With the win over Marshall, Virginia Tech won two of the most important games in Virginia Tech football history.
I know some may feel that is an overstatement, but I can explain why it isn't. Virginia Tech is not the program it was when Frank Beamer took over. In fact, it's not even the program it was when it made a run for the National Championship. It is a program that is at least one or two levels better (than when Beamer took over). It got that way by winning football games, going to bowl games and owning the state. The first level of ascension was joining a major conference, The Big East, and eventually playing for a National Championship. The second level of ascension was joining and becoming a dominant force in the ACC. In the last few years of Beamer's career we regressed a bit but a return to prominence seemed not only possible but probable in the near future. Fuente's hiring was supposed to ensure that Virginia Tech got a head coach that understands the nature of college football today and could take us to the next level. Fuente's first two seasons were promising. The first, especially so, with the return to the ACC Championship game. 2017 was decent and this year was just bad with the exception of winning the last two games to extend the dominance over UVA and to legitimately claim the longest active bowl streak in the country. We should not underestimate the significance of either.
Dominance over UVA proves that no matter how bad a year Virginia Tech has, it is still a better program than UVA. Recruits will notice that.
Extending the bowl streak is also a significant accomplishment for two primary reasons. I am aware of the, "everyone goes to a bowl game" notion. At first that makes a bowl appearance seem insignificant. But it's not. Because when a bowl appearance is no longer special, it's almost mandatory. Losing the streak becomes "Everybody goes to a bowl game, but you". That's hardly a great selling point for recruits. Good programs are expected to play in bowl games. You want good recruits, you need to play in bowl games. It's a very different recruiting pitch to say, "We have the longest active bowl streak and we need guys like you to get us to the CFP" than it is to say, "We really need a guy like you to get us back to a bowl game." Great players aren't looking for mediocre challenges and goals. Merely getting back to a bowl game isn't going to cut it. Taking a shot at the CFP is. Extending the bowl streak was mandatory to keeping Virginia Tech from regressing in recruiting.
Winning these two games helps mitigate the ugliness of a 6-6 (hopefully to be 7-6) record and paints a very different picture. Right now this is a team that's young and struggling and has promise. Losing to UVA would have painted a picture of a program that was potentially lost in the woods. Other teams would have definitely taken advantage of that idea with recruits. They probably still will but we can counter now. We own our state and the longest active bowl streak in the country. Yeah, beating Clemson for recruits is probably going to be hard but maintaining both streaks gives us an edge over the rest of the ACC teams in our territory.
I can't wait to find out who we play and I hope it's not Memphis.
GO HOKIES!
Comments
Nope.
I have been a firm supporter of our young players and the coaches throughout this tough season but these wins are not even top 10 most important games VT has played. These are more team defining, possibly showing doubters the promise of our young players, than history defining for VT football.
I think for those more concerned with the program's current trajectory under Fuente the importance of these games may be inflated.
Counterpoint, the following are the two most important games:
the 1995 Sugar bowl put us on the metaphorical map with a win over Texas, and the 1999 (2000) National Championship in which we probably missed our shot at a FB 'ship but validated our staying power and national image.
counter-counterpoint
They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash!
I would just nit-pick a little and say that the win over Miami in 1995 was as (or maybe even more) important than the Sugar Bowl win that year.
Coming into that season there were high expectations, but we were a hugely disappointing 0-2 heading into week 3 against Miami, who we were something like 0-13 all-time against. We stunned Miami 13-7 on the last play and went on to win our next 10 games (including the Sugar Bowl). In my opinion, that Miami game was the most important game in Virginia Tech history.
But the 1995 win over Texas in the Sugar Bowl was AWESOME too.
I agree with 1995 Sugar Bowl.... Can't say how many times I heard at the game "who are those guys". Without that win, no way we get invited to the New Year's Day game in 1996. leading to a decent bowl and beating Alabama in 1998 with momentum culminating with Vick to natl championship in 2000....
Prior to that Tech had little respect in the Football landscape....
I love the enthusiasm for the moment but hard disagree. If we win 9 games next year including UVA and look like a solid team again, it wouldn't have mattered if the streaks ended. Teams are going to negatively recruit us next year regardless of us maintaining the streaks. We looked like a dumpster fire for most of the season and had a circus going on in the off-season and during the season. We need to win some games next year to prove we actually are a program on the rise.
We only looked like a dumpster fire against ODU, GT, and PITT. So, 25% of the season.
