My boss loved the idea: Celebrate the first 25 college football seasons of the 21st century by selecting an all-star team from Virginia’s 10 Division I programs.
But his immediate and emphatic green light should have tipped me off: He knew the project was going to be a bear.
A fun summer distraction? A great way to relive history? Sure.
But really, really, REALLY hard.
Indeed, so numerous were the options, so rich the talent pool, that I chickened out, and rather than select one team, I’m picking two.
The first highlights power conference-resourced Virginia Tech and Virginia. The second features schools that compete in a Bowl Subdivision Group of Five conference (Old Dominion, James Madison and Liberty) or the Football Championship Subdivision (Norfolk State, Hampton, William & Mary, Richmond and VMI).
Hey, my idea, my rules.
The degree of difficulty remains high, but at least it’s not a reverse, 4½-somersault in the pike position dive at the Olympics.
So offered as a device to share memories and spark some reasonable — emphasis on reasonable — debate, here is an all-Hokies/Cavaliers squad from the 2000-24 seasons.
Quarterback: Include College Football Hall of Famer Michael Vick’s third-place Heisman season of 1999 and this becomes an easy choice. But our window is the last quarter-century, leaving us only Vick’s second and final Virginia Tech season, 2000, to compare with some stellar multi-year careers.
The 2000 Hokies were 10-0 when Vick started, and as his 210 rushing yards at Boston College and a sixth-place Heisman finish show, he remained electric. But his passer rating declined 53 points from his redshirt freshman year, to a pedestrian 127.4.
As a junior and senior at Tech, Tyrod Taylor paced the ACC in passer rating. He played on three conference champions, led the Hokies to a pair of stirring conquests of Nebraska and was the league’s 2010 Player of the Year.
Bryan Randall was the ACC PoY in 2004, when Tech won the league title in its debut year of membership. Matt Schaub and Bryce Perkins are the only UVA quarterbacks to beat the Hokies this century, and Perkins’ 475 yards (311 passing, 164 rushing) against Tech in 2019 were breathtaking.
Alas, Perkins was in Charlottesville for only two seasons, so the nod goes to Taylor for the breadth of a career that included 42 victories.
Selected in the sixth round of the 2011 draft by the Baltimore Ravens, Taylor backed up Joe Flacco during the Ravens’ Super Bowl championship the next year. He’s played for seven franchises during his 14 NFL seasons, and as a starter in 2017 helped the Buffalo Bills end a 17-year playoff drought.
Running back: Dubbed “The Untouchables” as Virginia Tech teammates, Kevin Jones and Lee Suggs are unassailable choices here, fellow Hokie David Wilson’s 2011 ACC Player of the Year season notwithstanding.
Had Jones (3,475 career rushing yards) played a fourth season in Blacksburg rather than turn pro, he would have shattered Cyrus Lawrence’s school record of 3,767. Despite missing 11 games with a torn ACL in 2001, Suggs (56 touchdowns) is Tech’s No. 3 career scorer, the lone non-kicker among the top 10, and his 27 rushing scores in 2000 led the nation.
Three times in 2002, Suggs and Jones combined for at least 298 yards rushing. Their 329 yards — on only 34 carries! — versus Rutgers were far north of the Scarlet Knights’ 215 yards total offense that day.
Center: A banner bearing Jake Grove’s No. 64 flies over Lane Stadium — with good reason. He won the 2003 Rimington Trophy as the nation’s top center and was a unanimous, first-team All-American.
Virginian-Pilot file photoVirginia's Heath Miller gains 10 yards for a first down on a fake field goal during the fourth quarter against Virginia Tech in 2003.
Tight end: Heath Miller’s 13 receptions for 145 yards against Tech in 2003 were his Virginia career-highs, and the last of those was the most memorable — a 10-yard flip from Schaub on a fake field goal late in the fourth quarter. One play later, Wali Lundy’s fourth touchdown of the day, a 17-yard run, sealed the Cavaliers’ 35-21 victory. Miller won the Mackey Award as the nation’s premier tight end in 2004, spent all 11 of his NFL seasons in Pittsburgh and helped the Steelers win two Super Bowls.
Guard: The first guard ever to win consecutive Jacobs Blocking Trophies as the ACC’s best offensive lineman (2003 and ’04), Elton Brown anchored a line that in 2004 helped UVA lead the conference in rushing for the only time this century.
He was a reserve on the 2008 Arizona Cardinals team that reached the Super Bowl before embarking on a coaching path that this season takes him to Vick’s Norfolk State staff.
Wyatt Teller was a four-year starter at Tech from 2014-17, a stretch in which the Hokies averaged 30 points per game, authored four winning seasons and twice finished among the Associated Press top 25. He subsequently made three consecutive Pro Bowls (2021-23) with the Cleveland Browns.
