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.