Michigan=23, Virginia Tech=20 (OT)
“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
-Horse Racing idiom-
Let’s go ahead and rip the Hokie BandAid and likewise go ahead and yank the dangling Tech tooth. Virginia Tech came from ahead to choke and then chased for all less the final two seconds of regulation play.
There, I said it.
Virginia Tech did everything less win this 2012 Sugar Bowl B.C.S. game with the entire sporting nation watching on ESPN on Tuesday night. Virginia Tech kicked Michigan’s ass up one side of the Super Dome field and down the other. The former Bud (Lite) moniker has been banished for the duration as Coach Foster may have possibly coached his best football game ever in his potentially College Football Hall of Fame worthy quarter century at Virginia Tech.
The future gar-ron-teed College Football Hall of Famer otherwise known as Frank Beamer had VT amped up and ready to play their orange and maroon guts out for all of you –and play their guts out they did!
That is the hardest I’ve ever seen a Virginia Tech Bowl team play this side of 1995 and the Cornell Brown and George DelRicco spearheaded set of pyrotechnics that un-coincidentally enough; won the 1995 Sugar Bowl way back when.
“A.B.C. –always be closing” -salesman’s motto-
The 2011 football season came to a close in nothing short of painful fashion that saw an orange and maroon rocket fueled version of a mega high-octane effort squandered which left Virginia Tech emotionally gutted like an orange and maroon pig. There’s just not enough lipstick in the world to put on said pig, and I ain’t Marry Poppins and I ain’t got no spoonful of sugar to make “the medicine go down.”
This one is bitter sweet, this one still stings, and with the gridiron equinox otherwise known as spring-ball set to dawn in just a couple of weeks … you have to wonder if this one left a mark?
3rd quarter 10:52 remaining:
To borrow from Jonathan Quayle Higgins III and whatever contemporary alphabet-generation we currently are numbered upon … OMG! (oh my God!) It’s true you know, you can’t spell Maddy without getting mad.
This is not just a hit, this is not even a steal; this is more like an assignation attempt by Luther Maddy on #75 of UM-aa. Then watch as Maddy just stands there and glowers over the fallen #75 of Michigan and then if that was not enough; for good measure Maddy slaps him good and hard once Maddy was done towering over his fallen prey. What a sick hit –and you do have to give #75 some measure of credit for being able to get back to his feet after this one. A certain 2000 era hit on wvu harkens to mind…
3rd quarter, 5:15 remaining:
There is the accidental (or otherwise) roll-up block on the inside and then there is the seldom seen roll-down block out on the edge. Watch as my boy David Wilson nails a textbook perfect roll-down block on big ole #88 the defensive-end of Michigan who outsized Wilson by 7“ and out-weighed Wilson by about 55 lbs.! You start right in the gut and fold yourself up like an accordion and simply let 9.81 m/s/s (or gravity) do the rest. You hit midriff, then roll downwards past the family jewels and you end up right at the always vulnerable assortment of potential soft-tissue tears right at knee level. Typically you will see your opponent bend forward at the waist while trying to redistribute his weight in an effort to try to cover up and therefore protect his legs. The roll-down block has nothing all that physical, or that epic to it and yet it is such a defensive career-phobia inducing block that it works like clockwork every single time.
Game duration:
Guess what? In their N.F.L. contract-game, our departing Wr’s suddenly bucked up and blocked a little better. Not epic mind you, though they did at least make some effort and they did manage to draw some contact and occasionally engage people with real live blocks downfield or in and around the line-of-scrimmage on screens. PROPers to our wideouts and to Coach Sherm’ for finally plum “gettin’ after” somebody, as this sure made a difference on several L.T. scrambles to the edge and several screen pass plays. I’d conservatively estimate that this newfangled Wr blocking yielded or sprang us for at least 25+ bonus yards of downfield rushing or Y.A.C. (yards after the catch) –maybe more.
4th quarter, 9:08 remaining:
#41 D.DiNardo could get a job as a undertaker after he is done at VT as he simply buried #31 of UM-aa on this peal-back block on the Hosely punt-return.
