MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Before Virginia Tech’s thrilling 42-35 win at Miami on Saturday, a few members of the Hokies’ press corps kicked around a question that didn’t have a clear answer: what was the last bit of good news for this program?
There’d been plenty of bad, with an embarrassing loss at home to Duke, the slow start to the season, mounting injuries, a little bit of attrition, Bud Foster’s pending retirement, the NCAA’s denial of Brock Hoffman’s immediate eligibility and the Sports Illustrated article that laid bare for a national audience pretty much everything that had gone wrong in the program over the last year.
Advertisem*nt
But good news? You might have to go back to last winter to find the last bit of unequivocally positive news for the Hokies — until Saturday.
The final score often obscures how that result came about, and Tech was by no means perfect at Hard Rock Stadium. The Hokies were 10 yards away from potentially having one of the biggest collapses in school history, coughing up a 28-point first-half lead and a 21-point advantage in the fourth quarter, which would have set a far different tone for this story.
Instead, the Hokies prevailed after batting away a pair of passes in the final seconds, punctuating a gritty victory as two-touchdown road underdogs, a triumph few outside the Virginia Tech locker room thought was possible.
If there was ever a program and a coach that needed some positive news, it was the Hokies and Justin Fuente this week, and while the win might not have turned the season completely around, it at least staved off what would have been a continued feeding frenzy of negative takes about Tech.
Here are five thoughts the day after the Hokies’ win against Miami:
1. Hendon Hooker’s not a finished product by any means, but he opens up the offense
Before the Hokies elevated Hooker to starter this week, I, along with many others, wondered what exactly if anything it would change about the direction of the offense. This was a player who’d yet to demonstrate in games an ability to throw the ball, and though he’s a far superior rusher to Ryan Willis, that was playing directly into the strength of the Miami defense.
It’s clear there’s a reason I’m writing about his game and not coaching it. Hooker’s first start couldn’t have gone much better. Though only 10 of 20 passing, he made those plays count, throwing for 184 yards and three touchdowns. He led the team with 76 rushing yards and another score and didn’t turn the ball over once.
Willis has the bigger arm and, theoretically, a greater ability to push the ball down the field, taking advantage of a perceived strength of this offense, the receivers. But whatever tradeoff the Hokies made in the passing game (and based on how Willis had thrown it in recent weeks, it wasn’t much) was more than made up for by Hooker’s mobility.
Tech wasn’t overwhelming on the ground, averaging 3.6 yards per carry, but it ran for 153 yards and three touchdowns. Miami entered the game giving up a shade under 60 yards a game and had allowed three rushing scores in its first four games. Hooker’s mobility was certainly a factor in that, not to mention in the passing game. He got sacked twice but he wasn’t a statue in the pocket, incapable of escaping pressure.
And while you’d like to see your quarterback complete more than 50 percent of his passes, Hooker was highly effective with the throws he did complete, averaging 9.2 yards per attempt. He executed a great offensive game plan by Fuente and offensive coordinator Brad Cornelsen that at last brought the talented pair of tight ends, Dalton Keene and James Mitchell, back into the picture. They combined for 149 yards from scrimmage and four touchdowns.
Honestly, it felt like an old-school Virginia Tech quarterback performance. Hooker has made one start in his career, so it’s sacrilege to put his name in the same zip code of an all-time great Hokies quarterback, but that showing kind of felt Bryan Randall-esque: maybe not always a thing of beauty, maybe still with some lulls like the third quarter, maybe not statistically eye-popping (though accounting for four touchdowns is pretty dang good), but a winning performance.
I as much as anyone questioned if a move to the backup quarterback really would do much to solve the Hokies’ offensive woes. It rarely does, despite how often there are pleas from the fan base for a coach to make that move (see Leal, Mark). But credit Fuente and the coaching staff for making this move ahead of a critical Coastal game and not waiting to do it in a more friendly easing-in opportunity against Rhode Island, an FCS team, next week. And for not only making the move but committing to it, creating a game plan tailored to Hooker’s skills even if that was directly challenging Miami’s strengths. Tech just might have saved its season as a result.
Advertisem*nt
2. The Hokies gave up a whole lot of yards and points on defense, but they were disruptive
A lot of attention will be paid to the 35 points and 469 passing yards the Hokies allowed in soft coverage — going back to 1987, the second-most by a Tech defense in a win to the 498 yards allowed during a victory against Maryland in 1993 — nearly giving away what seemed like an insurmountable lead. And yes, this defense has a ways to go before it can be considered anything close to lights out.
