Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Blogpoll Roundtable!

The state of Georgia is aiming for the monopoly on the Blogpoll Roundtable. This week it is hosted by Braves and Birds, a place where they speak of all things Atlanta. There is a theme - you can think of this as the Virginia Football Comment Card. Here we go....

1. How would you rate your program's service to you in the first two weeks of the season?

You ever had a restaurant that you liked going to, and you were starting to get used to it and enjoy it, and then they closed for a while with the promise of exciting new renovations and a really killer new menu, and things were gonna be oh so awesome just as soon as they opened for business, but one of the waiters got fired in the meantime, and another one left for another restaurant because he needed the money, and when they finally did open back up the food was worse and the new waiters were jerks? Yeah, me neither. But I tried to think of some other marketing flops, and believe me I ran the gamut - all the way from Battlefield Earth (the horrible movie), IYDKYDG (the stupid Coca-Cola promotion from when I was one of the impressionable teenagers they were failing to reach), and Bodo's Bagels (the Corner store that took like eight years to open.) So bear with me. This season's been like that (the restaurant thing.) We had a lot of anticipation for this. USC coming to town, and Retro Day - I mean, the marketing department went all out here, and it's good stuff. Only problem is, the wait staff failed to deliver. Big time. Those were two of the worst Virginia games I've seen, and I've seen some bad ones.
Oh. And the restaurant now has a no-speaking policy. You might disrupt the dinner of the person at the next table or say something mean. We wouldn't want that.
2. How happy are you with your program's overall scheme? We are in a period in which the spread has become a total obsession in the media. If you're a fan of a spread team, are you happy with the way your program has implemented it? If you're a fan of a non-spread team, do you wish that your program would convert to this Xenu of offenses?

Scheme? What scheme? How am I supposed to know what the scheme is when it produces 17 points in two games? It's a little bit more exciting brand of football than what we used to run with. Before, we'd fail to convert third downs by dumping underneath to the tight end for a pickup of four yards on third-and-8. Now we fail to convert third downs by heaving misguided laser beams 20 yards downfield.

This is somewhat unfair, of course. Lalich is doing reasonably well for a quarterback that doesn't really have a running game and could use just half a second extra in the pocket before he has to get rid of it. We have definitely gone more spread-ish than we were a year ago. Last year was traditional UVA offense taken to the extreme. Now there's a touch of Purdue in what we do, because we now have wide receivers that are good for something other than blocking for screen passes.

3. Rate your stadium's cleanliness and menu options.

I dunno, I haven't been in a few years. Clean? It's definitely clean. That much I remember. No worries there. In four years as a student I don't think I ever bought a single concession though. Overpriced bottled water yada yada - that's a concern everywhere.

4. As an incentive to provide your valued feedback, you will be entered into a drawing for exciting prizes! What one prize would you like for your program?

5. Since we're all about choices, take one of the following two options for entertainment's sake:
a. What's your most memorable experience involving a comment card?
b. If your program were a casual dining chain, which one would it be? Yes, this is a tricky question because the defining characteristic of a casual dining chain is its sameness. No one said this Roundtable would be easy. Bonus points if you can make a compelling case that your program is Chotchkie's or Flingers.
Definitely not Chotchkie's. No flair allowed! The Cheesecake Factory. It's expensive, that's definitely a start. You're never really sure whether you're supposed to show up dressed up or not. Do I go old-school and wear a tie, or just say hell with it and rock the orange t-shirt?

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