And then, reality set in.
In January of 1981, All-South center Roe Waldron experienced his first “well-hell-I-didn’t-see-THAT-coming” moment. A few days earlier, the senior, in his last collegiate game, had swapped helmet paint with future NFL mauler Jim Burt in the Peach Bowl against the University of Miami (the Florida one in case you were wondering). But when he returned to his room at Hillcrest dormitory, he sensed something was amiss. He got that idea when he heard the sound of a blow-dryer coming from inside his room.
“And,” he said, “I didn’t own a blow-dryer.”
Waldron walked in to what was now his ex-room to find that two walk-on football players had moved in. His room had been, without his knowledge, reassigned over the break. The walk-ons turned and looked at him with one of those, “What is HE doing here?” looks.
Waldron stared back at them and said, “Where’s my stuff?”
They led him out into the Hillcrest hallway, to a closet, where all of his worldly belongings had been stowed without great care.
“The end came quickly,” said teammate Steve Jacobsen. “Roe came down to my room like a puppy dog, and asked if he could crash with us for awhile.
“It was eye-opening for me. I figured if they could do that to an All-South player, they could do it to me.”
Until he could find a new place to live, Waldron piled his belongings into his girlfriend’s Dodge Dart.
“My teammates called me ‘Jed Clampett,’ after the character from the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies,” Waldron said. “Because at the beginning of each episode they’d show Jed and his family with all of their belongings - rocking chairs, sofas, and whatnot - piled in their jalopy as they through Beverly Hills.”
But Waldron was still on scholarship, and he still had classes to take to graduate. After conducting a little research, he learned that teammate Mike Kovac was renting a trailer outside of town. “Nobody knew him that well,” he said. “He liked to chew tobacco, and he had spit-cups sitting all over the place. But I needed a place to stay, and he took me in. I stayed with him through the end of the year.”
Would this year be nineteen-eighty-“won”?
Virginia Tech’s football program entered the 1981 season hoping the Peach Bowl bid could serve as a stepping-stone to something bigger. What that was, exactly, nobody knew. Virginia Tech had never experienced back-to-back bowl seasons before, so that would have been kind of nice. Maybe return to the Peach, and win it this time? Virginia Tech - which would never be mistaken for Alabama, no matter how hard it tried - had never won a bowl game before. A Gator Bowl bid, maybe? Virginia Tech Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity members would “gator” whenever they heard the Doobie Brothers’ “China Grove” during a Friday night hump party, but Virginia Tech had never been to an actual Gator Bowl before.
But, by God, it seemed like the Hokies were ready for something good to happen.
In the season-opener against Richmond - the team that upset them the year before - the Hokies still couldn’t figure out how to tackle tailback Barry Redden. He went nuts again - this time rushing for 223 yards - but Tech tailback Cyrus Lawrence countered that with 169 yards on 36 carries and scored two touchdowns in Tech’s 28-10 win.
The Hokies then rolled to easy wins over William & Mary (47-3) and Wake Forest (30-14), as Lawrence rolled up a combined 185 yards in the two games, even though everybody knew quarterback Steve Casey was going to hand off to him every play.
In the fourth game of the season, Coach Bill Dooley decided he liked Lawrence so much that he ran him a school-record 42 times against Memphis State.
What the hell, Dooley thought. Lawrence is fine. That ball ain’t that heavy.
“Actually as the game progressed, I got better,” Lawrence said. “When I got on my 20th carry, I was just getting started.
“I was conditioned for that kind of workload. We had an outstanding conditioning coach at Virginia Tech, Mike Mansfield. I was ready for the task, and carrying the ball 40 times didn’t faze me. But I never could have done it without an outstanding quarterback like Steve Casey, a great offensive line, and my blocking back, Tony Paige.
The Hokies trailed 13-10 late in the game, but Lawrence bailed them out by scoring on fourth-and-goal from the Tigers’ two-yard line with 2:55 left. “He barely got in,” defensive end Robert Brown said. “That was a big-time play. I think three or four guys should have stopped him, but he was so determined. He had an incredible knack for breaking tackles.”
