Well, that was rough. Virginia Tech lost to North Carolina 41-10 on Saturday, which means in their last two games against border rivals, they’ve been outscored 73-20. Ouch. It’s the first time since 1989 that the Hokies have failed to score more than 10 points in two consecutive games. Some of you reading this weren’t even born then.

It’s certainly not fun. It’s not really surprising, either. I was the “optimistic” one on TSL this week. I only picked the Hokies to lose 31-20. Will had them dropping the game by 18, 38-20, while David picked the Tar Heels winning 41-16. As it turned out, it was worse even than David picked, though barely.

It didn’t start off badly. Tech took a 3-0 lead, and though they trailed 21-3, a late touchdown run by Grant Wells made the score 21-10 just before halftime. All the Hokies had to do is hang on and they’d get the ball first in the second half. A touchdown there would have made it 21-17, and the pressure would have been on the Tar Heels. However, UNC drove nearly 50 yards in a matter of seconds to kick a field goal and lead 24-10, and whatever momentum the Hokies had was erased.

Not that it mattered. Tech ended up losing the game by 31 points. There were no game-changing plays that could have affected the outcome. We all tried to find those moments in the West Virginia game to make us feel better, but we were mining for fools’ gold. The bottom line was that the Hokies got stomped at the line of scrimmage by the Mountaineers and they didn’t deserve to win the game. The same thing happened in Chapel Hill on Saturday.

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