Alabama Week, Volume 8 (Looking at the Loss edition) ...

Like you surely are, Hokies, I am exhausted. Not too much I can say about this one until tomorrow, when I can wrap my mind around all the many, many things that happened in a crazy game.

Virginia Tech led the No. 5 team in the country in the fourth quarter ... and then the defense absolutely collapsed. Why wouldn’t they? They were on the field for a staggering 79 plays and 15 minutes longer than Alabama’s defense.

The Crimson Tide finally wore the Hokies down, racking up 180 yards on 20 fourth-quarter plays.

Tech’s special teams, after coming up with a HUGE play ... Dyrell Roberts’ electric 98-yard kickoff return to give the Hokies their first lead ... that same unit helped cost them the game.

RB Ryan Williams muffed his first (and maybe last?) career punt return in the first quarter, leading to a field goal. SS Davon Morgan fumbled away a fourth-quarter kickoff, leading to a field goal.

And that offense. Oh, that offense. That offense ... that we heard about for yet another preseason being ready to break out ... mustered only 155 yards on 51 plays ... 3.03 yards per play.

Take away Williams’ two electric plays – I’d say he made up for the muff with a 43-yard reception to set up his own 1-yard TD and then a 32-yard TD run to pull Tech close in the fourth – and the offense had just 80 yards on 49 plays.

That, dear readers, is an average of 1.6 yards per play on all but two snaps by the Hokies offense. That, dear readers, will not get the job done against anyone, let alone Alabama.

I’m still floored by the fact that Tech allowed 498 yards of offense. FS Kam Chancellor can (partially) take credit for a big chunk of those. He was beaten deep for throws of 35 and 48 yards and struggled on several other plays. He said after the game that there were multiple miscommunications on defense. He thought he had help from either a corner or strong safety on both long plays.

Chancellor said the Georgia Dome was so deafening that many of Tech’s defensive calls had to be made with hand signals. And some of those signals were crossed.

So that’s the quick and dirty explanation of what we saw tonight. Despite some huge mistakes, the Hokies had a chance until the very end to beat a big-time Alabama team. They let it slip away.

What’s next? I honestly think a pretty big season is still on the horizon. But we’ll have to wait and see how Tech bounces back from this disappointment.

Here’s what a few of the Hokies had to say afterward ...

FRANK BEAMER

OPENING REMARKS: “My guys tonight showed that they have a lot of want-to. But our linebackers showed us they were young tonight. We can’t turn the ball over like we did. Alabama is way too good to give them points and field position like we did tonight. At times we showed some good things on offense; We just need to keep working. That team on the other side is about as good as it gets.”

ON HANGING IN, COMING BACK FROM BEHIND: “I thought we fought our way back and did a good job going down the field. Our plan is to be a better team next week. The tough thing is that it is a loss, but we learned some things and will be a better team next week. I’ve always said the most progress comes from the first week to the second week.”

ON HIS DEFENSE GETTING FATIGUED LATE: “We played too many plays. We couldn’t get off the field. They had too many good third-down conversions. It is a combination. We played a very good football team and we didn’t play well enough on our side to beat a really good football team. But I see hope that we can be a really good football team.”

MORE ON THE DEFENSE WEARING DOWN: “(Ingram) now, he’s hard to tackle. But when you see us miss that many tackles on a guy ... we played too many plays. We’re not quite deep enough. We’re just going to have to commit to playing some more players. And then, when it’s third down, it’s get-off-the-field time. And we had a hard time doing that tonight. It’s been a long time since a back has gotten that many yards against us. But he (Ingram) was running. He was hard to bring down.”

ON WHERE HE HOPES TO SEE IMPROVEMENT: “Again, we played – I think – one of the real top teams in the country. ... They’ve kind of got it. They’ve got their defense, those veteran kickers. They’ve got the quarterback that played well for them tonight. They’ve got the running back, the great receiver. They’ve kind of got it. So we played one of the great teams in the country and we just didn’t play well enough to match it. But I see things within our program where we can get there. We’re just a little bit too young. I said that going into it and I kind of feel that way coming out. We’re a little bit too young – right now. But we’re going to be a little bit older next week.”

LB JAKE JOHNSON

ON HIS FIRST START IN THIS TYPE OF GAME: “I thought I made a real big step forward, but I still had a couple of mental errors on some big plays they had. But it’s all correctable. That’s why it’s a 12-game, 14-game season. You get better each week.”

ON WHETHER THE DEFENSE WAS EXHAUSTED AT THE END: “Nah. That’s what we do, play defense. That’s what they expect from us, whether we’re on the field 15 minutes or on the field a whole hour. We need to be in shape to do that.”

