A few notes regarding the game (kind of long)… I’m a long long time lurker on these boards and love all the VT football and hoops content - far and away my favorite site. Anyway…
I didn’t go to Tech, but my dad was from Radford originally and a Tech student in the day, his father a labor & delivery Doc and displaced Michigan fan turned Hokie during the very lean VT years before Fancy Gap Frank came along. I got lucky as a kid. The year I started following Hokie football, or any football, or really anything for that matter (I was 11/12 years old), Michael Vick was in the midst of an epic run, running away from all opposing jerseys and VT was a burgeoning media darling. Watching an insanely fast defense and Vick/Randall/Tyrod made all other football look boring by comparison. I attended boarding school in central VA, a place home to many blue blooded UVA and Tarheel fans, but would catch a bus across the state with other Woodberry boys to make noise during College GameDay and the ensuing game.
I continued my Tech football obsession while in school in FL, and while stationed on the West Coast, bringing anyone that would listen to Hokie bars in faraway places like San Diego and New Orleans. I went through the humbling big losses often at home or in Tech friendly bars, and would try and make the long trek to the Burg or bowl games in convenient bowl/ACC championship venues in FL. All the while, I knew that certain key players were trying to organize a game at BMS. For 20 years, I listened to the gossip of a game holding 160k people, and thought regardless of the logistics, I would be there to lose my voice cheering on Tech amongst a throng of maroon and orange. My sister gifted my father four tix to the game during her wedding (in C-Ville of all places) and it was set. I was going with the fam to the biggest game. Ever.
I listened to fellow Hokies say how they would be watching the game from home, how great the HD television experience was, and how the mere perceived traffic made them cringe. I just didn’t care. What I saw - the spectacle of it all, will be remembered fondly for a very very long time.
My girlfriend (an FAU student not fully acclimated to big time college football) and I flew from Ft. Lauderdale to Greensboro, rented a car and rendezvoused with my folks in Rural Retreat, VA. Like the freak I am, I made out an hour-by-hour itinerary for the weekend, including dinner the night before at the Log House Restaurant in Wytheville, and sign making for Game Day late Friday night. Ours signs were delightfully cheesy - “TennIssee” puns and something about a Hokie being the sexiest of birds. On the flight back, she and I saw the Venmo sign idea about the kid smart enough to include a Venmo handle on his nationally seen sign - 21st century panhandling one might say.
We woke at 5, made it there around 7:45 and commenced losing our voices on the best pregame sports show on earth. My folks, at their advanced age, got their youth on and made the trek from central FL with a German crossover packed to the gills with tailgating supplies. They aren’t the type to go from 5AM - 5AM but I applaud their effort and generosity and could not have imagined the whole experience without them there taking it in with us.
GameDay was amazing - I love that type of thing, pining for just a second or two of TV time, hoping to make opposing fan bases think Hokies are loyal, albeit a little crazy too. The Vol fans were a rowdy bunch and I thought the whole mixing was cordial without being too cordial. But let me skip forward to the best part… the game. Wow. We had to wait 2 hours, yes 2 hours to get into the stadium. Basically we got really unlucky at gate 13. People probably should have lost their collective minds during the cattle herding scene that took place there… we saw many people drop like flies and puke into the grass hill, induced from a mixture of claustrophobia and alcohol (with alcohol being the primary suspect). The sound of the crowd stomping on the metal bleachers was teasing to us late-to-arrivers during the crawl (it was actually far slower than a crawl) into the gates. I knew it would be tight, but that we would somehow, somehow, make it in just in the nick of time… and we did. We made it past security right at 8 and I lost my mind. I ran up the ramp to our section, screaming “Go Hokies” like a verifiable lunatic.
I’ve seen big rowdy crowds, but never at a game was I as excited as this. Looking into the tunnel and seeing maroon and multiple shades of orange under the bright lights was something to behold. And I wasn’t even to my seat yet. The anthem was about the most prepared patriotic thing I have ever seen. Big props to all those that made the game into a show. I kept thinking how the scene there was a sports fan’s dream. The crowd was so big, so rowdy, so in awe, voices could not be singled out or distinguished like in other smaller (less than 100k) sites. It was like having a city elevated atop a field to cheer on two states. BMS seemed like we, the crowd, were in an observatory deck, watching a scene play out from long distance. It was a whole different type of loud, and I kept thinking how lucky I was to be there and part of the biggest game ever by such a wide margin. I thought that upper sections would look thin, but from our vantage point, it looked like an ass was in every seat. I brought good binoculars and I felt as though I was 10x closer, though I’ll concede it’s a lesser substitute for premium (normal in this case) seats. The scale of it all was a lot to take in, and like Will explains, I’m the type to marvel at a scene like the one at BMS.
Tech lost. I hate when VT loses, and I’ll admit that that the feeling of losing feels far more common place and tolerable than pre 2011. But for that quarter, and the entire day prior, I got to soak in a once in a lifetime moment. It was a novelty, one that was highly organized, choreographed, and well executed. When they gave Beamer his moment on the field, we cheered as though Sinatra was performing in MSG. Seeing Vick on the big screen was cool as well. So what Tech wasn’t in their traditional garb on the field - the finer colors in the stands had their back, and for a moment, Tech was back where they belong… playing in primetime under the bright lights in front of a raucous crowd. I remember pointing over to the Corps of Cadets a number of times to show off the frenzied fan display they were putting on. Tech didn’t win, but this VT freak knows there are plenty of big wins to come. As we trickled out of the speedway (I’ll admit we left a bit early) a guy was walking down the stairs with us, plenty inebriated but keeping it together. He put his hands on our shoulders and red faced and bleary-eyed, he said, “I was there in 2000 for the Sugar Bowl, I went to FedEx for Boise, and I went and saw Kansas and the UGA comeback too. They’ve broken my heart. F___. But you know what, I love them Hokies.” As a fan, I think that’s what it’s all about. Tech lost, but this weekend, a win would have only been icing on the cake. The Battle at Bristol was better than I imagined, and Tech showed they have the horses to make some noise this year, and some more serious noise in those years to come. Go Hokies! They’re heading in the right direction. Thanks for the memories, Bristol.