This one got off to a bad start from the very beginning. First, Clemson and NC State went into overtime, bumping the UNC-Miami broadcast from ABC/ESPN2 down into ESPNU, which bumped the Hokies and Cuse into oblivion. ESPN's bottom-line scrawler told us that VT-Syracuse was streaming on the Watch ESPN app, but no, it wasn't. Not for me, anyway.
While I (and you, no doubt) struggled to find a way to watch the game -- I eventually pulled it up on ESPN3.com -- the Hokies got off to a bad start, coughing up a long 58-yard TD in Syracuse's first possession. On the play, nickel back Mook Reynolds was fooled by a double move, and Mook, once he was beaten for the reception, chased receiver Ervin Philips downfield at an odd three-quarter speed pursuit.
I got a really bad feeling, especially when the Hokies responded by going three and out and punting the ball right back. This one was out of sync in every way imaginable, from the TV broadcast to the defense to the offense, and it brought memories of past struggles in the Carrier Dome rushing back.
Defensively, the game stayed out of sync for the Hokies. Offensively, Tech had a good third quarter/early fourth quarter, piling up 222 yards in just three possessions, which netted two touchdowns ... but Jerod Evans also threw an interception in the Syracuse end zone, just the second pick of the year for Evans and the first that was "his fault."
That's the kind of day it was. Out of sync. Bad at the start. Good at times, but not good enough, and in the end, the Hokies limped to the finish line, worn out and badly beaten. It's a good thing this game didn't have a fifth quarter, because Syracuse would have hung at least three more TDs on the Hokies, if there had been another 15 minutes left.
I'm mad, but I'm not mad at the coaches and players. Progress is a bumpy road, and it's important that all concerned take a look at what went down, then adjust their attitude and preparation to try and make sure it doesn't happen again.
This game was poorly prepared, poorly coached and poorly played on the part of Virginia Tech. The coaches and players themselves admitted that in postgame comments. As so often happens when you're not sharp, things went against the Hokies, like Syracuse kicker Cole Murphy making a career-long field goal, or a holding call that wiped out a Logan-Thomas-Miami-style touchdown run by Jerod Evans and that led to a missed field goal, or any number of things I'm too loathe to wade through in the wake of this loss.
It's ironic that I spent so much time last Monday talking about how Justin Fuente and his staff seemed to have taken all the good points of the Frank Beamer era, and shored up their weaknesses to produce a program that was (at the time) firing on all cylinders. Then Fuente's Hokies went out and did what every Frank Beamer team did at the Carrier Dome: underperform. Shockingly so. It was so familiar as to be surreal.
I know you're tired of hearing about the Carrier Dome, but just give me a moment to get it out of my system.
I Hate That Place
"Gather 'round the Jiffy Pop, the Jiffy Pop, the Jiffy Pop. Gather 'round the Jiffy Pop, the family fun treat." -- 1970's Jiffy Pop Commercial
I hate the Carrier Dome -- which I have derisively called the Jiffy Pop Dome for almost 20 years now -- more than you can imagine.
Everyone talks about the McNabb TD pass in the 1998 game as being the embodiment of Virginia Tech's struggles in Syracuse's house of horrors, and indeed it is. But the misery goes back further than that.
In 1994, the Hokies, fresh off their first bowl win under Frank Beamer in 1993, started out 7-1 ... and the one loss was in the Carrier Dome, 28-20. Syracuse rushed for 278 yards, including fourth quarter TDs of 34 and 42 yards, to score the last 14 points to beat the Hokies.
In 1996, the Hokies, fresh off a Sugar Bowl win in 1995, started out 10-1 ... and the one loss was in the Carrier Dome to Syracuse, 52-21.
No one talks about the 1996 loss, but at the time, it was huge. The Hokies were winners of 13 games in a row, the nation's longest win streak. Tech was ranked #18, and the Orangemen blew away both the winning streak and the ranking.
