With 4:41 to go and Virginia Tech leading 29-17, TyJuan Garbutt burst through the middle of the Wake Forest offensive line and hit quarterback Jamie Newman just as he was throwing a pass. The ball fluttered up in the air, and Dax Hollifield, with the laser focus of a hungry dog and all the footwork of an inebriated rhino, stumbled backwards and hauled it in for his second interception in two weeks.
On the next play, Hendon Hooker broke easily through the line for a 7-yard rushing touchdown that put the Hokies up 36-17 and made Wake Forest cry uncle. The Deacs put in the backups and conceded, running into the line and getting the heck out of Blacksburg.
All I could think was, “That’s old school. Old school.”
No drama. No drop-eight, rush-three, give up the long drive shenanigans. No sweating out the finish, or worse, losing it on Munchie Legaux-style or Matt Ryan-style late game heroics. Just a big, cold slam of the door that left no doubt.
Remember when Virginia Tech used to do that? I remember in 2004, when Miami took over on their 12-yard line in the Orange Bowl, down 16-10 to the Hokies, with 1:14 to go. An ACC championship was 88 yards away … and the 'Canes didn’t even get a first down. Jim Davis batted away two straight passes to end it right there.
Or the 2007 ACC Championship Game, when Virginia Tech led Boston College 23-16, and the Eagles took over on their own 35 with 34 seconds left. But the Hokies were having none of it. Not only did Xavier Adibi pick off Matt Ryan, but he ran it back 40 yards for an in-your-face clinching touchdown.
I miss those days too, and it’s fitting that on a day when Bud Foster was honored for his 33-year career, the Hokies went back to their past and shut down any hopes of a Wake Forest comeback. It wasn’t just the defense; offense and special teams kicked in too, and Virginia Tech outscored the Deacs 30-7 in the second half on their way to a feel-good win.
The Duke debacle (as it shall forever be known around here, because we love alliteration) isn't exactly forgotten, but it's receding in the rear view mirror and is less and less relevant each week. I'm not sure we'll ever understand what *that* was, and it still lurks in the back of my mind and creates some uncertainty … but maybe I'll get over that soon. This was a step in the right direction.
Long Time Coming
We all saw it on the bottom line crawl on ESPN: This was Virginia Tech's first home win over a ranked team since 2009, when No. 11 Virginia Tech blasted No. 9 Miami 31-7 in soggy Lane Stadium.Until Saturday night, the Hokies were 0-8 since then at home against ranked teams. Lane Stadium had been a house of horrors (no, I won't link every game recap; I can't stand to even look at the scores):
- 2011: No. 13 Clemson 23, No. 11 Virginia Tech 3
- 2012: No. 8 Florida State 28, Virginia Tech 22
- 2015: No. 1 Ohio State 42, Virginia Tech 24
- 2015: No. 23 Duke 45, Virginia Tech 43 (4 OT)
- 2015: No. 12 UNC 30, Virginia Tech 27 (OT)
- 2017: No. 2 Clemson 31, No. 12 Virginia Tech 17
- 2018: No. 6 Notre Dame 45, No. 24 Virginia Tech 23
- 2018: No. 24 Boston College 31, Virginia Tech 21
That long nightmare is over. Particularly painful was the loss to UNC in Frank Beamer's last home game in 2015. Grrrr.
Contrarily, the Hokies have won 10 of their last 13 road games against ranked teams. Go figure.
It goes beyond the simple losses-to-ranked-teams-at-home stat. This is the first time the Hokies have beaten a Power 5 opponent by more than one score since they beat Duke 31-14 in game four last season. At that point, Virginia Tech was 3-1, but they fell off a cliff after that, going 4-8 in their next 12 games against Power 5 competition.
None of those four wins was by more than one score:
- 2018: VT 22, UNC 19
- 2018: VT 34, UVA 31 (OT)
- 2019: VT 42, Miami 35
- 2019: VT 43, UNC 41 (6 OT)
Three of those wins (all but this year's Miami win) were by the skin of VT's teeth. We won't even talk about how many of the eight losses were blowouts of the Hokies.
It was as if the Hokies had forgotten how to whip an ACC/Power 5 opponent. That's why Virginia Tech fans are so thrilled with this win, even though it's "just" Wake Forest: because sadly, wins like this have been rare lately.
I said on the podcast this morning that we all thought the Hokies had bottomed out last year, but it turns out that they may have bottomed out in that Duke debacle. I hope so. I hope that this game is the first of many resounding wins over other ACC teams, beginning with the Georgia Tech game this coming weekend.
Bud
I'm one of those guys that doesn't realize something is really happening until it truly happens. It doesn't sink in that something's coming until it's done.I remember when my first child was born in 1999. You know it's coming, right? Your wife is pregnant for nine months, and all you do is talk about the baby and prepare for the baby. But it didn't really hit me until he was actually out of the womb and I was holding him in my hands and we were staring at each other. I said, "Welcome to the world. You're going to produce our podcast one day." The look on his face said, "What the hell's a podcast?"
I kid. What I really remember is this huge rush of … something. He went from abstract to concrete in just a few minutes time, and it was suddenly real. I got a little panicky. Good thing I didn't know back then how expensive college was going to be circa 2019. I might have passed out and dropped him.
