It’s a rare thing when the head football coach of a major Division I college program gets hands-on with his players. Most stay on the sidelines, oversee their assistants and rarely get involved in teaching the fundamentals to their players.
For Frank Beamer, head coach of the No. 5 Virginia Tech Hokies, coaching is a different story. Beamer took over the coaching reigns of his alma mater in 1987. After Florida State’s Deion Sanders tore the Hokie special teams apart in 1990, Beamer took on a renewed focus and interest in the rarely honed part of the sport.
For most schools, special teams is a place for walk-ons and inexperienced players. For Beamer it is much more; it’s a way to get a leg up on the competition.
In Beamer’s 192 games as head coach, the Hokies have blocked 52 punts, 25 field goals and 21 extra points. The special teams and defense have combined for 81 touchdowns in Beamer’s era. The Hokies are 42-6 in games in which they score a touchdown on defense or special teams.
This weekend was no different as Virginia Tech returned an interception, a kickoff and a blocked punt for touchdowns in defeating Connecticut last Saturday.
“I was pleased overall with the different ways we scored. I think we showed different potential for this football team,” Beamer said. “But we didn’t get off the field a couple times there late.”
Even in games where the Hokie offense hasn’t been able to get up to par, Virginia’s special teams and defense-oriented football has been affectionately named “Beamerball.”
During every practice Beamer takes on the special teams coaching duties. For 10 minutes a session, Beamer organizes his unit, comprised of many starters, and breaks down the opposition: what guard has a bad knee, what kicker is a tad too slow with his delivery and what opposing return specialist to key in on.
It’s all in the preparation, and Beamer pays as much attention to scouting the opposition’s special-teams unit as he does the rest of the team.
It’s this kind of preparation that has kept Virginia Tech in the top 25 for the last 75 weeks, while qualifying for 10-straight bowl games.
The Hokies made their mark in the collective consciousness of college-football fans back in 1999, when electric redshirt freshman Michael Vick, along with an outstandingly athletic defense, guided the Hokies to the national championship game, where they fell to the Florida State Seminoles.
The next season Vick was injured and key losses on defense prevented Virginia Tech from reaching those heights again. Vick went pro a year later, and the Hokies have brought in a bevy of top recruits from the athletic hotbed that is the tidewater region in Virginia, while pulling players from areas that were once strongholds for programs like Penn State and the Florida schools.
One major component, and a recruit the Hokies took from Joe Paterno’s back yard, is junior tailback Kevin Jones. The 6-foot-1, 210-pound rusher has climbed to the top of many pundits’ Heisman lists with his impressive performances this season. Jones ran for 871 yards as a sophomore, despite being beleaguered with a hamstring injury and splitting time with stud tailback Lee Suggs. Jones has rushed for 433 yards and six touchdowns in 2003, and as the Texas A&M Aggie defense found out two weeks ago, it is nearly impossible to knock Jones down, as the tailback recorded 188 yards and three touchdowns on 30 carries.
Under center for the Hokies is junior Bryan Randall. Randall started 12 games last season, completing 64 percent of his passes for 1012 yards, but threw only 12 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. This season Randall has been much more composed, completing two-thirds of his passes while only committing one turnover to five touchdown passes.
Defensively, the Hokies are again highlighted with speed. The front four are a bit undersized but experienced. It is the defensive backfield, however, that is the standout unit. Michael Crawford, Eric Green, Jimmy Williams and DeAngelo Hall are as talented as any in the country, and Hall’s remarkable 40-speed time of 4.15 makes him one of the deadliest punt-returners in college football.
All four of these starters see significant time on special teams, with some as specialists and the others as gunners and blockers in Beamer’s block-and-return schemes.
As the Big East season opens, Frank Beamer has his most well-rounded team since the 1999 berth in the national championship contest. For the rest of the conference, it’s an unpleasant reminder that “Beamerball” has recorded at least three blocked kicks against every team since 1991, including 10 against Pittsburgh, five against this weekend’s opponent Rutgers, and eight against rival Miami.
Virginia Tech hosts Miami Nov. 1, in a game that could ultimately decide who attends the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans for the national championship. In the meantime, Beamer will be out high atop the practice fields in Blacksburg, getting hands-on and creating that upper hand.