It took the Hokies the entire rest of the season to re-establish their ranking. After the loss to Syracuse, the Hokies fell out of the rankings for six weeks (including two bye weeks), finally reaching #25 for game eight, and in their final regular-season game against Virginia, the Hokies had still only reached #17.
That 1996 Syracuse loss was Tech's only regular-season loss that year. They went on to win the rest of their games to go 10-1 before losing the Orange Bowl to powerful Nebraska.
If Tech had beaten Syracuse in that 1996 game, and everything else had gone the same, the Hokies would have ended the 1996 season with a 21-game winning streak, and who knows where they would have been ranked, and what would have happened. It was an opportunity lost, at a time when the nation was just beginning to know and respect Frank Beamer's program.
The 1998 loss was painful and ultimately more damaging, because it cost the Hokies the Big East championship. Had the Hokies won that game, they would have finished the regular season 9-2 overall, 6-1 in the Big East and champs over Syracuse, Miami, and WVU (all 5-2), and playing in a BCS game, not the cold, rainy environment of the Music City Bowl (though that turned out well). And Frank Beamer would have retired with eight conference championships.
No Chance for Redemption This Time
Of course, the Hokies won 22-14 in the Dome in 2000 behind Michael Vick, but in 2002 the Dome curse struck again, as the #8-ranked Hokies lost 50-42 in double overtime to a bad Syracuse team that would end up 4-8 on the year.
As painful as all those Dome losses were, they provided one comfort that this year's loss cannot provide: a chance for revenge and redemption in Blacksburg the very next season. The Orangemen were a handful in the Dome, but in Blacksburg from 1993-2003, they provided many sweet moments to balance out the bitter:
1993: Virginia Tech beats Syracuse (6-4-1) 45-24 to earn a Frank Beamer's first bowl bid to the Independence Bowl that same day.
1995: The Hokies throttle #20 Syracuse (9-3) 31-7 to all but lock up their first Big East championship. (Tech officially clinched it the next week with a win over Temple.)
1997: With the skeleton of the new Merryman Center rising up out of the ground just outside the stadium, #22 Virginia Tech thrashes Syracuse (9-4) 31-3 in a Saturday night ESPN matchup, a rarity in Lane Stadium these days.
1999: 62-0. Nuff said.
2003: #4 Virginia Tech gets two punt returns for touchdowns from DeAngelo Hall in 97 seconds and flattens Syracuse 51-7 in their last ever Big East matchup.
But this time around, there is no "wait till next year." Syracuse won't come to Blacksburg until 2021, and the Hokies won't make another trip to the Dome -- and have a chance at revenge up there -- until at least 2025.
While I despised the Big East Conference, I do miss the football rivalries. In this day and age of mega-conferences, divisions, and fixed cross-division opponents (sigh), you don't get a chance to build nasty back-and-forth rivalries with all the teams in your conference. I desperately want a chance to curb stomp Syracuse to wash away the aftertaste of this game, but sadly, we won't get the chance. Not until 2021, but by then, the sting of this one will have diminished significantly.
The Psychology of Being Ready to Play
You might be one of those who thinks "The Dome doesn't have anything to do with it. The Hokies need to stop making excuses and be ready to play every game."
Well, sure, I don't disagree. When I was young, I was too small, too slow, and not mean enough to play football at a very high level, so the last year I played was ninth grade football. And I didn't really play much then. I was a backup center who never got into the game, except for one game where the starting center was out of town or something.
But I did play -- and start -- four years of little league football, grades five through eight. We played seven games a year, which means that in four years, I practiced football for many hours over a long period of time, but I played just 28 games. That's all. I was always very excited to play, after all that hard work and practicing, and I like to think that I was always ready to play.
I've never understood the idea that a team wouldn't be completely fired up and ready to play every time out, especially now that football is a year-round endeavor. The year is so long and the games are so rare and precious that each one should be welcomed with the utmost of energy and focus.
