Virginia Tech Blows Big Lead At No. 24 NC State In Fifth Straight Loss

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1. Heart-breaking loss, but no need to open with such a negative lead. “blow” may be an appropriate term,but the Hokies showed much more than they had in the more recent games against a quality team, away. I am not a believer in a :good loss” but I can, in this case, consider it as close as you can get to a “moral victory”. I hope that it shows that this team has actually improved and that this was not a fluke.

   1. 36 yards rushing by running backs and 11 pass completions is not really showing a lot more.

   2. According to the announcers, it was the second largest collapse of a lead in FBS this season. “Blow” seems absolutely appropriate

2. I’d like to see Pry ditch his Notebook of Sins and tell the team that in return, they owe him a complete game of mentally sharp football. That little notebook suggests a rookie coaching move, trying to look important. It comes across as punitive. The cameras focus on Pry every time he writes in that book. I don’t see him writing in that book when someone makes a big play. He can do better.

3. Rebuilds are very painful, especially for the diehards. Most of today’s VT fan base have never experienced a total rebuild of the VT football program. No major fb program in the nation has been exempt from a complete overhaul. No one. In the mid 1980’s many hoped Bobby Ross would become the new Head Football Coach at VT, myself included. When the head coach at Murray State, VT alumnus Frank Beamer, was appointed the job at VT, the majority of the fan base were skeptical. You can imagine the frustration that set in after 4-5 years of minimal success. We all know how that turned out. Point. Support the program. Support the Head Coach. Players and Assistant Coaches will come and go. The Coach and the AD will figure it out. We MUST support them. A fan base that fails its leaders will subsequently fail to attract the kind of coaches and players necessary to establish a successful program. The eyes of the multitudes are watching. The character of the fan base is being tested

   1. How much did Beamer get in salary (in today’s dollars)?

   2. Thanks for a voice of reason

   3. Excellent!!!

4. I sure hope we don’t still have that empty National Championship trophy case on display. I’ve caught a lot of ribbing about that over the years. Heck, we aren’t even the champions of SWVa.
   Let’s beat GT to get this thing rolling!

   1. If it isn’t at the bottom of the Duck Pond, it should be.

5. Dont we have someone in the department who can take notes for coach and allow him to get into the game a little bit more?

6. Stick with them guy. Beamer looked very bad for a long time. He had to have his arms twisted to change some of his coaches. Until then…. It was very bad.

   1. It was never this bad..NEVER, and I date back to Charlie Coffee. We have no choice but to stick with it, but we are a terrible football team that is NOT well coached at all!

      1. Beamers record was just as bad when he started

         1. Yeah, but his team were putting up some points and didn’t look like a high school team out there.

            When your QB can’t consistently make the easiest of throws, short crossing and outs, it’s time to make a change. Let see what else we have.

7. Good riddance to BOH. Don’t need his kind.

   Let’s give CBP what we gave CFB, time. Then react as needed. Big money SEC and B10 and selected other schools will always dominate. Plus, they can poach our best players.

8. Not worried, not worried at all. We saw it in the first 4 or 5 years of Frank Beamer. If we’re still performing like this after 4 or 5 years, then yes, we have something to worry about. We’ll watch the transition and rebuilding of this program, root the boys on, and look forward to hopefully pulling off a couple of more wins and definitely beating UVA (has a way of soothing things). Have faith in Pry; he and his coaches are not somehow oblivious to all the challenges they’re facing this year and probably for the next couple of years. Our team is not good, but we’re still all Hokies.

   1. Love this post!

   2. MAHist87:

      I don’t want to hear your reasonable, logical, composed, positive-thinking CRAP! My self-esteem is entirely based on Tech’s last football game. Maybe your wife didn’t leave you and your dog still likes you, but that doesn’t mean you’re better than the rest of us. You jerk!

      1. For the record, my wife did leave me and my dog ran back to the pound. After 5 years, I decided they probably weren’t coming back!

