A little weather delay — and even a long one — didn’t stop Virginia Tech from hanging with Purdue in Lane Stadium on Saturday. A scoreless second half did, however.
The Boilermakers got a fourth-quarter touchdown run by quarterback Hudson Card to pull out a 24-17 road win against the Hokies in a game that took eight hours and 35 minutes to complete.
Virginia Tech (1-1) overcame a 17-point deficit and what appeared to be a serious ankle injury to receiver Ali Jennings, but the one-dimensional Hokies couldn’t get anything going in the second half, going scoreless in the final two quarters.
Tech couldn’t run the ball. Including three sacks, it finished with 11 yards on the ground, its fifth-worst rushing effort since 1987. Worse yet, it lost Jennings to an ankle injury after he got rolled up on in the first quarter by Jaylin Lane, his teammate. He was carted off the field during a weather delay and had a boot on his left foot.
Meanwhile, Purdue (1-1) did just enough offensively to pull it out. Card was 23-for-34 passing for 248 yards. He went 3-for-3 on third downs during a crucial fourth-quarter drive that went 74 yards.
Included in that was a third-and-11 checkdown to running back Devin Mockobee that went for 12 yards to the Hokies’ 2. Card kept to the left for a touchdown run on the next play to break a 17-all tie with eight minutes left.
The Hokies couldn’t muster any points after that, even with a quarterback change. Grant Wells was 16-for-33 with two touchdowns and two picks but was hobbled on a low late-hit penalty just before halftime.
After five straight scoreless drives in the second half, Tech finally made a switch to backup Kyron Drones, who took over at the Hokies’ 9-yard line with 2:30 left trailing by a touchdown.
He completed his first pass for 26 yards to tight end Dae’Quan Wright, drew a late-hit penalty and ran for 13 yards on a draw to get to the Purdue 42. Four straight incompletions followed, however, and the Boilermakers ran out the clock.
The way the game started, it didn’t seem like it would come close to finishing. After a 23-minute weather delay to start, Purdue went up 7-0 on a Mockobee touchdown run just three-and-a-half minutes in. Mockobee ran for 95 yards in the game.
A second lightning delay occurred with 5:50 left in the first quarter, with a torrential downpour, intermittent lightning and storm cells in the area leading to what turned out to be a five-hour, 27-minute pause before play resumed at 6:15 p.m.
Once play began again, the Boilermakers extended their lead to 10-0 early in the second quarter on a 43-yard field goal by Ben Freehill.
Things got worse for the Hokies on the next drive, with Wells picked off by Purdue safety Cam Allen after Lane cut off a slant route. Two plays later, Boilermakers tailback Tyron Tracy Jr. scored on a 21-yard run to make it 17-0.
The Hokies finally answered midway through the second quarter. Wells hit an open Bhayshul Tuten on a fourth-and-4 swing pass. Tuten got free up the sideline, shook a tackle and spun out of another, twisting his way into the end zone for a touchdown to pull the Hokies within 17-7.
After coming up inches short on a third-down pass on the ensuing drive, Purdue went for it from its own 34. Card got stuffed on a keeper by Keli Lawson and Mansoor Delane for a critical turnover on downs that set up a 41-yard field goal by John Love to make it 17-10.
Tech tied it up at 17 just before halftime after an eight-play, 70-yard drive that ended when Wells connected with Lane on a 2-yard touchdown pass with 10 seconds remaining.
Box Score: Purdue 24, Virginia Tech 17
Print
Pry could improve his winning percentage a lot by just using proper 4th down strategy. Don’t punt on 4th and 1 and don’t punt in the opponents territory.
Curse of all orange uniforms continues
Please please burn the orange uniforms.
Agree. I hate those orange uniforms. We aren’t Tennessee.
Maybe we can get the duke coach in a couple of years. So many problems in the football program it would be futile to try to describe them all. So much effort, time and money being poured into this program with no results. No interest in watching this team fumble around like a blind calf in a hail storm.
Nope Mike Elko is the new Texas A and M coach in training to replace Jimbo
“Blind calf in a hail storm” …ouch.
Blaming Fuente at this point is just ridiculous. His offenses were MUCH better than what we are putting out there each week. Whining about the talent is getting old too. We all know what’s going on here. Ain’t hard to see. And if you aren’t getting it just think a little harder and think about some other teams that are winning with less, ask yourself, “What’s different?”.
Will any media type ask pry if ge thinks his offense is too vanilla? If he thinks opponents can get an easy bead on his run game?
The easy bead opponents get on our run game is poor o-line play. When a DT is in the backfield when the handoff is made, not much to disguise.
If Wells was hurt why did they not have the common sense to switch quarterbacks sooner. At least Drones will try to run when needed to. Everyone knew that Wells would not run and would hand off. Wells had some good throws but way to many bad ones and the interception bug bites hard and at the wrong time.
