Virginia Tech had one job in the Independence Bowl: beat Tulsa and as a result win head coach Frank Beamer's final game. Tech pounced early, but sputtered late. A one-time seemingly insurmountable 45-21 mid-second quarter lead dwindled as Tulsa scored 31 of the game's 41 final points. Tech aided Tulsa's comeback effort with plenty of offensive and defensive miscues. However, the Hokies ultimately bested the Golden Hurricane 55-52.
Raise your hand if you had a similar reaction as Bud Foster to Dadi Nicolas' game clinching, fourth down sack.
That last sack from @YYBAQB had @coachfostervt feeling all kinds of feelings pic.twitter.com/21B1QjrwgJ
— VT Football (@VT_Football) December 27, 2015
The offseason is upon us. There will be plenty of time to: laud Isaiah Ford's 12 reception, 227 yard performance that propelled him to Tech's single-season record holder for receiving yards, discuss the circumstances of J.C. Coleman's fourth quarter fumble, talk about whether or not Foster can plug the holes on Tech's leaky defense next season (spoiler alert: I think so), and speculate how the pieces on the roster fit Justin Fuente's offensive scheme. However, right now I want to briefly focus on Beamer, and not what happened on the field.
It finally hit me that was Frank's last dance — a somewhat unsurprising shootout between a pair of 6-6 teams. (Tulsa's plenty good offense and revolting defense were half the ingredients in a recipee to score and yield gobs of points.) I still can't reconcile if the Independence Bowl was the end or epilogue to Frank's career. A season filled with early losses and disappointment quickly morphed into one filled with fond goodbyes for Frank after his selfless decision to step down. Even with all the stops on Frank's farewell tour and Fuente's hiring, I didn't come to grips with Frank's retirement until he busted his final lockerroom moves Saturday night.
#23Straight pic.twitter.com/Q1SghgDEIW
— HokiesFB (@HokiesFB) December 27, 2015
Does anyone know if Fuente dabs?
Comments
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Just finished celebrating here in The Fan with a bunch of Hokies. You will be missed, Frank, and thank you for bringing some great memories to VT.
LET'S GO, HOKIES!
THANKS FRANK! GREAT LONG TRIP!
What a crazy game, I may or may not have been yelled at for waking my wife and both kids and likely half the neighborhood for yelling "Who's your Dadi?" After that last sack. Great way to go out Frank, enjoy your retirement!
Yelled the same thing but with a mf word before Dadi. Also woke up the kids. Totally justifiable in my opinion.
4FSJ, can you do anything right?
I did not wake the ceiling :)
Super happy for the win, but it was definitely not a normal Hokies game. Definitely out of character. Tulsa's QB and receivers were especially were amazing, as was Ford.
Not a normal Beamer game.. but I think we saw a glimpse of things to come under Fuente. If Bud can tighten up the Defense (and I know he can), we will be stupid dangerous in the coming years.
Another thought I had was that practicing against Fuente's up-tempo offense will give our defense plenty of practice in stopping it. Not surprised that Tulsa scored points, but I must admit that I expected Bud to get it figured out for the second half. Props to Tulsa, though. They came to play and brought their A game on offense.
I agree for the most part. There's a potential flip side as well though. Living here in Big 12 country, I am constantly listening to analysts on sports talk radio here trying to understand why Big 12 defenses seem so weak while the offenses are so prolific. The one thing that they always come back to is that the defenses, practicing against up-tempo and spread offenses on a day to day basis tends to weaken them against more traditional offenses as we have seen particularly in bowl games, and the mindset against up tempo, passing teams is one of "we can't stop them, but we can contain them". I'm hoping that Bud, with his experience against many differing offensive styles, will be able to adjust his defense to handle anything they see. If not, last night's shootout may become the norm.
I think last night's sub-par defensive performance was the result of recruiting/lack of depth. If recruiting can improve, I have no doubt that we can return to having an elite defense in the upcoming years.
Not to mention the loss of 2 defensive starters, one prior to the game one in first quarter can't have helped.
A punt return in Frank's last game was quite symbolic. I had to raise the glass to that last night...
And lets give Stroman some credit, finding that forward gear was a thing of beauty (and a couple of nice defensive plays to boot).
"All I know is, what a football game," Beamer said. "It was exciting. First time I came to Shreveport, I left here a happy guy. Last time I came to Shreveport, I leave here a happy guy. I'm going to come back to Shreveport just for the hell of it."
Frank Beamer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/in-final-game-frank-beamer-sets-new-career-high-as-hokies-win-independence-bowl/2015/12/26/d044ca30-abe4-11e5-bff5-905b92f5f94b_story.html
Isaiah Ford is good at the game of football.
He footballs very hard..
He VT footballs very hard
Very football. Much wow.
Where is that guy??