         1. 😂🤣😁

         2. ^^^^^ COTD ^^^^^

         3. Play the Country song backwards. Always works! 😊

   3. +1

9. It is what it is, and it looks like a train wreck ALL around.

10. I’m actually encouraged by this game as much as any this year and I love Pry’s approach. He can clearly coach defense and motivate his players and I love his positive attitude. Once he starts to recruit a little and get transfers and have some continuity and figure out the offense a bit and not have his roster decimated by injuries he’s gonna be a winner. It’s also almost impossible to overstate how badly Fuente wrecked the program. That dude came in here like someone with a flamethrower in a wooden warehouse.

    1. Clueless

11. I would like to know how many false starts per game we are averaging this year. The number of them is just crazy unbelievable that is for sure!!

    1. VT averages 9.1 total penalties per game which puts us #128 out of 131 FBS teams. Only three schools have more per game than we do. I don’t know by false start specifically but will try to track that down.

       Last year we averaged 5.5 penalties per game which had us tied for #17 fewest

12. Pry shows me nothing on the sidelines. Where’s the passion and anger. Show some emotion. I’m sorry, but these false starts are just plain bad coaching. WE know the snap count. WTF are these guys doing. Hey if they jump, let em, maybe we’ll get an off sides. But us jumping to get the block is driving me crazy. It’s called DISCIPLINE!!!

    1. I could not have said it any better!

    2. I disagree about the comment that Pry does not show emotion on the sideline. If you have witnessed this at a game then ok but as to what you see on a television you see what the cameras show. I DID see Pry go after Jordon for a penalty and a bad snap when coming to the sidelines. He met Jordon coming off the field and kept after him. Frankly I am not impressed with Jordon but I guess we don’t have anyone better. Jordon has contributed to killing drives in almost every game, not disciplined. We do not know what Pry and the line coach are doing behind the scenes but I am confident Pry is. I hope the players are running sprints for their penalties which are most often due to lack of concentration. I see Pry taking a lot of notes during the game with his red pen and I am sure that will be used in follow up practices to address poor execution. We need to give Pry his chance to clean up the train wreck Fuentes left him. I am more upset with our AD for extending Fuentes contract when Baylor showed some interest (supposedly). I wish Fuentes had gone to Baylor and destroyed their program. I cannot find any search online that Fuentes is coaching anywhere. He is probably sitting on a beach somewhere spending VT and Whitt’s money.

13. 30,000 foot view: We played a ranked team in their crib where they have a long win streak. We were 13.5 – 20 point dogs. Our best two (only legit) RBs are down. And we lost by a point. By the reactions on TSL, you’d think we’d just lost to VMI by 30. The team is a bit of a train wreck, and it is disappointing to be significantly worse than teams with much lower budgets and much lower recruiting classes. JF broke Tech football. Pry was the wrong pick to come in and make a winner out of this program in his first season. But he might be the right man to re-build it. I hope to see a legit culture change next season. Last night should be looked at as progress, regardless of how ugly it was. IMHO of course.

    1. To your point – Sean McVay couldn’t have made this team winners in season #1. We’ll get there. Last night WAS progress.

14. Lack of Discipline – 10 false starts – start running laps or stairs
    Lack of depth – one guy goes down can’t do squat
    Lack of endurance – in 4th can’t get a stop on D, can’t get a first down on O. Reminds me of last years ND & ‘Cuse game; up by 8 or 9 with 10 or less minutes to play and can’t get a stop on D or a first down on O.
    Lack pressure on fr-QB – late 3rd and 4th qtr rushed 3-4 dropping 7-8, gave QB time to look for rcvr.
    Where was Blumrick – on 3rd and 1 put him under center and F-ing push your way to a 1st
    Just plain sucked the last 15 minutes.

15. So many backseat drivers…Why do people think we would suddenly be good after last years bowl fiasco. What do you expect Coach Pry to say after games. I want to win too but this year was kind of expected, things could have looked a bit different with a few breaks here and there but we would still be the same team with all the same issues. I don’t know if Coach Pry will get things turned around but for better or worse he gets three years so I’m staying with him and the team. Go Hokies

    1. “13 penalties, 10 of which were false starts (from nine different players), was mind boggling. The combined number of career FBS appearances among the group: 301.”

