No Place Like Home on Thursdays

BLACKSBURG, Va., Nov. 12 -- Between commercial breaks during ESPN's broadcast of the Southern California-Oregon State game in September, color commentator Jesse Palmer turned to his partners in the booth in disbelief. The crowd in Corvallis, Ore., was in a frenzy as it watched the Beavers jump out to an early lead against the No. 1 team in the nation.

About 2,500 miles away, Virginia Tech defensive end Orion Martin noticed the same thing. As he watched Oregon State's fans prepare to celebrate the upset, Martin began to realize that there is a difference between a Thursday night game and one played on a traditional Saturday.

Last Thursday night, the unranked Hokies topped then-No. 23 Maryland at home. This Thursday night, Virginia Tech visits Miami at Dolphin Stadium. The two teams have experienced similar seasons and are among the favorites to win the ACC's Coastal Division. But if one considers a recent national trend -- home teams winning games played on Thursday nights -- the Hurricanes may have a major edge.

Of the 36 games in which a ranked team has lost to an unranked team this season, seven were played on Thursday nights, or almost 20 percent. Six of those unranked teams were playing at home. Another such game was played on a Monday night, when unranked UCLA, at home, upset then-No. 18 Tennessee on Sept. 1.

The 28 others were played on Saturdays, and in those games, the unranked team playing at home won 15 of 27 games (one was at a neutral field), or about 56 percent. Of the upsets on Thursday nights, 83 percent were pulled off by the home team.

"All night games are crazy," Martin said. "Saturday sometimes, [fans are] trying to wake up. They're not as loud and crazy as they would when they got all day. When you play a 12:30 game, sometimes it's half full and they're still coming in when there's a game. So maybe time has something to do with it."

When North Carolina Coach Butch Davis spoke about his team's preparations for Maryland on Saturday, he said the Terrapins cannot be judged by last week's performance against the Hokies, considering the environment at Lane Stadium on a Thursday.

"I think a lot of it also stems from the fact of how much time you have to prepare," Davis said. "If you played that previous Saturday and you go to turn around to play on Thursday, that can be an enormous benefit to the home team and a real detriment to the visiting team."

Virginia Tech had a week to prepare for Thursday night's game. Miami had 11 days, and the Hurricanes do not need to travel.

Beamer moved the team's schedule up two days. He takes such matters so seriously that he forgot about his weekly Tuesday news conference this week because he was walking with football operations director John Ballein, which he normally does on Thursdays.

Upon hearing about the success of home teams on Thursdays, Hokies defensive coordinator Bud Foster did not view it as anything more than typical home-field advantage.

"Thursday has nothing to do with it," Foster said. "You have to go out on the field and execute."

Running back Darren Evans rushed for 253 yards during his first Thursday night game. When he emerged from the Hokies' tunnel to "Enter Sandman" and saw Lane Stadium on a Thursday night, he could understand the difference between a Thursday crowd and a Saturday crowd.

"None of those people play," Foster rebutted.

Foster said the big difference is the amount of outside attention Thursday night games receive. With few other options, fans -- and even players -- focus on the only teams playing. Virginia linebacker Clint Sintim said he looks forward to watching each week's Thursday night game. When Palmer played at Florida, he ate at the same restaurant each Thursday to watch the game.

During Evans's performance, television cameras panned to his son, James, who will turn 2 later this month. James was shown on highlight shows later that night and the next morning. When Evans went out to eat at a local seafood restaurant during the weekend, fans instantly recognized James from television.

All of last week's experiences offered the Hokies fresh evidence of just how much they have at stake against the Hurricanes: the inside track in the Coastal Division, another opportunity to impress a national television audience and the chance to be what has been a rarity this season -- a road team leaving a Thursday night game happy.

"What you show on Thursday," Martin said, "that's the impression they get of Virginia Tech."