Friday night the Virginia Tech Hokies pulled out an ugly 13-10 Russell Athletic Bowl win over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. First off if you are a Virginia Tech Hokie player, coach, or fan, you don’t have to apologize for anything. Was the win a thing of beauty?
Nope not at all, but the bottom line is the Hokies won and in doing so showed a lot perseverance in gutting out a win over a good Rutgers team that ensured the Hokies a winning record in 2012.
DC Bud Foster did a masterful job against the Rutgers defense. The Hokies defense held Rutgers to 3 offensive points. As poorly as the Hokie offense played most of the night, it was the defense that had to carry Virginia Tech. They held Rutgers under 200 yards of total offense. That’s the good news. Winning an ugly defensive slugfest always beats losing no matter what, but issues remain.
I have criticized the Hokies offense all year, as the ACC’s worst coached unit, and tonight did nothing to change my mind about that. Beamer needs to overhaul the entire offensive staff and offensive identity. In fact I don’t know what the Hokie’s identity on offense was. The play calling has no rhyme or reason. There is no continuity. It’s like the plays are called in some random order.
QB Logan Thomas has regressed to the point, he’s become more of a right handed Tim Tebow than the potential Heisman candidate picked some touted him as. I still believe Thomas has the tools to be a quality QB, but not with this staff. I believe Beamer will be making some coaching changes, because despite the 7-6 record the Hokies are not far off from their perennial top 20 seasons we’ve to expect.
Consider this, the Hokies just had their worst season in nearly 20 years, with an totally inept and poorly coached offense, and still had a winning record and a bowl win. It wouldn’t take much for the Hokies to get things back on track. The Hokies won their final 3 games this year, and with just a few changes could be pushing 9-10 wins again next year. Frank Beamer never lost this team even when they stood 4-6 at one point. That’s says something to me.
Check out some highlights below on the game.
