James Madison Week, Vol. 2: Tech talks about moving on ...

It was pretty clear during the Hokies’ weekly press conference today that there’s a great deal of regret about Monday night’s loss to Boise State. Coach Frank Beamer walked in with a card on which was listed all the big mistakes his team made in that game.

Players talked about having a sleepless night after returning from FedEx Field. They imagined if just one of several penalties went the other way, if they’d only picked up one more first down, if they’d tackled one runner, blocked one rusher.

Such is the second-guessing that happens when one team with national title aspirations spots a similar team 17 points, roars back to control the game ... then lets it slip away again in the final, miserable moments. Then watches the world adore the other team and sing its praises.

Normally, it wouldn’t be a good thing to have to turn around and play again with only four days to prepare. But in this case, the sooner the Hokies see video of someone other than Boise State – and themselves giving that game away – the better. This weekend’s game against James Madison might be just what the doctor ordered.

Still, listening to the players talk, I’m not sure anything can cure their aggressive case of What-If Syndrome. They are going to wonder all season, and maybe much longer, what might have been.

On the other hand, these early losses do seem to serve as fuel for Virginia Tech, historically. But first and foremost, the Hokies first have to correct that laundry list of problems on Beamer’s piece of paper.

Here’s what he (and receiver Danny Coale) had to say about that today. Check back tomorrow for some other players’ thoughts on moving forward. Access is limited this week, so I’ll ration out the interviews ...

HEAD COACH FRANK BEAMER

ON HOW BANGED-UP THE HOKIES ARE AFTER THE OPENER: (CB Jayron) Hosley, I think he was cramping up, and Drager hurt his knee. We're hopeful that Drager will be able to play. We think he will, but we'll see how he practices here this week. Drager went back in and tried to play the second half, and did play on the Pride team. Talk about a tough guy now.”

ON TRYING TO GET READY TO PLAY AGAIN ON SUCH A SHORT WEEK: “Today is actually a combination of Monday's practice and Tuesday's practice. We cut back a couple periods. We're going to do what we feel like we've got to do, but if we can cut a period out of there, then we are. And tomorrow will be Wednesday's practice and Thursday's and Friday's practice will be combined on the next day, which is Friday. It's a lot to cover and a short time to do it, and get ready for what I think is a good football team in James Madison. They are 11th in their poll and they took Maryland to overtime last year (38-35 UM). They're a good program.”

ON WHY THE HOKIES COULDN’T RUN THE BALL ON BOISE: “Yeah, No. 1 give Boise State credit; they're a good defense. They're tough and I thought they did a good job mixing up their defenses. At the same time, I think it's: continue to improve. I think it's a critical deal that we continue to make improvement.”

ON THE DANGER OF I-AA (FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SUBDIVISION) TEAMS: “This is one of the top programs in I-AA. It's just a proven fact. A I-AA program (Jacksonville State) just beat Mississippi. ... Florida State had to score in the last 35 seconds last year to beat a I-AA program (Jacksonville State) after they lost to Miami. I probably tell you this every year, but when I was at Murray State, we beat Louisville and we tied Memphis State. So I don't get into divisions; I get into what kind of team is it, and this is a good football team.”

ON MOTIVATING HIS TEAM: “We've still got a lot to play for. But we've gotta get better. We've got to eliminate this list of deals I've got right here (holding up laundry list of big mistakes vs. Boise). And we can. Cause we got great, great effort during the game, but we need to take care of Virginia Tech right now and get ready to play a really good football team.”

ON WHY IT’S GETTING HARDER TO BEAT TEAMS WITH HIS SPECIAL TEAMS THESE DAYS: “I think there's a lot more special team coaches and that's what they do. I thought 10-12 years ago that you could out-scheme some people. But anymore that's hard to do. Boise, just like us, they had their best people out there playing special teams. The guy who blocked the kick is No. 2 (WR Austin Pettis), and he was heckuva player on that field that night. I think it kind of gets back to people and emphasis. And when you've got good people and you make it important, I think you can play good special teams. I think there's a lot of people doing that right now. I wish it was like the old days and we could scheme 'em up a little bit. (But) we've done it this way and we believe in what we do, and I will say it again: It's the quickest way to win a football game.”

ON WHY NOT RUN THE BALL, OR THROW A SHORTER, HIGHER-PERCENTAGE PASS ON THIRD-AND-8 WITH TWO MINUTES LEFT AND BOISE TRAILING WITH NO TIMEOUTS: “We wanted the first down. If you get a first down, the game is over. The play we had called, they pressed us up outside, so that made it a takeoff route. ... I'll take that. You've got Boykin one-on-one, with chances to make a catch, chances to get an interference call. The thing is Boykin got pressed a little wide and then we didn't have enough room to lay the ball out toward the sideline. So it didn't work out. The other side of it is if you're successful there, then the game is over. We think we've got a good offense, so let's make the game over right here. And we didn't. Now, if I had known we weren't going to complete the pass, I would like to take that time off the clock. I think it's one of those things that if it had worked out, it would have been great, and the game would have been over. We were one first down away from that game being over.”

