Two Words: Rich Rod

Virginia Tech's road trip to #5 FSU bears a striking resemblance to another VT road trip, one from 20 years ago

I was a sophomore at Virginia Tech in the fall of 2003. I awoke on the morning of October 22 excited to see the Hokies play that night, but not particularly concerned about the game.

My focus was with the rest of the fanbase’s - smack dab on November 2, when #2 Miami would roll into town.

Tech was 6-0 and ranked #3. It was one of those massive Saturdays that come along about once per season in which the day is full of matchups between highly rated teams.

Still, a #2 vs. #3 matchup would surely bring ESPN’s College Gameday to town.

I was stoked.

Hours later I tuned in to watch three hours of misery, as Tech got dominated in ever facet of the game en route to a 28-7 defeat at West Virginia.

Following the game, depression set in like a thick fog over the New River Valley. And it lasted more than a week.

The campus community, like the team, picked itself up off the mat just in time for Halloween. By Saturday night, we were ready.

This was the result:

In the years since, my memory has lingered on that night against Miami. The sheer noise (I thought I might actually do permanent damage to my hearing), the crow’s excitement (the stadium really was full and third-down-on-defense loud 30 minutes before kickoff), and the look on then-Governor Mark Warner’s face as he led Frank Beamer and the team from the bus through 40,000 people up what was then Spring Street (now Beamer Way) on their way to the Jamerson Center two and a half hours before kickoff.

As for that WVU game, I’ve done my best to forget it altogether.

I was pretty successful until this week.

Ghosts of road games past

WVU was 2-4 entering that 2003 game against the Hokies. On the surface, it looked like a cake walk.

The game was played on a Wednesday night, so both teams had four extra days to prepare.

The Hokies also had four extra days to hear everyone tell them how good they were and to think about Miami.

The Mountaineers had four extra days to hear everyone talk about how Tech was going to annihilate them.

But here’s the thing, if we had been paying attention, really close attention, we could have seen the trap being set. And not just for the psychological reasons listed above.

Outside of a bad loss to Maryland (who would also blow out WVU in the bowl game), all of West Virginia’s losses were close:

• vs. Wisconsin 17-24

• vs. Cincinnati 13-15

• at #2 Miami 20-22

A common theme - WVU couldn’t score.

But something happened in that Miami game. Sure, it was only 20 points, but it was on the road against the second ranked team in the country, a team that had not lost a regular season game in more than two years.

It took a field goal with :11 remaining for Miami to secure the win.

In retrospect, it must have been clear within the Mountaineer football program. They were close.

After the Miami game, WVU beat Rutgers 34-19, the first of seven straight wins to close out the regular season, all by double digits.

West Virginia averaged 21.0 points per game in its first five contests. That figure increased to 37.7 over the last seven games of the regular season.

The Hokies were averaging 21.5 ppg through their first four games this season before exploding for 38 last week in the win over Pitt.

The similarities between this Virginia Tech team and that West Virginia team are eerie.

As all this regards Florida St., I’m not sayin’. I’m just sayin’.

How Virginia Tech wins

Back in 2003, Tech received the opening kickoff against WVU. As the teams came out on to the field, play-by-play announcer Sean McDonough relayed a quote from Frank Beamer.

“It isn’t often you hear a coach say a player has been perfect,” McDonough said. “When we spoke with Frank Beamer, the head coach of the Hokies, yesterday, he said [quarterback Bryan] Randall has been perfect.”

Randall proceeded to fumble the opening snap.

On the third play from scrimmage, Pacman Jones, a cornerback for West Virginia, sent a message with a nasty hit on Tech receiver Ernest Wilford.

They play had already been whistled dead due to a delay of game. Wilford cut off his route. The hit likely would have been a targeting call under today’s rules.

In 2003 it was a 15-yard personal foul. A stupid penalty, according to the announcers. But three plays into the game, the tone had been set.

Tech lacked focus, and WVU had come to play.

The rest of the game was just an exercise in rinse and repeat. Randall through three interceptions and fumbled four times.

