Finally.
Finally, this Hokie defense was able to eliminate the back-breaking big plays that have plagued this team throughout the season.
Finally, the much-maligned J.C. Coleman was able to pick up the slack of the faltering Hokie rushing attack and remind everyone of that quick burst he possesses when turning the corner with confidence.
Finally, this Hokie team was able to overcome an early deficit, fight back to take a late lead and hold on until the final whistle.
If there is one thing the 2014 Hokies have succeeded in this season it has been the way in which they have transformed the fanbase into a collection of cynics. We've seen this team fall into a multiple-possession deficit within the first 10 minutes, only to methodically climb back and manage to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. We've seen them get literally and figuratively run over by big backs, quick backs and quarterbacks. We've seen them make boneheaded plays and a comedy of mental errors late in games, causing all of HokieNation to sport Frank Beamer-esque looks of disbelief as we watched another winnable game escape our grasps.
Saturday we witnessed each of those scenarios, and you would be lying if each time didn't cause you to think, "Here we go..."
The Hokies don't deserve to win this game.
That's the thought that continued to creep into my head throughout Saturday's tilt with Coastal-division leader Duke.
Seemingly unable to stop a Blue Devil offense that had five plays of fifteen yards or more through the first 7 minutes, the Hokies quickly dug themselves a ten-point hole.
Nursing a one-point lead late in the fourth quarter, confusion between the coaches and Derek DiNardo led to a baffling fake punt pass that brought back dark memories of the 2012 Sugar Bowl.
Two plays later, Ken Ekanem let his emotions get the best of him and earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that put Duke on the verge of field goal range. Sure, the flop of the Blue Devil offensive lineman was brilliant enough to make a world class diver like Mario Balotelli applaud, but that doesn't excuse the lack of poise exhibited by Ekanem in a crucial moment.
Based on what we have witnessed this season, it wasn't entirely surprising to see the Hokies on the verge of self-destructing. It is exactly this type of masochism I have almost come to expect when watching this team play. But each time on Saturday, they were able to bear down.
For the first time since mid-September, the Hokies were able to block out the previous play — success or failure — and focus on the next snap. Rather than allowing the negatives to snowball, they showed incredible composure in situations where they had previously unraveled. That's not something you can coach. That's character, and it has been sorely missing from this team for the better part of the season.
The victory was by no means a thing of beauty, but does anyone really care? If anything, Saturday's win was almost vintage Virginia Tech.
The Hokies gained more yards on the ground than through the air; they scored all 17 of their points off of turnovers; and they showed incredible fire in the most dire circumstances, attacking Duke quarterback Anthony Boone with reckless abandon to close out the victory.
Heading into the stretch run — the proverbial "fourth quarter" of the 2014 season — this was exactly the type of win the Hokies needed. The more I think about it, the happier I am that they won ugly. Would I have loved to have seen this team put everything together, resulting in simultaneous breakout performances from the plethora of young talent on this team? Absolutely. But we already know those types of performances exist on this roster; we have seen flashes of that dominance throughout the season, albeit in an incoherent manner.
What we have failed to see over the last two months is the mentality necessary to be elite. Blowout victories tend to elicit unfair, broad brush opinions about how the opposition possibly came out flat or may have been overconfident. Winning the way Virginia Tech did, stepping up late to take the lead and hold off a solid Duke squad, is confidence inspiring for any team, young or old. It's that reminder that you can look adversity straight in the eye, unafraid of what comes next.
This program has been walking a dangerously thin line, between turning the corner with a championship-caliber team and falling into prolonged mediocrity. That's a scary place, where tomorrow you could find yourself in college football purgatory with the Washingtons and Marylands of the world.
With two games left in the regular season, Saturday's performance has the potential to serve this team well as they closeout arguably the most polarizing season in Frank Beamer's career. Sure, we all hope it acts as a Pulp Fiction-style shot of adrenaline straight to the chest, reviving the dwindling swagger of a once proud program. The reality is it may simply serve as a stepping stone in the rebuilding process. However it ultimately resonates with this team, I think we are all in agreement that it felt really good to experience a win again.
