When three-fifths of Virginia Tech's offensive line pushed Jerod Evans past the first down marker to seal another Hokies win, I let out an audible exhale from my couch. One week after persevering against perennial tormentor Pitt, the Hokies were once again forced to run out the clock in the waning minutes at Duke.
There was a strange sense of excitement around last week's win in Pittsburgh, as though Tech had somehow upset the Panthers. Winning in Pittsburgh for the first time since 1999 will do that to you. The feeling I had post-game was akin to the penultimate scene in a horror movie, immediately after the survivors think they have vanquished the inexorable antagonist: I laughed and put my head back in exhaustion, foolishly believing that the Hokies had gotten over the proverbial hump.
Duke was the director's final twist, catching our heroes (and me) off-guard and forcing everyone to survive another assault. It was the type of unsettling experience that haunts you. Even the relief that you feel is uncomfortable.
Heading into a home game against the most frustrating opponent on the Hokies' schedule, it was the type of experience that could benefit this team. They can get beat on plays. They can struggle with their execution. They can have some calls go against them. And despite all of that, they can find a way to win.
Asking the Hokies to play four road games in a five-game stretch felt criminal when the schedule was released earlier this year. The fact that the Hokies were able to emerge 4-1 should be celebrated. Their lone loss came at the most remote outpost in the ACC. Their wins came in a hurricane, on back-to-back Thursday nights and against a well-coached, plucky Duke squad.
The post-game narrative was consistent: Despite failing to play anywhere close to their standards, good teams find ways to win games like that.
During the first eight games of the Justin Fuente era, Hokies grew accustomed to the fast-paced, high-flying offensive attack. Paired with a tenacious defense, there has been a sexiness to the revamped Virginia Tech football brand. Saturday's performance was anything but attractive, featuring critical mistakes and a general lack of urgency.
The offense struggled with their blocking assignments. Jerod Evans had trouble connecting downfield and lacked his usual precision. The defense provided large running lanes for the Blue Devil tailbacks and failed to contain yet another dual-threat quarterback. For the first time in three games, the Hokies didn't feel like the aggressor.
That has been the theme in Tech's two losses this season. Poor execution and ill-timed mistakes helped take the wind out of the Hokies' sails, giving beatable opponents an opening that they each took advantage of. Saturday's game had that same feel. Tech didn't come out flat, nor did they appear to be on cruise control. They just didn't look sharp — neither mentally nor physically — and David Cutcliffe exploited the heck out of it.
"Dave does a great job," noted Bud Foster post-game. "He has a system, and we have a system. It was a hard-fought game, and I'm proud of our kids. To come away victorious was really big. I know this, we're 7-2 and 5-1 in the league and really proud of how our kids have played. It hasn't always been pretty, but we're finding ways to get it done, and that's what we haven't done the past couple of years."
In recent years, this was exactly the type of game the Hokies found a way to lose. With under six minutes to play and momentum squarely in Duke's corner, it took the ejection of Terrell Edmunds on a debatable targeting call to re-ignite the fire in the Hokies.
Foster's defense responded immediately after the ejection, with Terrell's brother Tremaine sacking Duke QB Daniel Jones for a key five-yard loss. From there, the Hokies were able to keep Cutcliffe's kids at bay and force a punt with 4:06 remaining.
"I think we did a good job of reacting to the sudden change," said Ken Ekanem. "[We] did a very good job of getting all juiced up and obviously a little bit angry, so it gave us a little bit of an edge coming out of that to get a stop."
Hanging on to a three point advantage in the closing minutes for the second straight week, Tech's offense was able to grind out two critical first downs despite a consistently stacked box. For years, solid Tech running games have struggled to impose their will in obvious rushing situations. In back-to-back weeks, this offense has used a variety of cast members to move the sticks and seal another victory.
That's a trait that has nothing to do with talent or system. It's an attitude and it has continued to grow as the season has progressed.
"We've had our share of ups and downs through the season [and] panicking through the highs and lows of a game," Evans said. "Knowing that we were better, but once we were down, we kind of went into the tank. I think that experience helped us with today a lot, for sure. We have a lot of veteran leadership. Plus the younger guys have seen that happen before, going into the tank. With the veteran leadership, we didn't allow that to happen. We were calm out there the whole time. Frustrating that we weren't executing like we know we're capable of doing, but at the same time, we got the 'W'. It was definitely maturity on that part."