That's in theory. In truth, we've all watched enough sports to know that teams, for whatever reason, sometimes come out flat and out of sync. These occurrences diminish as the level of play gets higher, but at the college level, we're all familiar with seeing flat performances. If you come out without an edge and are a step slow, and you give up a quick touchdown to the underdog, and you don't respond quickly and forcefully, well then, you've suddenly got a game on your hands.
If you could figure out why this happens so much to teams everywhere in every sport, then you would make a ton of money as either a coach or a sports psychologist, because it has driven smarter people than you and me more than a little crazy.
I wrote last week that the Hokies seemed to be extraordinarily prepared for every game, and their 55-6 first quarter scoring advantage, prior to Saturday's game, bore that out. But for some reason, Tech wasn't ready to play Saturday, and they paid for it.
We all hoped that phenomenon of being flat against an inferior opponent had left town when Justin Fuente took over the program, but it clearly hasn't. Fuente's not perfect. He did a great job resurrecting the Memphis program, and he brings an offensive acumen to Blacksburg that hasn't been seen here before. But even at Memphis last year, with first-round NFL pick Paxton Lynch running the show and the Tigers scoring 50+ points five times, they still laid a few eggs. They lost to Navy 45-20 and Temple 31-12. Yes, a Justin Fuente-Paxton Lynch offense played a game where they put up just 12 points.
For years, Virginia Tech fans longed for an offense that could bail out Bud Foster's defense on those days when Bud's guys just didn't have it. Saturday was one of those days, a day when the offense needed to trade punches with an opposing offense that was having its way with the Hokies. Like you, I sure wish the offense and special teams had saved some of that magic for this game, instead of wasting it in, say, the Boston College or ECU games, but it didn't happen.
The worst part is that Syracuse is not a good football team. They'll win four games this season, maybe five, and one of them is this game. Remember that 1996 Syracuse team that walloped the Hokies 52-21? They were 0-2 coming into that game and by all accounts weren't that good, and they were going up against a VT team on a 13-game winning streak. That game never should have been 52-21 in favor of the bad guys, but it was.
It turned out that Syracuse's 1996 win was the first of eight wins in a row for the Orangemen, but that's not going to happen to Syracuse this year. They're not suddenly going to run off a huge string of wins. (I'll eat crow if they do.) That's one of the disappointing things about this game and almost all those other Dome games before it. The better team didn't win; but the better team on that given Saturday did, and the Hokies let one get away.
One last thing on this topic: many are theorizing that the Hokies looked ahead to Miami and Pittsburgh. I don't like that line of reasoning. I think it's more accurate to say that the Hokies didn't respect Syracuse enough to be really geared up and ready to play, both mentally and emotionally. Tech was heavily favored, and they didn't handle it well. I think that has nothing to do with Miami and Pittsburgh and more to do with how the Hokies dealt with Syracuse -- which is to say, not well.
So What Now?
I'd like to think that the 2016 Hokies will respond like the 1996 Hokies did twenty years ago and shake this horrible outing off and get back to business.
I don't think the Hokies will come out this flat for another game the rest of the season, though that's admittedly setting the bar low. But I'm concerned about a few things.
Number one, the team is starting to wear down. You didn't see many Hokies lying on the turf through the first four or five games, but there were a lot of players struggling with injuries Saturday. Ken Ekanem left the game, and I don't think he came back. Jerod Evans was gimpy (and he's been running the ball too much and taking too many hits lately). Ricky Walker went down, though he came back in later. The team's health is starting to get a little frazzled around the edges.
Now there is a very short five-day rest between this one and Thursday's game against Miami. Miami's got their own injury issues, so at worst for the Hokies, it's a draw on that front. At best, Miami is thinner than VT, due to scholarship reductions and mounting hurts.
Number two, Syracuse exposed the Hokies' weaknesses. While we were worried that power running teams like Miami and Pittsburgh would be a handful for the Hokies, Syracuse's spread offense showed that Tech's defensive backs aren't lockdown and can have lapses in concentration.