Comments
Luckily we were able to overcome two really dumb plays in the final minutes of the game to not self-destruct.
It was a sloppy win but it was a win so, good job to them! I miss this feeling ^_^
I figured after that botched fake punt (I heard it was DiNardo thinking he hear the call for the fake) we were just going to give the game away like so many times this year. Glad to be proven wrong.
Yep, I'm pretty sure all of Hokie Nation thought that.
Prior to the punt Beamer was trying to explain to DiNardo what protection to call in order to account for a guy that came unblocked the punt before. Clearly, DiNardo was slightly confused. He didn't mean to call the fake, but in trying to call the protection that Beamer told him to, he accidentally called out the code word for the fake. At least, that is my understanding.
He should have called a timeout, because he clearly wasn't comfortable with the call. And A.J. should have called a timeout before the ball was snapped or punted the ball out of bounds. That should never happen.
Why is it assumed that DiNardo was confused? There was a miscommunication. Either the player misheard something or the coach misspoke.
Like myself, Di Nardo has a bit of a hearing problem. Searching for the correct word there so excuse me if I do not use the currently correct term.
Apparently it's best to speak a little more loudly to him. I thought I detected that by the way he was standing when CFB was talking to him. His head was turned so that his ear was towards Frank.
Sean mentioned it in the interviews that he reminded Frank afterwards that you have to speak a little more loudly to Di Nardo.
In general the speaker is responsible for making sure his message got through. Sometimes the speaker does all that can be done and the hearer still misunderstands, but 99/100 the onus is on the speaker to be clear, and to confirm that the hearer heard the message correctly.
I could not disagree more ... it is up to the listener to confirm what the speaker said. When i was in the US Navy aboard a guided missile cruiser and was a Ship's Weapons Controller, if the Captain told me to fire missiles when the range closed to 40 miles I would repeat his command. It was a screw up, but did not change the outcome of the game. Had Di Nardo said back to CFB "so you want to fake the punt?" i am sure CFB would have said "no".
Good point and let me add,
When I do this in civilian life, people think it's weird or irritating.
It's a technique called 'Active Listening.'
Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalal
I can't HEAR Youuuuu
Lalalalalalalalalalalalala
Ditto for me. I do it at work to make sure my coworker and I are communicating effectively. Then out of habit I sometimes parrot my wife's requests back at her at home and she gets annoyed with me. Oops!
It's good to hear that a weapons controller has a protocol in place to make sure neither side of the communication screws up. But the speaker has the initiative. There is no conversation until the speaker decides to say something. And when the speaker begins the conversation, only the speaker knows what the speaker is thinking. If he fails to convey it, or in your case fails to confirm that he conveyed it, the speaker is responsible.
We did self-destruct...several times. Duke just kept hitting the do-over button. As mush as we tried to give the game away, Duke just wouldn't take it.
Do one of yall wanna win this game or not?
Well-said, sir!
It was probably a good time for an ugly win. After a 3-game losing streak, getting whipped by Miami and losing narrowly to BC, the outcome of this game should hopefully demonstrate to our guys that they can still fight for a win. They can pull together and get it done, and the nature of the game - winning by 1 and overcoming screw-ups - was probably, in a sense, invigorating for them. Bring on Wake.
Excellent points, Philly. I wasn't excited/happy about much of the game, but you better believe I was grinning widely on that last defensive stand. As CFB said, sometimes it takes some luck to go your way, and that certainly helped. But the team executed in tough situations on several occasions and stood up to the task. This was a vintage VT win, and as CFB always likes to say, a road win in-conference is always a big one. Hopefully the team can use this and build on it.
grinning wildly? I was so starved of the winning feeling I was jumping wildly enough to scare the dog out of the room. My fianc (also a Hokie grad) looked at me wondering what the big deal was. How is it that (most) women can get emotional about everything but sports and most guys are Hank Hill until the game is on?
I dunno ... is it because women use up their emotions on things that actually matter, and men spend so much energy repressing our emotions that we have to let them out when we know it won't affect the outcome?
Prolly not.
We're undefeated on the road against AP Top 25 teams this year.
BOOM.
Don't forget NC State.....
