Boise State Week, Vol. 8: Thoughts (mine and theirs) on VT's 33-30 loss ...

Let’s start with this: That was a tremendous college football game. Not one the Hokies (or you fans) are feeling great about at the moment, but a GREAT game.

When Tech fell behind 17-0 (fumbling away the second snap, getting a punt blocked, missing a field goal, shanking a kickoff out of bounds, racking up two penalties on one Boise punt) ... it looked like LSU in 2007 all over again.

And, as I write for tomorrow’s (today’s, actually) paper, it ended up like Boston College 2007. Nearly a humiliating blowout, epic comeback, then an agonizing, last-minute defeat. Kellen Moore looked like ‘07 Matt Ryan leading the Broncos 56 yards in 38 seconds, tossing the game-winner with 1:09 to go.

Tech had led from the final 2:40 of the third quarter until then. Lost 33-30. Ouch.

But entertaining for everyone watching, nonetheless.

In the end, No. 3 Boise State’s national title hopes are very much alive and No. 10 Virginia Tech’s are all but dead. The Broncos notched another giant-killing win and the Hokies whiffed on another chance for a marquee victory, falling to 1-18 under coach Frank Beamer against top-five foes.

The good news for Tech is we’ve all seen this movie before. Tech loses a big one early, gets it together, makes a run at the ACC title (maybe wins it), definitely polishes off another 10-win season. That looks about right for 2010. Not what the dreamers dreamed of, but still strong.

Hey, if the Hokies somehow run the table from here, win the league and end up 12-1 ... who knows? A couple teams lose, Tech slides into the national title game after all. Not likely, I say. But possible.

First, Tech will need to fix some key issues. Chief among them, the disastrous special teams. Then, if the Hokies could put some Miracle Gro on their young defense, which wasn’t bad, but made some critical errors in the loss.

New whip LB Jeron Gouveia-Winslow was beaten (at least it looked like it) on the first and last touchdown passes of the game for Boise State. New mike LB Bruce Taylor whiffed on a tackle in the backfield on a Broncos 71-yard touchdown run (veteran LB Lyndell Gibson missed, too) ... then Taylor had a late-hit penalty (albeit questionable) on the decisive drive.

You could also argue that Tech got hosed on the block-in-the-back call that was waved off on Boise’s final punt return. Would’ve had to go 80-plus yards in two minutes instead of 56. But that’d be whining.

The Hokies looked plenty talented to win this game outright, comfortable, but put themselves in too big a hole and left the door open, even with the crazy comeback, for Boise to steal the victory.

QB Tyrod Taylor, aside from the early fumble, was pretty special. Finished 15 of 22 for 186 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT, and ran for 73 yards. WR Jarrett Boykin was also excellent: 6 catches, 102 yards, a TD. That (and a heckuva first start for new FS Eddie Whitley: 7 tackles, a huge forced fumble that keyed the comeback) was the good news.

More of the bad: Despite Ryan Williams’ 3 TDs (2 rushing, 1 receiving), Tech’s trio of tailbacks combined for just 58 yards on 25 carries (2.3 per carry). Taylor was also sacked three times.

So what went wrong? I’ll let these guys try to explain ...

COACH FRANK BEAMER

OPENING REMARKS: “Give Boise State credit. They did a nice job of coming back. I credit our football team, too. We got ourselves in a hole and did some awful things ... but we didn’t hang our heads; we came back and battled. We need to correct our mistakes. There was just some young guys making some young-guy mistakes. ... I firmly believe we are going to be a good football team. We weren’t a great football team tonight – we made some critical mistakes – but I firmly believe we’re going to be a great football team.”

ON FALLING TO 1-18 AGAINST TOP-FIVE TEAMS: “We made too many critical mistakes to beat a top-five football team. But ... you look at the effort we gave to come back ... I’m proud of what we’re all about. I’m just not proud of how we’re playing consistently right now – not playing consistently. I thought Tyrod gave us a nice effort. We made some nice catches. We did some good things. Again, I think we’re going to be a really good football team. We just weren’t a really good football team tonight. ... We were one first down from putting the game away. Close, but no (cigar). We didn’t quite get it.”