Note “twenty’s” knees (bottom left-pic) and how they are both inflected inward and therefore much narrower than his base or his feets. Whenever you see this so-called: open-field break-down stance outta a raw athlete who enjoys plenty of speed to burn, hold onto your butt as something freaky is about to happen. This was a sizzling triple shake move by Hosely who surely helped his N.F.L. stock with a ball-hawking game in coverage and a multi-tasking effort as a special teams return savant extraordinaire.
4th quarter, 7:24 remaining:
Will, Chris and Raleigh have already dissected this botched fake punt like a prepubescent young Dr. Jyckle on his first day of boarding school biology-lab. So I won’t muck around with that nor will I have my feet held to the techsidline.com fire for stealing their always adroit thunder.
I will however indulge you in pointing out the intrinsic poker-face tells that I see below. I see our starting Qb already talking up Coach Mike O’Cain upstairs. Right behind him I see our next level starting split-end with his helmet already off. Over on the right I see both of our blindside or left offensive-tackles already fully chillin’ with their offensive line coach (Curt Newsome) with his back turned and already headed to the phones, to consult with L.T. , O’Cain, or both. Only over on the far right do I see my homeboy David Wilson actually watching the play as 2011 offensive regulars go. Inside the while ellipse you will see our C+ quality punter otherwise known as our A- quality flanker also known as Danny Coale back deep and set to kick … or set to fake.
Now for the curious part, nobody on the Virginia Tech sideline appears to know that the fake -or even the option to fake- was actually on. Think they might have all been watching if they had known that we were gonna go for it and fake the punt? Yah; me too! That’s either the ability to sell ice to an Eskimo as salesmanship goes or the plot thickening as I type. Take thy pick…
Second-half duration:
Boy-oh-boy did the Virginia Tech front-7 on defense make the UM-aa offensive line look like they were wearing cement shoes or planted like a proverbial tree in this one. Love to see a metric (i.e. stat) measuring how often the Bud Stout front-7 penetrated the Wolverine backfield in the final 30 minutes of scrumming on this night –as Tech lived in the UM-aa backfield to close the show down in New Orleans folks. Somebody go back and just count the number of defensive minded Hokies up-field or in Wolverine territory on the negative side of the black line-of scrimmage on the ESPN tele marker on any given play.
Overtime VT :
Most intriguing indeed that we waited to OT (overtime) to show a 4-wide look with a uncovered offensive-line and only one running-back (Wilson) in the game for three consecutive plays. This look is designed to stretch the field horizontally and is a perfect fit for the red-zone where the field naturally compresses vertically. However, and that being said, why did we wait to show this vs. a Michigan stop-unit that lumbered in east-n-west terms all season long, much less all night vs. a noticeably speedier Virginia Tech offense?
Yes, it looked to me like Danny Coale (see: above pic) caught the football period –much less when one considers the rulebook lack of clear-cut “irrefutable” replay evidence to overturn the on-field initial signal of touchdown to begin with.
Overtime UM-aa:
Note that there were no less than 10 Hokies in the box and within 5.5 yards of the line-of-scrimmage for every single Hokie defensive play in the overtime period. Such had me cringing that the Wolverines might just play-action Bud Stout and catch us with our cheating forward run-defense-to-the-max orange and maroon pants down and pump-fake us good and hard. Thus stated, this is what you pretty much have to do when you score zero points on your lead offensive possession in extra minutes. Sell-out, go for broke and let the chips fall where they may when your only real hope for a second overtime period is a takeaway or a blocked FGA.
Time To Throw:©
Virginia Tech:
sacked= |||
Qb hits= |||| |||| ||||
Qb hurries= ||
Qb pressures= ||||
Michigan:
sacked= ||
Qb hits= |||| ||||
Qb hurries= ||
Qb pressures=|||| (1 TD throw)
The one solitary practice source in the entire VT media caravan wrote someone at TSL and told them that they had detected a: “…sense of desperation at practice.” A trickle down ripple effect or sports psych voodoo economics if you will right before the offensive showcase of parsimonious play-calling that was the 2012 Sugar Bowl. Frank and company were desperate to snapmare the big-game gorilla, no, check that, make that the big-game King Kong who had climbed up on their orange and maroon backs in recent years and just would not let go. This 2011 Virginia Tech football team was keyed-up, they were geeked-up, they were psyched-up amped-up and raring to go. Both player and coach alike, they wanted this one and they wanted this badly men! Then something not so funny happened along the way to the candy shop in a Sugar Bowl that saw forceful Virginia Tech out-gained little ole Michigan by a backbreaking 205% as total yardage goes on January 3rd. Though I’ll “get after” that in a minute; how ’bout some all-time props for Coach Foster?
