Agreed. I've been to our games at: LSU, Ohio State, Nebraska, Clemson, Miami, BC, ECU, Wake Forest, Temple, Pitt (x2), UNC (x2), Maryland (x2), Duke (x2), and UVA (x4) .... LSU was definitely the best game atmosphere.
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You definitely could have stopped after Clemson. Honestly it would be insulting if someone compared Lane Stadium to the stadium atmosphere at Miami, BC, Wake Forest, Temple, Pitt, UNC, Duke, or UVA.
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LSU was the only time I remember a VT team looking absolutely rattled by the opposing stadium and the atmosphere. They were whooping us and it just snowballed- happens that way sometimes. Reminds me of Johnny Utah's speech in The Replacements.
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Haha fair enough. For the record, my Miami game was in the old Orange Bowl, which some people try to claim was a good atmosphere. Maybe iit was in the 1980s or early 90s, but it definitely was not in 2004, even though the ACC Championship was going to the winner.
Just a quick plug of sorts ... ECU is actually a pretty decent gameday atmosphere. Their stadium isn't that big, but there is a good tailgate scene, and the stadium atmosphere is solid. Overall, gameday at ECU is much more similar to Clemson or Tech than it is to the other ACC schools.
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I don't understand this mentality. By this logic, the only major improvements a team can make are during the off-season, right?
There's no point in playing to get experience then. No point in using subs to get real game time, since they obviously won't improve. Spring and Fall camps are really the only meaningful snaps that players can get to help them learn. That time in the film room and on the field during the season is just wasted effort, right?
I'm sick of hearing this argument. Ohio State is a better team than they were when we played them. Their offensive woes were masked by playing sub-par defenses the next four games. Although it's really pointless arguing this anymore, because all the argument boils down to is:
"They got better, here's the data"
"No they didn't, VT is good enough to beat playoff teams"
...etc...etc...
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By your logic good teams can only get upset early in the year...which just isn't true. Why is it so important to you to believe that OSU was a bad team when we played them?
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It's not that I believe they were a bad team when we played them. I believe we beat a good team in the Shoe, I just have a problem with people denying that OSU made major improvements over the season. They took the step from a good team to a great one.
I think the people who are denying Ohio State improved want that victory to seem as though it was over the Ohio State team that just beat Alabama. The truth is each team is different week to week. They were good in Week 2, but we were better. However, they have improved every week since. To deny that is flabbergasting to me.
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The need to continue bringing it up is flabbergasting to me. There has been no direct argument against your claim, mostly just confusion as to why it matters.
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Plenty of people saying that OSU did not show a good amount of improvement of the season, and plenty of people . Look at the voting patterns too; it seems like most of the fanbase wants to believe it as well.
Actually, nevermind. You're the one who was in that thread calling me out and questioning whether or not I was a Hokie fan. And then people below questioned it as well. Apparently I have to blindly follow the mob mentality and am not allowed to step back and try put things in the perspective I understand them. Furthermore, if OSU does beat us badly next year I would only get flamed for pointing out that I predicted it. It's a lose-lose situation for me, and a win-win for people like you who can simply sit back and question other people's dedication and then simply dismiss them when they bring up any argument contrary to your own.
I've been happy with the team before, and many of my happiest memories are Virginia Tech football games. My friends would tell you that years ago I was one of the biggest VT homers there was. I have Beamer's and Bud's autographs, two game-worn uniforms (one of each of the pro-combats) and a game-worn helmet. I've kept tickets to all the games I've gone to. Believe me when I say that I love Virginia Tech, but the last few seasons have demonstrated that it is better (for me, at least) to take a realistic approach when looking at this football team.
This site is becoming less of a forum and more of an echo chamber, and it makes it really hard to have honest discussions with opposing viewpoints.
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I apologize. I prefer to focus on the Hokies' accomplishments and their improvements. But I was wrong for attacking your opinion, I should have only expressed mine. I do not care whether OSU improved drastically or not, the win in the horseshoe is worthy of pride even if OSU was only a good, not great, team at the time.
