And then thought "well that's not that long ago ". Kind of indicitave of just how mediocre we are. Outside of a win over Ohio State, this has been a pretty miserable team to watch for a while now.
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I think Fuente will get VT better but I wonder if he is over thinking it
Honest question - based on what so far?
All he's really done is get us back to beating teams we are supposed to beat - the last years under Beamer we couldn't even do that. It's not something that should be dismissed easily but not something that we should be settling for either. Even with that general success we've still had embarrassments like ODU and GT and Syracuse.
I've seen nothing from Fuente's teams to tell me he is anywhere close to making a jump. Dude isn't just losing these big games, he's losing them in embarrassing fashion every single year. And I don't want to hear about how we're not a blue blood because somehow the Pitts and Syracuse's of the world find a way to come through or at least come down to the wire in these types of games.
We lost the 2016 ACCCG by 23 yards.
We beat #22 WVU last year.
We aren't getting embarrassed in all of our "huge games". Hell, we didn't look any worse against ND tonight than Stanford did last week. The national media isn't going to look at this game and say "hey, VT sucks", they're going to use it as confirmation that ND is really good.
"We lost the ACCCG by 23yds."
"We beat #22."
"We lost, but they were pretty good."
-the Virginia Tech Football Story
I get that you're trying to be funny, but without a generational talent like Michael Vick at the helm, our historical ceiling over the entirety of the history of VT football is about #10.
So yeah, "we lost, but they were pretty good" is pretty much spot-on.
A 52 yard FG attempt down 2 scores at home. No one can do that twice...I hope.
We were kinda good with Evans. Not great. But certainly good.
Evans with these receivers, Peoples and McClease would be something to see.
Well he had even better receivers when he was here...
Sorry, message lost in translation between brain and fingers. What I mean is, it would be interesting to see how Evans would do with this roster compared to JJ and Willis, for a sake of comparison. It's hard to gauge offensive improvement when you have three different starting QBs in three seasons.
Oh true. I think we would be better. Evans was our best WB since Tyrod imo.
Really? I always thought LOLUVA was a miserable team.
Until proven otherwise, our floor is a bowl game and our ceiling is an ACC championship. A lot of teams (pretty much everyone in the ACC except FSU and Clemson) would kill for that.
Besides, the only thing this game proved was that we aren't a playoff team, which we already knew. We are still undefeated in the ACC, and of our two biggest challengers for the Coastal, we dominated one last week and the other had to come back from a 20-point deficit today to beat a struggling FSU.
All of our preseason goals are still fully intact, and right now we are in at least as good of a position to accomplish them as we were at the start of the season.
Yeah...but our ceiling is the roof!
and the roof......the roof.........the roof is on fire!
You have got to be kidding me. Before the season the mass attrition had most of you just hoping for a bowl game. Now we lose to #6 while we're playing with a backup QB and a plethora of underclassmen and we're suddenly miserable to watch?
Quiet you with your sensibility. No one wants to hear that tonight. /s
This was a winnable game. Self inflicted wounds, poor execution, and questionable decision making by the staff took us out of it.
I won't argue the self-inflicted wounds and poor execution.
What decision making by the staff took us out of this game?
Biggest play of the game on 3rd down and we decided the best play we had was a back shoulder fade to a true freshman that hasn't caught a ball all year....
Good gawd inject this into my veins. Everyone is losing their shit when they had this penciled as a loss six weeks ago. I hope we win the damn coastal and everyone crying chicken little has to eat crow.
The backup QB has been one of the bright spots. The off-season was a disaster. The ODU game was a disaster. Losing Hill was a disaster. The state of this program is not good. There is discipline problems that have pretty much ruined this season. Execution and penalties ruined this game.
Underrated comment. RW makes this team way better and way more dynamic on offense. Love JJ, but he gets sacked idk 7 more times if he's in, and doesn't complete nearly as many 3rd downs conversations. This team could/should win out from here, if they don't have any key injuries. ND is by far the best team they'll play this season, by a lot.
This.
IMO JJ would have been very ineffective in this game and we wouldn't have even made it competitive.
Eh, JJ more than likely would've hit that seam route to Peoples for 6 and would've been sacked well before getting the ball knocked out for the scoop and score. I agree that Willis adds a dimension but I don't think it's cut and dry that JJ would've just sucked.
Discipline problems is what you have when there's no action from the staff. I'd say this staff has shot pretty straight when it comes to player discipline.