The maturity that Evans lauds is an incredibly important component of this team's current makeup. But I think it goes a bit further than veteran leadership. Even the younger players — guys like Tremaine Edmunds, Adonis Alexander and Travon McMillian — have played with confidence in challenging circumstances. The maturity Evans refers to has developed across the roster as the season has worn on.
The kickoff unit's swagger that jumped out at me in the season opener suddenly feels real and not like some superficial device. It has permeated throughout the team and clearly played a role in the late stages of Saturday's win.
The Hokies should be heavily favored in each of their three remaining games. The challenge will be maintaining that confidence each and every time they face adversity, whether it is against Georgia Tech's triple option or playing on the hallowed grounds of Notre Dame Stadium.
Comments
Trouble again containing a mobile QB. It appears we have a problem dominating the opponent on every play. "Seems like Bama never took a play off" When we do, on certain plays, were as good as anyone. Maybe it's the transition of staff, lack of fired up leader or we just not ready for prime time. Happy for the win, not question about it. I wonder how many laps Teller does due to penalties?
Probably not a lot since he was the offensive player of the game. He's the only OL we have that plays with any fire and aggressiveness and people want to crap on him for a penalty on a RPO when he was trying to get out and block? get real.
Bite me knwwaz. The penalty for penalties is probably laps, no matter who does it. My intent was not to bash Teller, who is our best lineman.
Uncalled for.
Offensive Player of the Game? Really? He is fantastic when he pulls, but it seems his oppenent is frequently getting a huge pus, thus getting into the backfield. Teller is not allone, Conte and Gallo also seems to get dominated frequently. Yeh, I'm looking for perfection, but more consistancy would suffice.
But, I'm glad wit the win. GO HOKIES! At Home, Enter Sandman, what more is needed! show your stuff against GT!
Check Fuente's twitter to see who the offensive player of the game was...
Teller does not get dominated at the LOS very often, so not sure what you are watching.
I just looked it up, VT is 26th in the country in fewest penalty yards/game. If Wyatt gets a funky blocked too high/low or an inconsistently called downfield penalty every couple of games, I'm strangely okay with it.
Although we may hear his name called with some regularity, he isn't accounting for 46 yards/game by himself. Unfortunately he built a "reputation" early in the season that left a stigma attached to his name. If a perfectly thrown dime of a pass gets through Stro's hands against GT or ND, someone's going to point to the Bristol game and cry how he can't cover people, when by most accounts he's done pretty well.
At this point, I'll take that set of circumstances, because it means Stroman is able to suit up the next few weeks.
I'm NOT OK with Teller's penalties.
While he's a good player, his penalties have cost VT at critical moments in games, and he'd be an even BETTER player if he could reduce them.
While we don't need to go hatin' on the guy, we can certainly hope he works on this aspect of the game.
Yeah I agree with you here. Even Jerod said something along those lines didn't he (although very diplomatically as you'd expect)? Teller needs to learn how to be the dominant lineman we know he is, but keep his head on straight and avoid those crucial penalties.
I just want to throw one thing out here in Teller's (partial) defense.
Officiating crews watch film and learn tendencies, even in the ACC. Our defense is known to be aggressive, and sees a slight increase in certain penalties called against it because of that (in 2015, VT was penalized on over 6% of defensive snaps while our opponents were flagged on 3%). I think Teller has developed a reputation for certain blocks and therefore gets flagged on it more than if he hadn't gotten that reputation. There are a couple of situations against Duke and UNC where Ken Ekanem were blocked illegally or held, but the flag stayed put.
All that said, he has to be more aware that if he comes close, they're gonna tag him even if they'd let Conte go for the same thing.
This is a sarcasm post, right? Not even Bama dominates their opponent on every single play of the game.
Some people genuinely think that if we don't dominate on every play, then there is a deep systemic issue with our team, our coaching staff, and our schemes/strategies. No /s, people really do think (or at least comment on here as if they think) that any success on the part of our opponents is akin to total failure on the part of our team.
I'm guessing these aren't people who've ever played a sport, but I honestly don't know how you can reach adulthood with a total inability to handle failure (either small- or large-scale) in a rational and mature fashion.
Just dreamin' :-)
Looks like little Wes wasn't doing much sleeping last night.
Bingo
Should the title be changed "Tried to Sleep on it?"
Best Book ever!
Side note (I've been pretty bad about this lately): You can listen to this book on audible as narrated by Samuel L. Jackson
And its outstanding!. Classic Sam L.
