I went into the Military Bowl not expecting to learn anything new about this team, and in hindsight, I don’t think I did.  The issues we knew existed still exist, and the positive parts of the program are still there as well. 

Tech lost the game for a few reasons.  First, they couldn’t tackle or shed blocks.  Second, because they had a golden opportunity to go up by double figures late in the game, but they failed.  Third, they had a few unlucky bounces when Cincinnati fumbled three times, and recovered every single one of them.

Still, it shouldn’t take lucky bounces to beat Cincinnati, and I believe that 31 points is plenty good enough to beat an AAC team with a backup quarterback.  Tech gained more yards against the Cincinnati defense (443-402) than unbeaten UCF, and scored nearly as many points (31 to 38) This one is mostly on the defense, in my opinion, and that’s what I’m going to spend my time talking about today.  I’m not really going to focus on the game itself, but where the defense stands following the season.  We’ll also discuss Tech’s very small senior class, and throw in a few other topics as well.

The Senior Class

We all know that Virginia Tech only had six seniors on this year’s team, but in reality, due to injury they were operating for most of the season with fewer than that.  By the end of Monday’s game with Cincinnati, the Hokies were literally down to just three seniors who were actually healthy enough to play in games, and I use the term “healthy” loosely. 

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