You's dildos not do's the footballs likes he does the good footballs.
-Skwisgar Skwigelf
The defenses don't gots no good offenses to practice against!
Good, your assessment is.
Glad to see the Hokies win the last one for Frank, but seriously, that game should have never been close. Tulsa had to have been the worst tackling FBS team I have ever seen, especially in the first half, and we could have easily scored 60-70 in the first half alone if we attentively exploited the weaknesses of that D. I think in the second half, some of that poor D rubbed off on our guys, their D relearned the fine art of tackling, and we were playing on our heels. I know Tulsa had a highly-ranked offense and such, but they didn't strike me as being any kind of offensive powerhouse, being more like an average ACC team.
All things considered, that was a game we should win, and hopefully in the future we can put these kinds of opponents away long before they can get their act together in an attempt to make it a game.
We won Frank's last game. That's all that will be remembered or that really matters
Agreed! If Hollywood wrote a beamer movie, that game was the ending they would write. It had everything. Excitement. Offense and defensive big plays. Special teams score and solid all around. And the comeback falls short on a sack, by a senior sack specialist getting his first full sack of the season.
in the place where the bowl streak started.
Perfection.
As one of those lucky ones who was able to experience the Beamer era from start to finish, I echo Michael Brewer in saying "I wouldn't trade it for anything!" Thank you Coach!
Dat #BEAMERSWAG!!
FRANK!
...
BEAMER!
Bud's FB posted a cool pic of a t-shirt for the bowl w/CFB sticker forming the "0" in 280.
Just so glad we sent CFB out with a win. Thanks, Frank.
I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING!
We were there last night. It was crazy watching CFB walk off the field for the last time as Hokie Head Coach. Glad me and my son were there to see it. He was so pumped. Many players such as Isaiah, Sam, Trayvon shook his hand. Eric Gallo even stopped and talked. Told us thank you for coming. Classy. Even the Tulsa kid who won DPOG was classy about being able to play against CFB. Now I'm paying for it with stop and go traffic all the way back to Oklahoma.
Be careful with that weather.
Agreed! Hope everyone had a safe trip back home. I'm still stuck In Dallas airport flight was supposed to leave 2 yesterday. No word on when I'll get home. Well worth it though! Was a great game to be at!
Go hang out with Andy Bitter and Mike Barber they are stuck there also. Seeing on Twitter Hokie beat writers and fans are stuck in Dallas, Atlanta, Shreveport and other places in between.
The recruiting aside, CJ Reavis, Fuller, Duece Riley, & D Clarke might have made a big difference if they were playing last night. Considering all the youngsters with little experience and who, here & there, made spectacular plays, the D in the end stopped the onslaught.
My biggest thrill overall was seeing Teller pick up Sam Rogers over his head (after his TD) like he was a feather. Only with Bruce Smith's OK does that happen.
Reynolds and Alexander shows great development this season and will be even better next year. Oh the joy to come. DBU still lives.
I agree Adonis will get better. Even if its.only cause bud reamed.him out.in the 4th qtr....
Bud does what is necessary to get players to play to their potential. He has expectations, and 'reminds' them off what he had instructed them to do (in the practices)....and they love him.
Adonis is young, and like most young players, gets caught in the emotion and forgets the training. Bud just lovingly reminds them.
I don't think I've ever been as happy for a player as i was happy for Dadi when he got that sack. All year I've felt bad for him and his lobster claws, getting so close to so many sacks just to come up empty. I'm sure he has been disappointed with his performance a few times during the season. I assume the two most important things for him in that game were to win it for Coach, and to get a sack or two. Then the whole game came down to Tulsa's last drive,
a TD would win it for them,
a FG would send it to overtime where the Hokies have had a bad year,
Tulsa almost in FG range,
clock running low but not low enough to be a problem for them,
Dadi gets a good jump at the snap but then stumbles
he gets back up for one last effort ...
and that beautiful, beautiful smash-mouth full-body flatten-your-ass SACK.
I think I'm going to keep that Vine on a continuous loop until the Spring Game.
That's why I watch college football.
Its like that one sack by Dadi erased a season long of frustration and lack of production....What a way to go out for Beamer and for Dadi on that play....
I will miss them both. I will remember Dadi for that one sack and always be grateful to him for it.
I had this intense feeling of sadness when Tulsa had the ball for one last shot....Dadi Nicholas and the Lunch Pail D stood up one last time to make my sadness go away.
Beamer? What can I say....I love the guy and will always be grateful that I was able to see him coach for all these years.
I feel a special connection to the 23 game bowl streak.
I graduated in 1992 and never saw a bowl game during the time I was in Blacksburg....the year after I graduated until now the Hokies have gone bowling.
Maybe I was the problem.....
Did anyone notice how Shane wasn't shown at all really during the game nor the celebration afterwards?