75% of the season we looked like a talented, inexperienced team making some big mistakes.
So you're saying we looked like a dumpster fire against two divisional opponents we directly compete with and a bottom-of-the-barrel FBS team? All isn't lost but I'd argue we looked competent in 2-3 games this year
This year when we were bad we were REALLY BAD. But...
@FSU. 24-3 against the #19 ranked team before we beat them
W&M 62-17. never punted
@Duke 31-14 against the #22 ranked team before we beat them
Marshall 41-20 against a team with an FPI in the low 30's.
VT's recruiting classes generally rank between 17-35th, and they played like a top 15 team in each of the 4 games mentioned above. I'd say the team looked really good in 4 games, and competent in 9 of 12 games (75%)
Incompetent is a strong adjective and You're saying that the team looked incompetent in 3 or 4 games that they won.
We did look bad for a large portion of the UNC game. But then they forced a turnover and followed it with a 97 yard TD drive to win the game.
I don't feel that bad about ODU anymore. We weren't the team we thought we were when it happened. We are young and growing, and playing backups of backups everywhere. So it sucks to lose to those teams, but it happened, nothing we can do about it now.
The good news is, we finished strong, and with our backs against the wall, we beat UVA and Marshall both teams that I thought could beat us. The coach hasn't lost our locker room, and the D was looking like the defense we all know and love.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I agree. ODU was a fluke. Even with as young as the team was and and as poorly as it played.
There were clear break downs against GT and Pitt that resulted in both teams scoring a ridiculous number of unassisted points (meaning not off of turnovers or short fields).
Again, in both of those games Hokie defenders were in the backfield and did not put a guy on the ground. I expect that to change next year. Sometimes the difference between a TFL and a long gain is a couple of inches.
Was it a fluke, though? We played the same awful defense against GT and Pitt, so I'm not sure it can be excused as a fluke when it happened 2 more times. Just seems like it was an early warning shot to just how bad our defense was going to be this year.
I don't think it was a Fluke. I think we were just not as good as anyone thought we were in general.
The last 2 games we fought our asses off to preserve the streaks and we played more like we are accustomed too. It felt like we turned a corner.
I think the most important thing to come out of the last 2 games were some defined leadership roles by the younger players. Dax really stepped up on defense the last couple weeks and Turner on offense. If it took grinding through this season to have those guys step up and assert themselves as team leaders, it was worth it, and should pay dividends down the line. And for that reason, I agree, I think we might have turned a corner the last couple weeks.
Pitt and GT are WAY better than ODU. So we looked the same against much better competition. I'm not saying our performance against ODU would have been much better in a "non fluke" situation. But the game would have been closer as that would have been more inline with our performance against better teams.
They may be better, but our defense was downright awful those games. 8 quarters, 14 TDs, and 2 punts if my memory is correct. Against Pitt we set a national record for most yards allowed per play, but it won't stand because Pitt wasn't on the field for enough plays to make it count.
The way we played those nights, I'm not sure there are that many teams we could have beaten. And that was the same kind of disjointed, scrambled, crappy defense we played against ODU, just that their defense was bad enough to allow us to turn it into a shootout.
I wouldn't disagree with this sentiment if we were talking about the importance heading into next season, which would make a bowl win equally important. Three wins to end the season will leave a better taste in everyone's mouth rather than losing five consecutive homes games, had we lost to loluva.
Historically speaking I'd say the 95 Miami and the 99 BC games, but there are plenty to choose from.
Not even close to top-10
1995 Sugar Bowl
1999 MNC Game
2007 BC
1999 Miracle in Morgantown
1986 Peach Bowl
1999 Syracuse
1995 UVA
1995 Miami
2014 Ohio State
2009 Miami
The Sugar Bowl put us on the map. The MNC game brought us up as a recognized national contender for years. Neither of those games would have happened were it not for the Peach Bowl appearance almost a decade earlier and the four games listed in those seasons.
I didn't list the 2003 Miami game because of how that season went, though I was tempted to, which makes listing the Ohio State win seem hypocritical save for the fact one was at home and the other was a road win in which we were given no chance and pulled a major upset in front of a national audience. I would list 03 Miami as top-15, though.
As for the '07 BC game, it's listed more because that loss likely kept us out of playing in another MNC game at 12-1 despite our loss to LSU because I think pollsters would have had a harder time justifying jumping LSU ahead of us after their loss to Arkansas a week earlier.