       This is an issue with the system, not the players or their talent, and thus sits on the shoulders of the Coaches. This was game 8 for crying out loud! We should be way past the possibility of 10 offsides calls in a single game.

       1. I believe Bowen is making his system a bit too complex…..snap counts need not have 50 variants of which each have 50 variants…

          1. Just curious, how do you know this.

          2. Kind of agree – when they went more up tempo and stopped sitting in their stance while the QB looked to the sideline the penalties seemed to drop. Problem was, they only did this for the third quarter.

16. Pry is learning along with his team. I think he’ll get VT back to where it needs to be. My glaring issue with the 4th quarter was that we did nothing to adjust the offensive play calling when NC State blitzed us every single play. No split screen, no bubble screen, no jet sweep, no rollout QB, no misdirection, nothing. Not a single adjustment to deal with the constant blitzing other than throwing another blocker up there that didn’t do very well. When other teams are blitz happy, you counter that by using it against them. We did nothing. I blame the loss on the 4th quarter offense. Had they stayed on the field longer (not even a lot longer) we probably would have won.

    1. The Pollyanna “give the coaches time” I’d normally agree with….but when said coaches lose Game 1 due to 15 penalties, clock management and STs errors, then lose in game 8 with 10 false starts and 13 total penalties? Forgive us if we look sideways at you when you say “trust the coaches with time”

       1. This is the issue I have as well. The dang wrong things are too complex…like snap counts.

       2. Your points are legitimate. I just still think he’ll get us there. We have improved bit by bit. Thomas got hurt and everything went down hill. That said…VT had that game won. The offense lost the game. And in agreement to you, because of the offensive coaching. Pry is a defensive coach. He needs better offensive coaches. And he himself needs to get tougher behind the scenes with those coaches, and sit the players that are making mistakes…I don’t care if it’s Dax making the mistakes…sit them.

          1. The OFFENSE lost the game? Didn’t they score 21 points in the 3rd quarter? The defense gave up 19 points after we thought that we had it won. Can’t pin this on the offense.

             1. Did we not botch two Kickoffs returns. Strange that has not been mentioned by anyone. also our punter must have a pulled hammy. he went from great to really bad guy. a blink. JMO

                1. Anyone know what’s going on with punter

17. My son’s high school team is more focused and disciplined than VT. Pry tries to say all the right things, but the results are just not there. Talent level is very low, but there is no improvement from week to week. No confidence – Team implodes at first sign of adversity. Vanilla offense that does not play to it’s limited strengths. I am really starting to think Pry is a just a great salesmen who talked his way into a $4M/year job.

18. Had hope for a while, but the biggest problem I saw, the game is 4 quarters, not one quarter, not two and a half quarters, four quarters and you have to play with intensity and focus all four quarters.

19. We are now a joke of a program.

    I have zero confidence in Pry right now. Too many blaring issues that rest on his shoulders…too many to name.

    But OC and Special Teams better be addressed in the off season, or Pry and Whit both need to go.

    1. Hey .. to the dolts who just rinse/repeat ‘Fire Pry, Bowen and Whit’ … I checked and you can order fresh oxygen tanks from Amazon. Maybe have them delivered to your basement with that next big shipment of Funyons and Mt. Dew?
       Just stop. Pry will get his 3 years to do his thing. That’s how this NEW coaching thing works at schools like Tech. I don’t want to be TN or A&M whose fanbase already wants to can Jimbo. Y’all want to be ‘that’ school? UCLA has been patient with Chip Kelly who started with 3 horrible seasons. Saban was barely and I mean barely playing .500 ball in his first 3 years at Sparty.
       We’re ALL frustrated but maybe we talk about **reality based solutions** for these next couple of years instead of basement rants made for sports talk radio or Twitter.