I am so happy VT won and really think they shouldve won a couple more games this year, there is one thing that is killing me though, can we please talk about the clock management with about 5 minutes to go in the game (on the drive where we had the BS offensive pass interference call?). On that drive I think we picked up 3 or 4 first downs before we stalled out, but what was driving me insane was that we were in a hurry up offense, we snapped the ball with 20+ seconds on the play clock at least 4 or 5 times, if we had just milked that, Duke would have at least not had all those timeouts when we got the ball after the missed FG.
Also, I havent seen much on that "running into the kicker" call, I have no clue how that was not roughing, I have seen VT called for roughing on far less contact than that in the past, any thoughts/reaction?
Thanks guys
The announcers actually commented on it as well. VT was snapping the ball with about 15-20 seconds left on the play clock. While I agree that we should have been looking to take more time off the clock, it is tough to fault them for staying up tempo. The offense is so much more productive when it goes up tempo. By picking up a few first downs they did far better than going three and out and burning the 40 second play clock on each play.
As for the running into the kicker penalty, I also thought it was BS. Hughes' leg was up in the air, which should have meant roughing. There were a few questionable calls throughout the game but I do think they evened out in the end.
I noticed the clock, but (as is being discussed elsewhere), I think there was a reason for it. If we are able to score, it comes close to icing the game. If we fail to score, it still leaves us time to recover in the case that Duke gets the ball and goes up, rather than the few close games we've lost where there's simply no time left to match a late score.
I also thought it was roughing on Hughes, but the Duke guy ran into the kicking leg, which is usually called running into, rather than roughing. Had it been his plant leg, roughing for sure.
I thought 5 min to go was a little early to go into clock management mode. With this much time in the game and a 1 point lead we could have been running the clock down on ourselves. If the drive stalled and we had to kick with 4 minutes to go, there would have been plenty of time for Duke to march down and kick a field goal to take the lead and all the clock killing would be killing our final drive. I thought running the offense in the means that gave us the best chance to get down the field was appropriate.
Also anyone else thing they got away with the cheap late hit on Brewer clearly after the whistle had blown for the false start/lining up in neutral zone (don't remember which) penalty. The announcer comment about the DE's momentum was BS. Those DE can change direction very quickly when it comes to making a sack but not when it comes to avoiding a QB after the whistle? Beamer was right to be in the officials ears after that play.
I thought that should have been a penalty as well. Momentum is one thing; if he had just sort of bumped into him, OK. But he full-on tackled Brewer after several whistles were blown multiple times. It was clear the play was over.
I could not figure out how that was not a penalty.
There's a flip side to your argument for slowing down our offense to milk time off the clock. History shows that, this year, the hurry-up offense works better for us when we can get into a rhythm and keep the defense on their heels. When we slow things down, we tend to become more predictable and our players get more out-of-sync. Plus, which would you rather have: our offense staying in hurry-up mode, keeping rhythm, and possibly putting more points on the board....or....slow things down, milk the clock, and rely on our defense to stop Duke's offense in 2-minute drill mode with only a 1 point advantage?
This article has a pretty decent explanation of the difference between running into the kicker and roughing the kicker. I don't have any footage of the play, but from memory I don't think our kicker was knocked down to the ground. Perhaps our kicker needs a "flopping" lesson from Duke's lineman that won the call against Ken Ekanem! I personally didn't feel it was a roughing-worthy penalty when I saw the replay, so I'm not too upset about it.
I think you've got an excellent point there, and that's mine as well: a 1-point lead with 6 minutes to go is not the time for the 4-minute offense. Lefty's goal there was to flip field position, hold on to the ball, and score. Even a field goal there puts Duke in a world of trouble, as they hadn't moved the ball consistently in 3 quarters. Had it not been for an offensive PI flag and the subsequent sack, chances are we all would be singing his praises right now. Getting too conservative, going 3-and-out, and giving the ball right back to Duke doesn't do you much good.
As for the running into/roughing debate, I thought it was enough contact to warrant a 15-yarder. That said, generally you'll see a roughing flag thrown if the defender hits the kicker's plant leg or torso, and you'll see a 5-yarder if he hits the kicker's kicking leg. That said, if AJ throws honor and dignity to the wind and flops a little harder, we might have seen a roughing call. Oh well.