In all seriousness, I would like to ask what caused the change from "homer" to "realist"? I think you can be both.
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Largely the loss to Clemson in Blacksburg in 2011. I hate Clemson more than I can put into words. Spending 5th grade and up in Clemson territory as a Hokie was a pain, so my happiest football memories are beating them in 2006 & 2007. 2007 was my first Hokie game, and CFB game in general, and to this day is the happiest I have ever been.
Aside from that has been seeing the program get worse every season since I started studying at VT. The student sections are far worse than they were when I started here. Although they showed up for the UVA game, BC was embarrassing. At least I got a Thursday night game senior year, which is more than some of my friends can say. And it's not the fact that we're worse, it's that - for the most part - we beat ourselves. I can take losing to a better team and getting outplayed, but we shoot ourselves in the foot so much. As I said below, we really could have been 11-1 each of the last two season if we didn't make silly mistakes.
I think you can be a homer and a realist, but I think the middle ground between those two is cautious optimism. I tend to be a pessimistic person in general, and the last few season have really tempered my expectations, so I probably fall more into the 'cautious' than 'optimistic'. Admittedly, I try not to get too optimistic anymore so that I can avoid the crushing disappointment of coming up short.
I think most of us on this board aren't too far off from one another, I just tend to frame things more aggressively than most posters.
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Look no offense, but that whole thing started with you "calling out" the players and stating that they should be embarrassed for taking pride in their accomplishment. No matter you think OSU got better, didn't get better, got worse or stayed the same is frankly beside the point. You being worried that a player is proud that they beat a team that is going to the big game is what is worrying, and not one statement by any player is as you claim embarrassing.
You also seem to take an inordinate amount of displeasure from other fans relishing in that win as well, and state:
All of this belief that Ohio State hasn't improved is just going to result in massive disappointment when they come into Blacksburg and tear us a new one next year.
As I stated further down that thread about being a Hokie fan, I am fine with any type of fan you want to be. You can be a positive one, negative one, whatever but you neither seem to enjoy the fact that we beat them this year, nor do you think anyone else should. So I question why you are a Hokie fan if you can't enjoy their success. Then you take the position now that everyone is claiming you need to blindly follow mob mentality and calling you out on your opinion when that is exactly what you did in your first post regarding player reactions. Oh woe is you. give me a break dude.
To be perfectly honest I do believe OSU got better over the season, but so does almost every team. The Hokies went up and down all season and finished up. So what? does it really matter if we could beat them tomorrow when they were a better team? What matters is we beat them on the day we were meant to. That's sports man. You show up on the day and win or lose. You don't get to call a mulligan and say "but we are a much better team now, so it shouldn't count."
I am glad you are a Hokie fan, but as I said I really question why you can't enjoy the success of the team. Why you find it necessary to tell everyone that our win over OSU should be asterisked because they became better over the season, and that they are wrong for taking pride in it. Especially the players who actually played the damn game.
If you want to have honest discussions with opposing viewpoints then you shouldn't start your discussions with trashing the players opinions. If you want honest discussion with opposing viewpoints then you shouldn't dismiss everyone that is a homer and believes we can still beat OSU again just because your opinion differs. I didn't give us much hope to win this year but we did. I also believe that there is little chance next year to win again but that doesn't mean it can't happen or won't. But that doesn't mean other Hokie fans can't believe we will win or take pride in the win we had, and for damn sure doesn't mean the players can't.
When you want to start having open discussion I will be happy to but so far I don't see you coming anywhere close to that. And if we lose to OSU next year I will be the very first person to congratulate you for calling it, happy now?
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I'm not saying we shouldn't take pride in that game. I was ecstatic afterwards, and I am still happy that we won. Heck, going into it I believed 100% we would win. I even told my Michigan friend that "We are going to do what Michigan can't. Beat Ohio State."