You are correct. However ... I live in Clemson Country. Clemson loses 8 guys for three years in a row, and they are still on top. We lose 8 guys and we are in the gutter. It's all in the recruiting and Clemson and FSU kick our butt.
We're in 1st place
Pretty sure we crushed FSU.
Didn't Clemson return their entire d line that were all projected as first round picks? I don't think k they lost 8 people.
Thank you! This is what I have been thinking all morning as I peruse the board. All things considered, Saturday's game was not the end of times, it was a loss to a #6 team in the country when Virginia Tech still in the process of transition and reloading after a whole slew of talented players left.
I wasn't embarrassed or disappointed - I was happy we were relevant enough to be considered a test, provided the atmosphere to prove Lane is a tough place to play and excited to see our guys getting some learning experiences for the future. This was never a championship team this year, why is everyone devastated?
I wish I could give this 100 legs myself!!!
Some folks need to chill. This team needs experience. It is feast or famine. You can blame recruiting if that makes you sleep better but this staff has kicked up recruiting efforts drastically. ND was a flaming hot mess two years ago, now look.
Agreed. This is a young team that is quite literally taking their lumps right now. The final score looked bad but it was really just a few plays that changed the outcome. Those are the types of plays mature teams do not allow. That does not even consider all of the opportunities that this young team squandered in the first half. We really had a chance to take it to the Irish but we hurt ourselves more than they hurt us. The more mature team won. Plain and simple.
I'm as frustrated as anyone, but give these guys a couple years of seasoning. I'm not sure if Alabama rolled out a defense as young as ours if they would look like "Alabama". I hate that we lost another spotlight game, but we knew this outcome was likely. There is a lot more talent in the program now than there had been in a long time. We just need to temper our expectations a little bit for now. If we blow games like this in two years from now then we have a something to bitch about - until then, we we may have to learn to enjoy the beer buzz more than the outcome of the game.
Scot Loeffler is that you?
No I'm Bill Brasky.
My Bio
LMAO thank you for that!
-Punching a bald eagle because it's not American enough
-Handing out Dutch porn & scallops for Halloween
Define "any good "
At times this is the most informed, reasonable website for Hokies there is. Then football season happens and god forbid a loss. I'll give you ODU but lose to #6 team , I mean have we ever been good? "VT has been horrible since 99". A lot of people need to get a grip out here.
Litmus test: who does your neighbor root for in college football? My answers are NC State, UVa, UNC and Wake Forest. Extrapolate that question to yourselves. I know my neighbors are always talking about the Hokies and they're gonna watch them etc. I don't bring this up as an insincere "let's go team" but just look around the neighborhood / nation . If you're Bama , Clemson , OSU we get it , but c'mon to think that we are "horrible to watch" and "can't win anything big" that's just ridiculous and you need to take a long look at how you evaluate things .
Again, some of us have higher expectations than UVA, UNC or Wake Forest, which is completely reasonable. They should not be considered peers
And they aren't.
Are their football programs really comparable to VT in your mind? Not in mine.
Those teams are happy if they make a bowl game. Some of our fans are on a window ledge if we lose to Notre Dame, the undefeated #6 team in the country.
The premise of the post I was responding to was basically 'it could be worse, we could be fans of UVA, NCST, Wake, etc' That is a ridiculous statement. Great! We're not as bad as Kansas! Awesome, everyone feel happy!! How does that have any effect on another lackluster VT performance in primetime? The constant string of excuses is frustrating.
You said UVA, NC State and Wake aren't peers. Neither are Bama, Clemson or Ohio State. We're basically in the tier between those two extremes. Realizing that isn't settling or accepting mediocrity. No amount of post-loss angst will make us elite this season. Why not be realistic about what we can achieve now, while keeping an eye on a long term plan of ascendancy that ultimately lands us among the elites?
More BS. We're not Bama so we should be totally fine as fans getting embarrassed at home in every big game we play.
Is ODU a peer? We should be understanding about losing to them too?
You expect us to pull an upset and yet find a team upsetting us unacceptable.
No, I'm pointing out that there are excuses when we lose to ODU and excuses when we lose to ND. It's not one or the other.
I don't recall any excuses for losing to ODU. General consensus is that by all metrics we should have won that game, but the team failed to show up. Explanations are not excuses.