It was excruciating.

This week, Florida St. is the home team. Doak Campbell stadium is a “hostile road environment”, except when it isn’t. In recent years, Seminole fans tend to only get up for big games.

Regardless of the official ticket sales, don’t be surprised if there are splotches of open bleachers on Saturday.

Florida St. has already played big games against LSU and Clemson. This is only their fifth game of the year. It is difficult, especially for college players and students (fans), to “get up” for 60% of their games.

FSU was not up for Boston College, and the Seminoles barely escaped Chestnut Hill with a 31-29 victory.

For the Hokies to pull the upset, both the Noles and their fans need to be sleepwalking to some degree.

Tech needs to play about a letter grade and a half better than FSU to win. That means, if Tech brings its “A” game, FSU would need to play at their “B-/C+” level. Such is the difference in talent and experience.

Florida St. has a good, but not great defense. The Noles are allowing 22.5 ppg, and of their four opponents, only LSU featured a truly dynamic offense.

The offense has been dynamic, scoring 43.3 ppg, but Clemson is the only opponent the Seminoles have played that has a good defense. And it took overtime for them to reach 31 points in that game.

So, while the advanced stats are unweighted, FSU’s opponents are a combined 9-11. One would expect to see stronger advanced stat numbers across the board.

To win the game, Tech needs to channel 2003 West Virginia by being the best version of themselves to date.

That means maintaining the offensive identity from last week and executing better (i.e., allow less tackles for loss).

The Hokies, if they can establish the run - and given the 38.6% success rate allowed by FSU on rushing plays, they should - are capable of consistently completing medium range passes against this defense.

Tech’s chances to win increase significantly if the game is played in the twenties. Don’t expect a lot of big plays from the Hokie offense. Tyler Bowen’s team will have to string together longer drives this week in order to put points on the scoreboard.

The Hokies have an opportunity to make FSU fairly one-dimensional. Against LSU’s defense, which increasingly resembles a wet paper bag, the Seminoles managed only a 60.1 run blocking grade, according to PFF. That figure dropped to 43.1 against Clemson’s very stout defensive front.

For all the hype around Florida St.’s wideouts, the receiving grades for the team as a whole have failed to eclipse 67 since the LSU game. Expect the Hokie secondary to hold up better than many in the national media would lead you to believe.

Finally, look for Kyron Drones and Bhayshul Tuten to break more tackles on Saturday. Only against Clemson did Florida State eclipse a tackling grade of 62.

Final thoughts

It is not difficult to see how Florida St., favored by 23.5 points, wins the game. One need only pick from this menu:

• Tech reverts to the uninspiring offense and/or play call mix from the first four games

• Tech mis-fits runs and blows a bunch of coverages deep in the secondary

• The Hokies struggle in the trenches

• FSU, with its advantages in talent, experience, and depth, combined with the home crowd, is simply too much for Tech to overcome

And let me be clear, notwithstanding the vast majority of this article, that is still the most likely outcome.

However, no one, and I mean no one, is talking about Tech having any chance of winning.

And they should be, because the chances of an upset are better than most think.

And I suspect the Virginia Tech players and coaches know that.

Florida St. is a top 5 team nationally according to the Associated Press and Coaches polls. But according to SP+, the Seminoles are #17 in the nation and third in the ACC, behind Miami and Clemson.

All the advanced stats suggest Florida St. is a very good team, but not an elite one.

Very good teams lose two to three games in a season.

One of those losses could come this weekend to Brent Pry’s Virginia Tech Hokies.

Twenty years after the fact, it’s clear that the 2003 West Virginia Mountaineers reached an inflection point in that Thursday night loss at Miami. That game was the beginning of a long climb that would take WVU to the precipice of the mountain top, and make Mountaineers head coach Rich Rodriguez one of the most sought after coaches in the game.

We won’t know for some time whether or not Tech’s win over Pittsburgh last week was a similar inflection point. It’s almost impossible to know in the moment.

But it certainly has a lot of hallmarks one would expect to see when a program is just about to turn.