Cheers and Jeers: Virginia Tech vs. Florida State

I won't spend a ton of time doing a deep analysis of this game. We all know what happened. Once again the Hokies made critical mistakes throughout the contest and fell short late in the game. The first half was particularly abysmal with both teams demonstrating a severe allergy to success. Florida State outclassed the Hokies on depth and overall talent. As usual, that resulted in Tech losing a game that could have ended much differently with some cleaner execution.

The playing surface of Bobby Bowden Field deteriorated almost instantly. It looked a bit like a driving range on a Friday night with huge divots of sod all over. Several players slipped and fell on the turf which directly led to an early Kyron Drones interception among other mishaps. The sideline reporter claimed it had something to do with humidity but I'm not sure I buy that theory entirely. At any rate, it was a genuinely dicey situation for everybody and not what you expect when heading south and playing against an allegedly premier program. 

The Hokies ran the ball extremely well again Saturday but drifted away from the ground game as the night wore on. Marcellous Hawkins was great once again averaging a whopping 8.4 yards per carry and finishing with 101 yards. He only got 12 carries though and Terion Stewart had just eight despite 5.4 YPC himself. Add in a healthy dose of Drones carries and this is clearly Tech's most effective offense. I know you need a little balance but given the complete lack of a passing threat, maybe run until they can't stop it?

You see some flashes of good play out there for the Hokies and I give a lot of credit to everyone still fighting. I genuinely appreciate the players and coaches making the effort knowing full well that many of them won't be here in a few weeks. The human cost of a coaching change means a lot of lives are about to get flip-turned, upside down. Whether its the coaches or let's be honest, the vast majority of the roster, people are going to be scattering to the wind quite soon. Remember, once the new coach signs it opens a new portal window for the players. Signing day for high school recruits if you can remember those looms as well. Massive changes are on the way.

While we all continue "Franklin Watch" the results on the field have lessened in importance. It's all academic at this point anyway. You hope Tech can pull off an upset in one of the last two games — especially UVA — but with everyone just banging F5 and hoping for coach news the season has sadly become background noise. The roster has some nice pieces but is limited at key positions and generally lacks proven depth which gets worse each week with roster attrition and injuries. This team probably should have won a few more games but it's hardly surprising that it didn't happen. 

Now we keep watch as we await the first puff of white smoke to indicate a new head coach has been chosen. Once that happens and announcements are made, things will move quickly. Our long national nightmare is over Hokies. There's just the matter of the remaining football to slog through.