Only Dukies can flop in Durham. You know that.
All things considered, we're probably lucky the guy didn't hurt himself, with AJ getting a personal foul for unnecessary #punterswag.
i had more issues with the failure to call timeout at the end of the first half. the sack made it moot but we were in position to get in FG range and with 2 available, we let the clock run.
I was actually glad that that was a complaint in that game. Yes, had we lost that definitely would have been part of it. But Frank is usually extra conservative in those types of situations, so seeing him keep the foot on the gas pedal was an unusual surprise. Going three and out but using up clock in that situation would not have helped us much either.
Very poetic piece, PhillyHokie007...at least as poetic as a piece about football will let you be.
So many times during the game I wanted to throw in the towel and go do something else for my Saturday afternoon. But then I'd think "how would the players feel if I gave up before the end of the game?" I knew our players weren't going to quit, and luckily this time it paid off with a win that stunk as much as it felt good.
Will be in Winston-Salem this weekend to hopefully watch them blast the Demon Deacons in mini-Lane stadium. Go Hokies!
There are some wins you can't take a lot from either way. We did a lot of bad things and enough good things to take the lead, then Duke handed us the victory by missing a gift-wrapped FG. The offense was still lousy, defenders made many of the same mistakes as they did in the past. The main difference was the final score.
When people say 'A Win Is A Win' this is the kind of game they have in mind. To me, the best thing about it is, it makes it very likely we'll be bowl-eligible after this coming weekend.
We played a little ugly. But this year, we're not that kind of team to play pretty.
This year we gut it out and play high risk ball.
Some execution mistakes and some pretty stuff.
I have been thinking of the Steve Martin movie "Roxanne". More specifically, the little part time fire company trying to learn their jobs.
The basics, moving in unison with a fire hose, basic teamwork to get a play done. Followed by a scene where we see a guy through the window, over the coaches shoulder of a guy riding a jet of water up and down. Martin can't quite see it, he senses it a second to late.
In the end, they do a great job putting out the fire.
I am glad we have such a love for little birdies to give them this place to perch.
Any team can win when they're in the zone and things are going their way. It takes toughness and resolve to pull out the W when you're having an off day.
Watching that gut-it-out win was on of the most gratifying wins I've experienced as a Hokie. My friends and I all dancing, screaming and exuberant after a crazy wild win. I'll take that experience any day, and it's yet another experience that has made me proud to be a fan of this crazy team.
Plus it was my birthday, so that was awesome!
Happy Birthday, it was mine as well
It wasn't a pretty win by any means, We didn't deserve it, but we'll take it. We've been on the other side of that coin many times in the past, dropping a game where we have absolutely no business doing so with something on the line (like the division title). We know the feeling all too well.
We got a win but we also have a lot of coachable moments from this game. The fake punt miscommunication, the errant throws to otherwise open receivers, etc. The good thing is, win this week and we have another month at the end of the year to help coach these players up.
That fake punt call, and the confusion around it, is disconcerting. There is no way you can blame Di Nardo for that.
They need to get their signals so clear that mis-communication like that does not happen. You have to look at Beamer on that one. That snafu could have, and shall I say should have, cost them the game. Fortunately we won! But if we lost the game due to that mixup, I bet anti-Beamer chorus that he is "too old" would be very loud indeed.
It is definitely on Beamer, but DiNardo or A.J. should have called a timeout.
There is a way I can blame DiNardo for that.. DiNardo himself says blame him. DiNardo called the audible for the pass play while he was setting protection pre-snap. Beamer had just coached him up on the sideline.. telling him to call in the headhunters for max protect if Duke showed the same formation they had on our previous punt (the one that almost got blocked). In the process of trying to do that, DiNardo accidentially called the fake.
There's no way this is Beamer's fault. He was making sure the punt team was ready with the needed protections against Duke's block scheme, and DiNardo had a brain fart.
And in the end it didn't matter. I am pretty sure DiNardo won't do it again accidentally.