Furthermore, I didn't start the conversation by calling out the players. My exact words were:
These reactions by the players actually have me worried. Ken Ekanem saying 'Co sugar bowl champs' should be embarrassing. It's holding onto the accomplishments of another team because your own pale in comparison. As Joe pointed out, the transitive property doesn't mean anything.
I was saying we should be embarrassed that Ekanem was claiming 'Co-Sugar Champs', and that the general attitude worried me. To be more specific, I worry that the team might come in over-confident for next year's game. And for the millionth time, I am not saying the win should be asterisked, I'm just saying it should be taken in perspective: it was Week 2 and both teams were replacing a lot of starters. We had the chance at an upset and we took it.
It's good to be optimistic; the only thing I take issue with is people acting like Ohio State didn't get significantly better over the season. Is that a reason to put an asterisk? Absolutely not. That's why they play the game. I'm not dismissing people who think we can beat them again, just the ones claiming that the present Ohio State plays at the same level of the Ohio State we beat in Week 2.
Like you mentioned before, it shows tremendous promise that we could pull off a big game win early in the season. That used to be next to impossible for us. We just have to start playing to the level of our team, not the level of our opponent (otherwise Wake happens).
And I'm not trying to play the 'woe is me' card. I'm just pointing out that people on this board (such as yourself) basically question the fanhood of people who don't tow the line, so to speak.
Tagging along what AZHokie22 said in the same thread:
Not a "true Hokie fan" question, more so an "actual Hokie fan" question. Legit quality wins against top level teams are a point of contention these days?
You said:
Gotta say, I have the same question as well.
There are all types of fans but at a certain point if a "fan" can't enjoy the successes of their team if those successes aren't winning national championships every year then I really wonder why they choose to associate themselves with VT, or any team that isn't playing for it every year.
I can enjoy the successes of Virginia Tech football. If this was a team that lost every game, I would still be a fan. The source of frustration to me has and always will be a team that beats itself. I don't get angry if we lose and we were outplayed, if the opponent is better. But if we make silly mistakes and give the game away, or play down to an opponent that we should have no problem beating, that is what irks me. And that is what happened most of this year.
My pessimism stems from the fact that we have been 'rebuilding' for the last three years, when I think 2012 should have been the only rebuilding year. In the last two years we have shown great promise at multiple points throughout the season, only to drop the ball against teams we should beat. We were very close to being 11-1 in both years, with all but one loss being by a touchdown or less. I think both teams definitely had the ability to go 11-1, but they shot themselves in the foot too much. That's what frustrates me: we have teams that very obviously have the ability to bring Tech back to the top, but they have too many self-inflicted mistakes.
However, to me this coming season seems likely to be another rebuilding year on offense. Given the struggles this season, losing 3 Senior OL is really going to hurt. Looking at the schedule and the talent we have returning, though, we should still be able to compete for our division. Like most fans, I think 2016 seems to be the year we'll have our best shot, but that optimism does little to supplant my frustration about what could have been the last two seasons.
And if we beat OSU next year I will be the very first person to congratulate you. Happy now?
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Looking back I should have been far more outraged in 2007 that we didn't get a title shot against Ohio State. We had two losses; one to an 11-3 BC team whom we beat for the ACC title, and one to LSU who went on to win the NC game. Looking at LSU's two losses to two 8-5 teams, they should not have jumped us in the rankings. Seeing as how we lost to Kansas and Ohio State got crushed the argument could be made that neither of us would have deserved it, but I argue our team would have focused on the game rather than the beach had we been playing for a title rather than an Orange Bowl against a flash-in-the-pan team.
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Yep. I don't see why anyone would be outraged about us not playing in the title game over LSU that year. I remember taking shots when Tyrod came in and taking another round when we finally managed to put points on that board. There was nothing else to take solace in that evening.
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I for one, got really tired of hearing EVERY SINGLE SPORTS PUNDIT ON PLANET EARTH asking, "how did OSU lose to that team?"