Just because Notre Dame is number 6 and undefeated doesn't mean they should blow us out. Notre Dame is always over inflated and gets blown out by any serious national title contenders and never live up to their ranking. A #6 Notre Dame team coming into Lane Stadium should be an ass kicking sitting on a tee with VT doing the kicking. I know in the last 20 years of watching CFB, fans have been conditioned not to give much respect to a highly ranked Irish. In my eyes anyway this wasn't a loss to a great team.
Beating the #6 team in the nation generally means you're even better. Guess how many times we have finished in the top 5, ever.
I'll give you a hint, it took the best player we've ever had, running all over the field and making defenders look silly, while on the other side of the ball our defense was elite, and even then he only got us there once.
That's right, 1999 is still, to this day, the only season where we've finished in the top 5. As in, better than #6.
You are just the master of making strawmen arent you? Did you grow up on a farm or something?
Call BS all you want, you're the one bent out of shape over your own expectations. You need to adjust to the reality of the situation. You're tired of losing to top tier programs. Okay. So...now what? You're obviously dissatisfied with the state of the program right now. You can't snap your fingers and turn us into a playoff contender. We aren't as good as you want us to be. We won't be this season.
I just don't get what you're proposing here. Are you venting just to vent? Okay, fine. We all do that from time to time. But it seems to me the heart of your problem is just cognitive dissonance on your part, trying to reconcile how good we are vs how good you think we should be.
Given the school's investment in football, and the expected investment by fans, I expect we don't lose to ODU. I expect us to be better than 2-37 vs top 6 teams, I'd expect don't embarrass ourselves every big home game we play, and would expect more of our fanbase to not be apathetic now to the point where getting crushed at home is just a thing that we should accept.
Clearly it's not going to be a snap of the fingers, but it's year 3. We were worse in year 2 than we were in year 1, and we're worse in year 3 than we were in year 2. We've got unproven coaches all over the staff who aren't good recruiters.
We lost NFL caliber DBs, yes. Are we replacing them with NFL DB talent?
But hey, we've got people posting saying "the sky isnt falling," and "we'll be good with Fuente" and plenty of other stuff that's based on nothing of any more (likely less actually) substance than any of my venting posts.
It sounds like you feel our fan base is entitled to a dynasty. I want this team to win too, but I expect bumps in the road. I like watching sports because I enjoy being surprised by results. I hope one day the surprises will all turn out in my favor and Tech will win the national championship. When the surprises run the other way, well damn, that's life.
The thing is, Notre Dame winning this game was not a surprise. Not at any point this season. Doesn't make me an apologist or a sucker for lost causes. It's just the real world.
I said I dont' want to lose to ODU and I expect to be better than 2-37 against top 6 teams and you accuse me of feeling entitled to a dynasty.
Distort much?
In 2013 A half-dozen of Wake Forest University's most influential and well-heeled donors sat in an Athens, Ga. restaurant after touring UGA contemplating the Demon Deacons' football future.
The linchpins are a $40 million Sutton Sports Performance Center, a four-level, 87,000-square-foot facility, and the $21 million McCreary Field House, an indoor practice building that the Deacons call the finest in the country.
Outside of football, a $12 million basketball player development and a $14 million baseball player development addition opened earlier this year. That doesn't include millions more for volleyball, field hockey, men's and women's soccer, and men's and women's golf, which enjoy an 18-acre practice area right on campus.
The 2011 Wake Forest Men's Tennis Team went 14-12 (5-6 in the ACC) and didn't make it out of the 2nd round in either postseason tournament. Now, just 7 years later wake forest won a tennis national championship.
The men's soccer team played in the national championship game in 2016
This is the first time in a loooong time, if not ever, that we have a better basketball team than football team
Probably more like Very Good.
ODU was an embarrassing fluke and ND is #6. I'm going to assume they will continue to look this good the rest of the year with a possible loss to USC.
There is no question we do not have the kind of talent we had in 2011. It will take time and unfortunately winning a few games we shouldn't win to convince recruits this is the place to be. It's a chicken and egg problem. One that was initially solved by the 1995 team beating Texas in the Sugar Bowl. That paved the way for recruiting better players and ultimately getting Michael Vick which of course led to more good players.
There were lulls after that because we didn't capitalize on our talent with the ultimate lull starting in 2012 and continuing until now.
I disagree with your 2nd & 3rd sentences but pretty much agree with the rest.
In James Franklin's status levels: we are a good program night now. Nowhere near great, and far from elite.