A bit of a side comment here, while I did not like the fact that we had zero Saturday home games between September 24th and November 12th, I do like the fact that 2 out of the 3 finals games will be played at home. It will allow for just a little bit more of a longer week, and hopefully consistent practice, leading up to those games (traveling to Notre Dame being the exception, of course).
Yeah super bizarre scheduling. Only benefit is that there is going to be an excellent crowd for the GT game. From what I gathered, anybody who is willing to drive down to Blacksburg or didn't attend homecoming will be there. Plus, it's Veterans Day this Friday so a lot of people will have work off.
My reason exactly for going to this game - we created a nice little 3 day weekend with an airbnb in Blacksburg. Seats on Hokietickets.com are limited to upper SEZ and East Sections 37, 39 only, so we'll have a nice crowd, like you said.
It wasn't pretty and did not have many style points but I will take an ugly "W" over a good-looking "L" any day of the week. Did anybody really think that we would be controlling our own desstiny at this stage of CJF era? No, but I'll take it. Go Hokies!
Technically we controlled our own destiny after the BC game. Did anybody expect that 4 games in?
/S
I hate playing Georgia Tech that is all.
Oh and Duke plays North Carolina next It will be a close one book it
Go Duke!
I dunno man. I got a feeling UNCheat is gonna have a 3 TD win.
Great. We'll get to see more bs spewed all over about how we only won because we played in a hurricane.
Oh god, I hope so. In fact, I hope we win by 1 point after blowing a 21 point lead. I hope UNC wins by 40 points. The UNC forums are just far too tasty these days. The schadenfreude is almost orgasmic reading them whine and complain about the rain, but sit helpless hoping and praying that we lose, no matter how much they win by, it doesn't matter.
You think that's tasty? Try living down here
I've been bathing in UNC tears for a month now. Its been glorious
Hmm, I should visit NC soon...
Possibly but I'm hoping Duke got some confidence from playing us
UNC has Duke and a good NCSU team. It isn't a cakewalk for the Heels to finish out.
Called it !
Such an accurate description of the post-game feelings between the Pitt and Duke games. Same margin of victory, same type of ending in each game (needing to gain a 1st down to continue running down the clock) but the emotions at the final whistle could not have been different.
Agreed.
My emotion after Duke: Satisfied but mildly disappointed because we should have won by more, but we played flat, made execution errors, and Dave Cutcliffe is a hell of a coach.
My emotion after Pitt: White hot anger because Fuck Pat Narduzzi.
My emotion after Dook while at a wedding in SanDiego: "Hey did we win? They bride and groom just said 'I Do' and I'm heading to cocktail hour"
My emotion after Pitt while sleeping because I bailed during 3Q: "ZZzzz"
serious question: How do you sleep if you're always on a treadmill?
Equine Ambien
I was in Pacific Beach!...trying to catch glimpses of the game while my girlfriend and I made sushi.
Oh no way. San Diego was nice, I'd never been. Never made it to the mexican restaurants I had planned to visit.
I lived in San Diego for a summer, and I must say you missed out. Cafe Coyote in Old Towne is the shit. And the best fish taco I've ever had was from a Mexican food truck (legit had Mexico plates and drove into the US everyday) in Normal Heights. I miss it.
Only made it to eat at Stratford Cafe and L'Auberge, which was the venue for the wedding. Partied at Johnny O's for the afterparty and En Fuego for the pre-party the night before.
I ate at Stratford once and En Fuego once too I think and I remember them being pretty good. They're about 2 miles or so from where my office was. Never got to the other ones though. There are a ton of good restaurants around there.
Stratford was good. Initially I thought it a bit expensive but then got my breakfast burrito and realized that it was gigantic. The food took forever to come out but it was good. Johnny O's was right across the street from the venue, down the block and around the corner from Fuego. All within about a mile of each other. We didn't eat at either one of those, just drank.
But man those f@cking bikers made it so hard to drive anywhere Saturday morning.
Next time try carnitas at Old Town Mexican Cafe (they make their tortillas on site). The carne asada burrito at El Indio is also worth the trip (but it's huge).
didn't have any of their food, but Old Town Mexican Cafe has some awesome Margaritas. Never made it to El Indio, but I had some friends that lived a few blocks away, and theres another little hole in the wall right there on San Diego Ave. called Dos Brasas (i think?) that is pretty good.
