Tank Bus Goes Snowboarding

Not even a dead battery, various squatting squirrels and an exhaust pipe that, well, doesn't exhaust could stop TB from taking an intrepid group of riders to the slopes of white tail. Also we received a notice from one of the persons on this trip that the site hadn't been updated in about two years. So in conclusion: bam, updated.

Tank Bus Mail Bag

From time to time The Tank Bus Mail Bag gets an email worth posting. This is a good one from a true and enlightened fan. Enjoy.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Johnny Tech Fan (real name removed to protect the innocent) and I’m going to party my face off this weekend. I have had a busy week of work and I took last weekend off from the college-juice to recuperate from the storm I drank in for 12 hours in order to beat Miami.

I am signing myself up for that same week of hell in order to beat Boston College. It’s up to me. We all saw the Duke game and how VT plays when I’m not there borderline blacking out while cursing the other team’s mascot to hell. For this, I apologize. I honestly had no idea how directly my blood-alcohol-content influences Hokie points on the scoreboard. Now I know. I will never make that mistake again.

I plan on drinking bourbon again because it worked remarkably well against Miami. So join me, won’t you? It is shaping up to be a magical weekend in Blacksburg, courtesy of the Tankbus.

See you all around 5:30 pm (eastern standard time) tomorrow.

Love,

JTF

Summer Work

The Tank Bus crew has been hard at work in the off season. The interior is getting refurbished Hokie Style. After last season's jug issues it became obvious that we needed a toilet. So we bought one. And installed it. We also installed a new grill. Then we took it to Dewey beach and it all worked. Some pics of the work.

My boy Scro' drops some knowledge on Bama

Check the parts from the artilcle from Will "Nostradamus" Stewart in 1998. Interesting in a variety of ways, considering what was on the horizon for the hokies (ryan williams enrolling as a freshman), and the current state of the program:

On the Offense:

"As we have seen more than once this year, the Hokie D and special teams blasted out of the gate, only to see the offense squander opportunities to score, keeping a potential blowout tight."

Hello 2007 and 2008.

On Beamerball at its best:

"In all, the Hokies scored four TD's in 16 and a half minutes. It was an avalanche of points that saw the offense start "drives" at Alabama's 2 yard line, 32 yard line, and 20 yard line. With a short porch like that, even a struggling offense can put up points, and the Hokies did it, burying the Tide under a flood of touchdowns that left them shell-shocked and beaten.

"Beamer-ball," a deadly combination of defense and special teams, was alive and well, and the Hokies had Tech's third win in their last six bowls."

Awesome, just awesome. I hope we get back to avalanches of points this year.

On bowl preparation:

"In the days leading up to the game, I was struck by how relaxed the Tech players and coaches were. Frank Beamer, normally not a big jokester, kept mentioning his quest to find Shania Twain in Nashville, and in one clip shown on the Roanoke TV stations, the Tech players were fooling around playing leapfrog on the Vanderbilt Stadium turf after a practice was canceled due to ice.

That kind of behavior can point to one of two things:

1. Tech was focused, relaxed, and confident of an upcoming victory; or
2. Tech had read too many positive press clippings and was about to get steamrolled. "

Yeah, and we lost to effing Kansas.

On Bowl Woes:

"2.) Tech got a bowl win that was almost a necessity. Having lost 2 of 3 games going into the bowl, the last thing the Hokies needed was to drop their third game out of four, and to lose their third bowl in a row.

I think it's reasonable to expect your team to win 50% of its bowl games, and since the Hokies started going bowling in 1993, they're exactly at that percentage, going 3-3. If you start to lose more than 50% of your bowl games, then the whispers start, and if, God forbid, you start stringing together multiple bowl losses, the whispers become shouts, repeated like a mantra by any media source that covers your bowl games."

Yeah, remember when we lost to effing Kansas?

On Lee Corso:

"In my game preview, I expressed concern over the fact that every expert, with the exception of ESPN's Lee Corso (who is a circus clown, not a college football expert), was picking the Hokies to win, hands down"

"Lee Corso in particular can't seem to get over the hump and pick Tech to beat a big-name team. He's completely comfortable predicting Hokie wins against the likes of ECU, but when Tech comes up against a team like Alabama or Texas, Lee immediately picks us to lose.

He'll never change, but each time we do something like this, I think the rest of the media - the ones who actually think and analyze things - take notice."

Interesting. Less than a year later, as freshmen, we were holding up a sheet in the that said "WE HEART CORSO" in the West Stands (thursday night clemson game i think). We got the word to Mrs. Beamer that we were there, who told Corso where the sign was going to be, and she said that he saw it!! I also recall seeing at sign at one of the gameday's that year "Corso is God and we are his followers." And not to mention the whole GT lightning game. Corso found the Hokie band wagon, and I think we were pretty good to him.

On the Qb of the future:

"Now it's time to let the next generation quarterback, be it Michael Vick, Grant Noel, or maybe even dark horse Dave Meyer, strap it on. Bolstered by great defense and special teams, next year's QB gets to start off with plenty of support, and when he makes a few mistakes along the way, hopefully it won't kill us.

Just one question: can we start tomorrow?"

Yeah, lets just pick one of those names out of a hat and play some beamerball....

On the future:

"Next year is the beginning of the rest of the Hokie football team's life.

Beginning next year, three years of bumper crops of Tech recruits, headlined by a 1998 class packed with high school All-Americans, are expected to lead the Hokies back to the Alliance Bowl promised land, or more accurately, the "BCS Bowl" promised land.

