Hokies Feel The Sting of Defeat Against the Yellow Jackets, Lose 20-30 in Bid to Clinch ACC Coastal

With the buzz of a potential Coastal Division championship in the brisk Blacksburg air, Virginia Tech played arguably its worst game of the season. The Hokies fell 20-30 against a depleted Georgia Tech squad.

"First of all, we didn't deserve to win the ballgame today," Justin Fuente said. "They deserve a tremendous amount of credit. We didn't deserve to win our division today."

Sloppy and uneven execution — the only thing consistent about Tech's play Saturday — began at the opening kickoff. Fuente elected to receive the first half kickoff instead of differing as he's done all year. Der'Woun Greene fumbled the return to set Georgia Tech up at the Hokies' 38-yard-line. The turnover only resulted in a field goal, but it was a costly early momentum shift.

Fuente explained the decision after the game.

"My first thought was — because we didn't have Terrell (Edmunds) for the first half — if there was any way that maybe, for one less possession, we could not have Terrell," Fuente said. "That was the genesis of it.

The miscues didn't stop there, however. Jerod Evans threw two interceptions and struggled at times with his accuracy. The normally flawless Isaiah Ford dropped a fourth down pass with the game still in striking distance (7-20, late third quarter). Bucky Hodges fumbled while fighting for extra yards. A Joey Slye field goal attempt hit his own lineman in the back of the helmet after Wright Bynum lost control of the snap. The Hokies allowed 5.0 sacks to a team that previously had 8.0 on the season.

The finally tally, four turnovers after three straight contests with none, and far too many errors to overcome.

"When you go back and look — and all coaches say these things, but they're true — the single biggest determining factor in winning and losing ballgames is turnover margin," Fuente said. "No other statistic, other than the score, predicts the outcome of the game. For us to have four turnovers, it's hard. You look at our games that we've turned the ball over in, we haven't fared well. This is certainly no exception."

Turnovers certainly factored heavily in the upset loss, as did Georgia Tech racking up 309 rushing yards without QB1 Justin Thomas (injury, 35 consecutive starts), top B-Back Dedrick Mills (suspension, leading rusher), and two starting offensive linemen.

"We always joke about the offense, that you want to be good up the middle, and we were missing all three – the center, the quarterback and the b-back," Paul Johnson said after the game.

Indeed backup QB Matthew Jordan netted 121 yards and 2 scores on the ground, and backup B-Back Marcus Marshall rushed for 143 yards and a score of his own.

After the game Bud Foster conceded Johnson got the better of him.

"He moved his chess players around better than I did today," Foster said.

After Tech's poor practice week prior to the Battle at Bristol, the overall focus of the team during the week has become a hot button issue among the Hokie faithful. Fuente didn't seem to believe his squad lacked attention.

"I thought we were ready to play," Fuente said. "The guys had a good week of practice at times. I don't sense anything but professionalism and hunger from these guys to do the right thing."

However, the team may have psyched itself out by stressing the importance of every play.

"I just think we emphasized to the point that it became overwhelming," Evans said. "I think we overemphasized on offense that we were gonna get few possessions, that it became overwhelming and therefore when we didn't execute on third down, we would press a little bit more than we normally would. I'm not just talking about players, I'm talking the whole team, staff, everything."

Even after a deflating home loss, the Hokies still sit in the driver's seat in the ACC Coastal. A win over rival Virginia would send Virginia Tech to Orlando to play for the ACC Championship.

"Because of the way they have played and they way they have conducted themselves and the way the games that they've won and the way they've played on the road, that dream's not dead," Fuente said. "We have a pretty clear choice, we can respond and go get after it and pick ourselves up and get ready to go."

Justin Fuente

OPENING STATEMENT:

"First of all, I'm awfully grateful for everybody that showed up tonight. I'm sorry that we didn't play better, (or) didn't have a better ending. Our crowd was fantastic. I certainly appreciate it. Congratulations to Georgia Tech, (and) Coach Johnson (and) the job he did today. You think back on the game, we turned the ball over obviously right from the start. Really never got anything going. I thought our kids played admirably in their willingness to battle through adversity (and) be tough. In the end, we didn't play well enough. We didn't deserve to win the ballgame, they did. Credit to them. We've got to pick it up and be ready to go next week. We still have plenty of great opportunities in front of us. I know that our team will respond in the right way."