       1. Hey – Why don’t YOU pay the coaching staff salary while they learn to coach and we do the three year wait as you suggest. If Duke and other schools can hire a new coach and get better, why can’t we?

       2. Chip Kelly had a long coaching resume with experience and had proven prior success.

          We have a rookie HC who inexplicably brought on some of the most inexperienced coordinators to ever be handed the keys to a P5 program simultaneous with a rookie HC. An OC who makes almost the same as Clemson’s OC and the exact same as the FSU OC. Bowen makes $225K a year more than Minnesota’s OC, $50K more than the Oklahoma State OC. Compare our OCs resume to theirs and tell me our OC is worth $850K a year — or that Bowen’s resume and salary compares competitively to other P5 coordinators. Bowen is massively overpaid relative to his experience and out of his depth. But aside from the poor value-for-experience, he just completely lacks the experience and resume to be a P5 coordinator at this stage of his career. Ditto for the other coordinators, although OC and ST are particularly bad.

          Bowen may one day be a capable OC but every other P5 OC has at least double the experience and most have prior OC experience elsewhere. We shouldn’t be an experimental testing ground and highly paid learn-on-the-job internship program for rookie coordinators simultaneous with a rookie HC.

          A rookie HC learning on the job is one thing. A rookie HC learning in the job while all the rookie coordinators are also learning on the job is bordering on organizational hiring ineptitude. There is not a G5 program in the nation that would hire our massively inexperienced candidates to be coordinators, let alone another P5 program.

          Pry may or may not be the right head guy but he did himself zero favors and hurt his chances of achieving success by hiring such inexperienced coordinators. For crying out loud they were GAs just six years ago and have zero prior coordinator experience. If you are a seasoned and successful HC like Chip Kelly maybe you can afford to take flyers on such inexperience. A rookie HC should never do that. Elko did it right. Pry did not.

          1. Absolutely spot on my man!!

    2. Talk of firing already is extreme.

       1. Yeah, if this stuff keeps happening next year then the seat should get warm though. Lack of talent is one thing but almost leading the nation in penalties is something that should have been corrected already.

    3. Have to say, you do live up to your name.

20. Didn’t we all agree up front that we did not have the talent to compete, and that this would be a painful, multi-year re-building period? Why are we shocked? Don’t blame Pry for the talent level. Recruiting won’t get any easier with this year’s nightmare.

    1. That loss last night was coaching, not the talent.

       1. Multiple losses this season have been on the coaching and not talent

    2. I didn’t agree to that

    3. The pre-snap penalties are a reflection of the coaching and discipline.

21. All I want for Christmas is a new OC. Also, please teach o line how not to jump early.

22. When will we see some “complimentary coaching?” Sine our offense has been “to vanilla” what would you call the offense in the entire first half last night? There is one word describing both coaches and players and that word is “PATHETIC.”

23. How in the world can a veteran OL have 10 false start penalties?

    1. Weren’t there multiple false starts on the same series?

       1. Multiple false starts on the same series multiple times, yes

24. I enjoyed reading the article responses. I have stopped watching games. I stopped at halftime of WVa game. I will return when they are watchable. I checked score on phone before turning in an saw 21-3 then checked again when I woke up to see 21-22 and just shook my head. What a mess.

    1. I don’t feel sorry for fans. I feel sorry for the members of the team who are suffering the results of poor play from their teammates.

25. Well, we have an identity. We’re losers. And we’re really good at it! Sick of Pry saying the same thing week after week about excessive number of penalties. This team has no focus and the coaching staff doesn’t know whether they are washing or hanging out. Sickening. In 3 years Pry will be gone along with his millions. Will find a nice safe assistant coaching job somewhere. Just like bankers and politicians, absolutely no accountability. Oh well, life goes on.

    1. Don’t know how Coach Pry is responsible for false start penalties, bobbled kickoffs, poor centers to QB. He is being victimized by a few poor performing players.

       1. It’s called discipline and that starts with Coaching. 10 false starts from 9 different players is ridiculous.

          1. +10

       2. “13 penalties, 10 of which were false starts (from nine different players), was mind boggling. The combined number of career FBS appearances among the group: 301.”

