End of Season Thoughts

There's no doubt that this has been a rough and unfortunate season of Hokie football. The offseason was full of attrition, losing key players for all sorts of reasons from injury, legal trouble, and even academics. We started the season decently well, but by the end of the ODU weekend we had reached a deep low, a low we've felt before, but it never makes it any easier to handle. From there on we lost a few more key players to attrition and injuries.

The defense was the worst of my 15-16 years of following Hokie football old enough to really understand what was going on, and it was tough to watch games like Pitt and GT where we reached a new level of hopelessness. The offense was often disappointing as well. We had tons of execution errors, the primary issue of the offense alongside inconsistency though you can argue they go hand in hand.

Ultimately, the season will end with us breaking a 25 year winning season streak. The first full season of Hokie football in my lifetime ending with a losing record. There will surely be lots of lamenting the struggles and low moments of this past season, and I don't fault anyone for doing so. It was a disappointing ending for sure, but it was not all doom and gloom. We did manage to keep alive our dominating streak over UVA, and we keep alive our now country leading bowl streak.

For those two things I feel like the season ended with some level of success, albeit relative success in the wake of an otherwise emotionally and mentally taxing season of Hokie football. There are some reasons to be excited, promising young players at a few key positions emerged, an exciting receiving corps, and at least some of our recruiting needs were met at ESD.

It will be a long offseason with a lot of questions and worries (how much will the defense realistically improve? Can we effectively address our DL issues, and can we get the young secondary to take a leap forward?) . There will likely be some more attrition, it just always seems to happen that way in college football. However, it won't be long before spring rolls around and we start to get some hope again, whether warranted or not. Either way, it was a tough season and on some level it's a relief for it to be over, but it won't be long before the hunger returns to watch some Hokie football.

...Go Hokies!

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