But the Hokies were disruptive all of Saturday, something that’s just as important today, with all the wide-open offenses in college football. Tech forced five turnovers, the first time it had done so since last year’s opener at Florida State, and only a borderline roughing the passer penalty prevented it from intercepting another pass for its sixth turnover, which would have been its most since 2010.
Though the number figured to be high based on the number of times the Hurricanes dropped back to pass in catch-up mode, the Hokies sacked Miami quarterbacks seven times, their most since clobbering Brad Kaaya eight times in a 2016 game against the ’Canes in Blacksburg. They had five more hurries and finished with nine tackles for a loss, matching a season high. For a defense that had only one sack and one turnover forced in its first two ACC games this season, that’s a tremendous turnaround.
And it’s precisely what this team needed. What better way to aid a first-time starting quarterback than to give him some short fields on which to operate? The defense got Hooker the ball and he did what he was supposed to, getting the offense to punch it in the end zone.
This is still different from the vintage Bud Foster groups. Those mid-2000s defenses yielded next to nothing. Opponents, even good ones, were lucky to get to 200 yards in some of those games. There’s a lot more offense these days, however, and a lot more teams capable of running you ragged by spreading the field and pushing the tempo.
You’re going to give up some yards, as the Hokies did Saturday. The question, especially for teams that don’t have an elite defense, becomes can you make enough plays to tilt the balance of the game? Yardage notwithstanding, Tech did that against Miami, seizing opportunities to make momentum-shifting plays and bending but not breaking with its feet in the end zone. With the way this season looks like it’s going to go and plenty of coin-flip games from here on out, that’s the kind of stuff that will make a difference.
3. Linebacker Alan Tisdale continues to show why he should be on the field more
With Miami facing a critical third-and-goal in the second quarter, the Hokies redshirt freshman lost his lunch but didn’t lose his cool. After projectile vomiting powerfully enough that it was pretty evident even on TV what was going on, Tisdale still got into his coverage after the snap. Though he wasn’t in on the play, he also didn’t drop out of the defense and bust a coverage. An incompletion set up a fourth-down pass that got intercepted by Caleb Farley.
— Nick Kight (@kight_nick) October 5, 2019
Blowing chunks (or what looked more like a lot of liquid) aside, it was part of another all-around strong day for Tisdale, who got a lot of snaps with Miami shifting fully into passing mode and finished with nine tackles, a half tackle for a loss and, most notably, the game-sealing pass breakup in the end zone on the final play of the game.
Advertisem*nt
“Alan’s earned a right to play,” Foster said. “Not that I’m disappointed in Dax, but Alan, in certain situations, like we get into our 30 package, he’s been going in that just because of his ability to cover. And it got into a passing game a little bit more, made it more of a space game. And really that’s kind of more of the reason I played Alan as much as anything. I know he was around the football, made a couple nice plays in space, obviously had a big-time knockdown there at the end of the game. But I really like his body of work and where he’s going as a football player.”
Foster said he anticipates a three-man linebacker rotation going forward. Rayshard Ashby has locked down the mike spot with a strong start to the year, finishing with a team-high 11 tackles, two tackles for a loss and a sack Saturday. But Tech’s other mike options are limited right now. Keshon Artis, who played on special teams as a true freshman last year, is shutting things down in order to redshirt. Junior Dylan Rivers, who moved over from backer in August, is still learning the position.
Hollifield, who had one tackle and a quarterback hurry Saturday, has started every game at backer but hasn’t been as disruptive there as he was when he assumed a starting spot last season, still looking for his first tackle for a loss this year. Foster said Hollifield’s probably more suited to play mike anyway, and will get some snaps there going forward, but Ashby’s played so well that it’s hard to steal too many reps. As a result, Foster anticipates rolling with Ashby, Hollfieild and Tisdale in a rotation.
“We’ve got three really good linebackers I like that can win,” Foster said. “We’ve got other guys too, but these guys I think are special football players and have some special skillsets that we can do a lot of good things with.”
4. Fuente’s fortunate his end-of-game management didn’t come back to bite him
When Keene caught a 29-yard pass from Hooker and took it all the way down to the Miami 3-yard line with 1:38 left, it seemed like the smart play, given that the Hokies’ defense had been on the field most of the second half, would have been to run out the clock, center the ball on the field and kick what amounted to an extra point as time expired for a walk-off win.
