Tomorrow Is Another Day

I was confident in a Hokie win going into yesterday's game. In fact, I'd assured myself there was no chance we'd lose to Boise State, and for no good reason too. Oh sure, if you had asked me I could've given you specifics: Ryan Williams, a matured Tyrod Taylor, my faith in Bud Foster, etc... But really I believed, like everyone else, that fate had our back.

Over the course of sixty minutes Boise State proved fate doesn't win football games. It didn't matter that we set FedEx's proverbial roof on fire, or that we wore black uniforms, or that we were playing in our backyard. Nope, the Broncos reaffirmed for me that blocking, tackling and effort win football games. And on a beautiful summer night, that felt like it was on loan from fall, on the outskirts of D.C. Boise did those very things better than us.

From where I was sitting it looked like they controlled the line of scrimmage all night long. The Broncos confused and opened interstate wide running lanes against our young defensive line and held their ground against our veteran offensive line. Their running backs ran downhill, aggressively and with a purpose. Austin Pettis and Titus Young were magnificent at finding soft sports in our secondary. And Kellen Moore is worthy of every compliment thrown his way.

As for the Hokies, when your program's philosophy is predicated on tenacious defense and special teams you can't arm tackle, miss a field goal and have a punt blocked. Aside from an atrocious decision by Bryan Stinespring to call a designed Taylor run on 2nd and 6 during our second to last drive I thought the offense played well enough. We controlled the clock for 34:20, got Ryan Williams his touches and let Tyrod zip the ball around. Simply put we looked like a team that hadn't played a football game since New Year's Eve and need to execute much better going forward.

Don't be confused, because this isn't a eulogy about the 2010 season. This team showed grit and character by battling back and not folding down 17-0. It's only September 7th, we've got 13 more games to play and all our flaws are fixable. Even though the losses to USC, LSU and ECU should make me think otherwise, the day I stop blindly believing that it'll all come together is the day I stop being a Hokie.