ON WHY HE HUDDLED HIS TEAM UP BEFORE HALFTIME:

"I do that after every single game — after the first half of every game. It's nothing different. I've done it ever since I was at Memphis and ever since I've been here."

ON THE MESSAGE IN THAT HUDDLE:

"We got ourselves into this hole and we're the only ones that can get ourselves out."

ON HOW TO ADDRESS THE OFFENSIVE ISSUES OF THE LAST TWO GAMES:

"It wasn't what we'd like it to be, that's for sure. It's always easy for a coach to say we never got in flow or in rhythm and all the kind of stuff — which is true — but there are reasons for that. Our execution level just hasn't been — or certainly wasn't today — what it needed to be. When we did get things going, we either turned the ball over or couldn't convert on a third down to keep the drive going, which is disappointing. We just, in general terms, weren't very good."

ON HIS DECISION TO RECEIVE THE OPENING KICKOFF:

"My first thought was — because we didn't have Terrell (Edmunds) for the first half — if there was any way that maybe, for one less possession, we could not have Terrell. That was the genesis of it. Playing an option team and the ball control was part of it, but the fact that there was no real wind and the fact that Terrell was out the first half, the plan was to have us take the ball and then Terrell would be back the second half. That saved us one possession without Terrell. Obviously that didn't go well."

ON IF THERE WAS ANY MISCOMMUNICATION ON THE JEROD EVANS 2ND INTERCEPTION:

"No, it really wasn't. C.J. (Carroll) was in the right spot. A couple of decisions that Jerod would like to have back."

ON IF THERE'S ANY SOLACE THAT THEY ARE STILL IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT FOR THE DIVISION TITLE:

"That's part of what I told the kids after the game. First of all, we didn't deserve to win the ballgame today; Georgia Tech did. They deserve a tremendous amount of credit. We didn't deserve to win our division today. But because of the way they have played and they way they have conducted themselves and the way the games that they've won and the way they've played on the road, that dream's not dead. We have a pretty clear choice. We can respond and go get after it and pick ourselves up and get ready to go. We've obviously got a non-conference game next week and then Virginia coming in here. That was part of the message today."

ON IF HE'S MORE DISAPPOINTED THAT THE TURNOVERS WERE A FACTOR AFTER HE'S PREACHED BALL SECURITY ALL YEAR:

"When you go back and look — and all coaches say these things, but they're true — the single biggest determining factor in winning and losing ballgames is turnover margin. No other statistic, other than the score, predicts the outcome of the game. For us to have four turnovers, it's hard. You look at our games that we've turned the ball over in, we haven't fared well. This is certainly no exception. We understand that in order to give ourselves a chance, we don't have a large margin of error. Teams that are just flat out better than everybody else can maybe get away with some of those things, but we don't have a large margin. We've gotta take care of the ball."

ON IF IT WAS EVANS' DECISION TO NOT BE TAKEN OUT OR IF THERE WAS EVER A QUESTION OF TAKING EVANS OUT:

"I didn't think it was a question. No, to answer your question. It wasn't Jerod. I just felt like we, at times, were moving the well so efficiently, I still felt like we had had opportunities to go win the game. There at the end, it kind of got away. But it wasn't a discussion."

ON THE BETTER FOURTH QUARTER:

"We did a good job. They lined up in base defense for two straight drives. We should be able to move the ball."

ON IF EDMUND'S ABSENCE WAS A FACTOR ON THE FIRST LONG TOUCHDOWN RUN:

"I don't think so. If I'm not mistaken, there were two 3rd downs that we got a holding and a pass interference call that I thought were big. We were in great position. And when I say big, I don't mean bad calls. We were in good position with a chance to get off the field. We didn't do that. There are a lot of things that happened in that game; the kicking game, offensively, and defensively. If you plan on winning the ballgame, you can't do those."

Jerod Evans

ON WHAT HAPPENED ON THE TWO INTERCEPTIONS:

"Bad plays."

ON IF THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE ENERGY TODAY:

"Not at all."

ON WHAT LED TO THE BIG EARLY HOLE:

"Bad play."

