I thought that this was the year. After scrutinizing the teams from top to bottom and comparing recent history, I thought that Virginia was the better team, would win the game, and that things would finally be right with the world.
I wasn’t wrong. Not really. I still think we’re probably better than Tech. I just didn’t factor everything in — in fact, I missed the most important thing: Tech believes in what they’re doing, and they play like it. They own their offensive scheme (regardless of its shortcomings), are cocky about their defense and special teams play (even when it doesn’t deserve it), and — at least, when Virginia’s on the other side — they don’t believe that they’re going to lose. Virginia under Mike London, on the other hand, typically just waits for the first good excuse to harvest failure from the seeds of success, especially when Tech’s on the other side. We don’t play assertive football against Tech, instead opting to play safe like we’re preserving a lead that doesn’t exist yet — a tact that plays right into the hands of our uber-aggressive foes.
This game hinged on the matchup of two excellent defensive lines against their subpar offensive counterparts. Theirs won. Tech hit Greyson Lambert and Matt Johns 15 times (four sacks), and logged 11 tackles for loss. Our guys did some things right (Max Valles and David Dean in particular), but Tech’s guys spent so much time in our backfield that Greyson Lambert — a little glacial to make decisions on the best of days — spent the game confused, out of sorts, and lobbing up wounded ducks (15-32 for 211 yards and a pick). Tech’s defense dominated — it was like high schoolers picking on a little kid. If you take out Kevin Parks and Smoke picking up 94 yards on two plays, we managed 224 yards — a little over three per play. I am beyond frustrated with Bud Foster smugly dominating us every year, but at least expecting it sort of eases the sting.
The traditional Mike London mistakes helped seal our demise. Speaking of London, he’s going to be back in 2015 (and probably 2016 as well), which is an unbelievably complacent and short-sighted move by the athletic department. That’s my official reaction piece. On to the mistakes.
Penalties. The first penalty came when Cody Wallace misheard the play call wrong on a slant to Darius Jennings. The ensuing ineligible receiver downfield call wiped out a 72-yard gain and a shot at first and goal, and an incompletion on the next play ended the drive. The second came with less than three minutes left, immediately after we’d just taken the lead. Mike Moore roughed Michael Brewer on Tech’s first play, giving Virginia Tech an immediate 15 yards and moving them from their own 25 to the 40, which set them up for a 50 yard bomb to Bucky Hodge. The touchdown that came soon after seemed like a foregone conclusion.
Special teams failures. The first and worst special teams mistake came via a blocked punt and led to Tech’s first score. Sean Karl whiffed on a block that led to a blocked punt for the second consecutive week, though he wasn’t helped much by Voz taking forever to get it away. The second was a 15-yard kick catch interference penalty on Divante Walker in the fourth quarter. Though it didn’t lead to a score, it did help keep the field position battle tilted in Tech’s favor.
Doofy offensive play calls, especially in the red zone.
We scored just one touchdown on four trips inside the 20. The first trip saw us get cute/stupid by running a slow-developing reverse to Darius Jennings that lost eight yards, threw us into third-and-long, and ultimately produced a field goal. The second saw us sandwich two delayed handoffs to Kevin Parks around a Lambert sneak and kick another field goal. The third saw us stuffed on a Lambert sneak attempt and then again on a Parks handoff on fourth down, and the last one was the touchdown (but it came from the 20, so there’s no need to compliment Fairchild for it).
I didn’t like the decision to go for it. In a low-scoring game on the road, you take points where you can get them. It would have been great to have those three when we took the ball back for a final drive with 1:14 to go.
Finally, symbolic of the whole debacle, we called for two play action passes on our last drive (down four, no timeouts). I’m sure Tech really sold out against the run there.
Season over. Fire Fairchild. More soon.