ON THE BLOCK IN THE BACK ON BOISE’S LAST RETURN THAT OFFICIALS WAVED OFF: “I thought the guy threw the flag. They said the other guy had a better view of it, so I take them at their word. But I thought we had a block in the back. You talk about a big penalty now. Not only what they gained (on the return) but where the penalty would’ve taken them back to, you’re talking about a 35- or 40-yard penalty.”

ON ALL HIS TEAM’S SPECIAL TEAMS GAFFES: “The blocked kick, you could’ve blocked that kick. It was a new guy communicating to a new guy. We turned their best punt-blocker loose. I don’t know if you could’ve blocked it, but their best punt-blocker could. ... Then you’re kicking (off) with the wind and we kick the ball out of bounds. It was just some things that’s not Virginia Tech. But, again, it’s the first ballgame. We’re going to correct them. I believe we’re going to be a good football team. I know we’re going to be a good football team.”

ON THE AMOUNT OF PRESSURE BOISE’S D-LINE GOT: “They’re good. People talk about their offense, but defensively ... they’re good up front. I give them credit. They’re good.”

ON THE MOOD AFTER THE 17-0 DEFICIT: “I didn’t think anybody panicked. Everybody was disappointed. How they went up 17-0 was tremendously disappointing. I think all the points ... came right off the big plays in the kicking game. That’s disappointing. That’s not Virginia Tech.”

ON HIS IMPRESSIONS OF THE YOUNG DEFENSE: “We’ve got to clean it up, just like the kicking game. There at the end, we made a couple critical mistakes. We missed a couple tackles on the long run (71-yarder for a TD in the third quarter). Give the kid credit; it was a good run, but we don’t usually miss tackles. We can learn a lot from this. That’s probably one of the reasons I really wish in college football you had an exhibition game or a scrimmage against somebody else. There’s just some things there that weren’t very good. I don’t think it was ever a lack of effort; I’m tremendously proud of the way our kids fought back, but we did some things that weren’t very good to get in a hole. And then at the end, we did some things that weren’t very good to (not) hold the lead.”

ON MAKING CORRECTIONS WITH JUST FOUR DAYS OF PRACTICE/PREP TIME FOR JAMES MADISON ON SATURDAY: “We’ve got to double up to catch up a little bit. But the thing I’m proud of ... for the last couple years, we played our best football at the end of the year. We continued to get better. We’ve got to get this football team better. Things we didn’t do very well tonight, do them better next week. That’s what we intend to do.”

ON THE MOMENTUM SWINGS IN THE GAME: “We hung in there. I’m really proud. When it’s all said and done, we were one first down from winning that football game after we went down early. I credit the kids for the great effort, for coming back and not giving in, but the bottom line is we did some things that hopefully we won’t do next week.”

ON WHETHER HE’S SUPRISED TO LET IT SLIP AWAY SO LATE: “Disappointed. Disappointed. We’ve got work to do. It’s a tough deal. The kids fought awfully hard to come back. We just didn’t finish it off.”

QB TYROD TAYLOR

ON HOW HARD IT WAS TO WATCH THE LAST BOISE DRIVE: “It was kind of frustrating. I was just hoping to get on the field with a little more time. The defense played their hearts out, got us the ball back when they could. The offense, early on the game, took a couple mistakes, as far as the fumbled mistakes. But just have to bounce back and learn from those mistakes.”

ON HOW HE FEELS, PHYSICALLY, AFTER GETTING BEAT UP A LITTLE: “I’m good. That’s what I live for.”

ON WHAT HE SAW ON THE LAST PASS OF THE GAME: “There was a lot of contact. I think it was a pass interference. I saw him late, tried to get the ball to him, just try to get it around him. He has great hands, so anything around him, he gets his hands on it.”

ON HOW BOISE TOOK AWAY THE RUNNING GAME: “We knew going in ... their safeties are used for run support and come down. ... They mixed up some defenses, some things we didn’t see on tape. They did a good job stopping the run.”

