Tonight in Miami, the #11 Viriginia Tech Hokies meet the #5 Stanford Cardinal in the Orange Bowl, a game that is not played in the Orange Bowl. The game will be played in Sun Life Stadium, an edifice formerly known as
- Joe Robbie Stadium (1987–1996)
- Pro Player Park (1996)
- Pro Player Stadium (1996–2005)
- Dolphins Stadium (2005–2006)
- Dolphin Stadium (2006–2009)
- Land Shark Stadium (2009–2010) and (take a breath)
Sun Life Stadium (this week, at least)
Now, on with the show.
VaTech comes in to this game at 11-2. They lost their first two game of the year and haven't been headed since, 11 in a row. It's the Hokies' 18th consecutive bowl appearance.
Curious stat: VaTech is 1-26 all time against top 5 teams.
Stanford is 11-1, with 7 consecutive wins. QB Andrew Luck, a junior, is going first round in the NFL. Coach Jim Harbaugh could be heading back east to take over at his alma mater in Ann Arbor, though the thought of leaving northern California for the upper midwest makes me question his sanity. There is a pro coaching job open that is very close to home, succeeding Mike Singletary with the 49ers.
Curious stat #2: Stanford hasn't won a bowl game since 1996.
There's a boatload of numbers to crunch for this one, and I have done so, resulting in the dreaded "paralysis by analysis". Both teams were 4-1 ATS at the end of the season. The difference was that Stanford tended to beat the spread by a lot.
Stanford -3 1/2.
Oh, yeah, what's a Hokie? In 1896 the school renamed itself Virgina Polytechnic Institute and sponsored a contest to come up with a new cheer. Since this was in the days before Sports Center, HD and 3D, Youtube...gawd, this was before radio, I guess that coming up with a new cheer was a big deal, worthy of a contest. The winning cheer incorporated the word Hokie. The writer said it was a word that he made up, just for his dandy little winning cheer, and the rest is history.
I wonder what they came up with for the cheers that didn't win.
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