After what was nothing short of a heroic and downright salvavic effort by a very wounded version of Bud Stout you have to wonder out-loud if Bud Foster was allowed any sharp objects on the plane ride home? How much more can the one man coaching Atlas do to put the entire Virginia Tech football team on his back and carry the same to a B.C.S. victory? Least we forget a couple of cool-down-period months removed from the Sugar Bowl, a quick review will suffice…
Bud Stout held Michigan to 56 yards rushing. This from the 11th ranked rushing offense -coming into the Sugar Bowl- in all of D-1 football. A rushing offense with not one, t-w-o 1,000 yard rushers folks! Bud Stout also stripped the gears on the electrifying play-maker otherwise known as Denard Robinson and held the stellar Big-10 mover-n-shaker to 42% passing and to precisely 13 yards on 13 carries. Bud Stout came to chew bubblegum and kick ass and was all outta bubblegum from the word “go”. That attempt at encomium made, the Virginia Tech offense and the associated offensive play-calling was another matter entirely…
However, before I devour all of that by cuing the Jaws theme up, and before I offer O’Cain and Stiney a “bigger” Duck Pond “boat”, before I get all Great-White Hammerhead gangster on our offense, do yourself a favor and take another looksee at the TTT or T3 old-school flavored scratch-mark metrics above. What do you see not so subtly embedded in all of that? Take another look and try to riddle it all out before I objectify and quantity it for all of you right about now…
Inside Runs:
(i.e. .Inside-Zne work, or Read Options up the gut keepers or Qb-Sneaks or Qb-Draws)
|||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||
You see that? That works out to 68.75% vs. a defense explicitly engineered to plug the run on the inside vs. historically internally heavy inside power-rushing attack’s otherwise known as Big-10 football dating back to the dawn of Man. That means that we ignored the fact that this Michigan stop-unit -although well-coached, well-schooled in tackling fundamentals, and more than willing enough to physically duke it out in hand-to-hand combat down in the natural grass trenches via a Big-10 ground assault between the hashmark confines of the football field –was also nothing short of pokey in east-west terms and at times downright plodding at worst. Recall as well that this was also a UM-aa defense that was a man down and even thinner in terms of front-line shock-troops right at the edge of the attack thanks to the Wolverine starting De spending the night in an air-cast thanks to a Sugar Bowl foot injury the week before.
2nd quarter, 9:06 remaining:
“In my considered judgment this is the play of the game folks. Note that the VT Tb beating the rock-solid, yet plodding at best UM-aa defense to the corner is none other than #2. Josh Oglesby is a lotta things; one of ‘em however is not a scat-back or a flat out burner. Josh enjoyed adequate Tb speed at best at Virginia Tech. And yet “two” blew the doors off the Wolverine defense to the edge on the read-option pitch-out on this play for a first-down on an 11 yard again. Football … no matter how many times you try to reinvent the wheel … it still ain’t rocket-surgery men.”
^That^ is a refresher course in Cut-n-Paste from the Eye in the Sky part I. Do you remember that play? Because that is the seminal or defining moment in this football game men. Since when was Josh Oglesby –of all people- ever wrongfully accused of being a speed-merchant at Tb for mighty Virginia Tech? Josh was a Tb with a very vanilla top-end speed. Josh may not have been outright slow though he sure as hell was never blazing fast –that, and the fact that he had slowed down just a scosche after he had bulked up with right-mass to play Fb in 2010 which amounted to about 7-10 lbs. of right mass that he never shed told you all you needed to know about this game on one single play.