There are serious road blocks along the way. The Hokies' offensive line still isn't nearly up to snuff, and it will take one or two more years to even hope to return it to the levels it achieved in 1995 and 1996.

The defensive backfield will be decimated by graduation. The Hokies have talented players waiting to step up, but they'll be inexperienced.

And the Miami Hurricanes loom as a formidable opponent for years to come. Wait till you see their quarterback of the future, Kenny Kelly. He's awesome.

Other than offensive line and defensive backs, the Hokies 1999 cupboard will be full. In the Big East title hunt, Tech has home games with Syracuse and Miami, and a road game with a West Virginia team that will be seriously depleted on the offensive and defensive lines.

The future - the immediate future - looks bright indeed, and a big bowl victory over Alabama provides the perfect bridge between now and the seasons to come.

FULL SPEED AHEAD (except for OLING)....anyway....I know whats going to happen!!! Is it just me, or would we be freaking out at bringing in a QB with no experience? The fanbase would be these days. Also, Kenny Kelly?? Ha...how many games did he start against tech? I can't remember if he was any good, but I know he never beat us. Maybe foreshadowing for Jacory Harris....yet another talented miami QB prospect? Of course he already beat us, but i can't remember if he started.

Its a Tank Bus Christmas Miracle

Better late than never this post comes after a long and pleasant Winter break. The owners were busy traveling and evaluating the program after a real time, bona fide, totally legit BCS bowl win over Big Easy Conference winner Cincy. Although Tank Bus did not make it to Miami for the game Hokie Nation's favorite RV was not forgotten. Turns out Tank Bus was near the top of many of our friend's Christmas lists. Among the favorites was an awesome VT floor mat, new flag pole, and sick Gobbler flag but the most creative has to be a miniature Tank Bus Ornament from the Weber's aka Sadie's owners. Its probably the most adorable thing I've ever laid eyes on and the rest of the crew agreed. Its going to live in the bus for as long as have it. The picture below doesn't do it justice. Stop by your next Tank Bus Tailgate (VT MD Bball, spring game!) to take a closer look.

My boy Scro' weighs in on the State of the Program

On PSU/Newsome:

yeah, psu is going to be a lot worse off with newsome starting than devlin... but that doesn't really matter cause the big10 is a nonfactor in college football, and psu is a nonfactor in the big10. twice a decade michigan is down and they catch tosu sleeping and they grab a title, but come on... the talent gap between the big 2 and psu is big and getting bigger. evidenced by the fact michigan got newsome when they were offering qb, but when he saw they brought in two other qbs that were better than him (also interesting, the two they brought in after newsome apparently not scared of position competition in bigtime college football (what a novel idea)) he realized he would be a safety there and decided maybe psu would be his spot. or the fact that tosu is going to get the guy everyone likes better than newsome (boyd)... only to have him cut pryor's grass for 3 years, then eventually signal in plays to everett golson his last year. yeah, psu is not doing great....

On the VT QB Situation going forward:

what was the reasoning on not greyshirting juju?? i wish marcus davis hadn't hurt his shoulder just so we would know what we have... but then again he would prolly be playing receiver if he hadn't so, nevermind. i like him. i doubt he is scared of a little competition... since he was basically ready to walk-on at florida over taking a full ride to us, tenn, or psu. newsome is trying to get to the pros he would have been even worse than mv2 about waiting to throw instead of running…and he cant throw like mv2 or tyrod. marcus davis is like some sort of wild animal and his instincts tell him to run. he has no interest in throwing the ball until you make him throw it. maybe when he stops getting a first down every time he takes off he will try to throw the ball. reading defenses?? are you kidding me?? that is for suckas and white dudes. you think mv1 ever read a defense?? if marcus decides he wants to throw the ball he is prolly just chunking it deep to whoever our fastest receiver is (roberts or coles??) if they have a safety way back or are doubling the dude he wants to go to he'll just dump it off to evans or ryan williams, and then scream at them if they don't take it to the house. besides, after seeing the horrific footage that was banned from ever being shown on television again of his hit on vic hall after he had the audacity to pick off davis... well lets just say no defender will ever be making that mistake again. offense is easy when you are physically superior to everyone trying to stop you.

On Tyrod:

by the way, i wouldn't worry too much about the next two years cause i have it from a good source that tyrod is pretty much gonna go through the same transformation this offseason that colt mccoy did last offseason. tyrod is gonna go all colt mccoy on the acc next year.

Another Typical MD beatdown

The Maryland tailgate started out a little rough with spicer deciding that rvs and buses did not deserve the same liberties as other vehicles and would not be allowed to park until three hours before game time. So the first few hours of the tailgate were without the bus which was, as expected, insufferable… I don't know how we used to tailgate without this thing. But eventually the bus was allowed in and things ramped up quick. We had a few oldheads show up, a few faces get painted, and a pretty solid tailgate which obviously carried over to the football field as Darren Evans pummeled Maryland. The postgame tailgate set a new precedent for recklessness with several dustups resulting in a few dicey moments with the fire, a tank bus owner being put on light-duty, and pretty much continued from after the game, through the night, all the way home, culminating on Friday evening with several people going home painted as kitties. All in all, it was a solid W in the parking lot and on the field.

This is where things started getting a bit reckless. At least the fire is still contained in the fire pit bowl at this point. That sort of creature comfort wouldn't last long. We have narrowed the root cause for all this to the rapid consumption of many delicious and amazing warm apple cider and captain morgan drinks. Our unofficial tailgating RV lot parents Ed and Lisa (proud owners of Sadie) were responsible for providing the beverage so the Tank Bus safely and confidently assumed that what happened afterwards was completely acceptable