Adjustments Key In Virginia Tech’s Win Over Notre Dame

Woody Baron, Bud Foster, Ken Ekanem
Woody Baron and Ken Ekanem played very well against Notre Dame, and Bud Foster made key defensive adjustments at halftime. (All photos by Ivan Morozov)

North Carolina fans will tell you that games played in nasty elements don’t count, but I say we go ahead and count yesterday’s game in the victory column.  The most amazing thing about Virginia Tech’s win in South Bend was that the Hokies basically lost the game twice, yet still managed to dig deep and walk away from Notre Dame Stadium with the score in their favor.

In the first quarter, the Hokies couldn’t hold onto the ball offensively.  Defensively, their zone defense might as well have stayed in Blacksburg.  DeShone Kizer and the Notre Dame offense sliced it and diced it on their way to a 17-0 lead.  What chance did the Hokies have of coming back at that point?  Very little.  But they did.

After the Hokies rallied to cut the Notre Dame lead to 24-21, Jerod Evans found slot receiver Cam Phillips on a deep post that would have been a walk-in touchdown.  It was the exact same play that Phillips scored on against East Carolina, and it would have given Tech the lead and all the momentum.  Instead, Phillips played volleyball and tipped it to a Notre Dame defensive back, and a few plays later the Irish scored a touchdown to make the score 31-21.  It was a 14-point swing.  There was no way the Hokies were going to be able to survive that play, especially after their disastrous first quarter.  But they did.

There’s only one way that a team can overcome that kind of adversity on the road and still win the football game, and that’s when that team is clearly better than their opponent.  That’s the vibe I got from the second quarter to the end of the game.  The Hokies were clearly the better team.  Whether or not they would be able to overcome the first quarter, or the Cam Phillips play, was another question entirely.  But they were clearly the better team.  Fortunately, they were able to overcome those gaffes, and we won’t have to spend all week crying in our beer about how the Hokies dropped a game to a team they should have beaten.

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