That science-fact firmly established, Josh was nobodies’ burner and yet he torched the plodding Wolverine defense to the edge on that outside-zone call in the second-quarter of play. Or in other words if Josh is torching them to the edge Wilson should have set their entire night on fire and burned them right to the ground. If Josh was an impoverished-mans sledgehammer than David was a full fledged flame-thrower and yet we simply refused to turn up the heat and make Michigan get outta the Canal Street kitchen. Why? I have no mortal idea at all? Someone wrote during their preview that if we called 15 or more inside-zone calls or read-option keepers that Michigan would win the Sugar Bowl. Michigan did win the Sugar Bowl by three points or by about half a play. Such was the fluky case in what otherwise should have been a lopsided Sugar Bowl contest in a game that Virginia Tech should have won by at least double-digits, and possibly closer to 20+ points.
Loading ...Now, it’s your turn in the space provided below. Accordingly, I’ma gonna do something I’ve never done before in what is fast approaching to be my tenured or very first decade of being Blessed enough to get to cover Vah.Tech football and humbly receive a check in exchange for doing such.
- This is your closer…
- This is your ending…
Y |
ou write the epitaph for the 2012 Sugar Bowl men. So, lean back in your desk chair and all of you think good and hard and attempt to explain to me why, oh, why in the “Wide Wide World of Sports” did we run inside so very often vs. the 36th best rushing defense in all the land that was entirely, singularly, and explicitly designed to combat the signature Big-10 internal run and nothing other than the internal-run?
A blind man could see this one with his cane … now, in the space provided below, go ‘head … take thy best shot.
“LETS GO!”
“HOKIES!”
bourbonstreet**
Sorry Bstreet. I mustered up the courage to read the entire blog and it hurt like hell. No way I can write a eulogy for this one.
You know what’s truly krazy IV?
Less 4 flukie Michigan catches; less one botched fake-punt, VT STILL WINS this game!
Hell, just less 1 of those 4 flukie Wolverine grabs and VT might have still won.
b-street
That was painful to read. Some coaches (not Foster and the Defense) still need to apologize for what happened at the Sugar Bowl to Virginia Tech. My epitaph-
Michigan was built for up-the-middle,
And not much else for its defense.
So Tech at the twenty decided to fiddle,
and to do minimum with its offense.
When the coaches thought things were not well,
That Tech needed to go for the kill,
Inexplicably, the coaches said, “What the Hell!
Let’s go for a fake punt”, for which Tech had no skill.
To the fans that attended this game,
Whether Michigan or Tech they could not figure
How Michigan won, and got the fame,
When the VT players had shown they were superior.
Whether it be for fear of all the things that can go wrong,
With the forward pass in a game of this magnitude,
Or, is it the curse of the past to which we belong,
Three yards and a cloud of dust at the twenty-we’re glued.
The old bowl explanation we can repeat
We have seen it before on the big stage.
The coaches dallied again and snatched defeat,
From the jaws of victory-and VT fans are enraged.
1. our NFL caliber RB turns first and goal from the 6….running wide btw…… into a 22 yard loss
2.secondary turns a broken play….possible pick into a TD
3.Gregory drops ball on ensuing KO
4. instead of battin ball down (again) it bounces off Tech DB helmet and UM center catches ball to give UM shot at FG last play of half
5. Whether or not punt block called, Tech mauls the kicker giving UM a shot ….see 1.
6. Tech has ball on 8….3rd and 2….and OL jumps taking away chance to win the game in regulation.
7. I believe we forced zero turnovers
I’ve read all the analysis about poor play calling and strategy…….fine……but come on man, their players made plays….and we didn’t. We call the sae plays and avoid the “ooopppss” or make a couple of plays and no one is questioning the playcalling.
Bottom line — we are what we are. Inside first, then try to pop one outside. FB isn’t gonna change what he does for any opponent (John Woodenesqe). FB believes he can blow you off the ball. Sometimes to a fault, he believes in his team and his players ability to impose their will. I believe he felt this would shorten the game and keep what he saw as a dynamic Denard Robinson off the field.
Even when BF and his D unit corralled DR and the UM offense, FB just wouldn’t budge off his predetermined mindset.
Sitting D.Rob down does make some sense 133743.