People can try to write off the 08 Orange Bowl win all they want, but at the end of the day being able to have "BCS Bowl Win" on the resume has to be up there. Same goes for the 3 ACC championship game wins.
1995 Miami, my freshman year. First time Tech ever beat the U. I remember storming the field and tearing down the goalpost. I think I can recall that the goalpost was even marched around campus and dumped on the presidents lawn.
That was my freshman year as well. First time I was on the field. They did come down, paraded around campus and thrown into duck pond, I believe.
Can Confirm.
My sophomore year. A bunch of people I knew didn't even go to the game because they were sure we would lose. I went and it was an amazing thing to behold.
Never forget, FSU, a storied program which had a record 14 straight top 5 finishes, winning 3 national titles in that period, cared so much about maintaining their bowl streak that they scheduled a late season game.
The bowl streak matters.
I would suggest the most important games we didn't always win - Ex 2005 Miami was one of he most important games in history for us. I do think that these last 2 games will rank very high and/or tumultuous if the team builds over the next 2-3 years with the youth. People will one inevitably point to the UVA game as a turning point.
These weren't the most important games. I would agree that the UVa game was the most important game this year, along with the win over FSU.
Had VT lost, VT would STILL have a great program that's currently being rebuilt.
If I had to pick the two most important games, I'd pick just being in the national championship game, and the victory over Ohio State as being much more program-defining, along with some of those great wins in the 1990's.
Still, I'm happy that both of those streaks (consecutive UVa wins and bowl games) are still alive.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the '96('97?) Orange Bowl against Nebraska or the '10('11) Orange Bowl against Stanford. Come to think of it, I'd even throw in the '09 matchup against Bama.
Imagine how bad things would have gotten if VT had lost to Duke and or UNC this year. The team deserves credit for bouncing back when things looked bad several times this year. UVA and UNC where the most important games this year.
Neither of those two games were top 10 in Virginia Tech history.
Some of the most important over the last 5 years, maybe (though it's still dwarfed by many others like Ohio State x2, Clemson x2, ND this year, etc) but of all time?
Nah. It's nice to continue the streaks but unless we can start winning some of our big games against these top teams those streaks will just be a minor footnote on the national scene.
Interesting argument, but I disagree. I'm particularly skeptical of:
We've had down years during the 15-year streak over UVA. We're not going to make a splash in recruiting by beating UVA. We've been getting pantsed by teams like PSU, FSU, and Clemson for top VA recruits for years. Beating UVA means very little in the grand scheme of things. It's a fun rivalry for those involved, but it's not going to win us any 5* recruits. Beating the bigger teams will matter. When we take down Clemson and win the ACC, then let's talk about recruiting implications.
Counterpoint: losing recruits to PSU, FSU, and Clemson is better than losing recruits to PSU, FSU, Clemson and LOLUVa. If a guy is choosing home or out of state, I want to be the home option, even if many don't choose it. I know state pride isn't what it used to be, but whatever kids still have it, I want to be their only choice.
No, LOLUVa is not a real threat, but that doesn't mean you ever let them up for air. Let them make the pitch "you can be the one to help us beat tech" and we'll counter with "3 different coaches have told that to hundreds of VA recruits over the past 15 years. It's never been true."
btw, I completely disagree that these two wins are even in the top 10 of our most important wins. They are nice and all that and I'm proud of the team for pulling them out of a dismal season, but they are just a couple of bright spots in a year we had all given up on. Even if we'd lost them, we'd still be looking at next year to bounce back to typical form just like we are now.
I agree with your post, but I think this statement stands, though. It's pretty clear. I think you can easily make the argument that VT has done better than UVa in recruiting Virginia lately, even if we haven't convinced some of the very top recruits in the state to come to Blacksburg. Some of those in-state relationships with high school coaches may be to blame. Some of those 5 stars should have seriously been looking at VT.
VT didn't look great this year, but there is some solace in keeping the Commonwealth Cup and the bowl streaks going. I'd expect some significant improvement next year. And hopefully some improvement in recruiting.
Just to further that point- 5* recruits Smoke Mizzell, Andrew Brown and Quin Blanding all chose UVa over Tech even though we were kicking the shit of them...Smoke's commitment came on the heels of the 38-0 bro win.
The 15-year streak is a nice feather in our cap but it's not going to be a consistent leverage point.