ON IF HE FELT HE WAS EXTRA HYPED UP FOR THIS GAME OR IF THERE WAS ANY EXTRA PRESSURE:

"No, it's not pressure at all. I don't feel pressure. It was more of just (what) was at stake. Since I knew (what) was at stake, that's just what I did (jumping around on the sideline). I didn't catch myself jumping, but I guess that's just what it was."

ON THE MINDSET AFTER THE TOUCHDOWN TO ISAIAH FORD:

"The mindset is if we get a touchdown, like we said in the locker room, do that real quick, our defense was playing good defense like they've been doing, in my opinion, all day, then we get the ball back and go score again. We have a high-powered offense. We didn't show it, obviously, throughout the whole game. But we believe that we can score quick. If we score quick, like we did, coming out of the gate, that we could make it 14-20 and make them get a little jumpy, make them get a little nervous. Get them out of their game plan and what they normally do with the triple option. But we didn't execute that right."

ON IF THERE'S ANY SOLACE THAT THEY ARE STILL IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT FOR THE DIVISION TITLE:

"I'm not looking that far ahead. We lost the game. That's what I'm worried about right now."

ON HIS EVALUATION OF THE FOCUS THIS WEEK:

"I think the focus was there completely. The guys knew what was at stake, the leadership knew what was at stake, the young guys knew what was at stake. I just think we emphasized to the point that it became overwhelming. I think we overemphasized on offense that we were gonna get (fewer) possessions, that it became overwhelming and therefore when we didn't execute on third down, we would press a little bit more than we normally would. I'm not just talking about players, I'm talking the whole team, staff, everything. I think that was more of the problem more than the juice. The juice was there, the focus is there; I just think knowing that we were only gonna get a few possessions, that played a part of over-emphasizing it too much."

ON HOW HE WILL APPROACH THE NOTRE DAME GAME:

"(There's) more to it just for the simple fact (of) getting the bad taste out of our mouth. Losing never feels good. I've said it before, I hate losing with a passion. That's the biggest thing that jumped out to me. Non-conference or conference, just getting the loss out of our mouths."

ON WHAT HE THINKS IT WILL TAKE TO SOLVE THE EXECUTION PROBLEM:

"I'd say getting everybody more involved, to answer that question. Not just a couple of people. I think once that happens, you'll see more execution."

Bud Foster

ON WHAT HE SAW ON THE TWO LONG TOUCHDOWN RUNS:

"I'll say this, on the latter one, they ran a trap. I'll say this, Paul Johnson did a great job tonight. He was a step ahead of me on a couple of things. We were always trying to get our front moving; he did a nice job of countering that. The first touchdown that popped, they were doing a nice job of loading things up and they got up to our mike, who was our pitch player on that particular play. And then the last play was a trap that just popped. Having our mike who was trying to run, because he was reading the trap and the pull, they cut off our backside linebacker. That's what we've been able to avoid the majority of the time the last few years we've played these guys is the big play. They got two big plays against us and it was costly."

ON HIS THOUGHTS ON WOODY BARON'S PERFORMANCE:

"You take away — stats are stats — but you take away a couple of plays — as I was charting the game going through, we had a lot of first down and second and seven or more plays. It was just a couple of plays here or there or it was a couple of penalties that were costly and kept a drive alive. We weren't as sharp all the way around in all phases. Whether we were pressing, I thought we had an outstanding week of practice. I thought our scout kids did a great job with this offense. It's still hard to simulate. But they did a couple nice things, a couple of nice wrinkles that they made us work for, and they just did a nice job executing."

ON IF JUSTIN THOMAS NOT PLAYING IMPACTED THE GAME:

"No, they kept with what they were doing. And again, what they did last week — they rushed for about 350 (yards) against North Carolina last week and put up a bunch of points and turned the ball over a couple of times — they were loading up the D gap, or the alley, early and I thought we did a nice job adjusting to that. They caught us with a trap in the second half. We had a short field that was a tough position for us just before the half. We needed to hold them to three points and we didn't. It is what it is. He moved his chess players around better than I did today. Credit to Paul and Georgia Tech."

