By Jimmy Robertson
BLACKSBURG – Bud Foster once called a football game a "four-hour stomachache" for a coach.
Well, now he's in the throes of a weeklong headache.
Foster and his staff arrived at Virginia Tech football offices at 8 a.m. on Sunday to begin preparations for Virginia, as the Hokies and Cavaliers gear up for Friday's Commonwealth Clash to decide the ACC's Coastal Division title. Specifically, Foster and his staff began preparing for UVA's offense, one led by the ultimate headache for opposing coaches – quarterback Bryce Perkins.
"He's not a one-man show," Foster said at a news conference Monday afternoon. "But he runs the show."
Tech's defense certainly has a healthy respect for Perkins. The Hokies won last year's game 34-31 in overtime at Lane Stadium, but Perkins threw for 259 yards and three touchdowns in that game a season ago. He also rushed for 112 yards, thus accounting for 371 of UVA's 423 yards of offense.
Of course, he performed that way against everyone. Perkins was one of two players in the nation a year ago who finished with more than 2,600 yards passing and more than 900 yards rushing. The only other quarterback who did that was Kyler Murray of Oklahoma who went on to become the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft.
Foster, though, compared him to a more familiar name in Tech circles – a former quarterback at Syracuse who occasionally tormented the Hokies.
"He reminds me a little bit of Donovan McNabb," Foster said. "Just with his strength when he runs, his ability to throw on the run, his ability to create plays that aren't there and become a big-time running back. They design quarterback runs like they did with Donovan back in the day. That's probably who he reminds me the most of. Now to say that's who he's going to be if he has that opportunity to go to the next level, I don't know. But as a college football player, just what he means to their offense, that's who he reminds me of.
"He's a big, big part of their offense. If we can stop him, that's how we need to stop if we want to win the game, when it's all said and done."
Perkins has picked up where he left off from last season. He has thrown for 2,630 yards and 15 touchdowns, with just eight interceptions – and he hasn't thrown an interception in his past 130 attempts. He also has rushed for 523 yards and nine touchdowns.
Arguably, his best performance came against North Carolina when he completed 30 of 39 passes for 378 yards and three touchdowns, and he rushed for 112 yards and two scores.
"He's very athletic, a very good quarterback," Tech linebacker Rayshard Ashby said. "He's a great playmaker. He brings a lot of juice to that team and all the decision making is going to go through him. We're definitely going to have to contain him and make it hard for him to step up and not create running lanes for him to have."
Tech's staff is using Braxton Burmeister as its scout-team quarterback this week, so Burmeister will try to emulate Perkins in practice the rest of the week. Burmeister transferred from Oregon last winter and sat out this season after the NCAA denied immediate eligibility.
While certainly not Perkins, Burmeister at least brings similar traits.
"Braxton is a pretty good athlete, really good athlete actually," Tech head coach Justin Fuente said. "He's been doing a great job all season long. When we played Georgia Tech and played those athletic guys … and its hard to simulate, the guy [Perkins] makes so many plays, designed and improvised. He seems to keep his eyes downfield when he needs to and can tuck it and run when he wants to. He's a strong runner. You watch him film after film, opponent after opponent, guys just seemed to fall off of him as they're trying to get the angle. He does a great job. He cuts back on people all the time. Braxton will do that job for us to the best of his ability, but I don't know if you can fully simulate how efficient he's [Perkins] been."
Here are a few more notes from Monday's news conference:
COMMONWEALTH CLASH MEANS MORE THIS SEASON
This year's Commonwealth Clash obviously means more because the Coastal Division title is on the line. The winner advances to the ACC championship game to take on Clemson. The winner perhaps has an inside track to an Orange Bowl bid as well.
"Really the focus is on that as much as it is this rivalry," Foster said. "Obviously, it means a lot as far as bragging rights and recruiting, all those things factor in. But this game now with what's on the line, I think it's even brought into a bigger light with a championship on the line besides who has state bragging rights. I think that makes it more exciting. It's a lot different than it was 20 years ago when we were in the BIG EAST and they were in the ACC. Now there is so much more that goes into it besides it being a rivalry game."
Tech and UVA have played for the Coastal Division crown before. The 2007 and 2011 games decided the Coastal crown, with the Hokies winning both by double figures.
"It's already big," Tech backer Dax Hollifield said. "It makes it just a little bit bigger. That's the fun part about it. This is November football. This is what you dream about. This is what you dream about as a little kid. These are the games that you remember the most, beating a rival and going to Charlotte to play Clemson … That's the high stakes that you want – you dream about when you're a little kid."
HOOKER AVOIDING BIG HITS
Tech quarterback Hendon Hooker has provided a spark to the Hokies' offense, both rushing and passing, and he moved to 6-0 as the starting quarterback. In the Hokies' 28-0 win over Pittsburgh, he carried the ball a career-high 20 times, including three times in which he was sacked. He now has been sacked 10 times in his six starts.
He hadn't played a lot at Tech until the latter part of this season, but he said he felt fine as the hits continued to add up throughout the season.
"I try my best to avoid them, try to make a guy miss," Hooker said. "But they're inevitable. It's going to happen game in and game out. I'm just going to try to get up and play the next play. I don't really try to look at how I'm getting hit or how many times I'm getting hit. Just playing the game."
INJURY REPORT
Tech head coach Justin Fuente said that both receivers Tré Turner and Tayvion Robinson were fine after leaving Saturday's game against Pittsburgh with injuries. Also, Hollifield had five stitches placed on the bridge of his nose after a gash broke open for the second consecutive game.
Not that Hollifield felt anything.
"There was so much adrenaline after that game that I didn't really feel anything," he said. " was just numb."