That's my long-winded way of saying I know Bud Foster's retiring and only has a few games left, but I can't believe it. It won't sink in until next spring when they put some other guy they're calling the defensive coordinator in front of the mic at a spring media session, and then he'll … give canned answers and won't say anything interesting. I'll think to myself, "That is so not Bud up there."
Meanwhile, Justin Fuente and Pete Moris will laugh diabolically and rub their hands together in glee because their information control plan will finally be complete, "MWAH-HA-HAAAA!!"
The next guy will probably do a good job coordinating the defense. Will he be as good as Bud in his prime? Probably not. Will he be as big a personality as Bud? Definitely not. You're going to miss Bud the man as much as you're going to miss Bud the coordinator.
Bud's our last link to the 1990s/2000s glory days. When he goes, that'll likely be the end of Charley Wiles's time here as well, and they're the last of the guys who truly built the power teams we knew and loved during that era: Frank, Bud, Stiney, Billy Hite, Jim Cavanaugh, and Charley Wiles.
Like Frank, Bud will still be around Blacksburg and the athletic department. Doing what? Time will tell. In the short term, Bud will be an excellent resource for the new DC when it comes to personnel and their strengths, weaknesses, history, etc. Bud knows all those guys inside and out, and he can hasten the learning curve for the next guy. Beyond that, he could be a good analyst, but that's tricky to manage.
I thought it was interesting that even on Bud's special day, Frank Beamer was a big fixture of the day. They celebrated his 20-year anniversary of winning the Bobby Dodd Trophy for coaching the 1999 Hokies, and he spent some time up in the booth on television with Chris Cotter and Mark Herzlich.
Having Frank retire was one thing, but Bud retiring will truly be the end of an era. As strange as this may sound, it's like when one of your parents passes away. You still have the other one around to love and take care of and relive family history with, but when your second parent passes away, it hits hard. They're both truly gone, and the house is really empty. Like I said, that sounds strange, but I went through this recently, when my dad passed away in April. My mother has been gone since 2008, but with Dad gone now too, the house they lived in is truly empty. I drive past it or go into it, and it's odd. It's over.
The "house" Frank and Bud built will still be there, but next season is the first time that everyone from that era, including Bud, will be gone. That's going to be an adjustment.
The Long Drive
You couldn't have scripted a better start to this game for the Hokies. Okay, you could have, they could have scored a touchdown instead of a field goal. But 19 plays, 64 yards, 9:27 off the clock, and points scored? Perfect.
A search of Virginia Tech's super-secret football stats database (that only we media types have access to), which covers 1987-present, reveals that 19 plays is the third-longest drive for Virginia Tech:
- 1989 vs. Tulane: 22 plays, 78 yards, 9:11, field goal
- 2015 vs. Duke: 20 plays, 95 yards, 9:45, touchdown
- 2019 vs. Wake Forest: 19 plays, 64 yards, 9:27, field goal
Time-wise, it's the second-longest drive since 1987, behind that 2015 Duke drive.
Good time to pull that off, eh? I can think of other times I would have liked to have seen that -- insert any game vs. Syracuse in the Carrier Dome here -- but against a team like Wake that loves to run a lot of plays, that's a great statement drive.
Wake Forest is feeling the opposite. Here are their averages for the season (up until Saturday), vs. what the Hokies did to them:
- Plays per game: 85 (65 vs. VT; second-worst in 2019)
- Yards per game: 511 (301; worst)
- Yards per play: 6.0 (4.6; worst)
- Time of Possession: 31:10 (23:51; second-worst)
The most interesting stat is the last one, TOP. Usually teams that run plays quickly don't have a good TOP stat, but Wake's was pretty good coming in, and they even had a few games where they ate a lot of clock: 36:13 against Utah State, 35:51 against BC, and 36:45 against NC State. If they still had an average of 31:10, they'd be ranked no. 40 in the nation, pretty good for a rapid-fire offense.
More Random Stats
I could keep going like this all day, crunching stats that make Virginia Tech look good. The more stats I look at, the more I keep thinking to myself that this is what a dominating win looks like.
Take Oscar Bradburn. He didn't get a lot of work, just four punts, but he killed it when he got a chance. He averaged 51.3 yards per punt, and here's his line:
- 4 and 4 at VT34: Oscar Bradburn punt 49 yards to the WF17, Kendall Hinton return 5 yards to the WF22.
- 4 and 10 at VT40: Oscar Bradburn punt 56 yards to the WF4, Kendall Hinton return 7 yards to the WF11.
- 4 and 1 at VT35: Oscar Bradburn punt 59 yards to the WF6, downed.
- 4 and 4 at 50: Oscar Bradburn punt 41 yards to the WF9, downed.
Look at that second one. What?? That's crazy. And if you look at the last one, the question arises: if he hadn't been limited by the ball being at the 50, resulting in a 41 yard kick, what would have been his average for the day?
