Darren Evans, best known for flattening a Maryland DB during his breakout Thursday night performance as a redshirt freshman and carrying a disproportionate share of Virginia Tech's longshot national title hopes this fall on his shoulders, joins Ohio State's Tyler Moeller as the preseason's first major injury casualties: Evans is out for the year with a torn ACL suffered during Tech practice this afternoon. (Let's just hope it wasn't while attempting this.) Evans established himself in the last month of 2008 as a solid 20 to 25-carry-per-game sort of back, and with him goes the only steady presence in the Hokie offense, any realistic hope of mounting a darkhorse campaign up the polls and probably Tech's status as de facto ACC favorite. The Hokies have always won with defense and special teams, rarely star running backs, but if their grip on the Coastal division wasn't wide open to Georgia Tech, Miami and North Carolina before, I'd say it definitely is now.