ON WHY NOT RUN IT OR THROW UNDERNEATH ROUTES ON THE FINAL DRIVE, NEEDING ONLY A TOUCHDOWN TO TIE AND WITH TWO TIMEOUTS, INSTEAD OF ALL DEEP BALLS: “We did. We had Marcus Davis down there and we had him, and we just didn't quite throw it well enough. So we go underneath one time. We went deep against Nebraska, we went deep against Tennessee, it's one on one down the field. To me, if you get it one on one, the percentages are in our favor.”

ON WHAT HE HAS WRITTEN ON HIS LIST OF BIG MISTAKES AGAINST BOISE: “I've got a fumble that gave them the ball at the 31-yard line. I have a blocked kick where we gave it to them on the 12-yard line. I have a roughing-the-kicker where we had the ball at the 40 after a pretty good return and if we had blocked one more guy it would have been a touchdown. But we had a roughing the kicker and we got a block in the back – two penalties. We kicked the ball out of bounds when we've got the wind. There's a 20-yard difference; instead of on the 20 it's on the 40. We missed two field goals. We had a 71-yard touchdown against us on third down, and two missed tackles on the play. Then we had ... two penalties on that last drive, I thought they were hard penalties against us, but that's stuff we had to overcome. I thought when they picked up that flag on the block in the back, and hitting the guy out of bounds, I thought those were tough calls myself. ... So there are some things there that get you. We're going to clean that up. And we will. Our kids are hurt. They want to be successful and they'll come back and I think we really got a chance to be a good football team.”

ON WHETHER ANY ONE OF THOSE MISTAKES BUGS HIM MORE: “They're all kind of big things that go against you winning, and get them corrected. Mind you now, we've got all this and we had a chance to beat a heckuva football team. I think that's the positive of it all. These are things that we can correct and we had a chance to beat the No. 5 team in the country. So it's just a matter of, ‘Let's correct what we did wrong,' and we will. And we're going to be a better football team this week.”

ON KICKER CHRIS HAZLEY’S OPENING STRUGGLES: “Yeah, he's OK. His misses were not bad misses. He's been good; he kicks a good ball. I expect him to come back and be fine.”

ON WHETHER HE WISHES NOW THE BOISE GAME HAD STAYED AT ITS PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED OCTOBER DATE: “Yeah, I don't think there's any question that this particular year you'd rather played Boise State later than early in our situation. What we lost and what they didn't lose, no question. But it was scheduled this way and we've just got to take care of our own business and get these things corrected.”

ON THE TROUBLE WITH A SHORT WEEK: “Your rest, that's what you worry about. Playing in a short week your rest gets interfered with. You worry about how that affects you ... today's practice, Saturday's game, the whole deal. But I got my rest so I'm in good shape.”

ON WHETHER THAT FIRST QUARTER WAS THE WORST SERIES OF SPECIAL TEAMS MISTAKES HIS TEAM HAS EVER HAD: “Well, there was too many, that's for sure. I don't know if we've had this many in one ballgame. Our whole right side on punt protection is new ... about eight or nine (players) on kickoff coverage are new. Just new guys there. I think in the kicking game you see a lot of that show up in an opening ballgame.”

ON WHETHER HE HOPES TO GET LT NICK BECTON BACK THIS WEEK: “I'll leave that up to Curt (Newsome, OL coach). You just felt like that Lanier was the guy who needed to play this one. We'll go back and see if Nick can get caught up. When you lose all that time, I think physically you lose time and mentally you're not as sharp as you need to be. Hopefully, we can bring him along and he can have a great week of practice this week.”

ON WHETHER LINEBACKER BARQUELL RIVERS IS ANY CLOSER TO COMING BACK: “He's trying. He's over there on the scout team trying to work and run. I don't know far he is away but he's just struggling to run the way Barquell can run. I'm hopeful. What a great kid, a guy you really want him on your football team, and him right in the middle. Hopeful he can get back here soon.”

WR DANNY COALE

ON WHAT HIS NIGHT/MORNING WAS LIKE MONDAY AFTER THE LOSS: “We got back at 4 a.m. I had class until noon, but we were excused from class until noon, so went back and got a little sleep, then got back to some normalcy.”