Here are the NCAA punting leaders:
- Braden Mann, Texas A&M: 49.0 ypp
- Max Duffy, Kentucky: 48.6 ypp
- Oscar Bradburn, VT: 48.6 ypp
- Joseph Charlton, South Carolina: 48.3 ypp
Before that last punt, Bradburn was averaging 48.8 ypp. When you're at the top, the margin of separation is small.
Wake's punter Dom Maggio is no slouch, either. He averaged 51.6 ypp on seven punts, a smidge better than Bradburn, and he's no. 10 in the nation in punting.
Another special teams note: have we seen a switch to Tayvion Robinson as the primary punt returner? Hezekiah Grimsley has returned nine punts for a 5.8 average on the season, and the coaches gave Robinson his shot in the second half. All he did was return two punts for 33 and 11 yards, a 22.0 average.
Next stat: the two teams combined for 13 penalties for 85 yards. Of those 13 penalties, nine of them were false starts (three) or offsides (six). There was a seventh offsides that was declined. I don't think I've ever seen a game where so many of the penalties were just dudes who couldn't stay on their side.
Not stats-related, but when Rayshard Ashby (hamstring) exited the game in the late third/early fourth quarter, we got an extended look at Dax Hollifield at mike and Alan Tisdale at backer. It seemed to go okay. If you're going to pick a place for a player to get hurt, losing a mike isn't the worst thing in the world, even with Ashby having an exceptional season (four ACC Linebacker of the Week awards and counting).
So … What Was It?
What was it that appears to have galvanized the Hokies post-Duke?A big part of me is reluctant to make statements without the whole picture being painted. The resurrection of Virginia Tech football post-Duke has a 1995 or 2010 feel to it, or even a 2006 feel to it (when the Hokies reeled off six straight wins after embarrassing themselves on a Thursday night at Boston College).
But you don't *know* that until you've seen what happens the next 3+ games. Still, I have a hard time picturing this group putting up the lackluster, confused efforts we saw from them in the first four games of the season, culminating in that mess against Duke.
They're still young, they're still inconsistent, but the effort is there in a way it was not there prior to their trip to Miami.
I think it comes down to two things.
One, Fuente made changes (that he's not specific about) that turned around the team's focus. In case you missed it, he said this in today's press conference about what happened post-Duke -- and this is unusually open and revealing from him:
“I told them, ‘This is my fault. We are not a tough football team right now. We’re not mentally tough, we’re not emotionally tough, and we didn’t play physically tough, and here’s examples of it on the film, and this is not your fault. It’s my fault,’” said Fuente on what he told his team after the Duke loss. “I said, ‘It’s changing right now. I’ve let you down, and that’s on me, and I encourage everybody to look at themselves in the mirror when things don’t go well, and I’m doing it right now. I’m telling you we’re changing this. I’m going back to being myself. I’m not worried about anything else, and if you want to go be a part of it, then I’ll see you on the practice field.’”
Chris Coleman has a theory, and I think it's got some legs, that Fuente softened up too much after last season in response to Virginia Tech's locker room problems. After four games in 2019, ending with one where his team didn't even show up, he appears to have thrown some things out the window and gotten tough on the players again. I don't have time to dig the articles up, but the stories the week after the Duke game mentioned that Virginia Tech had their toughest week of practice all year, and the players responded with some fire against Miami.
Two, Fuente switched from Ryan Willis to Hendon Hooker. Tre Turner said after the win over Wake Forest, "The one reason why we all start clicking whenever Hendon is rolling is because Hendon has a swagger to him that not a lot of people have. He’s communicating with everyone on the o-line, running backs, tight ends, wideouts. We’re all comfortable with him when he gets in a groove. When he gets in a groove we all know we have to step our game up."
Swagger. The best teams have it. Miami made it a bit of a dirty word in the 1980s, so if you'd like, call it confidence instead. It's a thing that's hard to define, but when you have it, you have it, and the other team can sense it. Turner is saying that Virginia Tech has it now, and they didn't before.
Whatever is going on, it has erased some of Virginia Tech's weaknesses. For example, early in the season (and frankly last season), Reggie Floyd was horrendous against the run. Emmanuel Belmar kept losing containment and getting gashed by cutback moves. Dax Hollifield got abused in space. Those things have all strangely disappeared. Maybe disappeared is too strong a word, but the weaknesses have been mitigated since Duke.
This Virginia Tech team isn't talented enough or experienced enough (yet) to have a real wow factor to it, but I do think they're playing more to their capabilities than they were before. The horrendous mistakes, lack of effort, and brain cramps are greatly reduced, and the wins are following.
If we are truly seeing a resurgence in Virginia Tech football, and if this team is bound for a 9-3 record by running the table the rest of the way, there isn't just one reason. Sports psychologists make a lot of money trying to fix what's wrong with certain athletes and teams, and it's hard to catch and bottle that elusive thing called Chemistry, and its first cousins, Focus and Effort.
The next three games are going to be very telling. Specifically, it's going to be interesting to see if the team is gaining even more momentum, starting with what we saw against Wake Forest. I'm all-in on three straight wins to close out a Coastal Division championship, but it's not up to me. It's up to the coaches and players. For now, though, it's nice to enjoy a dominating win over a ranked opponent.
Lastly, we leave you with a picture ...