My favorite place was the Marble Room but I think it went out of business. My friend said it was always pretty hit or miss, but the two times I went it was great food and live blues music. and the La Jolla Public House was my favorite for happy hour/food after work. lol
You fell asleep during the VT/Pitt game? I mean, I know horses can sleep on their feet, but for the love of Pete, man, how could that happen in a game like that? Sleep more, drink less, or something.
I had to turn it off. All the missed PI's and the fact that we should have been up 21-0 early had my blood pressure so high. I turned it off once it wasn't getting better in the second half and am quite happy with that decision.
Damn, I actually can't fathom that. Were you just gonna wait to see the paper the next morning? Or just read it online?
I was just going to check the ESPN scoreboard when I woke up. Which I did.
My buddies kept texting me after I went to bed, I had to go into airplane mode to avoid it.
After every VT win, I like to go back and rewatch it once it's been posted on youtube. I never rewatch a loss. This Duke game I didn't rewatch haha. It was that type of win. Glad we won, but not enjoyable to see.
I also go back and re-watch every win, usually more than once, like after reading French's reviews, to see what I missed, but not the losses. I will however, re-watch the Duke game, as we went to the game and they did a crappy job on any in stadium reviews.
That's true, if I'm at the game I'll rewatch it if we win. If I couldn't go and watched on tv, I can't bring myself to watch a struggle game like that one.
I'm really worried about Stro
Me too. The way he got hit low while landing made me think he had gotten Lattimore'd when I saw it in real time.
I saw it in person from about 50ish feet away. It was a pretty nasty hit. He had to be carried off of the field.
Not sure how much to read into this, but Stroman is on the depth chart for this week, which hopefully is a positive sign.
That's encouraging, but Edmunds is listed too and we know he isn't starting.
Dont think they change this, Walker has been backing up Baron last 2 weeks knowing that Nigel was not playing.
In some interview or another, Fuente stated that they had been getting good news on the Stroman injury. \
But yeah, I saw that on my phone at the App State game. I winced out loud, and I'm not usually a wincer.
GT Game Week Press Conference linky link
Stroh looked pretty banged up!
These last couple games have given me some serious anxiety but knowing lolUVA doesn't hold the key to a bowl game for us makes it all worth it! Looking for another 38-0 at the end of the month
What if they hold the key to the ACCCG?
I gave you a +1 because it is funny, but I want to -20 you for what you are suggesting! UVa will hold nothing in their hands except their teary faces after an abysmal season.
To be clear, they may hold the key at the beginning of the game. At the end of the game we will hold tickets to the ACCCG and Hoos fans will be holding each other (NTTAWWT).
remember, we are talking about the team where their fans hold each other, sway slowly, and sing about everything being bright and gay (NTTAWWT). And they also do something similar when they score.
How do you know what they would do if they scored?
Live and in person, it is worse than the tomahawk chant. Horrible.
my favorite was going up to Lane North and not having to hear it a single time #38-0Bro
Nothing is worse than the zombieesque tomahawk chant. Nothing. Not even RT!
I give you pat nardouchie
Wouldn't this be cool. Screw the rest of the division. espn could shut up about mu, pitt, nc whoever!
This is the biggest difference between this year and last.
I felt the hokies were in control of this whole game, they just never landed a knockout blow. Duke made a final push and the team responded. I'm proud that there was no panic. 1-0.
Good teams are able to win any given game
Great teams are able to overcome times when things aren't clicking and still gut out a win despite the adversity.
You ask me, the last 2 weeks we've seen our program take some massive steps from good to great under Fuente. We've done a lot of growing up this season, and it really should pay off not only this year but for the years to come. They're relearning how to win. And I mean how to win when their left hand doesn't know what the right is doing during the game.
To me the biggest thing now is we just have to start playing more complete games. Offense and Defense need to take it up a notch . Defense I'm more worried about as of late than our offense .
I'd be less worried about the defense if we'd punt a bit farther than 31 yards from our own territory on a more consistent basis.
Forgot about the punting as well
In Ludwig's defense that was his first bad game since the first 2-3 games.
My untrained eye tells me that Ludwig is probably fine when we're punting from midfield or thereabouts. But anytime we need a big boot from deep in our own territory, I have no confidence.
The problem is for ever 2-3 games he does decent he has 1 bad game . The problem is consistency , he has had some really terrible punts this year .
I had that problem once. I established a heavy training regimen for both eyes on the JUGS.
