Well, that trip to Charlotte certainly didn’t go as expected. Watching that one, you’d think it was Virginia Tech that was struggling in November while Clemson was blowing teams out. College football is a funny sport to figure out sometimes. Fortunately, the weekend was salvaged by a somewhat unexpected invitation to the Sugar Bowl on Sunday. Finally, the Hokies are going back to New Orleans.

Give the Tigers Their Due

Before we talk about the Hokies, let’s take a minute to give Clemson credit. Virginia Tech is a very good football team, as usual. They have won 11 games this season, and were Coastal Division Champs. In their two losses to the Tigers in 2011, they’ve been outscored 61-13. That’s complete domination on the part of Clemson.

I didn’t feel like the Hokies played particularly well back on October 1, considering they were a relatively healthy team at that point. They sure didn’t play well in the ACC Championship Game, but much of that was due to the Tigers. They had a good game plan, their players were fired up, and they played a really good football game.

...