          That’s a system/coaching issue, not a talent issue.

          1. This is a system error by a green OC. Unfortunately, it is hard to revamp your system mid season. I think Bowen may be demoted to a position coach or he will have one of the others be his co-coordinator.

       3. If that’s the case, then be a coach and put a different player out there.

26. Have to be honest, could not read the whole thing and it’s not David’s fault. Just so tired already of listening to this guy. Pretty obvious from the game and post game comments he doesn’t have a clue. Not matter what happens Whit cannot be allowed to pick another FB coach assuming he can keep his job.

27. Yet again, Pry sounds like a high school coach. Same old coach speak and no improvement. He can keep talking about building depth and passing the blame to the former staff but that’s not what leadership looks like. He is In way over his head along with the rest of his staff.

28. I just don’t understand why it took a whole half to realize we couldn’t run the ball on first down.

29. David – GT game is November 5.

    1. We are not improving. Coaching improvement is not evident. Time management before the half gave them 3. Should have been happy to go in 0- 0 at haft. Without Thomas we have 0 chance of winning another game. Pry kills me writing bots. He has no presence about him. We hired the wrong coach. Only a big name would get us talent.

       1. Didn’t State have at least a couple time-outs to burn at the end of the first half? They likely get the ball back anyway.

          1. Maybe. But make them burn them. Don’t help them out.

       2. I don’t think a “big name” HC is sitting by the phone hoping VT will call. As the famous saying goes, “We are who we thought we were”. BTW, Tech’s hiring of Fuente and Co. was considered to be a top-notch choice at the time. As we all now know, that did not work out too well. So much for the “big name” hire theory. It is quite obvious that this team’s current woes are really a reflection of our recent past miscues and poor recruiting, poor coaching. Right now, Pry does not have a lot of options available. Like it or not, changing and building the team culture, improving recruiting and better coaching will take time. I think Pry is the right guy, but it will not be a quick fix. For those who can’t wait, maybe you should look for another band wagon and hop-on for a while. Then come back when things have come up to your standard of approval. We’ll still be here.

          1. BTW “Fuente” was NOT a big name.

             1. Yes….I don’t like what I see at all, BUT this guy must have at least three years.

             2. not true. He along wht Tom Herman were the two of the hottest coaches available that year (2015). Strange that neither worked out

             3. Actually he was one of the top new coaches named that year.

             4. Never said he was a big-name coach.
                Hey, MisterBig, based on his previous HC experience and success at Memphis, Fuente was generally considered to be a top choice that year, that a number of schools would have wanted. Even if a big-name coach would have been available (Not Sure that was the case) I greatly doubt Tech would have been able to match other offers for his services. All I’m saying is that Fuente was considered by many to be a very good pick-up for Tech, at the time. BTW, how’d that work out? Came in with a roar and left with a whimper.

    2. Thanks, that’s what I meant.

30. What Pry failed to mention was the continued abysmal showing from special teams. Moore’s poor punt at end of first half gave NCSU great position and time to score. Black’s two back to back poor decision to run on the kickoff and fumbled twice gave us the ball at our 12 and 4 yard lines. Ever heard of a fair catch so we get it on the 25 yard line. Stu Holt’s special teams has been complete disaster to date.

    1. Spot on. Special teams is getting worse and I didn’t think that was possible after the ODU game.

    2. I have NEVER seen a VA Tech special team utilize the fair catch rule! This includes CJF’s team.

       Last year I wondered if the players were even informed of the rule.

       1. Agree. We don’t have Eddie royal, macho or David Wilson returning kicks. Take the ball at the 25 like most of the good teams do.