Tackle: UVA teammates D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Eugene Monroe were All-Americans in 2006 and ’08, respectively, and both were top-10 NFL draft choices. A three-time Pro Bowl selection, Ferguson never missed a game in college and made 160 consecutive regular-season starts for the New York Jets; Monroe was a seven-year starter in Jacksonville and Baltimore.
#TBT to the last time UVA won at Clemson in 2001.
Bryson Spinner found Billy McMullen with 10 seconds remaining to secure the 26-24 win over the Tigers. #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/XpEeXJxcqk
— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) October 1, 2020
Receiver: A two-time, first-team All-ACC selection, Billy McMullen is Virginia’s career leader in receiving yards with 2,978, and his last-second, 1-yard touchdown catch from Bryson Spinner lifted the Cavaliers a 26-24 road upset of Clemson in 2001.
Classmates Cam Phillips and Isaiah Ford, Nos. 1 and 2 in career catches and receiving yards at Tech, man the other wideout slots. They teamed for 155 receptions and 2,077 yards in the Hokies’ Coastal Division title season of 2016, and in Frank Beamer’s final game as coach, the 2015 Independence Bowl, Ford caught 12 passes for 227 yards, both career-bests, in a 55-52 conquest of Tulsa.
Return specialist: Joe Reed returned five kickoffs for touchdowns during his Virginia career, including a 92-yarder against Georgia Tech in 2017 that fueled a 40-36 Cavaliers victory.
All-purpose: In a 4:06 span of the third quarter against West Virginia, on a Thursday night at Lane Stadium no less, Tech’s Andre Davis scored touchdowns on a 30-yard reverse, 64-yard pass from Michael Vick and, courtesy of Wayne Ward’s thunderous leveling of linebacker Kyle Kaden, 76-yard punt return.
Biggest Hits Collection #1: Wayne Ward throws a devastating block to spring Andre Davis for a punt return TD vs WVU in 2000 pic.twitter.com/9Qay8AbQ7e
— Treadmill Horse (@treadmillhorse) July 8, 2019
“Did you get the number of that truck?” ESPN’s Mike Tirico said on-air of Ward’s block.
“Put your seatbelt on at home,” analyst Kirk Herbstreit said as the replay started, “because this one’s gonna get a little bit scary.”
Now that’s all-purpose — and a game-changer. What was a 14-all standoff before Davis went off became a 48-20 rout for the unbeaten and second-ranked Hokies.
Davis took five punts as a collegian and four kickoffs as a pro to the house.
Kicker: Connor Hughes (332 points) is UVA’s career scoring leader, and in 2003 his field goals of 53 and 38 yards in the final two minutes gave the Cavaliers a 24-21 win over Wake Forest. His final college attempt, a 39-yarder with 1:08 left, secured a 34-31 victory over Minnesota in the 2005 Music City Bowl.
Defensive line: In a 2016 interview with ESPN, Chris Long said his favorite game playing for Virginia was an 18-17 victory at Maryland in 2007. He recited details of the Cavaliers’ winning drive, punctuated by Mikell Simpson’s 1-yard touchdown plunge.
What Long didn’t mention were his 10 tackles, four behind the line of scrimmage, two sacks and two pass break-ups, the highlight of a season that earned him the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation’s top defensive end and a $58 million contract with the St. Louis Rams as the No. 2 overall pick of the 2008 draft.
A Super Bowl champion in New England and Philadelphia, Long in 2018 received the prestigious NFL Man of the Year Award for philanthropic work highlighted by his Waterboys initiative to bring clean water to nations in East Africa.
Darryl Tapp was a linchpin of the most recent Hokies teams to finish consecutive seasons ranked among the top 10 of the Associated Press poll, 2004 and ’05. In those two years, he authored a combined 31 tackles for loss, 18½ sacks, 53 quarterback hurries, two blocked kicks and an interception.
But given linemen’s yearning for carrying the rock, Tapp’s most memorable play may have occurred as a freshman in 2002, when he returned a punt blocked by Justin Hamilton 11 yards for Tech’s first touchdown in a 21-9 home victory over UVA.
Tapp played 12 NFL seasons and is a Washington Commanders assistant coach.
No Hokie or Cavalier has recorded more sacks this century than Antwaun Powell-Ryland. Moreover, he shoehorned those 25½ sacks for Tech into just two seasons, after transferring from Florida.
Last year versus Old Dominion and Boston College, and in 2023 against Wake Forest, APR recorded four sacks. The only other Hokie in the last 40 years with four sacks in a game was J.C. Price, who did so once, in 1995 versus Miami.