What really helps us? Turning 3* like Kyle Fuller and the Edmundi into first-round draft picks. What Bud should be telling 5* guys is: I turned a bunch of 3* into first-round draft picks, imagine what I can do with you.
What does UVa do with 5* guys? Fifth-round draft pick (who's now on the practice squad) and two UDFAs.
College football is a big, clunky, complicated machine.
In WWI a bunch of military service teams formed and competed against the rest of the college teams. They were able to compete right away (several of the non-major service teams were as good as the majors); which lends more to the idea that teams at that time were more or less made up of intramural rosters.
In WWII, a much better funded effort was made to create about 5-10 competitive programs. While they were omitted from the rankings in 1942, there would have likely been 2 or 3 ranked teams from the 8~10 or so major programs. In 1943 and 1944, half those programs were ranked in the top 20. Had the North Carolina Pre-Flight Cloudbusters played the 1945 season, none other than Bear Bryant was set to be their coach (he ended up at Maryland).
Even with unlimited resources such as funding, access to athletic kids and landing some of the top coaches, it took more than a season to build a program from scratch in WWII. The talent pool in college football now is much more concentrated than it was then. Army and Navy would often be ranked even outside of the world war years; they are currently entrenched as G5 teams (Over the last 20 years, Navy snuck into the top 25 some of 2015-2017; Army hasn't been ranked in decades).
College football moves slow.
It's easy to point out down seasons from strong programs, but even happy accidents happen. In 2007, Cal, WVU, USF & BC had all reached #2 in the nation; Mizzou was even ranked #1! It's 2018 and if you'd bet those programs would have reached the national title game at least once, you'd have lost every one of those bets.
Trying to analyze the long term affects of any single season in real time is a pretty fruitless endeavor. It's nothing more than a hot take; a wild guess. It would be cool to point back to our worst season in 30 years as a season we could still beat a great team from our rival and reach the post-season; but that's just an anecdote.
While the adversity of this season may very well be a stabilizing factor for this team moving forward, the results of the UVA & Marshall games were more or less inconsequential in that regard.
FTFY
Selhini, I have to ask, why do you have so much time on your hands recently? Not that I don't like your posts, but it seems everytime I log in here, we have a new essay written by you up? I can't be the only one that noticed the uptick?
Hate to be a Rachel Dratch..... but we've lost both of our most "important games" in school history.
One of those was the NC obviously. Whats the other?
Bowl streaks are nice, but a long bowl streak is more about good program consistency, rather than imminent greatness of any given team. Three of the four cfb playoff teams this year (Alabama, Clemson, and Notre Dame) don't even make the top five in bowl streaks. So bowl streaks are just a good indication of above average performance generally, rather than winning championships or recruiting the top talent. Particularly now, since there are more than twice as many bowls as there were when our streak began. Maintaining our bowl streak record is definitely nice for in-state recruiting though.
They will notice, right as they're filling out their LOI to Alabama/Clemson/Penn St/Florida St/Michigan/Georgia/etc
VT gets a lot of good players from the state of Virginia relative to UVa. And we need to keep it that way.
Sure, we get a lot of the top players.... when you ignore the Top 10 in state every year....
We get a lot of great players from Virginia. Period.
Yes, I'd like to see more of the Top 10 on that list.
I know i'm in the minority, but the Ohio State game isn't in my top 5. We gained zero momentum from it. 6-6 overall and 3-5 in the ACC and its not like our recruiting saw an upswing afterwards. My biggest takeaway from that game is losing to ECU the next weekend just sucked even more than normal.
It goes down as a top 10 win, and VT has way too few of those.
We didn't get much in terms of momentum because of the rest of the season, but it was still a solid win.
I don't think either one of these wins will improve recruiting. Therefore, I don't see how they could be considered in the "most important" category.
I think streaks are valuable, especially of the "longest x, y, z" variety, because everytime they're mentioned it's free marketing. But longest bowl streak and consecutive wins over a 4th tier program like UVa in a 4th tier recruiting territory like Virginia don't register on the recruiting trail.
I'd be very interested to look back on this post in 4 or 5 years.
If Fuente IS the one to take this program to its next level (however you define that) this season and those last two wins to preserve the streaks are the first real step in that direction. His first two seasons we're great and very much in keeping with the standard we became accustomed to. This season forged the foundation of Fuente's Hokies - guys not coached by Beamer or tutored by players coached by Beamer. These last two wins could be very important indeed when we look back and see how this core turns out.
