So let's keep it real.....

…that our concerns are, “Who will step up on DL?” or “Who will be the stud WR?”

not

“Will we be able to run the football?” or “Do we have a legit starting QB?”

The first two questions may cost us a few games. The second questions would cost us a season.

I have every confidence that with CAG running the D, CPJ can focus on bewildering the other team’s D (and Coaching staff) with the key to HIS system – misdirection, taking the ball where you ain’t, scratching a play into the grass on the sideline (go 20 yards, and post when you pass the Old Gold Ford).

Talking to diehard UVA fans, they know that CAG was getting a little tired having to run EVERYTHING, and he has nothing to prove to anyone at any level, so he will take the D well in hand. If I DON’T see the nadlickers run it down out throat the first series in Athens, the change will be platinum.

In December, 2007, at the bottom of the CCG era how would you have responded to a fan who told you that by 2010 the Jackets:

Would beat Clemson twice in a Season

Win an outright ACC Championship

Play in a BCS Bowl

Have a coach win consecutive “Coach of the Year” awards in the ACC (and give all the credit to his assistants in a “Dodd-esque” manner")

Beat the #4 Team in the country and tear down the Goal Posts

Be EXCITING EVERY WEEK

Be COMPETITIVE EVERY SERIES

Go for 4th Downs with every confidence of making yardage

Running a “High School/Veer/Single Wing/Option” Offense and baffle cameramen across the country.

Have RBJD win ACC Player of the Year

2 studs go Pro in the First Round (well CCG could do that with his system and recruiting)

You would have called me crazy. Having gotten a little of the CPJ mojo by being around him, he will find a way to win. Except for LSU and IOWA, we have been in every game, every series, through injuries, a Defense that couldn’t match the Offense’s firepower, and a system that the pundits dismiss as High School.

We will have injuries, we will have guys not quite step up to their highest potential (and I don’t believe I’d want to endure a CPJ/CAG stare down if I wasn’t giving the Old Skool Football 110%), but we will BE THERE. We will BE EXCITING. We will BE COMPETITIVE.

Maybe I am a little short sited. I was a youngster at the end of the Dodd era, I lived through the darkest days of almost shutting the program down (MIT, CalTech style), rats in the weight room(?) under the stand, facilities that were scary bad, Pepper, the Eddie MacAshan controversy, Eddie Lee Ivery running over Air Force, being an Independent, losing to Furman, going 1-10 my Freshman year.

If I am short sited, then I confess that I believe GT is at the beginning of a new Golden Age. Yep, I’m talking about people 100 years from now talking about this era along with Heisman, Alexander, and Dodd, Rose Bowl, 1952, Young Left Hander, Al Ciraldo, Marilyn Monroe pin ups, 1990.

So if I’m upset about losing to the nadlickers last year, and two pretty bad Bowl games, they are bumps in the road for a school with a small budget in a world of ’Bama, UF, and UT running $100 million for football.

I’ll take this new Golden Era, revel in it, and pass it down to my children.

AND NOW WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE KICK THE DAMN BALL. THIS WAITING IN THE HEAT IS KILLING ME.