Drafted by the Super Bowl champion Eagles this spring in the sixth round, Powell-Ryland was first-team All-ACC and third-team Associated Press All-America last year and second-team all-conference in 2023.
UVA’s Chris Canty was en route to a third consecutive All-ACC year when he sustained a season-ending knee injury at Syracuse in September, 2004. At 6-foot-7, 290 pounds, he was blessed with the agility, size and power NFL scouts crave, and sure enough, after surgery, the Dallas Cowboys traded up to draft him in the fourth round.
Canty forged an 11-year pro career that included 128 starts, and with his second team, the New York Giants, he started every regular-season and playoff game in their 2011 Super Bowl championship season. He currently co-hosts a national radio show on ESPN affiliates.
Virginia Tech's Xavier Adibi (11) returns a fumble-recovery for a touchdown as teammate Brandon Flowers (18) celebrates during the third quarter of Virginia Tech's 27-6 win over Wake Forest in a college football game in Winston-Salem, N.C., Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Linebacker: Much like Phillips and Ford at receiver, Vince Hall and Xavier Adibi are inseparable at linebacker. In each of their three seasons starting together, 2005-07, the Hokies led the ACC in scoring defense, and in ’06, they yielded an FBS-best 11 points per game. Moreover, Adibi, now coaching Tech’s inside linebackers, sealed the Hokies’ 30-16 victory over Boston College in the 2007 ACC championship game with a 40-yard pick-six of Matt Ryan in the final minute.
UVA’s Micah Kiser is an equally deserving choice. He earned not only three consecutive first-team All-ACC honors, but also the 2017 Campbell Trophy, aka the Academic Heisman.
Cornerback: No position better embodies the excellence of Virginia Tech’s defenses under retired coordinator Bud Foster. In the 2000s alone, eight of his cornerbacks were selected in the first three rounds of an NFL draft.
Who were the best of the best?
In his first collegiate game, Brandon Flowers returned an interception 38 yards for a touchdown against Western Michigan, only to sustain a broken leg later in the contest. Missing the remainder of the 2004 season didn’t derail an All-American career in which Flowers locked down opposing receivers.
The 35th overall pick of the 2008 draft, Flowers played eight NFL seasons, intercepting 21 passes, scoring four touchdowns and playing in one Pro Bowl.
Wrestling the football from Miami receiver Roscoe Parrish, DeAngelo Hall raced 28 yards into the end zone and Hokies lore, igniting their 31-7 demolition of the No. 2 Hurricanes in 2003. That penchant for large plays at large moments defined his collegiate and NFL careers.
Hall scored nine touchdowns at Tech, five on punt returns, one each rushing and receiving, plus a pick-six and the aforementioned strip-and-score. He scored 10 touchdowns in 14 pro seasons, five each via interception and fumble returns.
Among Hall’s 43 NFL interceptions were four of Jay Cutler in the second half of Washington’s 2010 victory over Chicago, and his 328 career fumble return yards are a league record.
Safety: Recruited as a quarterback, Kam Chancellor was not lavishly decorated at Virginia Tech. But good luck finding a more intimidating tackler than this 6-foot-3, 225-pound missile and four-time Pro Bowler with the Seattle Seahawks.
Among his greatest Hokies hits were 2009 plantings of UVA running back Mikell Simpson and Nebraska receiver Niles Paul.
Jonas Sanker’s final two seasons at Virginia (2023 and ’24) were as good as a safety could have. Tackles, takeaways, special teams.
But the nod for our second safety spot goes to UVA’s Quin Blanding, a four-year starter, three-time All-ACC first-teamer and the Cavaliers’ career tackling leader with 495, an ACC record for defensive backs.
Punter: Aussie Oscar Bradburn owns Virginia Tech’s career and seasonal records, averaging 43.5 yards for his career (2017-20) and 46.5 yards his junior season.
757 high school products mentioned: Tyrod Taylor (Hampton), Michael Vick (Ferguson and Warwick), Bryan Randall (Bruton), Elton Brown (Hampton), Connor Hughes (Lafayette), Darryl Tapp (Deep Creek), Antwaun Powell-Ryland (Norcom, Indian River), Xavier Adibi (Phoebus), Vince Hall (Western Branch), DeAngelo Hall (Deep Creek), Kam Chancellor (Maury) and Quin Blanding (Bayside).
Closing thought: For fans keeping score, this squad includes 16 Hokies and 11 Cavaliers. UVA fans wish the rivalry were that close of late.
Coming tomorrow: The best of the last 25 years from the state FCS and Group of Five programs.
David Teel: david.teel@virginiamedia.com; @ByDavidTeel