ON GEORGIA TECH RUNNING UP THE MIDDLE:

"They did and they didn't. Those things are gonna pester you. The trap popped, and that's a tough play. It pesters you, but it didn't cost us. Those, just milking the fullback, they're gonna do that and get that. We needed to not allow the big plays and we gave up two big plays and it cost us the football game when it's all said and done."

ON HOW HE FELT THE DEFENSE PLAYED IN EDMUNDS ABSENCE IN THE FIRST HALF:

"I'll look at it, but obviously Terrell's a dynamic football player and is a leader for us in a lot of ways. He's a guy that's really come into his own. I don't know if that was a factor when it was all said and done. Looking at it, I'm sure Mook (Reynolds) probably played extremely well. He had an untimely penalty which was (costly) because they ended up going down and getting seven points out of that when we had the chance to get off the field. I'll have to go look at the film."

Ken Ekanem

ON IF HE FELT THE OPENING KICKOFF SET A NEGATIVE TONE FOR THE GAME:

"As an individual, I thought as a team we could bounce back from that. It's kind of hard to start off the game setting the tone and the momentum got on their side pretty quick. That was pretty big for them."

ON IF GEORGIA TECH DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM WHAT HE'D SEEN BEFORE:

"Other than the new quarterback coming in there, mainly them just running to their right the whole time. That was the main difference. They came out pretty hot. They had a lot of plays where they had a guy man for man and caught us off guard a little bit. They capitalized on mistakes. Hats off to them. They had a good game plan coming in. They had a lot of guys step up; had a lot of injuries coming into the game. They had a really good game."

ON IF HE WAS SURPRISED HOW LITTLE GEORGIA TECH THREW THE BALL:

"It's kind of expected for the QB to run. Georgia Tech's basically putting a running back at QB. He came in and had a really good game. Kind of shut him down a little bit in the passing game, but he hit us for quite a few big runs. He stepped in and had a really good game, being one of his first starts. It's kind of what they expect. They're not known for passing the ball. They pass the ball 7-10 times in games, it's what's expected."

ON THE DIFFERENCE TO A DEFENSE WHEN THE OFFENSE TURNS THE BALL OVER:

"It's tough, obviously, being put in a situation on a short field. Earlier in the game when we got the kickoff return and fumble, just putting us in bad field position and stuff like that. But we do pride ourself in trying to stop the short momentum changers and stuff like that. It is tough coming off and going back on the field, especially with Georgia Tech. They have the ball the majority of the time in time of possession and stuff like that. You try to get off the field as fast as possible and then you're turning around and the offense turned it over and it's kind of tough. We've gotta do a good job of holding them to a field goal."

ON THE MOOD OF THE TEAM:

"Very optimistic. Our destiny is still in our hands. We can control it by winning out, obviously, against Notre Dame and then clinching it with a UVA win. We can't get too low. We can't be mean to ourselves. We've gotta get ready to turn around and get ready for Notre Dame tomorrow."

ON IF THE RESULT OF THE NORTH CAROLINA LOSS TO DUKE CHANGED THE MINDSET OF THE TEAM:

"I don't think it really had an effect towards to me. It might have to other people. We still have one game. (If) we don't take care of business like we didn't tonight, it doesn't really matter. You've gotta go clinch (against) UVA. It might have played a factor. It didn't with me. We've gotta have a better mindset going into this game and just taking care of business and not looking too far down the road."

Woody Baron

ON IF BEING ABLE TO CLINCH THE DIVISION PUT EXTRA PRESSURE ON THE GAME:

"I wouldn't say it added pressure. Regardless of what happened in that game on Thursday, we wanted this one just as much as we've wanted any other game on the schedule."

ON IF THE OPENING KICKOFF SET A NEGATIVE TONE FOR THE GAME:

"I wouldn't say negative for the entire game. Definitely bummed out when it happen because I thought we had a good return. But it was one play. It's a 60 minute ballgame. I felt we could overcome that easily."

ON THE DIFFERENCE TO A DEFENSE WHEN THE OFFENSE TURNS THE BALL OVER:

"I told the guys on the sideline, 'Regardless of where the ball's at, we've still gotta make a stop.' Every time we went back on the field I just thought we had to make a stop. Obviously that didn't happen. I'm bummed out about that as well."