Don't disagree with your comment. BUT........
FUCK JAMES FRANKLIN
I dunno, I thought we were good in 2016
Where did you get that idea? Winning 10 games didn't make that so. Any ragtag team could do that, as evidenced by how many teams do that every year. Last year's highly disappointing 9 win season almost sent me to the edge to jump, of course, but maybe we'll make it back to respectability eventually, huh? /S
Let's take a trip back to August and remember where we were. A very young team with a bunch of off-season issues and all sorts of drama going on. No one thinks we are a playoff team and everyone has a hunch it might be a rough season with some bright spots.
Fast forward to today. We have two losses (both OOC) and the team has shown some bright spots but also shown our youth and inexperience.
Who is surprised by this result? Raise your hand.
The sky is not falling. This is about where we expected to be. Probably better since the loss to ODU while unhappy, doesn't hurt us in the conference and losing to FSU would have.
There is still plenty of football left and chances for ouy guys to learn and improve. The ACC is still on the table. Let's pick up, dust ourselves off and go on to the next one.
Go Hokies.
The losses to ODU and Notre Dame mean nothing for our schedule, the only thing it hurts is our future recruiting which in the end will hurt our future games against good teams.
That's the part that frustrates me. I can stomach losing the game in a vacuum. It didn't hurt our ACC standing. But every one of these handicaps our chances for several years to come. It's a vicious cycle.
Does it though? Is there evidence of this? Has there been a study of recruiting being better for teams who win games versus traditional powerhouse teams who recruit well but also happen to win a lot. Like OSU or Bama. Plenty of teams recruit well to pretty good after awful seasons or even a few seasons and some teams do well for decades and never better their recruiting like VT.
I agree here. Recruiting doesn't take into account a bad game or even a bad season or good teams would never fall off and bad teams would never improve.
It is more nuanced than just wins and losses, training facilities and draft prospects.
Honestly I think facilities matter more than wins. Where kids sleep, eat, workout and training rooms, meeting rooms and places to hang out.
The off season issues are part of it. How do we know that stuff is over with? This wasn't a case of one bad apple.
After sleeping on it and reading a lot of the reasoned and well thought out comments here, y'all are right. I think what is frustrating is we all saw that we could have won the game, but mistakes did us in. My immediate reaction was to slump and tell myself "same old tech". But the fact that Fuente and Co. had us in a position to win with a bunch of underclassmen should be what we take away from this. We're still in a position to make it to the ACCCG, our guys just got a shit ton of experience against a playoff caliber opponent, and we will continue to be competitive. You all are awesome and Go Hokies.
This has been the same journey I've taken after a little sleep. With a year or two more experience, that game's closer and maybe a win.
I want to take this comment a step further.
Last night after the game I had several Notre Dame fans tell me how they think that in about two years we could be taking college football by storm.
Despite my disappointment in the outcome and the second half, I think we're going to be just fine. We still have 6 ACC games left, and possibly 7 games left in the regular season. For now, just sit and enjoy the ride.
4 of 6 acc games left are at home, the other two are at UNC and
UVAPitt, and there will be plenty of VT fans at UNC... winning out is a very real possibility and to me actually seems more likely after last nightWait I thought LOLUVA was at Lane this year?
you're correct, forgot pitt was on the road. still not a game that concerns me
Unfortunately playing at Heinz field will always concern me
Kind of glad we lost to ODU now. We would've been a top ten team last night and this board would be losing its damn mind (more than it already has).
Cynical optimism - I love it.
Looking at the big plays from their offense, typically the scheme was there. We had a player out of position, or a player who didn't make the tackle.
A couple take aways:
Rivers needs some serious work on his coverage.
Rogers seemed to get burned when any move was made on a route.
Notre Dame's quarterback is the beneficiary of a good receiving corps. If he managed to get it in their neighborhood, they made catches. Otherwise, he was wildly inaccurate.
The second quarter was great. The remainder of the game really went about as well, with the exception of those execution failures. The defensive scheme seemed solid. Offensively, we were ok. Were it not for the defensive busts, I think we would have been ok.
Darrisaw had his youth shown, against a very good defender.
We lost to a team who was supposed to beat us. The score isn't pretty, as a result of busts.
We will get better.
Since 1998 (first BCS game) only two teams have played for the national championship without having won one previously, VT and Nike.
The last team to be the champions for the first time was Colorado in 1990 (took a fifth down to do so).
