Nights like last night make me wonder why I even bother picking college football games or ranking teams. I mean, I studied both Virginia Tech and West Virginia before I picked the Hokies to cover a 13 point spread. I thought that Virginia Tech was the second best team in the country, even though they had admittedly only played Texas A&M and a few local high schools. I ignored Virginia Tech’s long history of being ridiculously overrated, especially by its media god-parent ESPN. Boy, was I wrong.

But first things first. Congratulations to Head Coach Rich Rodriguez and the West Virginia Mountaineers for beating the living hell out of the #3 ranked Virginia Tech Hokies 28-7 last night. The loyal members of the Big East Football Conference sincerely thank you. Even though I picked against you, I spent the evening in front of the TV yelling my head off for you (unlike some other contributors to this site, who were almost certainly watching the World Series… as if we all don’t already know that the Yankees are inevitably going to win). I even taught my wife how to chant “LET’S GO… MOUNTAINEERS!”

The Mountaineers featured a terrifyingly balanced and effective offense. They piled up 264 yards on the ground (178 by running back Quincy Wilson) and 162 through the air (including that electrifying 93 yard touchdown pass to WR Travis Garvin). Quarterback Rasheed Marshall looked great picking apart the Hokies’s defense.

Meanwhile, the wheels just fell off of Virginia Tech’s offense. The Hokies could only muster 65 yards on the ground and 146 through the air thanks to Rodriguez’s well coached and fundamentally sound defense (very much unlike some defenses that I could mention). Of course, Hokie Quarterback Bryan Randall made Rodriguez look even better by throwing 3 interceptions and dropping 4 fumbles. Still, keeping VT’s star tailback (and Hall of Fame Penn State tormentor) Kevin Jones under 100 yards involved brilliant strategizing and a hard fighting defensive line that we Pitt fans apparently can only dream of.

So now Virginia Tech is 1-4 against Pitt/WVU since 2001 (hopefully they will soon be 1-5), losing their last two to each school. Yeah, you guys are ready to compete in a super-conference every year against the likes of Miami, Florida State, and heck, even Virginia. You’ll never get this close to a BCS bowl again, and soon be cannon fodder to your far better coached cross state rivals.

Incidentally, I’d love to see Hokies Head Coach Frank Beamer pull a complete Woody Hayes at Heinz Field and hit one of our players. I strongly agree with Chas’s assertion that Virginia Tech as a team has tended to throw temper-tantrums and self-destruct (through penalties, outbursts, and most importantly, a general lack of focus) when they get slightly outplayed as they did last night (and the last two years against Pitt). I would suggest that they are merely reflecting their Head Coach’s personality.

So anyways, my season record against the spread is now 14-15. Still, I’m happy that I was wrong and that WVU won. Unfortunately, I now think I see another Big East team that Pitt will not beat unless our defensive line, offensive line, and running game substantially improve.

Hail to Rich Rodriguez, Now One of my Favorite Coaches Once Again

Yes, this is still a Pitt blog, but the results and fallout of the WVU-VT game merit some more pixels.

Frank Beamer seemed to be on the verge of having a Woody Hayes/Bob Knight moment, but his player just walked away.

And Virginia Tech Coach Frank Beamer was caught by ESPN cameras on the sideline delivering a slap to Hokies wide receiver Ernest Wilford on his helmet late in the third quarter. Wilford responded by walking away from his coach with a look of disgust on his face.

“He was trying to explain one of the penalties,” Beamer said. “I should have been listening and not slapped him on the head. I shouldn’t have done that. I apologized. It was my fault all the way.”

In Syracuse, there is also a fair amount of glee, but annoyance at the announcers regarding the ACC raids on the Big East.

Today, however, I will spend my time talking about the pounding that West Virginia handed to Virginia Tech. In case you missed, just pop in a tape where VPI is undefeated and goes in to play an unranked team in any year, and completely collapses.

This game was humiliating for Tech (ESPN). Absolutely humiliating. National Championship=Good bye.
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The only bad part- Sean McDonough took a shot at SU for criticizing BC’s move to the ACC. Top bad McDonough, an SU grad, didn’t take time to look at the real issues behind BC’s move (and their participation in Big East meetings). I felt like smacking him in the head the same way Frank Beamer smacked VPI’s star receiver Wolford in the helmet in the fourth quarter. Neither McDonough or Wolford seemed to have their heads in the game.

I digress, however, because this is all about VPI’s collapse. And yes, VPI lost their cool several times.

I can only hope that Hokie fans aren’t exactly shocked at the glee the rest of us are taking in this.

The Hokie school paper is very matter of fact and boring in its reporting. Disappointing. Of course, it is a school paper, it will probably take until Monday to get a good angst-ridden column written, edited and published.

Meanwhile, in the Commonwealth of Virginia there was plenty of commentary. over at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, there is a sense of familiarity to this story.

Nights turn colder. Leaves change colors. Virginia Tech’s football team loses.

Over the past three seasons, the Hokies’ slide has joined the two natural occurrences as sure signs the seasons are changing.

The quotes from the players were most illuminating. One player admitted they were straight-up beaten.

“I didn’t think a team could line it up, tell us they were going to run the ball on us and then do it. And do it to perfection,” Tech cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. “I don’t think nobody in the country thought so. They took me out the game, took Ernest Wilford out of the game, took Kevin Jones out of the game. And I don’t even know what they did.

“Maybe when we watch the film, I’ll find out. Great coaching, great strategy.”

Most though, were defiant, despite losing badly and for the second straight year.

