SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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- When I first looked at our schedule in 1985, I knew we were in trouble: we opened at Starksville and our third game was in Blacksburg. How could you be anything but gloomy? Mississippi State embarrassed us 3-30 and Virginia Tech handled us 14-24. Fortunately we overcame a 2-3 star to win 5 in a row and wound up in the Cherry Bowl, which allowed us to recruit the guys who turned the program around two years later. But both teams beat us in the Dome the next year, (part of an 0-4 start and even our ’87 team fell behind 7-21 in our next trip to Blacksburg. But that team rallied with four unanswered touchdowns and ran the table. The next year we crushed the Hokies in the Dome 35-0, (that’s 9 unanswered TDs). We didn’t play them again until the formation of the big East conference in 1992, when they arguably became our main rival. We wanted to beat Miami but could beath the Hokies. But we mostly did that in Syracuse. Up here, the games went 28-9, 28-20, 52-21, 28-26, 14-22 and 50-42. In Blacksburg, the scores were 24-45, 7-31, 3-31, 0-62, 22-14 and 7-51. We finally played them again as ACC schools in 2016, winning in the Dome 31-17. This is the first game since. It’s in Blacksburg.
- We don’t have to lose 0-62 or 7-51 to lose. We are real good at losing by 3 points. Dino Babers is now 6-13 in single score games since he came here and has lost 11 of his last 13.
- We haven’t beaten a Power-5 team yet. Will we? Tech beat North Carolina and almost beat Notre dame. Could we do that?
- We can’t pass. And if the Hokies have a big, athletic guy to threaten Garrett Shrader’s runs, we won’t try to run him. He’ll just hand off to Sean Tucker, who is unlikely to win the game all by himself.
- We don’t have to lose 0-62 or 7-51 to lose. We are real good at losing by 3 points. Dino Babers is now 6-13 in single score games since he came here and has lost 11 of his last 13.
- We haven’t beaten a Power-5 team yet. Will we? Tech beat North Carolina and almost beat Notre dame. Could we do that?
- We can’t pass. And if the Hokies have a big, athletic guy to threaten Garrett Shrader’s runs, we won’t try to run him. He’ll just hand off to Sean Tucker, who is unlikely to win the game all by himself.