Syracuse also had success running the football from the quarterback position, but that's because Bud's guys were so spread out defending the pass. Particularly late in the game, there was no one in the middle of the field. As Syracuse QB Eric Dungey was gashing the Hokies up the middle in the fourth quarter, some VT fans were grousing about Andrew Motuapuaka not being there, but honestly, no one can make a tackle when they're not lined up in the area. Bud said, "Here's the middle of the field, take it," and Syracuse did.
In a very unfortunate turn of events, the Hokies were completely unable to muster a running game against Syracuse's horrible defense, nor were the Hokie receivers able to consistently get open against that horrible defense. The way the Orange defended the Hokies is a blueprint for future teams, and honestly, as bad and banged up and young as Syracuse's defense is, if they can do it, anyone can do it.
The Hokies will simply have to execute better offensively as they face defenses who will do what Syracuse did.
The psyche of the team will be an interesting thing to watch. They were rolling, feeling really good, and they got knocked down a peg. As Chris has written many times before, this is a group of players who are familiar with losing, having lost nearly half their games the last four years, and getting them to bounce back from this is Fuente's challenge.
Also worth watching is the psyche of the Virginia Tech fan base. I've been spending some time lately wondering if the era of Lane Stadium sellouts is over. The 2012 season is the last time the Hokies sold out every home game. That sellout streak, which started with the 1998 Virginia game, extended through the 2012 season, but was broken with the 2013 home opener against Western Carolina, when the crowd was 61,335.
Since then, only three games have sold out (attendance 65,632):
- 2013: UNC
- 2014: none
- 2015: Ohio State, UNC
I mistakenly remembered the 2014 Thursday night game against Miami as being a sellout, but it wasn't (64,007). Nor will this Thursday's game against Miami sell out. Here's how the distribution of available tickets looked this morning at about 9:30:
That's a little better than five days ago, when seats were available on the West side which are now gone:
But you can see that this game isn't going to sell out.
Sellouts are driven primarily by season ticket sales, and season ticket sales are a lagging indicator. They tend to go up after the team improves, not before, and they fall after the team starts to decline. Note how the sellouts stopped after the Hokies went 7-6 in 2012.
If they can close this season strong, perhaps winning the Coastal Division championship, I'll be watching season ticket sales heading into 2017. The theory here is that a decent offense, combined with winning more games, would bring the fans back, provided the wins followed. Will it? We'll see.
A Quick Look at the Coastal
Miami lost at home to UNC, which means that the Hokies missed a great opportunity to take a two-game lead over the Canes in the standings, and to stay a game ahead of UNC and Pitt.
The Hokies lost a lot of breathing room with that loss at Syracuse. UNC has a relatively light schedule the rest of the way (@UVa, GT, @Duke, NC State), putting the pressure on the Hokies to win out, or drop just one more the rest of the way.
This Thursday's loser is in big trouble in the Coastal race. A Canes loss would all but finish Miami, and a VT loss means the Hokies would have to win out the rest of the way and hope UNC drops another game.
In Conclusion ....
Gotta run, since it's a short week, and I'm afraid I've gone on (and on, and on) long enough.
Confession time: I haven't rewatched this one. That's why you're not seeing any detailed comments on what happened in the game, such as (like Chris mentioned yesterday) why VT's defense laid off of receivers on fourth downs, a statistical breakdown, the running back rotation, an analysis of Jerod Evans' long throws and short throws, etc.
To me, what's more important are the generalities, which we all know well: the Hokies just lost in the Carrier Dome again, as a ranked team again, to an unranked Syracuse team .... again. That's five out of the last six times the Hokies have gone up to Syracuse ranked, and have lost to an unranked Syracuse team: 1994, 1996, 1998, 2002, and now 2016. Blech.
I'm anxious to get back on the field and restore some confidence in these guys. I've avoided using this cliche until now, but they're just not as bad as they looked Saturday. I think the team that we'll see Thursday night will be more like the team we saw during the BC-ECU-UNC run, but the question is, how close to that, and will it be enough?
One week ago, I told you to embrace it. One week later, we have to let this one go, and hope that better games are ahead.