Lane Stadium: The First Game

On October 2, 1965 Virginia Tech opened the still unfinished Lane Stadium with a 9-7 win over William & Mary.

The stadium has changed a great deal in the 45 years since. Tech has added nearly 24,000 seats over the initial capacity of 40,000 and it's without a doubt one of the top facilities in the nation.

While I fully intend to detail the stadium's history in the future, today's post was spurred on by a recent video released by the university showing footage of that very first game.

Also of note, three stadiums to my knowledge used the same initial blueprints; Lane Stadium, Grove Stadium at Wake Forest and Memorial Stadium at the University of Indiana.

Each facility has changed in it's own way over the years, Lane most noticeably, but you can tell they all started out the same. I've included an older Lane photo for comparison.

Mediocrity: It Groh's On You

So I had to post this after seeing it just now. This is a great UVA "highlight" video from their opening losses to TCU and William & Mary (Go Tribe!). As my good friend Eric pointed out, after four years at Virginia Tech and this being his first semester at William & Mary Law School, his school has still never lost to UVA in football.

Thanks so much Al Groh. You're the best.

College Football Weekend Recap

Well, my picks weren't quite as successful as I might have hoped, but I was almost spot on. My record ended at 4-3 with the losses coming by a combined 19 points (14 by Oklahoma over UGA). Not bad considering I didn't expect Sam Bradford to blow up his throwing shoulder or for Georgia to march down the field for 7 points on their opening drive in Stillwater and then score just a field goal the rest of the game.

Brian is 2-0 and I'm 1-1 in our combined Virginia Tech/Notre Dame season predictions. We both had ND over Nevada (which was a laugher of a game I barely watched) and I had the Hokies over Alabama which turned out to be a great game but of course the Hokies fell short.

In unrelated but awesome news, William & Mary defeated Virginia in Charlottesville 26-14 Saturday. The Cavaliers turned the ball over 7 times while debuting their new spread offense. I almost picked this upset not because I thought it would happen, but because I knew it would be hilarious. Turns out I was only half right.