When Virginia Tech went up 24-3 following the opening drive of the third quarter against Old Dominion, I felt pretty good about things.  At that point ODU had fewer than 100 yards of total offense, most of which came on their first drive of the game.  I wasn’t happy with the running game, but it looked a lot better on that opening drive of the third quarter with true freshman Bryan Hudson at center in place of John Harris.  I picked the game 41-10 in favor of the Hokies, and at that point it looked like that prediction was going to be somewhere in the ballpark.

Then the next thing you know, you look at the score, and it’s 24-17.  Geez.  Even at that point I wasn’t fearful of an upset, but it was a disappointing score to be sure.  Tech went on to score one more touchdown to win 31-17, but it wasn’t a dominant performance.

It could have been a dominant performance.  A couple of dropped passes in the first half, including one by the otherwise outstanding true freshman Tayvion Robinson, hurt scoring opportunities.  An awful non-call on what should have been a pass interference penalty on ODU in the second half cost the Hokies what probably would have been another touchdown.  The defense played well…until they didn’t.  That fourth quarter was ugly on that side of the ball, despite the fact that the Monarchs don’t pose much of a threat through the air.

In short, it was a win, but hardly an inspiring one.  Let’s go over some of my key takeaways.  Much like Tech’s performance, this article probably going to be pretty mediocre.  That game was as bland as it gets, and it just didn’t provide me with much writing fuel.  But here we go…

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