ON HAVING JUST FOUR DAYS TO PREPARE FOR JMU: “I think I’m pretty much caught up (on rest). As a team, we want to get back to what we’re used to, which is practicing and getting back to another opportunity at this thing, to be better this Saturday. The closer and the sooner we can get there, the better for us.”

ON WHAT THE PLANE RIDE BACK WAS LIKE: “It’s just very disappointing. The ride back, 24 hours afterward, it was tough to shake that one off. Emotionally draining, I think, is an understatement. It’s just tough. It was physically a demanding game and we played hard and we played to the end, but we came up short. You have to have a short memory. We have to forget it. We’ve watched the film on it, and it’s on to JMU.”

ON WHETHER IT’S GOOD TO BE PLAYING A I-AA OPPONENT IN THIS GAME: “I think we all just want another game. We just want another shot at this thing, to be better, more polished, sharper. That opportunity comes Saturday and it just so happens it’s against JMU. We’re going to prepare like we normally do and take care of our side of things.”

ON OUTSCORING BOISE 30-9 FROM THE END OF THE FIRST QUARTER TO THE BRONCOS’ LAST DRIVE BUT BEING DONE IN BY EARLY MISCUES: “You’re right, it’s the first game and you expect some things to happen, but I think if you told me we’d be down by 17 in the first quarter, I wouldn’t believe you. We just played bad. Gave them a lot of opportunities. With an offense like they had, they were going to score some points. We knew that and we just gave them too many chances early on.”

ON THE SPECIAL TEAMS SNAFUS: “We pride ourselves on special teams and we certainly did not have a good showing. We had some young guys in there, but that can’t be an excuse for us. We’ll get it corrected.”

ON WHAT STOOD OUT ON THE BOISE FILM FROM THE HOKIES’ OFFENSE: “Just some missed opportunities. It wasn’t very sharp early on. We had trouble establishing the run, getting settled into the game. Once we did, we were productive. But it just goes back to being sharper and starting off stronger than we did.”

ON WHETHER FALLING BEHIND BIG EARLY CHANGED TECH’S GAME PLAN, IN TERMS OF MAYBE GOING AWAY FROM A POWER-RUNNING APPROACH: “We still wanted to run. That’s a big part of our offense. We didn’t want to shy away from that at all. I don’t know what the offensive line was seeing; I don’t know what kind of reads, what kind of checks they make. I know (Boise’s) defensive line was well-prepared, well-coached, had some good schemes. Once we communicated that and we made our checks and our guys got settled down, we had some success. But it’s tough when you’re in a hole like that.”   

ON BEING A VETERAN MEMBER OF THE PUNT-BLOCK TEAM AND WHETHER HE SAID ANYTHING TO SOPHOMORE D.J. COLES, WHO RAN INTO THE PUNTER, THEN GOT A PERSONAL FOUL ON ONE PUNT: “That was just D.J. playing hard. He was going all-out. He tried to block it and he tried to get back and make some blocks. It was a physical game. I’m sure he’s not the only one out there on either side of the ball who might’ve had a late hit. It’s just part of the game. He was playing fast. You just try to get him to forget it and get on to the next one. That’s a cliche in football, but it’s what has to happen.”

ON WHAT HE ATTRIBUTES TECH’S OVERALL POOR START TO: “It was a combination of a lot of things. Maybe a little bit of (nerves). Some missed assignments, a fumble early on. They had great field position early on. And we didn’t help our defense out at all.”

ON ALL THE TALK BEING ABOUT BOISE, BUT HOW MUCH HE’S THOUGHT ABOUT JAMES MADISON: “Well, I want to move onto it. I’ve thought about Boise, but the big thing is you think about the mistakes you had and the areas where you can improve. We watched that film this morning and we learned from it. You can use the mistakes you had in the first one to your advantage in the second. There are areas we need to get better at, and we will. For all of us, I think it’s time to focus on JMU and that next opportunity. As bad as you want it, you can’t have Boise State back.”

ON THIS BEING A RARE CASE WHEN PLAYING AFTER ONLY FOUR DAYS OF PREPARATION IS FINE BY THE HOKIES: “I think that’s right. We want to get back to it. We’re going to practice hard and we just need to be better in the game situation. That’s Saturday, and I don’t think it can come soon enough for us.”

ON GIVEN ALL THE MISTAKES, STILL SCORING 30 POINTS AND NEARLY STILL BEATING A TOP-FIVE TEAM, WHETHER THAT IS REASON TO BE OPTIMISTIC: “Yeah. We’re a talented bunch, and we still are. We have a lot of talent on that side of the ball. We scored some points and got back into it, but we didn’t finish it at the end. We were close, but we didn’t finish it.”

* For instant updates on the Hokies, follow me at twitter.com/kyletuckerVP

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