However, as you shrewdly state, when we saw that Bud Stout had D.Rob and company firmly in hand……………………
b’street
Funny thing is…we had DR heading to the sidelines for the half and then decide to rough the punter and give UM 10 points + take away at least 3 from VT (the way things were going). 9-0 halftime lead turns to a 6-10 halftime head scratcher.
Play by Play
Michigan at 6:51 MICH VT
1st and 10 at MICH 4 Fitzgerald Toussaint rush for 6 yards to the Mich 10. 0 6
2nd and 4 at MICH 10 Denard Robinson rush for 16 yards to the Mich 26 for a 1ST down.
1st and 10 at MICH 26 Fitzgerald Toussaint rush for a loss of 1 yard to the Mich 25.
2nd and 11 at MICH 25 Denard Robinson pass complete to Kevin Koger for 1 yard to the Mich 26.
3rd and 10 at MICH 26 Denard Robinson pass incomplete to Roy Roundtree.
***************************************************************************
4th and 10 at MICH 26 VIRGINIA TECH penalty 15 yard Roughing the Kicker accepted.
***************************************************************************
.
To be honest, I’d like to see a replay of that roughing the kicker penalty from multiple angles. Hopper slid like 10 yards on his belly and barely clipped the punter at the end of the play. It’s not like he went for the block, missed, and slammed into the punter. It actually looked more like he came through clean up the middle and was shoved or tripped, leading to the long slide. Yet another fluke or something fishier? I don’t know. The storyline in the press before the game was all about a resurgent Michigan being back as a national contender. It seemed to me that no matter how dominant VT was on the football field in the Sugar Bowl, fate–or some higher force in the replay booth–wasn’t going to let an alternative ending to the story be written.
VT – schemes win games not players
UM – players make plays – QB and WR made two biggies and thats the difference
My view in B-St lingo
When facing midget none to fleet CBs, sporting the two best statistical WR EVER at VT, an athletic freak at WR (Davis) and super size athlete at WR (Coles) three of which are over 6-3 you tell your #1 this is your moment to Keyshawn up cuz we are coming to you now GO GET THE DAMN BALL!
I was there and would have rather lost takin shots
Ah yes … good to see that my midget fighting (and destruction of the half-pint thereof) story continues to have legs.
DOH!
b’street
We took at least two deep shots to MD. On one he drifted out of bounds before catching the ball. On the other, he somehow let the smallest UM defensive back screen him from a very catchable pass in the endzone. I really like Marcus Davis as a player, but he had a chance to make some big plays in the Sugar Bowl and just didn’t (other than the huge 2 pt. conversion). For all the complaining about playcalling, the truth is that VT had a lot of chances to make a play here or there that would have turned the game and often just didn’t get it done (or got it done only to have it overturned). What gets me is the number of things that had to go against VT and in UM’s favor just to keep this game close. The Wolverines should thank their fairy godmother for this one because there’s no way they should have won the game.
OK B-Street
Tell us why FB (as 133743 likes to call him), believes he has to try to make a 4th down or resort to a trick play in every big game, bowl game, that Tech has played in the FB era?
Nobody is fooled by this anymore and the FB coached special teams have let us down badly in recent years. Kiss the big win goodbye, it ain’t-a-gonna happen with this staff! Painful to say but very likely. If you all believe otherwise, then be careful, you’re swimming in the deep end of the cool-aid pool!
Got to know your limitations, your strengths and weaknesses as well as those of your opponents. Then hit ’em where they’re weak and that wasn’t in the middle.
Good article, enjoyed it. Bother T and momma enjoyed it too – good to hear an “eyes wide open” account of what happened down there at the end of Bourbon street.
God bless all you all, Hokie Nation!
/r
Slim
@Slim:
First of all thank you most kindly.
Second of all, to me, this refers to the one source we did enjoy inside the Bowl game prep. Where nobody else had a source mind you. That source told us that VT and Frank in very particular seemed “desperate”.
In sports psych at Illinois under Dr. Minnix, we learnt that per Gating Theory you can gate (or include) too many cues or stimuli and get overly worked up which lowers performance every bit as including too few -or coming out flat- lowers performance as well.