This is college football, and they're still kids. OSU had just played Navy the week before, and we should know better than anybody what a chop block hangover feels like. The Buckeyes struggled in that game as well for most of 3 qtrs. I was not surprised at all that the Hokies won that game. OSU has never played the Hokies. Why would they know that Bud Foster will cut you open and watch you bleed when you give him a new qb to go after?
As far as next year, I imagine the first thing that Urban Meyer will do at 12:01 am Tues 1/13/15 is pull all of the Hokie game tapes that he can, make a 55 gallon barrel of coffee and watch film straight through until April. Then he'll hold Spring practice, make more coffee, and watch film until August. They'll try to hang 100 pts in Lane Stadium. I hope everybody brings their man britches to that one.
I. CAN'T. WAIT. UNTIL. LABOR DAY.
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This, this, a hundred times this. We were just the wrong team to run into at the wrong time. There's no reason to diminish the loss or to state that we would beat OSU 100 times out of 100. Anyone who expects 18-19 year olds to consistently do as they're supposed to and do so at an extremely high level is kidding themselves. The "better" team doesn't always win these games, that's why they play them and that's part of why so many of us love college sports above all other competitions. And, the fact of the matter is, VT won that football game.
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Even if the Buckeyes win that game next week, they will not be National Champions. 49 States might declare them such but VT is the undisputed champion of the state of Ohio.
Does that make them the NCAA equivalent of Al Gore? Win the popular vote but lose your own state???
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If you were the Oregon Ducks wouldn't you invite the Hokie Bird to be on the sidelines Monday night? Might get a little fully dipped dork magic out of it......
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Comments
Good topic for an article, Andy. Well done.
Remind me again why LSU was thrown into the 2007 MNC ahead of us? Is still as crazy as I think it is?
48-7
Forgot about that one.
I wish i could forget
Yeah, really... How do you do that? And can I get a prescription?
pssht....head to head..what does THAT matter? /s
Most insane atmosphere I've been to that wasn't a sold out Lane at Night. That's the real Death Valley no matter what Clemson says.
That is the top stadium that I want to visit.
Agreed. I've been to our games at: LSU, Ohio State, Nebraska, Clemson, Miami, BC, ECU, Wake Forest, Temple, Pitt (x2), UNC (x2), Maryland (x2), Duke (x2), and UVA (x4) .... LSU was definitely the best game atmosphere.
You definitely could have stopped after Clemson. Honestly it would be insulting if someone compared Lane Stadium to the stadium atmosphere at Miami, BC, Wake Forest, Temple, Pitt, UNC, Duke, or UVA.
LSU was the only time I remember a VT team looking absolutely rattled by the opposing stadium and the atmosphere. They were whooping us and it just snowballed- happens that way sometimes. Reminds me of Johnny Utah's speech in The Replacements.
Haha fair enough. For the record, my Miami game was in the old Orange Bowl, which some people try to claim was a good atmosphere. Maybe iit was in the 1980s or early 90s, but it definitely was not in 2004, even though the ACC Championship was going to the winner.
Just a quick plug of sorts ... ECU is actually a pretty decent gameday atmosphere. Their stadium isn't that big, but there is a good tailgate scene, and the stadium atmosphere is solid. Overall, gameday at ECU is much more similar to Clemson or Tech than it is to the other ACC schools.
Andy, you forgot to say "bro"
It doesn't rhyme with "seven" though.
48-to-Oh, bro (plus 7).
Well played, Bitter.
Cause they whooped our asses?
But but but that was early in the season! we were not a very good football team then! we got sooooooo much better as the year went on!
I see what you did there
Ohio State fan, is that you? :P
I don't understand this mentality. By this logic, the only major improvements a team can make are during the off-season, right?
There's no point in playing to get experience then. No point in using subs to get real game time, since they obviously won't improve. Spring and Fall camps are really the only meaningful snaps that players can get to help them learn. That time in the film room and on the field during the season is just wasted effort, right?
I'm sick of hearing this argument. Ohio State is a better team than they were when we played them. Their offensive woes were masked by playing sub-par defenses the next four games. Although it's really pointless arguing this anymore, because all the argument boils down to is:
"They got better, here's the data"
"No they didn't, VT is good enough to beat playoff teams"
...etc...etc...
