1996	Orange	Nebraska 41, Virginia Tech 21
1995	Sugar	Virginia Tech 28, Texas 10
1994	Gator	Tennessee 45, Virginia Tech 23
1993	Independence	Virginia Tech 45, Indiana 20
1986	Peach	Virginia Tech 25, N.C. State 24
1984	Independence	Air Force 23, Virginia Tech 7
1981	Peach	Miami 20, Virginia Tech 10
1968	Liberty	Ole Miss 34, Virginia Tech 17
1966	Liberty	Miami 14, Virginia Tech 7
1946	Sun	Cincinnati 18, Virginia Tech 6

Tennessee Bowl History (25-22)

2008	Outback	Tennessee 21, Wisconsin 17
2007	Outback	Penn St 20, Tennessee 10
2005	Cotton	Tennessee 38, Texas A&M 7
2003	Peach	Clemson 27, Tennessee 14
2002	Peach	Maryland 30, Tennessee 3
2001	Citrus	Tennessee 45, Michigan 17
2000	Cotton	Kansas St 35, Tennessee 21
1999	Fiesta	Nebraska 31, Tennessee 21
1998	Fiesta	Tennessee 23, Florida St 16
1997	Orange	Nebraska 42, Tennessee 17
1996	Citrus	Tennessee 48, Northwestern 28
1995	Citrus	Tennessee 20, Ohio St 14
1994	Gator	Tennessee 45, Virginia Tech 23
1993	Citrus	Penn State 31, Tennessee 13
1992	Hall of Fame	Tennessee 38, Boston College 23
1991	Fiesta	Penn State 42, Tennessee 17
1990	Sugar	Tennessee 23, Virginia 22
1989	Cotton	Tennessee 31, Arkansas 27
1988	Peach	Tennessee 27, Indiana 22
1986	Liberty	Tennessee 21, Minnesota 14
1985	Sugar	Tennessee 35, Miami 7
1984	Sun	Maryland 27, Tennessee 26
1983	Citrus	Tennessee 30, Maryland 23
1982	Peach	Iowa 28, Tennessee 22
1981	Garden State	Tennessee 28, Wisconsin 21
1979	Bluebonnet	Purdue 27, Tennessee 22
1974	Liberty	Tennessee 7, Maryland 3
1973	Gator	Texas Tech 28, Tennessee 19
1972	Bluebonnet	Tennessee 24, LSU 17
1971	Liberty	Tennessee 14, Arkansas 13
1970	Sugar	Tennessee 34, Air Force 13
1969	Gator	Florida 14, Tennessee 13
1968	Cotton	Texas 36, Tennessee 13
1967	Orange	Oklahoma 26, Tennessee 24
1966	Gator	Tennessee 18, Syracuse 12
1965	Bluebonnet	Tennessee 27, Tulsa 6
1957	Gator	Tennessee 3, Texas A&M 0
1956	Sugar	Baylor 13, Tennessee 7
1952	Cotton	Texas 16, Tennessee 0
1951	Sugar	Maryland 28, Tennessee 13
1950	Cotton	Tennessee 20, Texas 14
1946	Orange	Rice 8, Tennessee 0
1944	Rose	USC 25, Tennessee 0
1942	Sugar	Tennessee 14, Tulsa 7
1940	Sugar	Boston College 19, Tennessee 13
1939	Rose	USC 14, Tennessee 0
1938	Orange	Tennessee, 17, Oklahoma 0