My comment isn't about top wins. It's about the importance of the wins to the program. Maybe put in a different way, not winning these games would have a far larger affect on the status (or perceived status) of the program than not winning any one of our "top wins". Losing to Texas in 1995 is not something that reduces the status of the program. Losing to OSU in 2014 would not have been been a reduction is status. In addition, winning against Texas and OSU did nothing to change the status of the program. We don't win those types of games consistently enough for that to be a hallmark of the program. In fact, given the number of games we lose to top ranked competition, those wins are mostly looked at as flukes from the outside. Immediately after beating Texas, they were ranked above us in the final polls. In general, until we have a better than 50% win rate against top ranked competition, those wins won't be considered an aspect of the program. In other words, we are not thought of a giant slayers because every couple of years we may beat a highly ranked team. For the most part, if we play a team ranked in the top 10 we lose.
Losing two program defining streaks does affect the status of the program.
I hear ya...but imagine if we did lose those couple of games. And the streak(s) were broken. And in 2-4 years we win 10+games and an ACC title. None of this year will matter; other than the cool story of starting a new streak.
Oregon played for a NT in 2010. And then Rose and Fiesta the following 2 years. They then missed a bowl game at 4-8 two years after going to the Rose Bowl. And 8-4 this year. You think any game in the past 3 years for program defining for them? Nope...that title game and a few others while they were winning 12-13 games a season.
Um, what?
Final AP poll for 1995
Nebraska
Florida
Tennessee
Florida State
Colorado
Ohio State
Kansas State
Northwestern
Kansas
Virginia Tech
Notre Dame
USC
Penn State
Texas
Texas A&M
Virginia
Michigan
Oregon
Syracuse
Miami-FL
Alabama
Auburn
Texas Tech
Toledo
Iowa
Final Coaches poll for 1995
Nebraska
Tennessee
Florida
Colorado
Florida St.
Kansas St.
Northwestern
Ohio St.
Virginia Tech
Kansas
Southern California
Penn St.
Notre Dame
Texas
Texas A&M
Syracuse
Virginia
Oregon
Michigan
Texas Tech
Auburn
Iowa
East Carolina
Toledo
LSU
Tech was a 7 point underdog going into the game, no one gave us a chance, and we ripped it from Texas and put our footprint on the map. That was a program-defining win that made the rest of the nation pay attention. It paved our way to the 1996 Orange Bowl, where we lost because of depth more than anything else, and helped us eventually build to the 1999 Sugar Bowl MNC game.
Were the UVA and Marshall games important? Hell, yes. Top-10 most important games in program history? Not by a long shot.
As for "better than 50% win rate vs top ranked competition" good luck with that. I'm having to extrapolate some data because the only source I can find stopped tracking at the end of 2010 but at the moment I've found a grand total of one team with a winning record against teams that were top-10 at kickoff -- Oklahoma. Extrapolating that further to teams that finished in the top-10, which is a more accurate barometer of how a team fared in a season, that data point drops to 0.
Put this together in Jan 2011...but you get the idea for games against teams ranked in the top 5.
VT is #5 in BCS appearances, behind Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida and USC. Again, nice shoulders to rub. There's much talk about how we can't beat a top 5 team, and Tech is 1-14 against top 5 teams. Well, Tech is 7-1 against teams #6-10. Let's look at some other school's records against top 5 teams: UVA = 1-20, UNC = 1-40, NCST = 1-27, WVU = 1-38, Miami = 18-42 (tops in NCAA), ND = 21-64, USC = 19-53, OhioSt = 9-45, Clem = 2-32. So, as you can see, it's a misleading stat without much to surround the information. I'm sure Ohio State will get to double digits in the next ten years or so...
Is this against teams that finished in the top 5/10 or currently ranked? And for what period because historically Tech is 1-31 against top-5 teams and 7-21 against teams ranked 6-10 at kickoff, with an 0-10 record against the 7th ranked team.
For reference, the last time Tech played each ranking:
#1 2015 (Ohio State)
#2 2017 (Clemson)
#3 2016 (Clemson)
#4 1988 (FSU, played four top-10 teams that season and finished 3-8)
#5 2010 (Stanford)
#6 2018 (Notre Dame)
#7 1997 (UNC)
#8 2014 (Ohio State)
#9 2017 (Miami)
#10 2006 (Clemson)
Also, a little bit of trivia:
Tech has never played a team ranked 11th
Tech has never beaten teams ranked 1st (0-9), 3rd (0-8), 4th (0-2), 5th (0-5), 7th (0-10) or 25th (0-2)
Tech has a record of 0.500 or better against teams ranked 9th (4-2), 10th (2-2), 16th (5-4), 18th (4-3), 19th (6-3), 20th (5-2), 21st (2-2-1), 23rd (4-1) and has never lost to the 22nd ranked team (4-0)
thru 2011, at the time of the game...
