This game was miserable, in more ways than one. It was frigid, it was against
Duke, and the Virginia Tech offense turned the ball over five times on its first
six possessions. There’s lots to grumble about after beating Duke by the narrow
margin of 14-3, but I’m with the coaches on this one: Let’s just scratch this
one up in the win column and move on. The big showdown with Virginia is just
five days away, and a trip to Tampa is on the line, so as long as this one isn’t
a loss, the world hasn’t caved in.

Ha-ha, that’s a ringing endorsement, isn’t it? Man, this game was difficult
to watch. I wanted to skip it and just watch on TV, and judging by the thousands
of empty seats, so did a ton of other Hokie fans. But my nine-year-old had never
been to a night game before, and 5:30 is the perfect start time for a
night game (it didn’t require staying up till midnight), so we went, and we hung
in there till the bitterly cold end. He had a good time despite the cold, he got
a cool new VT hat, and VT escaped unharmed, so the night was, in many ways, a
success.

This was a grinder, though. Once I’m done with this article, I can’t see
myself spending a lot of time thinking about VT-Duke 2008.

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