East Carolina Outplayed and Out Coached Virginia Tech In 27-22 Victory

The 2008 Virginia Tech football season was quickly derailed as the East Carolina Pirates knocked off the 17th ranked Hokies 27-22 on Saturday. 

The game, simply, wasn’t pretty as the Hokies offense at times looked inept and vanilla against the ECU defense.  If it weren’t for a few mistakes by the Pirates, I’m not so sure that Tech would have scored in the first half or even at all. 

The game remained scoreless until the 12:19 mark in the 2nd quarter when Virginia Tech cornerback Stephen Virgil scooped up a dropped lateral and took it “to the crib” for another Beamerball touchdown.  The Hokies were able to strike again in the 2nd quarter when Kenny Lewis Jr. caped off a six play, 25 yard drive with a six yard touchdown run. 
ECU was able to breakup the shutout after a horrible Sean Glennon pass landed in the arms of Nick Johnson who returned it all the way to the Virginia Tech one-yard line.  After two failed attempts, running back Jonathan Williams juked to the left and took it in for the touchdown.

The Pirates marched down the field on the opening possession of the 2nd half and scored on a 12 yard pass and catch from Patrick Pinkney to Jamar Bryant.  However, John Graves blocked the extra point attempt and Stephen Virgil was there for the 98-yard scoop-n-score, which kept the Hokies on top 16-13. 

Then, on the first play of the 4th quarter, Virginia Tech freshman running back Darren Evans sprinted through and opening in the line and took it to pay dirt.  The pat was no good, which pushed the score to 22-13. 

With just over three minutes and 30 seconds left, Patrick Pinkney came up huge once again as he caped off a 73-yard drive with a three-yard touchdown run.

The play of the game came with just a minute and a half left on the clock.  Brent Bowden was all ready to punt when ECU’s TJ Lee broke free, blocked the punt, and returned it for 27 yards for the go ahead touchdown.

Thoughts:

Frank Beamer and his coaching staff have some tough decisions to make in the coming days.  Do you take the shirt of Tyrod or do you stick with Glennon for the rest of the season?  Do you know play more of the freshman and start playing towards next season or do you try to tough it out and hope your team can mature fast enough to make a splash in the ACC this season?

Right now I couldn’t even tell you what the answers of those questions will be or should be.  I’m in favor of redshirting Tyrod since it will help the team in the future but it’s going to be hard not to play him this year since he is such a dynamic player.

Also I do have to add that the play calling was awful in this game.  Normally, I support Stinespring but its gotten to the point now where you can predict what Tech is going to do on offense.  Ohh… Boone is lined up in the backfield; well they’re going to hand it off to him.  It’s laughable and quite embarrassing at this point.

Unless the offense improves over the season, Stinespring’s days in Blacksburg should be numbered.  When your team’s coaching staff gets out coached by a Conference USA team, its time for a change whether you like it or not.

Also Coach Mike O’Cain is on my shitlist right now since he proved that he couldn’t develop a quarterback at this level.  There is a reason why he’s never stayed at one school very long and the reason is because he’s not a very good coach.

Anyway you look at it, the Hokies were terrible today.  I know that most of this team has never played a down of college football but it looked like most of our coaching staff has never coached in a game before either.  Sean Glennon was terrible as well and he just continues to regress under Coach O’Cain. 

So, the sky might not be falling but the Hokies have a long way to go if they want to play in another ACC championship game this December. 

Anyway, I guess all we can do is pick up the pieces and get ready to take on Furman next weekend in Lane Stadium.