Until this team gets a top qb this is what we can expect….we have struggled with our offense FOREVER and we hired a defensive coach as HC and an OC who’s never done it! How could we expect anything different than what we are seeing? Doesn’t matter that Fuentes failed, you go get another one. Fry was a HUGE mistake, and it was so easy to predict. And I’m sick of hearing “he’s one of us”, hell he was only a GA! It’s not like he was a position coach here for years. Ridiculous.
This team plays with no heart and no fight. They get pushed around the entire game. I can live with losing, but we get punched in the mouth and don’t ever respond. Sickening.
We deserve exactly what we are getting. This is a 2-3 win team at best.
Great job Whit! Thanks!
Uh … if memory and stats serve .. Cornelsen (and thus, FUENTE) had some smoke and mirrors offenses that racked yards and points.
They get pushed around the entire game? We lost by 7 points.
Even losing Jennings and Lane there were still guys open all over the field who were either over thrown or almost had their heads ripped off by one of Well’s fastballs. Another winnable game that we didn’t win. I thought overall they looked and played better then last week but that doesn’t make me feel better.
After losing our top 2 receivers to injury, Drones should have been put in.
I’m sure the knuckle draggers now want Marve fired too. I mean … he’s less experienced than Bowen. At least Bowen has some NFL on his resume. For what that’s worth. Both sides of the ball need help but Pry isn’t ditching ANY coach 2 games in so just stop.
The OL just can’t push the pile. Wells throws a great ball then an awful one. Maybe we roll the dice on Kyron b/c he can lower a shoulder and pose a running threat. Opposing D’s will just load the box and tee off until something … anything … shakes loose in the running or passing game. Let’s focus on x’s,o’s and not what will NEVER happen early to mid season – a major coaching shake-up.
I’ve waited to see more of Drones, but putting him in starting at what, his own 9 yardline and 1:29 left in the game wasn’t what I had in mind.
Tuten and Thomas are much better than we’ll ever get to see with this O line getting pushed around the way it is. I really hope Jennings and Lane aren’t out for too long.
Well, I thought Drones looked pretty composed once he got into the game. I thought maybe they would put him in after a few possessions in the third quarter just to get the running game going. Drones showed that he’s a dual threat with the ball. Like the announcer said, “where’s he been?”. The team looked better this week than last week, but they still look like they’re coached by amateurs. Maybe the coordinators can get their acts together in time to win a few games.
Should never have waited until last series to put in new quarterback. Plus 15 yard penalty on Schlick turned the game because it was dead ball penalty. Plus weakest OL in 40 years
Wells is the better QB at this time, but not hurt. Switch should have been made earlier.
Looking forward to Andy’s 5 Thoughts tomorrow
Losing Jennings and Lane were especially brutal, couple that with the continuously abysmal running game and we have ourselves 2022 offensive production.
It’s just frustrating, the defense does enough to be competitive but the team doesn’t have answers on offense.
The injuries were bad and Purdue has a decent D Line, but another week with no creativity in the run and continuing to roll out a QB who was limping and inaccurate in the second half. The concerns about the O Line and OC will continue
Beamer was able to be loyal to a fault after many 10 win seasons. Pyr won’t be afforded that rope. Wells needs to sit and Bowen needs to shape up or ship out
Why did they replace Wells in our last series?
Suggested because Wells had played with a bad leg since 2nd qtr PF foul roughing the passer. Probably should have switched earlier.
And were there any bright spots?
Yes, our punting. Let’s punt on first down.
The second qtr. was a bright spot. Wells to Lane was really working until they both got injured. Why can’t we ever develop an O-line? We had some really good o-lines when Stiney was the o-line coach. When Fu was hired with a great offensive reputation, I hoped we would become an offensive machine like you watch other teams have. Not. Just a pipedream. LOL. I guess the program hit its peak in the 90’s and 20’tens. I still have hope Pry can get us back to relevance in 4 or 5 years. He seems to be doing it the right way. Gotta keep recruiting hard and keep players buying in. Kenny finally got WBB up to a higher level doing it the right way. Go Hokies.
Right, we don’t have depth yet. When we lose key people to injury it is going to impact us. The two OL going to the portal has really hurt. If I heard right, we are playing two red-shirt freshman on the line. That’s a problem for sure. They are likely 3-star lineman at best.
There seems very little to add to the comments, thus far, detailing how bad this team plays; perhaps other than to ask what in the hell did you TSL people see that made you think it had a chance to be remotely better than last year’s? Last wk defeat a weak Group of 5 team only because their offense self destructed and then, this wk, face a legit Power 5 team only to average .5 yds per rush. With all the rules, rule changes and rule interpretations geared to benefit offenses, being held to 17 pts is equivalent to being shutout 20 yrs ago. I skimmed Chris’ preview article and was puzzled by all 4 predicted VT wins. Geez. I’m not exactly certain how the defense managed to hold Purdue scoreless for 2 and a half quarters; but kudos for that effort, as much as it was wasted on a corresponding pathetic effort by the offense. I’ve never been a Sunday morning OC or HC or for that matter DC; but this is embarrassing.
11 yards rushing…
Enough said