Funny you mention through 2011 since I'm having to look up data from 2011-2018. Here are the top-20 teams historically and their WP vs the top-10 through 2010. Out of this group, the only one I've found (so far) with a winning record against teams ranked in the top-10 at kickoff from 2011 through 2018 is Oklahoma but I'm only now working on Ohio State. Their record from 2011-2018 is in parenthesis.
0.506 (76-74-4) - USC (6-9)
0.493 (69-71-4) - Oklahoma (12-8)
0.480 (80-87-6) - Notre Dame (3-6)
0.477 (70-77-6) - Michigan (1-13)
0.465 (65-75-4) - Texas (2-15)
0.457 (59-71-9) - Ohio State (12-5)
0.446 (44-55-3) - FSU (8-10)
0.441 (52-66-1) - Miami, FL (1-7. DEY BAK!)
0.440 (59-75-0) - Alabama (21-5, stopping here)
0.398 (50-77-5) - UCLA
0.395 (43-66-1) - Penn State
0.389 (54-86-4) - Florida
0.385 (52-84-3) - Auburn
0.371 (50-87-6) - Tennessee
0.358 (47-86-4) - LSU
0.353 (44-81-1) - Nebraska
0.350 (36-68-3) - Georgia
0.341 (43-84-2) - Michigan State
0.297 (16-42-6) - Army
0.291 (17-45-5) - Houston
Edited to update records through Alabama. Even with their eye popping 21-5 against the top-10 since the start of 2011 it isn't enough to pull their previously 0.440 WP against the top-10 to 0.500 but is enough to get the Tide to 0.467, moving the Tide up to 5th all-time vs the top-10 behind (in order) Oklahoma, USC, Ohio State and Notre Dame
Winning against Texas in 1995 absolutely changed the status of the program. That win gave VT a huge win over a historically blue blood program.
Also, I would argue that the advent of Thursday night football games, and VT's willingness to schedule them when a lot of teams avoided them early on, did more for the program than any of the aforementioned wins. Playing on National Television back then was a big deal since this was well before the days of streaming and before you had the huge number of televised games week in and week out. Scheduling those games went a loooong way towards turning VT into a national brand.
I would make an argument that the three most important years for the program, at least since the CFB era began are: 1995, 1999, and 2004.
1995 established the credibility of the program with wins over Miami, Texas, and UVA. Many rightly point to the Texas game as a turning point, but the UVA game was big as well. People forget that 1995 was the year that UVA gave Florida State its first in conference ACC loss. FSU was ranked #2 at the time of the loss and probably would have played in the title game had they won. I was in high school at the time and I recall that that's about the only thing I heard about for the next few weeks. I wasn't really into college football then, so my first memory of watching a Tech game was watching "Jim Druckenmiller has just engineered the greatest comeback I've ever seen" with my brother. UVA was ranked #13 at the time and to beat your in-state rival like after they beat FSU turned heads as well.
1999 for obvious reasons, including the Miracle in Morgantown, beatdown of Syracuse, and MNC game.
2004 because many people stated before the year began that we didn't belong in the ACC. The ACC expanded to get Miami, and we were lucky to be included. Additionally, 2003 saw the Hokies completely fall apart down the stretch (excluding the Miami game), leading many to wonder what the heck happened. So, in 2004, no one thought we belonged and what did we do? Played top ranked USC toe-to-toe, and won against ranked WVU, UVA (start of the streak), and Miami squads on our way to an ACC title.
There is no way that any of the wins from this year can compare to wins in any of those years.
All the wins are important.
The last two wins maintained two streaks, and were important to the current group of players, as it showed them something about themselves and what they're capable of. It's something to build on.
Also, it currently appears that the current group of players are improving. They get 15 more practices and a bowl game. They also get the feeling of pride from having set a goal and accomplishing it.
The team will be a lot better next year, and that's partially because of the experience they got this year, as painful as some of those losses were. Also, it's got to be better for recruiting that they made a bowl than it would have been if they hadn't.