Virginia Tech May as Well Start Punting on Second Down

For as long as football has existed, it has done so as a collision sport. While advances in conditioning, rules, and protection have limited the grievous and fatal injuries, the gridiron is still absolutely no place for the weak or timid.

And yet elsewhere, an entirely different match of unbelievable athleticism plays out; while it's mainly confined to the edges of the field (and, of course, the SEC), the contest of speed on speed is every bit as integral to a football game as what happens on the line. Indeed, few things are as awe-inspiring as a wideout in full sprint, ball in hand, rendering all the violence and shoving behind him utterly meaningless.

That's why a ruptured Achilles tendon, like the one suffered by Virginia Tech wideout Brandon Dillard, is the cruelest of injuries that could befall such a player. Before Tuesday's injury, Dillard was one of the fastest players in the nation. Once the Achilles ruptured, though, his right leg was every bit as useless on land as a fish's flipper; his foot may as well have fallen off, so useless it became. He's gone, done, finito for the season, and it'd be darned good news for Dillard and the Hokies if he were even at 90% a year from now.

Of course, that's not even the worst of the news.

Severely exacerbating the severity of the injury is the fact that the Tech offense returns two shaky quarterbacks and, well, nobody else. Signal-callers Sean Glennon and Tyrod Taylor have combined for zero big victories, and their Orange Bowl performance was so laughable that it didn't even look like an upset by Kansas.

At running back, they dismissed senior Brandon Ore in March, then lost their next two tailbacks to serious injuries. The projected starter is a traffic cone.

They also graduated their top four wide receivers, and with Dillard gone, the top two wideouts left are Zach Luckett and converted QB Ike Whitaker; the two "veterans" have combined for five career catches. Failing that, Frank Beamer has some perfectly capable backups to call upon, namely John Daly and the dog from Air Bud 2: Golden Receiver.

Yes, the Hokies might be better off booting it away on second down. Their offense is going to be the most gruesome thing to happen on a football field since the opening scene of The Last Boy Scout.