“They weren’t the best defense we’ve faced this year by far,” center Jake Grove said. “We didn’t play well enough tonight to win a football game, no matter who we were playing.”

Said Randall, “I think they’re a good ballclub. I think we’re a better ballclub. They played better than we did. They played well enough to win.”

You were beaten. You were beaten badly. It was humiliating and revealing.

The Virginia Tech Hokies had planned to go to bed with visions of the Sugar Bowl dancing in their heads. Now, it looks like the Orange or Gator bowl instead.

If things don’t get worse before they get better.

The West Virginia Mountaineers pulled off a stunning trifecta last night. They severely damaged the national championship aspirations of the Hokies. They prevented what could have been the biggest game in the history of Virginia college football (Miami at Virginia Tech, hoping to be ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the country on Nov. 2). And they ruined what would have been a ratings bonanza for ESPN on that first Saturday in November.
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For the Hokies, the season could get very difficult now. They have time to regroup, but the first team they face after the regrouping process is Miami, currently ranked No. 2 in the nation. The Hurricanes will have had two weeks to prepare for the Hokies.

Yikes.

After that game, the Hokies travel to Pittsburgh, and few coaches seem to have a handle on how to handle the Hokies better than the Panthers coach Walt Harris. Pitt also has a potent passing game, something that seems to cause major headaches for Virginia Tech.

Well, it’s nice to know one team fears Coach Walt Harris.

The Roanoke Times called it a “beating.”

They call West Virginia “Almost Heaven.” Well, the place proved to be living hell for Virginia Tech’s third-ranked football team Wednesday night.

In a show that totally exposed them as the overranked team that some suspected they were, the unraveling Hokies committed mistake after mistake – physically and mentally – and paid a heavy price for their misgivings in a 28-7 loss to West Virginia in front of 56,319 fans at Mountaineer Field.

Millions more via an ESPN national television audience saw Tech undressed by a WVU team that had lost four of its first six games and was a 14-point underdog.

WVU (3-4, 2-1 Big East), which outgained Tech 426 yards to 211, beat Tech (6-1, 2-1) for the second straight year. Last’s year game in Blacksburg was close. This one wasn’t.

Finally, it seems Senator George Allen (R-VA) now owes Representative Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) some Virginia Peanuts as a result of a wager on the game. The FEC is looking into the matter.

Regarding Chas’s tongue-in-cheek defense of Joe Paterno’s comments on Tony Johnson’s DUI arrest, I stongly agree (hey, Chas and I both grew up in Penn State families, so we ARE Penn State!). Like Chas, I want Paterno to stay at Penn State’s helm. Hey, he deserves it! Besides, another ten years of that crackpot and Penn State will be so far behind Pitt that they’ll never catch up.

(On a side note, Joe Paterno didn’t build Penn State’s football program into a national powerhouse. His predecessor, Rip Engle, did. Second, even if he did build Penn State, it belongs to more than just him now. A local contractor built the Blair County Courthouse and was paid for it. That doesn’t mean that said contractor can just come back and tear it down today.)

I, unfortunately, didn’t listen to the Jim Rome Show yesterday. I wish I had. I’m sure Rome did a much better job of trashing Paterno than I did. What did Rome say, Chas?

Hail to… (snicker)…

O – VER – RATED! O – VER – RATED! O – VER – RATED!

And if it’s one thing Pitt fans know about this year, it’s being overrated.

We’re hoping our man in Morgantown will be able to give us a report on the local scene, the day after. That is assuming the city is still standing. Apparently, there’s been a little bit of rambuctuousness in the streets.

In less than an hour after the game, officials reported numerous furniture fires and other items burning in the city’s Sunnyside section, home to thousands of WVU students.

“We’re dealing with multiple rubbish fires right now,” said Dave Flanigan, Monongalia County’s public information officer.

Before midnight, fires began to pop up in other areas of the city, as the street celebrations spread. “It’s worse than last year already,” Flanigan said.

There were more than 30 fires set in Morgantown after the Mountaineers defeated Virginia Tech in Blacksburg last year. WVU and city officials had hoped to keep damage to a minimum this year.
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After WVU’s 22-20 loss to second-ranked Miami in Florida on Oct. 2, a parked car was destroyed in one of several Sunnyside blazes.

This, despite a concerted effort by Morgantown authorities to collect couches from people’s front porches.

The important thing, though, is that the goalposts were saved, thanks to quick work by the police and pepper spray. Lots of pepper spray.

Police inside the stadium tried to disperse rowdy fans with pepper spray, which also blew into the stands and caused discomfort to bystanders.

Brad Anderson of Chester said he was hit by the pepper spray when he ran down onto the field.

“We can’t breathe. We’re hacking up our lungs, but it was worth it,” Anderson said. “It was a hell of a win.”

Fans retaliated by throwing debris at the workers. Some fans tried to use the sideline benches in an attempt to get to the goal posts before another round of pepper spray sent fans running.

As for the game itself, a stunning kick in the teeth for Virginia Tech. They were absolutely humiliated 28-7. There is much celebrating this loss throughout the remnants of the Big East.

Once again, the supposedly well coached and talented Hokies imploded in the face of adversity. Don’t get me wrong, Frank Beamer is a great coach and recruiter, but over the last 3 years I’ve seen his team seem to lose it collectively when they get outplayed — not beaten, but outplayed — plenty of penalties, emotional outbursts, the collective behavior of a petulant, spoiled 4 year-old who isn’t getting what he feels entitled to. It happened the previous two years against Pitt.

Kind of diminishes that big VA Tech-Miami showdown, huh?