Collegiate Times

Sometimes, I feel like I am watching a University of Miami football team instead of a team coached by Frank Beamer.

The Hokies need to try not to be a team they are not ? the thug mentality works in south Florida, it has yet to become fad in southwestern Virginia.

The back-to-back Big East Championship teams of old didn?t win with a ?me, me, me? attitude, but rather with one that placed the team ahead of the individual.

Frankly, I don?t even know why Bud Foster gives his defense the lunch pail anymore; it hardly seems that this squad has the blue-collar work ethic that goes along with it.

The Beamer teams of 1995 and 1996 managed to do something that no Vick or Randall has managed to do since ? appear in back-to-back Bowl Championship Series caliber bowls. The 1995 squad actually won one ? defeating the then No. 9 University of Texas Longhorns 28-10 on New Year?s Eve.

The talent the Hokies had both seasons doesn?t even come close to that they?ve seen since, but the team concept seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Too many of Tech?s current players have grown up watching the individualistic thug mentality, which prevails in Coral Gables, the one the entire nation saw front and center Saturday evening.

It really didn?t help matters when you had guys like DeAngelo Hall, Ronyell Whitaker and Marcus Vick infecting your locker room with their image of what star football players should act like.

But hey, if I were Miami, I wouldn?t really be angry at my players for following this path; a path that has led them to National Championships. The 2006 Hurricanes just don?t have the talent of previous years or that infamous ?Miami Swagger.?

I wouldn?t even really have that much of a problem if the Hokies turned into the Hurricanes, that is, if we could have five national championships to show for it (the ?Canes were even robbed of a sixth in 2002).

As proud as the Virginia Tech program should be of its back-to-back Big East Championships and BCS caliber bowl bids, I think it would be more proud of multiple national championships and Heisman Trophy winners.

That said, I really wouldn?t have that much of a problem with the football team?s image if the program could boast multiple national titles and post-season award recipients.

Honestly, fans will put up with just about anything when a team is winning. The problem Beamer and his Hokies are having now is only really an issue because the team is losing. The same principle is behind why people hate Terrell Owens. I guarantee you that if the Dallas Cowboys win a Super Bowl this season, he may well become the most revered Cowboy since Troy Aikman.

The quality of individuals on teams is only an issue when teams aren?t great. As the old saying goes ?Winning cures all.?

However, Tech isn?t winning, so it doesn?t have a cure all and that?s enough of a reason for many to criticize the individuals who ?represent? his/her favorite school.

Spare me the argument that these individuals who play college football ought to be model citizens. I think that?s a load of you know what.

No one with half a brain believes that the football team, in most every instance, is a representative sample of the general student body and alumni population.

For instance, the University of Miami?s student population isn?t mostly made up of underprivileged athletic males from South Florida. There are many at that school who grew up in the lap of luxury ? something many of their players would know nothing about.

Therefore, the program needs to take one of two roads ? it can either make a statement with those who are problem players or recruit enough of the talented variety in order to win on a grand scale.