ON HOW TO BOUNCE BACK: “Seniors taking control of the locker room, make sure everybody’s on the same page, and go out there and work hard in practice.”

ON THE SNAP HE FUMBLED: “Miscommunication between me and the center. He thought I was in the shotgun, but I take fault for it.”

ON FAILING TO BEAT ANOTHER TOP-FIVE TEAM: “It was an opportunity missed. But I believe that we beat ourselves. It wasn’t anything they did to beat us. I strongly believe that. We just gotta correct those mistakes.”

CB ROCK CARMICHAEL

ON WHETHER HE THOUGHT TECH HAD BOISE BEATEN AFTER THE BIG COMEBACK: “Man, from the beginning I thought we had them. They had everything going their way in the first quarter. We knew we had to come out and fight, finish the game off. They just were the better man. We didn’t lose. Time just ran out. That’s how I look at it. It was a good game. I had a lot of fun.”

ON THE MOOD AFTER THE 17-O DEFICIT: “I haven’t seen Ty fumble since January. Everything was going their way early. We just tried to stay calm. We knew it was a long way and we were going to get some things going our way. We did. We just ran out of time.”

ON THE FINAL, GAME-WINNING BOISE DRIVE: “I don’t know. It happened too quick, man. Too quick for me. A couple big plays. That penalty really helped those guys out. But they’re a good team, a lot of experience over their, a lot of chemistry working together, and that’s pretty much what they did.”

ON WHAT’S NEXT: “Right back to work, man. It’s a long season. Real long season.”

FS EDDIE WHITLEY

ON MOVING ON FROM THIS LOSS: “All we’ve got to do is keep playing, keep winning, and at the end of the season, we’ll see what’s the outcome.”

ON HAVING A GOOD FIRST START, PERSONALLY: “I felt comfortable out there. I messed up on some plays also. I’ve got to take credit for that and we’ve got to go out Wednesday and fix them. We’ve got to watch film, look at it, and we’ve got to get better.”

ON FALLING BEHIND SO MUCH: “We were like, ‘The offense is going to get it rolling. We’re going to get it rolling.’ We had to make stops, and before halftime we were back in the ballgame. After seeing the Carolina-LSU game, I was like, ‘Seventeen points? This is nothing? Anybody can come back from this. It’s only the first quarter.’ We showed we could come back and fight hard, but we just have to execute more.”

ON WHETHER HE FELT PRESSURE MAKING CALLS ON THE FINAL DRIVE WITH BOISE IN HURRY-UP OFFENSE: “All I remember from that drive was getting the play, and I had to call it, and they were already in the formation and I couldn’t really look at it and make the calls like I wanted to make. We did alright, but it goes a long way back from that last drive. If we executed more early in the game, we wouldn’t even have been in that predicament to begin with.”

ON THE FEELING AFTER VT WENT AHEAD: “Coach Bud (Foster) kept harping on us, ‘Let’s keep playing. We’ve got to keep stopping them, because you don’t know what can happen.’ We tried our best. We tried our best to stop them.”

RB RYAN WILLIAMS

ON THE LOSS: “It was very disappointing. There were a lot of plays that should’ve been executed and weren’t. But the main thing: You can’t come out and start the game like that. We started out the game terrible. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they blew us out the water. But we fought back. There just wasn’t enough time. We have to take this one as a team. We’ve got 11 more games to go. We’ve got to ride out.”

ON QB TYROD TAYLOR’S PERFORMANCE: “It helped a lot. I kind of figured that Boise would want to stop the run. So with them being as physical as they were up front, they were able to penetrate. There was a lot of times I got the ball and I had a defender right in my face. They did an excellent job, so it was sort of on Tyrod’s shoulders to do something.”

ON THE O-LINE NEEDING MORE TIME TO GEL, MAYBE: “I don’t know, man. We’ve got to look at the film and figure out what was going on. All I know is there were a lot of times I got the ball and there were defenders in my face. I don’t know who let who by ... but there were people in my face. That prevented a lot of things.”

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.