Fuente considered that but ultimately called a running play to Deshawn McClease, who powered his way into the end zone for a touchdown with 1:05 remaining to give the Hokies a 42-35 lead but also ensured that a Miami offense that was rolling at the time had a final crack at tying or winning the game.
Fuente said he considered all possibilities in the situation, no doubt influenced by the wet field from a brief rain shower a few minutes earlier and watching Miami’s kicker doink what would have been a go-ahead extra point.
Advertisem*nt
“There’s a lot of ways to screw that up, quite honestly,” Fuente said of the end game. “There’s a lot of ways you can play it. My first thought was to center the ball and get ready for the field goal, but the other decision you can make is to call a run and tell him not to score, in order to get the ball down there as close as you can. I didn’t feel good about any of that, messing with all that stuff.
“I just felt like taking one shot to hand the ball off in the middle and see what happened and then we could play it from there, was kind of my thought. We had timeouts. Where you get nervous is when you don’t have timeouts, because you have to run field goal unit on, all that sort of stuff. So, we had timeouts, if I’m not mistaken we had two. You got a little bit of leeway there. My thought was, ‘We’ll hand it off once and then see what happens,’ and we popped it in.”
He had to feel fortunate it didn’t bite him in the end. Miami subsequently drove down the field against what had to be an exhausted Virginia Tech defense that was on the field for nearly two-thirds of the second half. The Hurricanes had not one but two chances to score at the very end from the 10-yard line. And knowing how Miami coach Manny Diaz played the two-point conversion the previous time, there’s no way to know exactly how he would have approached it had the ‘Canes gotten into the end zone on that final play to get within one.
I wrote yesterday that Diaz’s earlier two-point call was gutsy when that really wasn’t the case. Over a century of football convention says you don’t go for two when down eight late in the game, but the math does. If your goal is to give your team the best chance to win the game, you go for two in the situation and live with the inevitable second-guessers if you don’t make it. Diaz was forward-thinking with his approach, using win probabilities to govern his decison-making, only for the football gods to cruelly slap him in the face when his kicker bounced the go-ahead extra point off the upright. A beautiful plan was foiled by an extremely unlikely outcome.
Fuente could use a little more of that thinking. What gives your team the best chance to win: scoring and giving a red-hot offense a chance to tie or take the lead with one minute on the clock or kicking a 20-yard field goal from the center of the field with no time left and your opponent never touching the ball? I’m not an expert in analytics, but I think it’s safe to say it’s the latter.
5. Anything’s possible in the Coastal Division
I don’t gamble on sports, and it’s not because of some moral conviction about sports betting in general or a principled stand about gambling on something I cover professionally. It’s because just when I think I have a good idea I know what’s going to happen, the complete opposite occurs. And Saturday’s outcome was a good reminder of that.
I didn’t give the Hokies much of a chance going down to Miami. They made me look foolish. I also wrote Pitt off after it stumbled out of the gate this year and thought Duke might be the team to beat in the Coastal after it trashed Tech last week. The Panthers’ wild 33-30 win in Durham, N.C., last night again made me question all of my preconceived notions about the most interesting division in college football.
Advertisem*nt
Coastal Chaos isn’t just a meme; it’s a way of life. And every time you think you have a handle on which way the division is going to zig, it zags. It’s extremely fun and probably maddening if you’re a fan of one of the schools.
A few people balked at my claim that Virginia Tech saved its season with Saturday’s win. And in a way, they’re right. All of the Hokies’ issues didn’t magically disappear with that victory. But it was a win, and there’s a huge difference from being 1-2 in league play and 0-3. One keeps you alive in what’s historically been a roller-coaster division race. The other all but eliminates you from contention.
Right now, the Coastal’s not even in full chaos mode. Although there’s carnage below it, Virginia still hasn’t lost in league play, and it may well stretch the lead it has from its pole position by beating the sputtering ’Canes in Hard Rock Stadium on Friday night. Of course, UVa didn’t look all so hot in a loss at Notre Dame, especially when it came to protecting Bryce Perkins. Miami, which hasn’t played as bad as its ACC record indicates, has a pretty stout defensive front and, if it has the same visceral reaction to a demoralizing home loss as the Hokies had last week, might be a very motivated team come Friday.
That’s the beauty of the Coastal Divison. You never know how things are going to turn out from week to week. And while the Hokies’ 1-2 start isn’t ideal, it’s not a disqualifying record either. There’s still a lot of football to be played this season. The always-entertaining Coastal is bound to throw a curveball or two. Not buckling in the batter’s box when it happens is the only way to give yourself a chance.
