If you read last week’s Virginia Tech-Syracuse game preview, you know I had visions of former Lou Groza Award winner Andre Szmyt banging in the game-winner after missing an opportunity to send his team to overtime against Clemson last week.  Opposing kickers have all looked like Lou Groza winners against the Hokies over the last couple of years, so expecting an actual Groza Award winner to do that seemed like the natural thing to pick this week.

Instead, Szmyt banged a 19-yard field goal off the upright and had an extra point blocked, which the Hokies then returned for two points.  That’s a 6-point swing in the kicking game, and if you had told me before the game that the Hokies would get that, I would have picked them to win.

Instead, despite that help, Tech lost.  Again.  For the third straight game, and the fourth time in its last five contests.  Like most of the rest of them, it was a close one that went down to the wire.  When I looked up at the scoreboard with 5:25 remaining, I felt reasonably good about it, because the Hokies were up by two scores and Syracuse quarterback Garrett Shrader hadn’t shown the ability to beat anybody with his arm this season.  Yeah, I was worried because of what had happened in those other close games this year, but looking at it from a statistical perspective, it was unlikely that the Orange were going to win the game at that point.

Shrader came into the game barely completing 54% of his passes, and his big-time throw rate according to Pro Football Focus is just 3%, which ranks No. 109 out of 138 nationally of quarterbacks with 100+ drop backs. By comparison, Burmeister is No. 95. Tech’s secondary had been good against the pass all season, and the Orange receivers hadn’t shown the ability to make big plays.

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