It's funny, I must have read the same quotes as you, but I took away exactly the opposite conclusion. I had the impression CFB was trying to tell DiNardo about the coverage, and he (CFB) accidentally included the "code word" in his instructions. DiNardo called for the fake because that's what he thought CFB said to do.
You could say DiNardo should have used enough independent judgment to do what he thought was right, or AJ should have refused to go through with it. But I don't like the sound of that. If CFB says run the fake, you run the fake. If he DID want a fake, and DiNardo called a timeout to argue about it, that would not be a good outcome.
I've read multiple takes on the situation, not just these press conference quotes. Bottom line is that Beamer blames himself for putting too much on DiNardo's plate (e.g. watch for this, call that protection, etc) instead of just calling a protection for the punt team to roll with, and DiNardo blames himself for accidentally calling the fake-pass audible when Beamer had not even mentioned it.
This seems appropriate:
Good thoughts on running the clock/not running the clock, one more thing I wanted to get opinion/rulling on: How come at the end on Duke's last drive, when Boone got that intentional grounding call, why does the clock not run after the ball is spotted there. The whole point of grounding is to penalize a time like the sack was made, but Duke is the one that benefitted on this play, yeah they lost 5 yards or so, but they basically got a free time out. They got to huddle while the refs talked, then they got to line up and take their time snapping the ball. To me there needs to be a run off and/or the clock needs to start on the refs whistle. Does anyone know if the refs handled that correctly?
I thought the same thing. I expected the clock to run once the ball was spotted.
Well, keep in mind that the refs earlier, when JC got stuffed on 4th-and-1, marked it as a loss, then measured anyway. I guess they just wanted to be sure...
#goacc
It's always better to take an extra minute and be sure. Few things suck as much as realizing you screwed up and didn't bother to take the time to make sure you got it right.
It's true, I just found it funny. A backwards spot necessitating a measurement? I don't think I've ever seen that before.
Yeah, the whole "yard and a half short" thing seemed a bit silly....
I thought that the clock, on that type of penalty, restarted as soon as the ball was placed.
They treated it as if it was an incomplete pass, which the grounding penalty says it was not.
Took a quick look at the college rule book and, by rule, the clock starts on the snap. The officials got that one right, although I'd love to hear the NCAA's reasoning for it. At the very least the clock should start on the ready for play.
Also, in case anyone is curious, here's a link to a pdf of the NCAA football rulebook.
Very cool. Thanks for the education.
A day you don't learn something is a day wasted.
That's precisely the mindset I try to have as an official. Now that I've joined the fraternity (which it really is, at least in terms of the fellowship and brotherhood - alas, no toga parties yet), I feel obligated to stand up for my fellow officials and provide some insight into how they do their jobs.
There's a joke in there somewhere about Roman zebras but, I can't quite suss it out.
So, just thanks.
As much as I agree with the idea that "we didn't deserve to win the game," I actually think this was a very important win for the team. The fact that they were able to put the stupid mistakes they made in the 4th behind us and come up big on the final few plays of the game was huge. When Ken had that penalty, I remember the "here we go again" feeling in my stomach, and I was almost sure the team would fall apart. The fact that they didn't speaks volumes on how far this team has come since the Georgia Tech, ECU games.
We didn't deserve to win? And Duke did? Duke of the multiple intential grounding penalties? The Duke team that fumbled multiple times right after the announcers talked about how protecting the ball was a point of emphasis for their coaching staff? Duke the team whose automatic FG kicker had a meltdown?
By saying we didn't deserve to win, you are saying Duke deserved the win based on how they played, which I think is pretty funny.
Besides, we owed Duke payback for last year, and we got it on their home field. It was glorious.
I disagree. I don't think either team deserved to win. But as someone posted elsewhere, "deserved" has nothing to do with it.
If no one deserves to win, then the only other outcome is a tie. But ties can't happen anymore.
The other outcome is that the team that wins doesn't deserve it. You don't always get what you deserve, and you don't always deserve what you get.
It wasn't the win we deserved, but it was the one we needed right now
Winning ugly is still winning. Twelve ugly wins in a season makes you an undefeated team (can you say Florida State?....I knew you could!)