To me Frank gated in too many cues and got himself too worked up and it showed in “desperate” play calling when the game itself had not yet reached a matter a fact stage. At least not yet. Sure you want King Kong to dismount from your back. However, just how many banana trees do you have to kill before that happens? All of that just gets too Quixotic and it gets too Quixotic in a hurry. Windmills just like the proverbial monkey on your back don’t feel pain. It does not matter how amped up (or not) that you are.
Or in other words Frank pressed for a win.
Which is most intriguing considering that he is wearing such a well worn and highly experienced hat to what is far from his first radio.
b’street
Agree completely. FB did look like he was making desperate calls to “win” the game when he should have been coaching normally which would have produced the desired results. He was forcing the win instead of allowing the game to work itself out through normal play-calling which would have resulted in a big VT win, IMO. But of course in normal VT fashion it didn’t.
This should never have been an overtime proposition. I can’t necessarily agree with B-Street that we should have won by 20+ points, but it wasn’t close. Going for the blocked punt and the fake punt were not necessary; they were certainly contrary to Beamer philosophy.
The Coale catch should obviously not have been overturned.
I agree Foster put on a clinic; I applaud him for his defense, when considering what he had to work with. Masterful!
This one hurts. I squarely pin the loss on Beamer. And in 2008, at the Orange Bowl, he did not have the team ready. I hate to says these things because I like the guy, but he seems to get the pass, and then everybody wants SG’s head.
The repetition of pressing in our BIGer games outta our head-honcho is most curious indeed. Frank needs to sit Frank down and chill Frank out. Gambling vs. an inferior team typically leads to inferior results; as most gambles are by textbook definition high risk or low probability plays. That lets the inferior team back into the game when you botch them.
Looking back?
It was almost as if Frank not only wanted to win; he wanted to blow inferior Michigan plum outta the water.
b’street
This loss hurt. Defense couldn’t have played any better save two dropped INT’s. But the breaks for UM just kept coming. I mean honestly when you are getting thoroughly dominated and every whimper of effort that gets mustered up before the player with the ball gets completely smashed works out for them. Denards toss up of a pass after scrambling for his life to be caught only after a missed INT by inches crashes into the only other VT defender allowing UM to score a TD. You can’t make that one up. The fake FG that again just gets tossed up then bobbled by two VT defenders and amazingly enough CAUGHT by the UM long snapper who gets a first down. Wilson, as much as I love him, what were you thinking on that 30 yard loss on the goal-line?? Sometimes they have your number. Survive for another play. Who would’ve seen that one? The only kick our place-kicker kicking FG’s misses the entire game is in OT?? Who didn’t see that one coming knowing Tech’s karma?? Of course the DC catch in OT.
UM got the breaks when they needed them. We didn’t. Everyone looks at the scoreboard in the end, not the stat box.
Oh no doubt.
UM-aa misses on just one of those 5 lucky or flukie breaks and VT prolly still squeaks right on by.
The Wolverine margin of error turned out to be razor thin and yet they still stole this one. Go fig’ on that?!?
b’street
Don’t forget the two Hosley INTs that were deleted by the guys in stripes. The one overturned by replay was probably technically correct, but the PI call was absurd. At worst that should have been offsetting penalties.
Another key play that has been somewhat overlooked is the INT that LT threw on the screen pass. It was a great physical effort by the UM DE, but a bit of a brain fart on LT’s part. If he gives a ball fake or alters his throwing motion, there’s no way that gets picked off. There’s a reason that we don’t run some plays more often than we do.
Corey Moore did not play on the 1995 Sugar Bowl team.
Corey Moore is known for playing on the 1999 team that played for the national championship in the Sugar Bowl.
Cornell Brown was the star of the 1995 defense.
Ah-yes.
Indeed.
Nice Eye.
b’street
Easy answer… again and again. Frank blew it.
Refs kill VT’s chances to remove gorilla from back!
Nope, the O and ST killed our chances. The ref simply delivered the coup de grace.
Eulogy for the 2011-2 Hokies football team after the Sugar bowl loss:
Deja Vu is great when our defense is on the field and nauseating when the offense is running another ankle breaking RB right into the brick wall that is up the gut (for me, this dates back to at least the Pickle 4th&1 call), and generally finding ways to give opponents one more crack at the D.