By your logic good teams can only get upset early in the year...which just isn't true. Why is it so important to you to believe that OSU was a bad team when we played them?
It's not that I believe they were a bad team when we played them. I believe we beat a good team in the Shoe, I just have a problem with people denying that OSU made major improvements over the season. They took the step from a good team to a great one.
I think the people who are denying Ohio State improved want that victory to seem as though it was over the Ohio State team that just beat Alabama. The truth is each team is different week to week. They were good in Week 2, but we were better. However, they have improved every week since. To deny that is flabbergasting to me.
The need to continue bringing it up is flabbergasting to me. There has been no direct argument against your claim, mostly just confusion as to why it matters.
You need to read this thread then:
http://www.thekeyplay.com/virginia-tech-football/2015/01/8407/virginia-t...
Plenty of people saying that OSU did not show a good amount of improvement of the season, and plenty of people . Look at the voting patterns too; it seems like most of the fanbase wants to believe it as well.
Actually, nevermind. You're the one who was in that thread calling me out and questioning whether or not I was a Hokie fan. And then people below questioned it as well. Apparently I have to blindly follow the mob mentality and am not allowed to step back and try put things in the perspective I understand them. Furthermore, if OSU does beat us badly next year I would only get flamed for pointing out that I predicted it. It's a lose-lose situation for me, and a win-win for people like you who can simply sit back and question other people's dedication and then simply dismiss them when they bring up any argument contrary to your own.
I've been happy with the team before, and many of my happiest memories are Virginia Tech football games. My friends would tell you that years ago I was one of the biggest VT homers there was. I have Beamer's and Bud's autographs, two game-worn uniforms (one of each of the pro-combats) and a game-worn helmet. I've kept tickets to all the games I've gone to. Believe me when I say that I love Virginia Tech, but the last few seasons have demonstrated that it is better (for me, at least) to take a realistic approach when looking at this football team.
This site is becoming less of a forum and more of an echo chamber, and it makes it really hard to have honest discussions with opposing viewpoints.
I apologize. I prefer to focus on the Hokies' accomplishments and their improvements. But I was wrong for attacking your opinion, I should have only expressed mine. I do not care whether OSU improved drastically or not, the win in the horseshoe is worthy of pride even if OSU was only a good, not great, team at the time.
In all seriousness, I would like to ask what caused the change from "homer" to "realist"? I think you can be both.
Largely the loss to Clemson in Blacksburg in 2011. I hate Clemson more than I can put into words. Spending 5th grade and up in Clemson territory as a Hokie was a pain, so my happiest football memories are beating them in 2006 & 2007. 2007 was my first Hokie game, and CFB game in general, and to this day is the happiest I have ever been.
Aside from that has been seeing the program get worse every season since I started studying at VT. The student sections are far worse than they were when I started here. Although they showed up for the UVA game, BC was embarrassing. At least I got a Thursday night game senior year, which is more than some of my friends can say. And it's not the fact that we're worse, it's that - for the most part - we beat ourselves. I can take losing to a better team and getting outplayed, but we shoot ourselves in the foot so much. As I said below, we really could have been 11-1 each of the last two season if we didn't make silly mistakes.
I think you can be a homer and a realist, but I think the middle ground between those two is cautious optimism. I tend to be a pessimistic person in general, and the last few season have really tempered my expectations, so I probably fall more into the 'cautious' than 'optimistic'. Admittedly, I try not to get too optimistic anymore so that I can avoid the crushing disappointment of coming up short.
I think most of us on this board aren't too far off from one another, I just tend to frame things more aggressively than most posters.
Look no offense, but that whole thing started with you "calling out" the players and stating that they should be embarrassed for taking pride in their accomplishment. No matter you think OSU got better, didn't get better, got worse or stayed the same is frankly beside the point. You being worried that a player is proud that they beat a team that is going to the big game is what is worrying, and not one statement by any player is as you claim embarrassing.