ON WHAT THIS GAME SHOWED HIM: “We have a good defense. We’ve got a lot of talent. We can get a lot better. This is just a starting point. I think we can be a real tremendous defense.”

ON WHERE THE IMPROVEMENT NEEDS TO COME: “Mental mistakes we had that gave up big plays. We shut that down, we shut down all the points.”

ON WHETHER FATIGUE HAD ANY ROLE AT ALL IN BAMA PUTTING UP 180 YARDS IN THE FOURTH QUARTER: “That might’ve had a little bit to do with it. But also, with the first game, we were just getting used to everything again. But next week, we’ll fix it all and it will be a lot better.”

ON HAVING NATIONAL TITLE HOPES COMING INTO THIS ONE: “We just look at it game to game. We played a real tough game until the fourth quarter. Besides that, I thought we played a real good defensive game. So I still see us in the national picture. We just have to keep stepping up throughout the year.”

ON WHERE HE MADE MISTAKES: “A couple plays, I got out of my gap. One of them, they scored a touchdown on. It was a run. I got out of my gap. I read something wrong.”

ON ALABAMA PUTTING UP SO MANY POINTS: “They have a good offense. I thought we were going to hold them to a little bit less. But they’re a good team. There’s no doubt about it. They were in the SEC championship last year. They have a real productive offense, a real good defense. It was a good game.”

WR DYRELL ROBERTS

ON HIS 98-YARD TOUCHDOWN RETURN: “Once I got the ball and I saw the way my kick-return team had it set up, I knew something good was going to happen. I didn’t know if I was going to take it all the way. I had one man to beat. I put a move on him, broke the tackle, and got to the end zone.”

ON WHAT THIS GAME SHOWS THE HOKIES: “It really tells us what we have to do Monday morning. It’s going to be a great learning experience. It tells us what we need to work on. We’re glad that we played this game. We wanted to win. We came up a few inches short. But I think it’s going to be a big learning experience to be in this type of game this early in the season.”

ON THE OFFENSE PUTTING UP FEWER THAN 200 YARDS AGAIN: “It’s frustrating as I don’t know what, man. Coming in, as an offense, we really wanted to go out there and play equally with the defense. We wanted to go out there and make plays just like the defense was making plays for us.”

ON TAKING SOME POSITIVES FROM THIS GAME: “Coming into this game, people were saying we were underdogs, we were going to get blown out. We weren’t really all into the hype. We knew the preparation we had. We wanted to play our game. We came a few inches short. We have to go back to the drawing boards on Monday.”

RB RYAN WILLIAMS

ON THE OFFENSE’S OFF NIGHT: “We didn’t move the ball. That’s what we need to start doing. We need to start moving the ball, keep the defense off the field, so we can make more plays offensively.”

ON DECIDING AFTER FUMBLING HIS FIRST CAREER PUNT RETURN THAT HE ISN’T RETURNING PUNTS ANYMORE: “I’m not going to say never, but until I start feeling like it’s second nature, like running back, then I’m going to step away from punt returns. That was my decision. I took myself off punt returns. They wanted me to go back in, but I just didn’t feel comfortable enough. With Jayron (Hosley) back there, he’s done it all through high school. It would be cool having me back there because of my open-field advantages ... but if I’m not comfortable and it’s not second-nature catching the ball, then I’m not going to go back there and put my team in that type of danger.”

ON DOING IT WELL IN SCRIMMAGES, THOUGH, INCLUDING AN 82-YARD TD RETURN ... AND WHAT WAS DIFFERENT TONIGHT. THE LIGHTS? “The lights make me go harder. I love having an audience. I love that type of thing, and I feed off it. But today, I just didn’t feel comfortable. To be honest, I never really felt comfortable. I just knew that one day I could. I knew that one day it would become second-nature. That day hasn’t come yet. The actual fielding. When the ball is in my hands, I do what I do. Right now, Jayron is the better man fielding the ball.”

ON SEEING TECH’S DEFENSE GET TIRED LATE IN THE GAME: “They were just out there too much. We had a lot of three-and-outs, where the defense would run back out there. They stood strong as long as they could for us, but offensively, we couldn’t make the plays.”

ON BOUNCING BACK FROM THE FUMBLE WITH TWO HUGE OFFENSIVE PLAYS: “I was down a lot. Jason Worilds, he came up to me and he was like, ‘Are you going to be good or are you going to be great? You’ve got to make some plays.’ I just took it on myself that any opportunity I had, I would make some plays. (Worilds said it) right after my punt return.”

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