Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, the Hokies ran into a buzzsaw embodied by Brett Hundley, Jim Mora, Jr. and a rising UCLA program determined to use the Sun Bowl to jumpstart a 2014 campaign that should see them ranked in the preseason top 10.

To counter, Virginia Tech was without Trey Edmunds thanks to a broken leg, cornerbacks Kyle Fuller and Antone Exum because of injuries, Kalvin Cline was apparently banged up, their fourth field goal kicker of the year was in the lineup (thanks, Cody), and they put a heavy reliance on true freshmen Carlis Parker and Jerome Wright, both of whom combined to touch the ball all of three times during the regular season.  Yeah…we had ’em right where we wanted them, didn’t we?

To make matters worse, Logan Thomas was knocked out of the game early in the second quarter with an apparent concussion, backup Mark Leal didn’t play well, and the defense had their worst tackling game of the season.  Throw all those ingredients in a pot, stir them up, and you get 42-12.  When you lose by 30, it’s not “a play here, a play there,” or “a couple blocks here or there,” or “we lost some leverage”…it just means the other team is a lot better.

Logan Thomas staying healthy would have helped, I think, but it’s not like he was lighting the world on fire in the passing game.  He was just 3-of-11, with almost all his yardage coming on one throw.  Having Logan would have helped, but it’s not like he hasn’t thrown bad interceptions before as Leal did in the second half, and it’s not like he can go on the field and help the defense tackle.  Tech was going to lose that game in pretty convincing fashion either way, in my opinion, though I’d love to be able to go back in time and be proved wrong.

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