You also seem to take an inordinate amount of displeasure from other fans relishing in that win as well, and state:
As I stated further down that thread about being a Hokie fan, I am fine with any type of fan you want to be. You can be a positive one, negative one, whatever but you neither seem to enjoy the fact that we beat them this year, nor do you think anyone else should. So I question why you are a Hokie fan if you can't enjoy their success. Then you take the position now that everyone is claiming you need to blindly follow mob mentality and calling you out on your opinion when that is exactly what you did in your first post regarding player reactions. Oh woe is you. give me a break dude.
To be perfectly honest I do believe OSU got better over the season, but so does almost every team. The Hokies went up and down all season and finished up. So what? does it really matter if we could beat them tomorrow when they were a better team? What matters is we beat them on the day we were meant to. That's sports man. You show up on the day and win or lose. You don't get to call a mulligan and say "but we are a much better team now, so it shouldn't count."
I am glad you are a Hokie fan, but as I said I really question why you can't enjoy the success of the team. Why you find it necessary to tell everyone that our win over OSU should be asterisked because they became better over the season, and that they are wrong for taking pride in it. Especially the players who actually played the damn game.
If you want to have honest discussions with opposing viewpoints then you shouldn't start your discussions with trashing the players opinions. If you want honest discussion with opposing viewpoints then you shouldn't dismiss everyone that is a homer and believes we can still beat OSU again just because your opinion differs. I didn't give us much hope to win this year but we did. I also believe that there is little chance next year to win again but that doesn't mean it can't happen or won't. But that doesn't mean other Hokie fans can't believe we will win or take pride in the win we had, and for damn sure doesn't mean the players can't.
When you want to start having open discussion I will be happy to but so far I don't see you coming anywhere close to that. And if we lose to OSU next year I will be the very first person to congratulate you for calling it, happy now?
I'm not saying we shouldn't take pride in that game. I was ecstatic afterwards, and I am still happy that we won. Heck, going into it I believed 100% we would win. I even told my Michigan friend that "We are going to do what Michigan can't. Beat Ohio State."
Furthermore, I didn't start the conversation by calling out the players. My exact words were:
I was saying we should be embarrassed that Ekanem was claiming 'Co-Sugar Champs', and that the general attitude worried me. To be more specific, I worry that the team might come in over-confident for next year's game. And for the millionth time, I am not saying the win should be asterisked, I'm just saying it should be taken in perspective: it was Week 2 and both teams were replacing a lot of starters. We had the chance at an upset and we took it.
It's good to be optimistic; the only thing I take issue with is people acting like Ohio State didn't get significantly better over the season. Is that a reason to put an asterisk? Absolutely not. That's why they play the game. I'm not dismissing people who think we can beat them again, just the ones claiming that the present Ohio State plays at the same level of the Ohio State we beat in Week 2.
Like you mentioned before, it shows tremendous promise that we could pull off a big game win early in the season. That used to be next to impossible for us. We just have to start playing to the level of our team, not the level of our opponent (otherwise Wake happens).
And I'm not trying to play the 'woe is me' card. I'm just pointing out that people on this board (such as yourself) basically question the fanhood of people who don't tow the line, so to speak.
Tagging along what AZHokie22 said in the same thread:
You said:
I can enjoy the successes of Virginia Tech football. If this was a team that lost every game, I would still be a fan. The source of frustration to me has and always will be a team that beats itself. I don't get angry if we lose and we were outplayed, if the opponent is better. But if we make silly mistakes and give the game away, or play down to an opponent that we should have no problem beating, that is what irks me. And that is what happened most of this year.
My pessimism stems from the fact that we have been 'rebuilding' for the last three years, when I think 2012 should have been the only rebuilding year. In the last two years we have shown great promise at multiple points throughout the season, only to drop the ball against teams we should beat. We were very close to being 11-1 in both years, with all but one loss being by a touchdown or less. I think both teams definitely had the ability to go 11-1, but they shot themselves in the foot too much. That's what frustrates me: we have teams that very obviously have the ability to bring Tech back to the top, but they have too many self-inflicted mistakes.