The last team to be the champions for the first time only using regulation downs was BYU in 1984.
If being in the national title hunt and beating top 6 teams is the only way to be good then we've never been good, only statistical anomalies.
With that said I can't wait to see this team in 2-3 years, assuming we can find some DTs.
Ah yes, I recall the year when Nike was in the championship game....KingJames ;)
Well that's were the players' salaries were coming from.
Oh goodness I just realized on the way home from work today that you were talking about Oregon. whoosh
preseason: "were young maybe 8 win season we'll have some growing pains"
Beat FSU: "were going to the national championship"
Lose to ODU: "there goes our bowl streak"
Beat Duke: "we needed that kick in the mouth so we could get back to national championship contention"
Lose to Notre Dame: "pack it in. Fire everyone. This team is terrible, we're never winning another game"
...make up your minds.
Lol seriously I feel like some fans are just as angry if not more angry about this loss than the ODU loss.
VT vs top 6 ranked teams
2 - 37
This just in- top 6 ranked teams are really good.
Sooo are saying you're just as mad about ND as you are ODU?
That's not what he's saying. He's just pointing out the pathetic & embarrassing record.
You know who has respectable records against top 6 teams?
Top 5 teams.
Then he wasn't responding to what I said at all...
True, but your post kind insinuated that he was, which doesn't seem fair to him.
Because they are only really happy when complaining about something.
No, they're only happy if the team is winning games they are capable of winning. But yes, it is therapeutic (& to a reasonable degree healthy) to vent out frustrations at losses.
Feeling the need to vent to this degree after the #24 team loses to the #6 team isn't healthy.
I haven't seen anybody on here calling for any coaches head or threatening them (& the players) lives or their close kin & families. So I think that's kinda subjective. I'm actually starting to feel a little less bad.
Your leaving a lot of room in their for that extreme of an idea. Their is a wide range between what you just said and normal reactions to a football loss to a top 5 team.
Ok. Alright, that's fair. I just those examples straight off the top of my head. Name some others in between that we agree on.
Oh we're not sending death threats? Well that's good...
Wait...did you say not?!
Hold my hay I gotta run to my mailbox
We're not not sending death threats.
I keep seeing the word "embarrassing" to describe last night's loss. I'm not even slightly embarrassed. I was embarrassed when Marcus Vick stomped on Elvis Dumervil's leg. I was embarrassed when we lost to JMU and ECU and ODU. There is nothing embarrassing about losing to #6 Notre Dame. That team is probably going to the CFP. They look the part.
It is a little embarrassing to see so many Hokie fans calling for Fuente's head because he lost a game we expected to lose. I thought we were better than this. At least we used to be better than this.
I'm with you! Embarrassing is not how I would describe last night at all. The Marcus stomp, ODU, and ECU (especially after beating OSU) come to mind as embarrassing. We made some mistakes and missed on a lot of opportunities but that doesn't embarrass me, in fact it helps me to realize the reality that these kids are very young, we have a few injuries and but they're willing to give great effort. As we all know the teams we had in the early to mid 2000s, the talent was tremendous but there was always a dud or two each year and that was seemingly more frustrating than what we witnessed last night. I just know that i'm not going anywhere and I'll be tuning in next week if I don't have to work. Beat the UNCheat.
Were we supposed to be good this year?
Honest question, Im interested in seeing what others think my answer is no with the addition of the FSU win messed up my exectations
We shit the bed with an ungodly amount of 4-5* recruits, we are stuck in a spin cycle and it doesn't look like we are going to transcend that anytime soon. I'm realistic on expectations for this season, but at what point do we as a program grow up? We're not a blue blood or a top 10 team but ffs when do we get a season, minus 2016, that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out?
This program will grow up when preparation meets opportunity!
Sticking through the tougher times will make it that much sweeter when we finally piece together something special. At the end of the day, let's try and count our blessings as fans of Virginia Tech football. Here are just a few that I can think of.
1. Second-longest active bowl streak
2. One of the best Defensive coaches in the game
3. An amazing home atmosphere and fanbase capable of organizing to the degree that we did Saturday night
4. An organization that emphasizes family and teamwork over individual accolades
Regardless of vacated wins, the fact remains that FSU has played in a bowl game for 36 consecutive years.
I'm hoping that the asterisk goes away this year.
If the Noles can't beat Wake this week, the asterisk probably does disappear. The only other game in which they will be favored will be home against BC.