Friday Night, It’s Finally Our Turn

You were walking into Lane Stadium in 1999 for Clemson or Syracuse or Miami. Maybe it was West Virginia in 2000. In 2003, it was Texas A&M in a hurricane or #2 Miami. Clemson in 2006. Or so many more. You were already sensing the “bigness” of the game during the tailgate. The parking lots filling up early and the grills smoking. A sea of orange and maroon as far as you could see. Somebody yelling “LET’S GO” 50 yards away and dozens of strangers answering “HOKIES!”

But then you started walking up the ramps to get to your seat and it felt bigger. A palpable buzz outside of you. A nervous excitement inside.

And you knew. You just knew. You weren’t going to watch Tech win a football game. You were going to be one of the reasons they won it.  

There was a time when Virginia Tech fans didn’t need to be told what a big game felt like. They knew it when they started tailgating 10 hours before kickoff. Year in, year out, we knew we had a job to do.

It became lore on message boards and websites and in friend groups.

Be there. Be early. Be loud. Make Lane Stadium miserable.

Mike Patrick gushed, “These people are losing their minds!” before the last play of the Miami game in 2011, but it goes back much further than that.

And when we were truly #12 in the stands, the results more often than not spoke for themselves.

Corey Moore and “Welcome to the Terrordome, baby!” against Clemson.

62-0 over Syracuse.

Wayne Ward nearly separating Kyle Kayden from his soul against WVU in 2000.

Tyrod Taylor’s 3rd-and-31 the day we finally beat Bobby Bowden.

Beating Virginia at home every year since the Clinton administration.

Michael Vick. Bryan Randall. DeAngelo Hall. The Fuller brothers. Thursday nights. Top-10 opponents.

On and on it went.

And this was before we had an “entrance.” Somewhere along the way, the legend of Lane Stadium became intertwined with Enter Sandman. Understandably so; it’s one of the greatest spectacles in college sports. But Lane was the “Terrordome” before Enter Sandman was a thing in Blacksburg.

Sandman became the ritual, but we built the reputation first.

Now, let’s dispense with the hyperbole for a second. Pitt isn’t coming into Lane Stadium as a top-5 team. Michael Vick isn’t running out of the tunnel. A national championship isn’t hanging in the balance. Nobody is pretending otherwise.

But the circumstances rhyme.

For the first time in a long time, we’ve got some juice. Two 4-0 teams. Conference implications. A sold-out stadium. Prime-time Friday night, with the college football world watching. Mostly, we have an opportunity.

Virginia Tech football finally appears to be moving forward rather than asking its fans to wait for someday.

There’s a generation of Tech fans who’ve spent years asking, “When will it feel like it used to feel?”

Why not now?

There’s another generation of Hokies who have heard the stories about Thursday nights and loud stadiums and national relevance. They’ve seen the YouTube clips. And they've wondered, “When will we be something besides a Metallica song?”

Why not now?

What if THIS is where it starts? Why can’t this generation start making stories of its own?

No one knows how good this team is after four games. But you don’t suddenly wake up one Saturday morning and discover that Tech is nationally relevant again.

You hang 73 on an overmatched team, then exorcise demons in back-to-back weeks, then survive a conference road game in miserable conditions.

You stack wins. You stack moments. You stack confidence. You give people reason to believe.

And eventually, one of those games becomes the game everybody remembers as the night it all changed. The funny thing about turning points is that you usually don’t recognize them until you’re looking back.

So here’s the challenge.

I’m talking to each and every one of you who’ll be in Blacksburg Friday night.

If you were there in 1995...

If you were there in 1999...

If you were there in 2003...

You know what your job is. Go do it.

And if you’re a student or younger fan who only knows those nights from YouTube clips and stories your parents told you?

Friday night is your turn.

Tailgate hard (but not too hard).

Get to your seat long before Sandman. And keep your phone in your pocket. Nobody wants to see your Sandman video. They want to see you jump and hear you scream.

When Pitt has the ball, make Lane Stadium an absolutely miserable place to play football for three and a half hours.

Make communication impossible. Make every third down feel like 3rd-and-30. Make every fourth down feel like the world is going to end.

Unleash all that pent-up fury so that every Panther player can hear it and feel it in their bones. Let the Hokies' defense feed on it.

All the frustration. All the empty November games. All the Saturdays when the biggest games were happening somewhere else. All the years of wondering if it would ever again feel like it used to.

Unleash it.

Friday night, everybody is watching. Friday night, Lane Stadium gets another chance. Fill the joint early. Let Pitt hear it. Let ESPN hear it. Make life hell for Pat Narduzzi. Put the college football world on notice.

No, this isn’t Miami in 2003. It’s not supposed to be. But games like that became special because the players on the field and the people in the stands made them special. This one can, too.

That’s how memories get made and traditions get passed down.

And maybe that’s how a football program starts finding its way back.

Friday night, it’s finally our turn.