And Deja vu just isn’t present with special teams, and ST seems to be a shell of what it was half a decade ago. Anyone remember the last time we blocked a kick/punt that changed a game in the Hokies favor? Yeah, me neither.
To quote the stranger from “The Big Lebowski”
“some times you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you”
“burp”
-the 2012 Sugar Bowl-
b’street
Every successful program, and every successful coach, needs someone over them that demands their respect and that they will, at least, listen to for advice. As we grow older, and even more successful, the need becomes even more necessary. They need to discuss schedules, coaching staffs, recruiting, and what’s new in the approach to the game. And there is nothing wrong with this kind of structure, it’s imperative.
We had this in the past, and it worked less we forget the changes that occurred years ago that led us to the next level. We must change, or at least massage what we are doing now if we truly intend to move to the next level. We love the Hokies, and we wll do fine in the ACC, but if our sights are really on improving, and being a national power, we will unlikely get there without challenging the existing orthodoxy.of the present.
@133767:
Dang. Nice one Sir.
Very wordy closing line.
Impressed———–>b’street
It seems to me that ‘Michigan made the plays’ has to be the tagline for the game. Every single point they scored in regulation came from VT offensive or special teams miscues. We gave them opportunities, they exploited them. VT, on the other hand, did not make the plays to exploit their opportunities – red zone offense is the prime example. We had a shot at 21-0 and we accepted 6-0.
I can’t remember the last time an opponent was held to 150-ish yards total offense and still scored 20 points on us.
@Bmore:
“mad dog” Curtis and I agry.
I voted UM-aa made plays in fact.
Kan’t spite them for such sensation catches.
b’street
That’s cool …. I’ve heard that story many times about Curtis flattening that guy, but I didn’t know there was a picture of it! He was tha man … and I’m a Dolphins fan.
My jaw dropped when FB gave up a chipshot FG (and go up 9-0) and rather go for it on 4th down. We make that FG and the entire complexion of the remainder of the first half of the game changes. UM is now down 2 scores, we kickoff for a touchback, the “need” for going for the punt block goes away, and an amped up D holds UM in check going into the half. All things being equal, that extra 3 pts becomes the margin of victory!
1. our NFL caliber RB turns first and goal from the 6….running wide btw…… into a 22 yard loss
2.secondary turns a broken play….possible pick into a TD
3.Gregory drops ball on ensuing KO
4. instead of battin ball down (again) it bounces off Tech DB helmet and UM center catches ball to give UM shot at FG last play of half
5. Whether or not punt block called, Tech mauls the kicker giving UM a shot ….see 1.
6. Tech has ball on 8….3rd and 2….and OL jumps taking away chance to win the game in regulation.
7. I believe we forced zero turnovers
I’ve read all the analysis about poor play calling and strategy…….fine……but come on man, their players made plays….and we didn’t. We call the sae plays and avoid the “ooopppss” or make a couple of plays and no one is questioning the playcalling.
Hell of a good read Bstreet; really enjoyed the article. Personally I can’t remember a better coached game by Bud given the opposition, expectations, and personnel. I can’t think of a D-Coordinator I would rather have on my team. In your honest opinion, do you think he takes over as head coach one day?
Yes.
Only because I’ve always wondered out-loud as to what it is that is keeping Bud in-situ? A “silent-handshake” might just do the trick.
However, a new A.D. and who knows at that point in time? A new A.D. may have his very own Western Michigan boy hidden wherever. Or he may be a pro (N.F.L.) guy.
We’d better hire Bud.
IF we do not, I’ll be betting the under -and heavy- on Bud NOT sticking around just to be second-banana to whomever else –again.
b’street
p.s. thank you!
To be totally honest it still pains me to even see pictures of this game. Despite the fact that we made some mistakes here and there during the game. But we were totally robbed of the game by the replay officials. All I could wish for after that game was a picture of Danny Coale and Sweet Pea Pernell Whittaker on the cover of S.I. with the caption in big letters (ROBBED PART 2)! If you are in your late 30’s or older you know what I mean……lol…..I am now and forever Onerealhokie69……holla