You commented that this year's team performance has turned the fanbase into a collection of cynics. I believe that it is more accurate to say that this year's team performance has turned the fanbase on this website into a collection of cynics.
Many of the views expressed on TKP are not isolated to TKP.
Yeah, we are nowhere near as bad as some of the others and some of the ardent cynics here are transplants from those sites.
This site is the least cynical by far. Some quotes from elsewhere regarding Beamer, "F*** him" "Worthless senile old fart" "Screw our worthless staff". Also quotes about some of our players not deserving to be on the field for a D-1 team. This is the best hokie site out there.
Oh i agree with you about this being the best hokie site. However, i do know a number of people who avoid all sites including this one for it's cynical posts. For me ... in some cases i fire back. I quit paying TSL good money to read trash on many posts including articles by the site operators.
My impression at times is that the cynics are 20 something males whose only experience is playing football video games.
Those who demand perfection from our football team and coaches should watch other games ... Alabama, Notre Dame, MIchigan State, Oregon, Ohio State all make mistakes ... both players and coaches.
While i am unhappy as anyone with this year's record, the team was in every game lost except Miami. Let's face it we embarassed them last year at their place, knocked them from a ranking that was almost in the top 10, and they showed up in Blacksburg pissed. They played like they were pissed.
There is still a chance for the team to go 7-5 and that isn't great, it isn't bad, but it's a good record.
With a 7-5 record perhaps the team will get a better bowl than the Military Bowl, then again if the weather cooperates with a mild sunny day, Annapolis might be a great place for the fan base to rebuild too. No airfare or hotel expenses (if you need an overnight stay somewhere, i have a guest room, or BYOM (Bring Your Own Mattress).
Honestly, I'm kind of hoping for a Military Bowl appearance. Tickets will be cheap, and it's about a 30-minute trip from my house. Can't get much better than that.
Now that my going to a bowl game is an expense rather than a free vacation, I'd much rather the Hokies be in Annapolis than down south.
However, Mother Nature needs to cooperate, and Al Gore keeps his mouth shut. He was at a conference in Sweden in December 2009 where he said that over 10 years without a significant snow fall in Wash DC was proof of global warming. Several days later we got 22 inches of snow and i was stuck out on I-81 for 14 hours coming back from Blacksburg.
I attended the coldest game in VT history. It was either 78 or 79 against VMI, then the second coldest game back in 2008, a night game against Duke. If the team gets selected for the Military and it's cold then i am still going.
I was at the Duke game you are referring to. It was a whopping 7 degrees.
My dad is English and he grew up playing rugby and he's never really understood nor appreciated American Football. He doesn't really care for the sport and he has lots of opinions on it that would be unwelcome around here. I finally convinced him to come visit me down in Blacksburg and attend a game. In retrospect I feel really bad for dragging him down for that particular game. We sat through the entire game (because it was much closer than it should have been) and then walked back to my apartment in Terrace View in the blistering cold. It was the coldest I've been and I'm sure he could say the same. He has not been to a game since. Talk about leaving a bad impression :/
At least we won. The first game I brought my parents to at Tech was the Miami debacle with Marcus Vick.
There's a difference between being a cynic and a realist. And bring openly critical doesn't mean you love and support the team any less.
Also, +1 for the 2 QB rotation versus Duke.
Good to see Motley making some positive yardage at least running the ball.
I watched off and on. Tried to do yard work but kept coming back to the TV. During the 2 sacks to end the game; as cool as they were, I just watched. Pretty much numb to the win.
To be fair, you are a fish. Congrats on learning to do yard work.
Personally, the Miami was really disheartening to me in terms of execution and effort. The last two games though I've been pleased with the effort...regardless of wins or losses, this team is fighting it's ass off! The execution is still lacking but maybe winning the way we did can help focus the team these last three games (We're going bowling!) Things definitely need to be worked on in the offseason, but hopefully the team is learning how to win which is painful in the short term, but ultimately a good thing (hopefully).
One more thing...let's get DiNardo a hearing aid, I almost lost what hair I have left on that fake punt.