Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, the Hokies ran into a buzzsaw embodied by Brett Hundley, Jim Mora, Jr. and a rising UCLA program determined to use the Sun Bowl to jumpstart a 2014 campaign that should see them ranked in the preseason top 10.
To counter, Virginia Tech was without Trey Edmunds thanks to a broken leg, cornerbacks Kyle Fuller and Antone Exum because of injuries, Kalvin Cline was apparently banged up, their fourth field goal kicker of the year was in the lineup (thanks, Cody), and they put a heavy reliance on true freshmen Carlis Parker and Jerome Wright, both of whom combined to touch the ball all of three times during the regular season. Yeah...we had 'em right where we wanted them, didn't we?