          1. Agree – Please take it at the 25 when we can make it to the 10.

    3. The punt was poor..but the mind boggling decision to all of a sudden decide to go fast with under 2 minutes in the half, with 2 first downs and 58 yds of offense with the ball inside your 15 yd line was killer. It made no sense at all….we should have ran the ball and taken all of the time off of the clock. The Ghost of Mike London roams our sideline as our Head Coach now. He is the same guy, except London could actually recruit. The time management is flat awful, we wasted 2 2nd half timeouts in situations that didn’t matter (which cost us in the end..talk about a closers mentality). Nothing is ever Pry’s fault according to him. He takes zero accountability, he tells us weekly how proud he is to lose and how close we are…The talent is there. Non-talent doesn’t all of a sudden throw up 21 pts in 10 minutes. It was obvious to all who saw that we actually put in new packages and worked some play action and took shots downfield. Non-talent doesn’t hold a team to like 70 yds in a half. We were equally, I would say more, talented than they were overall. The difference was time management, discipline, play calling and a culture of never quitting instilled from their coach. All of these things come from one position..the leader, the head honcho. I bet Dave Doern wouldn’t have lost abd said…I am so proud of our guys…yuck

       1. Have to dispute your claim that we were “more talented that they were overall.”

          1. State’s O-line definitely took over down the stretch. Morris had all day.

       2. Dave Doeren went 0-8 in the ACC his first season and didn’t have a winning ACC record until his fifth. Tech’s OL and DL wore down in the 4th quarter while NC State’s got stronger. Tech couldn’t move the ball after their 21-3 lead. NC State made the plays in the final 20 minutes while Tech even struggled receiving simple kick-offs. The OL needs to focus. How many drives did they kill with penalties. IMHO, our DL looks undersized. NC State’s OL controlled Tech’s DL late in the game and got the needed yards to close the game. Tech doesn’t have a winning culture right now. It will take time. I’m willing to give Pry two more seasons. If things remain the same, then it’s time to find a new head football coach and a new AD who can find the right football coach for Tech. At this point, it’s too early to know if Pry is the right or wrong guy to lead Tech football.

          1. Please don’t compare VT Football to NCSU, when was the last time they played for a National Championship?

             1. 1983.

                Oh, wait. That was Basketball.

                Never mind.

       3. When Pry said after the game “we keep getting better and better every game”, I lost confidence in him to turn this program around any time soon.

          1. MKD, that was a real head scratcher in my opinion also. I realize that these head coaches have to throw out the BS “coach speak” (especially when they continue to lose) but that statement was ludicrous.

    4. Terrible special teams. No more Beamer ball. To try to run it out and fumble it twice and average 13 yards on the returns is awful compared to NC State‘s average of 30 something yards per return. No excuse for 11 pre-snap penalties other than poor coaching. The coaches lost the swing that the players the players played hard and well. I sat down close to the field in our players were just as good as theirs if not better

    5. What has happened to Moore? He was money until 2 games ago and now he can’t punt it more than 35 yds.

31. I am ill.

    Helplessly seeing it slip away, and shattering the illusion of snapping the losing streak, was a bit much.

    Is it Basketball Season yet? All of a sudden, I have a popcorn craving.

    1. Is this what we have become? Are we totally a Basketball school now? I grew up a Hokies fan all my life. The first QB I could ever remember was Sean Glennon, and ever since I have been about as die hard as it gets through thick and thin… but this team has lost me. I’m done, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be back, regardless of whether VT ever gets good again or not (and it doesn’t seem like they have the resources, financial backing, and enough administrative desire to ever be good again, not to mention that they also have so many non-revenue generating sports that they also have to feed financially) I just don’t have any interest in it anymore. I’ve almost never posted on this site, but I regularly read almost all the articles and have really enjoyed the podcasts (have been listening to those basically since day 1). Honestly, this site has been one of the few things that has helped me remain a fan of VT. So, no, I’m not going to go out in the yard and burn all my VT gear. I’ll still wear my VT slides in the summer, and my Hokies sweatshirt in the winter and all my other VT gear all throughout the year, but I’ve totally lost interest in watching/cheering for the team… and it’s pretty much been that way since we lost to odu AGAIN this year. Best of luck to all yall, but, now, it just feels like a waste of time to me.

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