I don't know if it has helped me get a better understanding of football, but I do seem to fill out my pants better.
That's ok. I'll see myself out.
Your training regimen would probably get me in trouble with the wife.
As someone who does a lot of public speaking (for my line of work) I am very jealous of your ability to think of and implement analogies.
It is a good day to be a Hokie.
Great writeup by the way!
Its weird because it feels like our Defense is allowing more big plays than normal and hasn't played great:
But statistically, they're ranked fourth in allowed plays of 20+ yards per game in the ACC:
CLEM - 4.42%
LOU - 4.46%
WAKE - 5.17%
VT - 5.28%
We've only allowed 37 plays of 20 or more yards, for reference CLEM and LOU have yielded 31 and 30 and I'm sure Clemson's number are be ranked in the top 5 nationally.
On the flip side our Havoc rating (per football insiders = int+fumbles caused+TFL+deflected passes) is 3rd:
Miami - 23.17
Clem - 19.94
VT 19.69
I think for me, I put way too much expectation on this defense, they are ranked 13th in defensive efficiency, 18th in points allowed per game, with the spread between 10 and 18th is 3 points per game.
They didnt have a good game against Duke, by Tech standards, which apparently to me means Top 5 across the board everything, always.
Also for the year they currently have only allowed 37 of 135 3rd Downs, good for 27.4%
That's surprising, it feels like we're letting up a lot of 3rd downs.
Even more surprising, that number puts Tech at #4 in FBS. I'm guessing the defense is letting up a lot of high leverage third downs and stopping the less meaningful ones, so it seems bad.
Letting up 3rd and 10 from our 30 definitely feels way worse than stopping a 3rd and 5 on their 25.
Speaking of 3rd down defense....
GT is dead last in the ACC, giving up 1st down 52% of the time
UVa is second to last in the ACC, giving up 1st down 44% of the time
Those are our final 2 ACC opponents, who are all that's standing between us and the Coastal title. In games at Lane, where we've been outscoring our opponents by 32.5 points per game on the season.
I'm still scared of GT, especially with Edmunds out for a half. But I was also scared of Miami and they got thoroughly throttled. Hopefully the boys come to play.
The GF made me choose between this game and a bowl game so I chose the bowl game. But after that long a road trip, Lane is going to be rockin.
Yep - Bud has created high standards for himself. Giving up just three TD's on the road isn't bad. Pitt's offense is pretty good too, not too disappointed about that performance.
Ugly skin of our teeth win is still a win, I will take it
I have said it multiple times and it is probably starting to annoy some of you, but this season is so weirdly similar to 2004. The Pitt game resembled the 2004 GT game (emotional road win on a Thursday night that left the fans ecstatic). The Duke game resembled the following 2004 game against UNC, a slopppy win on the road against an outmatched team. That means that this Georgia Tech game resembles the 2004 Maryland game, which we won 55-6. Georgia Tech and 2004 version of Maryland have had very similar seasons up to this point as well.
We shall see.
I still can't believe we won that GT game. We had no business pulling off that comeback after the way we opened that game.
Eh, I feel like we did. I mean, sure, we had Stiney and Newsome, but we also had Randall, Imoh and our quint receiver set of Clowney-Royal-Morgan-Harper-Hyman. Defense was fully Foster AND we had King at TE. So I think we were well loaded and capable.
Newsome was hired in 2006. In '04, I think Stiney was the OL coach. I think JB Grimes left in '02 with Rickey Bustle.
Grimes #1 was only at VT from 93-97. Stinespring & Pearman were the OL coaches during the Vick seasons. (Pearman had OT's and TE's)
For the record, the 2004 team is my all-time favorite Hokie squad...such great memories of watching that team.
Same here. Looking at the stats, how the hell did we not win that Sugar Bowl? I just remember whooping that ass but never getting it into the end zone until late.
We used to have a problem getting enough distance our kickoffs. Now we have Joey Slye, so let's hope it doesn't come down to just needing 10 yards again.
/s
First year I ever watched Hokie football. I was blessed with 8 straight 10-win seasons. I didn't handle the 2012 season very well. Kinda got used to it the mediocrity by last season. Losses hurt a little more now though. As much as they hurt, it feels good to hurt again.
Don't let the game worry you. They didn't make a lot of plays but under cjf we seem to improve on offense and defense. I think they use a good perspective when breaking down the film. To me I can see week to week improvement.