ACC Releases 2006 Football Slate

The Atlantic Coast Conference released its 2006 football schedule Wednesday, and for the first time since 2002, Virginia Tech will play eight home contests, four coming in the first month of play. Also highlighting the schedule are a pair of Thursday night broadcasts on ESPN and games with six teams that went to postseason bowls a year ago.
Tech will make two appearances on ESPN's Thursday night broadcast, where it is 12-1 all-time. Tech will travel to Boston College on Oct. 12, and then host Clemson 14 days later. Conference home games include Duke, Clemson, Georgia Tech and the University of Virginia, while non-conference opponents Northeastern, Southern Miss, Cincinnati and Kent State come visiting.
In its first two seasons in the ACC, the Hokies have gone 14-2 overall in coference games, 8-0 on the road. This year, the Hokies will play all four of their road games against ACC foes: North Carolina (Sept. 9), Boston College (Oct. 12), Miami (Nov. 4) and Wake Forest (Nov. 18).
Once again this season, the league is broken into two separate divisions - the Atlantic (Maryland, Clemson, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Boston College and Florida State) and Coastal (Virginia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, Miami and Tech) - with the two division winners meeting in Jacksonville, Fla., on Dec. 2 for the ACC Championship game.

Tech Signs 19 to Football Grants-in-Aid

Five 2006 prep All-Americans, along with a strong defensive group of players, highlight a football recruiting class composed of 19 student-athletes who signed grants-in-aid with Virginia Tech on Wednesday to go along with two athletes who graduated high school early and five other previous signees who enrolled at Tech in January.
"I think we got some great signees from the state of Virginia," head coach Frank Beamer said. "I think this is a talented class and a very good character class. I really like the makeup of a lot of the guys in this class. We're disappointed, as always, in some of the guys we didn't get, but I'm very excited about the ones we did get. They have good athletic ability, good work habits. We'll look back in a couple years and determine if this was a good class or not, but I would bet we'll look back and a lot of these guys will be tremendous contributors to the success of Virginia Tech."
Tech received six NLIs from Virginia products this year, the fewest amount under Beamer. Highlighting that group is defensive end John Graves (6-3, 249), an All-American who is ranked as the No. 7 player in the state of Virginia by The Roanoke Times.
Tech received a majority of its commitments from out-of-state players. Jason Adjepong (6-3, 248, pronounced ADD-juh-pong) is ranked the No. 7 strongside defensive end in the country by rivals.com and the No. 4 player in the state of New Jersey. In all, Tech signed three of the top 12 players in the Garden State, according to rivals.com. Defensive end Mike Gee (6-1, 228) is rated the No. 11 weakside defensive end in the country and the No. 10 player in the state, while receiver Zach Luckett (6-3, 190) is ranked the No. 33 athlete in the country and the No. 12 player in the state. All three earned All-America honors from postseason recruiting publications.