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If at first you don’t succeed…
If the Tech offense acted like it wanted to lose against Memphis State, it succeeded the following week at Duke.
When the Hokies defense had stopped quarterback Ben Bennett on a fourth-and-inches-to-the-end-zone play late in the game, their offense was happy to take possession - but not so ecstatic about the claustrophobic nature of their field position.
Quarterback Steve Casey’s two sneaks gained just one yard. The smart play would probably to run Lawrence again, punt, and accept the tie (there was no overtime in 1981).
But Dooley played to win, so on third down he called for a pass play.
That might be fine if your coach didn’t consider a forward pass the equivalent of a Texan putting beans in chili. So when Blue Devils All-ACC cornerback Dennis Tabron intercepted Casey’s pass intended for Mike Giacolone and returned it 10 yards for a touchdown with 56 seconds left in the game, nobody could have been too surprised - even if it was the deciding play in a 14-7 Hokies loss.
It was Casey’s fourth interception of the day.
Despite the heart-stomping setback, the Hokies didn’t give up. After receiving the kickoff, Casey actually moved Tech down to the Duke 15-yard line. Could the Hokies pull out the tie? Or go for two and win the stinking thing?
An optimist might think so, but a realist figured Casey was primed for his fifth interception of the game, which is what happened when he threw into triple coverage trying to find Tony McKee.
If you want to know why the Hokies didn’t go bowling in 1981, there’s your Exhibit A. Fans later learned that Casey played the second half with a fractured thumb on his passing hand, which explains the interceptions, but also makes you wonder what backup Jeff Bolton had done in practice to warrant Bill Dooley’s lack of confidence in him.
No revenge for Hokies
With the broken thumb, Casey could not play the following week in Morgantown against West Virginia. Bolton completed just six of 21 passes for 80 yards and three interceptions - which probably explains why Dooley didn’t play him against Duke. Behind quarterback Oliver Luck, father of NFL star Andrew Luck - WVU rolled the Hokies 27-6.
Tech overcame the mini-slump by romping over Appalachian State 34-12 and Kentucky 29-3, as Lawrence gained a combined 258 yards and two touchdowns. And so the Hokies were 6-2 as they traveled to Miami to face the No. 12 Hurricanes, with a chance to avenge the Peach Bowl loss 11 months earlier in Atlanta.
(Yes, that’s right, boys and girls - you just found yourself on the right end of a trivia question. Since 1907, who is the only non-conference football opponent Virginia Tech played twice in one calendar year? Miami of Florida. Correct me if I’m wrong.)
The rematch was eerily similar to bowl game, with Miami taking an early 14-0, then holding on the rest of the way. Again the Hokies self-destructed early, fumbling twice in the first quarter that set up two Miami touchdowns. One of them came on a punt lost by Bob Thomas that the Canes recovered at the Tech 18; Rick Miley fumbled after making an interception that would have stopped a deep Miami drive.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Tech drove to the Miami 12-yard line and appeared primed to pull off the upset. On third-and-seven, Casey - who had returned from his thumb injury a week earlier - dropped back to pass. With no receivers open, but green grass before him, he tucked and ran, where a pair of Miami players met him at the 11-yard line and knocked the ball loose. Nose guard Tony Chickillo recovered, and the collective groan from fans listening to the game in Blacksburg knocked several tiles off the roof of Cassell Coliseum. On the next play, Mark Rush fumbled, but officials ruled he was down before losing the ball. The Canes held on to win 21-14, as Jim Kelly completed 20 of 27 passes for 209 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. Aggravating, but a loss that was probably expected.
What happened next, though, was absolutely NOT expected.
VMI made Tech cry
The Hokies came close to securing their second bowl bid in as many years in 1981. With two games left to play they were 6-3; all they had to do was beat underdog VMI in Blacksburg on Nov. 21 to secure a berth in the Hall of Fame Bowl.
