Vandy’s Good, But Some Are Forgetting Why The Hokies Lost To Them

No sooner had Vanderbilt upset No. 1 Alabama last night did I start getting messages from friends saying “I guess that loss to start the season to Vandy doesn’t look so bad now, does it?”

While I’m happy for the Commodores and their fanbase (I have one good friend who is as fanatical about them as I am the Hokies), I think a lot of people are having temporary amnesia. Yes, Vanderbilt is better than most thought. But let me take you back to the details of that first game and then you might see – as I do – that it wouldn’t matter if Vanderbilt beat the Green Bay Packers last night.

As I wrote in this story from earlier in the season, “the Hokies fell behind 17-0 before mounting a comeback in the third quarter and getting within one score at 17-10. At that point, Vanderbilt was going to attempt a long field goal, but the Commodores were called for delay of game and the ball was moved back 5 yards. Vandy opted to now punt, and the Hokies were set to start from their 20 trailing only by a touchdown as the punt went into the end zone for a touchback.

A flag, however, was thrown on the field, and as it turned out, Virginia Tech sent two players out on the field wearing the number ZERO during the return. You can’t do that, so the Hokies were called for illegal substitution, Vandy got the ball back 5 yards closer, and this time they made a field goal to lead 20-10.

However you choose to look at it, when a game ends tied 27-27 in regulation, and if that penalty isn’t called, that field goal never gets made (or even attempted) and the Hokies win 27-24.”

Virginia Tech came all the way back to take a 27-20 lead with only 4 minutes to go. Had that field goal not happened by not pulling the double-zero bonehead play of the year, it’s now a two-score game at 27-17 with four minutes to go. That game probably plays out a whole lot different.

So Vandy, I’m happy for you. But Virginia Tech didn’t lose because they underestimated the “Anchor Down” crowd on a hot August Day.

They lost because they couldn’t count to 2 when compiling how many players were on the field with the same number.

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All of the talk of Vanderbilt has got me thinking back to all the preseason predictions of this team, and when you now look at it in the clear light of day after six games, I’m not sure they were that far off.

The team is 3-3, 1-1 in the ACC. As mentioned above, the loss to Vanderbilt was easily winnable and happened because of a significant coaching error. Had that not happened, Virginia Tech probably wins 27-24 and the team is 4-2 on the season.

But wait, as they say on late night television. There’s more.

Now look back to the Miami game. You will never convince me that there was enough indisputable evidence to overturn that call, and had officials followed their own set of rules on replay, Virginia Tech wins that game 40-38.

Then the Hokies are 5-1 and 2-0 in the ACC. And probably nationally ranked.

It has got me thinking maybe this team is (or at least can be) the team that was predicted. They’ve still got a boatload of issues, including clock management that seems every bit as bad as my eating habits during football season.

But yesterday they had an old-fashioned dull, boring dominant win. And not a lot of teams walk into Palo Alto on their first visit and win a game like that. The talent seems to be there.

Now they need the coaching to catch up with the talent.

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With Vanderbilt upsetting Alabama, the importance of Jerry Kill has left me with a bad case of what might have been. Kill is Vandy’s “chief consultant to the head coach and senior offensive advisor” and is a key part of what’s going on in Nashville.

Kill was on staff as assistant to the head coach at Virginia Tech in 2019 and his impact was immediately felt. He is one of the smartest pure football coaches I’ve seen, and he revamped the running game and got the Hokies off the mat following a pretty crushing home loss early that season to Duke.

In a story I wrote four years ago, Kill in 2019  was described as someone “loudly complaining about good players not being utilized or play calls becoming so predictable, you could see in the body language of the troops they didn’t believe they could win. Kill, I also heard, got into it with several coaches in the process. He didn’t care if they didn’t like him; he cared about making young athletes better and winning football games.”

As the ship was heading to the bottom in 2020 and 2021, I said in that story that the Hokies needed to spend whatever it took to bring him back (he had gone to TCU for the same position as assistant to the head coach) because in all the things that staff was weak in, Kill was an expert. Even suggested a title very similar to what he has now at Vanderbilt.

Had they kept Kill, the path to the future might have been so much different.

Now he’s doing the magic I knew he was capable off for a new staff at Vanderbilt.

What might have been…