I will never forget the homecoming floats depicting owls being obliterated by rockets bearing the initials "VT" and how that image sharply contrasted with the silence and the astonishment from my father or the Tech fans as they exited Lane Stadium.
One of the Hokies' marquee players at the time, junior defensive end Corey Moore, would remark that he had never been so embarrassed in his entire life and that the Hokies were the laughing stock of college football.
No one thought it was ever feasible. Tech was an enormous 35.5-point favorite in the Las Vegas lines. Statistically, it had the fourth best defense in a country. Perhaps most demoralizing was the fact that quarterback Devin Scott was a freshman who was making the first collegiate start of his career.
When Football Championship Subdivision (aka Division I-AA) school Appalachian State defeated No. 5 Michigan at the beginning of the 2007 season, many college football analysts quickly brought the 1998 Temple win over the Hokies into light and deemed it, not the Appalachian State win, as the greatest upset in college football history.
Their main reason was that Temple held an RPI much lower than many Division I-AA teams when it defeated Tech, whereas Appalachian State was the defending FCS champion. Since Appalachian State was not a Division I-A team, no line was placed on the Michigan game. Many experts claim that, had there been one, the point margin would have been a lot smaller than 35.5.
Beginning the day after the upset, there has always been very little discussion about this game in Blacksburg. A few Hokie faithful pretend as though it never even happened. A lot of other fans that originated during and after the National Championship run in 1999 are not even aware that such a game took place.
Tech has a football program that has been fortunate enough to not have a losing season in the past 15 years. Nine of those years have seen double-digit win totals. With that kind of steady success, it is not hard to assume a win against Temple, Western Kentucky, Furman or any other team that has "nothing to lose" when it enter Lane Stadium.
But that game in the middle of October a decade ago proved that sometimes David does beat Goliath, even in Blacksburg.
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In late October, 2017, we'll see another one of these stories talking about our loss at home against Boston College in 2007.... what a hell of a game that was. I know it wasn't as shocking as losing to Temple, but it hurt a good bit.
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In case you didn't know. This game never actually happened.
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Oh, yes... this was a sad day... however, I believe the worse day was the loss to Miami.. and not even Duh U... the other Miami -- Miami(OH)... 10/04/07.. google it kiddies. You don't want to know how it feels to get all tanked up only to see Tech lose to an unknown.
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Good article Eddie! Its hard to believe that Temple, located in such a large TV market in Phildelphia, would have such a bad team for so long. Really a shame that their program got kicked out of the Big East. I can only imagine the look on your Dad's face that day.
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