“It was all done but the silk-screened t-shirts,” then-Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist John Markon told me.
But stiff winds and a wind chill around zero made it difficult for any team to pass. Keydets quarterback Kelly Raber completed just six of 13 passes for 43 yards; the Hokies’ Steve Casey - still, apparently, recovering from his broken thumb - completed just eight of 23 passes with three interceptions. Both teams gained 156 yards rushing, but the Hokies were twice stopped on fourth-and-short. Casey’s fumbled snap at the Tech 20 led to VMI’s only score, and the Hokies lost 6-0.
“Steve’s thumb was still not 100 percent, and VMI knew we weren’t going to beat them by throwing the ball,” defensive end Robert Brown said. “So they just keyed on Cyrus. They put eight, nine guys in the box. Everywhere he went, they had two or three guys on him.”
“I think we started looking ahead too soon,” Lawrence said. “We were playing Virginia in the last game of the season. Sometimes you measure teams by their name, but believe it or not, VMI (6-3-1) had a very good football team that year.”
The loss left Brown heartbroken. It was a miserable afternoon all around. “It was a cold day, with snow flurries,” Brown said. “The students had gone home for Thanksgiving, and Lane Stadium wasn’t very crowded. VMI was fired up because we had beaten them the year before in Norfolk.”
It wasn’t the coldest game in which Brown had played; his second year with the Green Bay Packers, December 18, 1983 - the season finale at Chicago - the temperature was three degrees with a wind chill of minus-13.
It was warmer up in the Lane Stadium pressbox, where the phone lines were on fire. “The Hall of Fame Bowl committee was getting nervous,” Markon said. “They kept calling the Tech press box for a score update. They called so often, the sportswriters began answering the phone.”
Tech lost its bowl bid, but rallied to beat Virginia 20-3 in the season finale at Scott Stadium to finish 7-4. Cyrus Lawrence carried 38 times for 202 yards. His 325 carries that season remains a school record.
As a senior, Brown was named All-South Independent First Team All-American and earned an invitation to the Hula Bowl. The Packers drafted him in the fourth round, No. 98 overall in the 1982 draft. He spent 11 seasons with the Packers, playing 164 games, with 25.5 career sacks. Through 2014, no Packer defensive lineman played in more games than Brown. When he retired, Green Bay signed Hall of Famer Reggie White to replace him. In 1998, Virginia Tech inducted him into its Sports Hall of Fame.
Wrapping up 1981
RECORD: 7-4
LEADING PASSER: Steve Casey, 79-163 for 1,083 yards, 4 touchdowns (TDs), 9 interceptions.
LEADING RUSHER: Cyrus Lawrence, 325 carries, school-record1,403 yards, 8 TDs.
LEADING RECEIVER: Mike Giacolone (pronounced JACK-cologne), 28 catches, 514 yards, 7 TDs.
LEADING TACKLER: Ashley Lee, 75 unassisted, 71 assisted, 146 total.
BEST NAMES: No new ones of note.
NOTES OF INTEREST:
- Ashley Lee had 19 tackles in Virginia Tech’s season-opening 28-12 win over Richmond.
- Mike Giacolone caught five passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns in a 47-3 win over William & Mary and the defense held the Tribe to 138 yards of total offense.
- In its fifth game of the season, Tech lost to a Duke team that would finish 6-5 when quarterback Steve Casey, inexplicably still playing even though he fractured a thumb on his passing hand, threw five interceptions.
- The Hokies intercepted five passes - two of them by linebacker Mike Johnson - in a 34-12 win over Appalachian State. Backup quarterback Jeff Bolton passed for 261 yards and three touchdowns.
- Freshman Don Wade kicked a school-record five field goals and Lawrence rushed for 160 yards in a 29-3 win at Kentucky.
- Virginia Tech out-gained Virginia 316-54 on the ground and intercepted four passes in a 20-3 season-ending win.