However, to me this coming season seems likely to be another rebuilding year on offense. Given the struggles this season, losing 3 Senior OL is really going to hurt. Looking at the schedule and the talent we have returning, though, we should still be able to compete for our division. Like most fans, I think 2016 seems to be the year we'll have our best shot, but that optimism does little to supplant my frustration about what could have been the last two seasons.
And if we beat OSU next year I will be the very first person to congratulate you. Happy now?
Didn't we lose to Kansas?
Yes, or to put it more bluntly -- Sean Glennon got Aquib Talib'd.
Actually, it was Tyrod who got Aqib Talib'd. But point taken.
But... but...
In the Orange Bowl, yeah. :-\
Looking back I should have been far more outraged in 2007 that we didn't get a title shot against Ohio State. We had two losses; one to an 11-3 BC team whom we beat for the ACC title, and one to LSU who went on to win the NC game. Looking at LSU's two losses to two 8-5 teams, they should not have jumped us in the rankings. Seeing as how we lost to Kansas and Ohio State got crushed the argument could be made that neither of us would have deserved it, but I argue our team would have focused on the game rather than the beach had we been playing for a title rather than an Orange Bowl against a flash-in-the-pan team.
Head to head matters, especially when it was as woodshed a beating as it was that night
Yep. I don't see why anyone would be outraged about us not playing in the title game over LSU that year. I remember taking shots when Tyrod came in and taking another round when we finally managed to put points on that board. There was nothing else to take solace in that evening.
I for one, got really tired of hearing EVERY SINGLE SPORTS PUNDIT ON PLANET EARTH asking, "how did OSU lose to that team?"
This is college football, and they're still kids. OSU had just played Navy the week before, and we should know better than anybody what a chop block hangover feels like. The Buckeyes struggled in that game as well for most of 3 qtrs. I was not surprised at all that the Hokies won that game. OSU has never played the Hokies. Why would they know that Bud Foster will cut you open and watch you bleed when you give him a new qb to go after?
As far as next year, I imagine the first thing that Urban Meyer will do at 12:01 am Tues 1/13/15 is pull all of the Hokie game tapes that he can, make a 55 gallon barrel of coffee and watch film straight through until April. Then he'll hold Spring practice, make more coffee, and watch film until August. They'll try to hang 100 pts in Lane Stadium. I hope everybody brings their man britches to that one.
I. CAN'T. WAIT. UNTIL. LABOR DAY.
This, this, a hundred times this. We were just the wrong team to run into at the wrong time. There's no reason to diminish the loss or to state that we would beat OSU 100 times out of 100. Anyone who expects 18-19 year olds to consistently do as they're supposed to and do so at an extremely high level is kidding themselves. The "better" team doesn't always win these games, that's why they play them and that's part of why so many of us love college sports above all other competitions. And, the fact of the matter is, VT won that football game.
Virginia Tech to anOSU on September 6, 2014 before the game:
Virginia Tech to anOSU on September 6, 2014 immediately before the Donovan Riley pick-6:
From that date until Labor Day 2015, we still own them head-to-head. Period.
Tombstone references will get turkey legs everyday from me!
Even if the Buckeyes win that game next week, they will not be National Champions. 49 States might declare them such but VT is the undisputed champion of the state of Ohio.
Does that make them the NCAA equivalent of Al Gore? Win the popular vote but lose your own state???
State of Ohio might need some lotion for that burn.
I'd contend we were the champions of Virginia, too, though. But not North Carolina because we lost to Wke Forest and ECU
Ouch! But so true. This HOAT post hits good and bad at the same time. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Yeah but we beat Dook and UnCheat. So it's a push.
Great article Andy and very interesting topic. You continue to do an excellent job covering the Hokies. Thank-you!!!!
If you were the Oregon Ducks wouldn't you invite the Hokie Bird to be on the sidelines Monday night? Might get a little fully dipped dork magic out of it......