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Virginia Tech’s dreams of a national championship ended Saturday afternoon, as they fell to the Pittsburgh Panthers 35-17.
"I give Pittsburgh a lot of credit," said Frank Beamer, head coach. "I thought they were well prepared. I thought (Rushel Shell) was hard to bring down. I thought they were hitting on all cylinders. It was their day."
Pittsburgh jumped out to an 21-0 lead in the first half, helped in part by three Logan Thomas interceptions.
The redshirt-junior quarterback finished just 14-for-31 for 265 yards and one touchdown.
"They played good defense, gotta give them a lot of credit," Thomas said. "I guess we’ll just look at the film and see what happened."
The loss was the Hokies’ biggest to an unranked opponent since 2006, a 22-3 loss to Boston College.
The Hokies struggled to move the ball all game against the Panthers, who held Thomas and company to just 324 total yards.
"They’re a good defense," Thomas said. "They’re strong, they’re physically, they’re fast and they make you make mistakes. They did that today and that’s what won them the game."
Bud Foster’s defense had a no-show performance as well, as Pittsburgh quarterback Tino Sunseri led the Panthers offense to the tune of 540 yards.
"They came out and we weren’t ready," said backer Bruce Taylor. "That’s basically what it boils down to. They’ve got some great running backs. We knew that coming in. Like I said, (Shell) kind of surprised us with how well he ran. But it wasn’t the structure of defense or anything, it was just missed tackles for the most part."
Tech lost star cornerback Kyle Fuller in the first half with a shoulder injury. He did not return.
Poor tackling plagued the Hokies all day, as Pittsburgh broke numerous long runs after first contact.
"We’ll have to see it on film," said redshirt-junior cornerback Antone Exum. "I know a lot of guys maybe weren’t wrapping up or running through tackles. We’ll have to look at it on film and we’ll get better."
With the score 28-17 in the fourth quarter, cornerback Antone Exum intercepted Sunseri at the Pittsburgh 36-yard line. The Hokies could not capitalize on the momentum shift, proceeding to go three-and-out.
"That was a turning point, too. No question about it," Beamer said. "We got the interception, had a little momentum and couldn’t take advantage of it."
Although the Hokies closed the gap late in the game, the story was Pittsburgh’s offensive line and their running game. Tailbacks Rushel Shell and Ray Graham combined for 251 yards rushing on 47 carries.
The Hokies return home to face Bowling Green next Saturday. Kick off is set for noon.
A version of this article appeared in the Sep 16 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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What happened that talk from the defense about wanting to be the best? You can forget that! How about just being good enough to keep us in games? I think we can say that the TE at QB experiment is a failure. I thought we were supposed to see big improvements from Logan. He's worse this season, if anything.
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At least we can offer Derrick Green early playing time.
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Beamer needs to step down, it's the same old story every year. Offense is crap and we rely on the defense to play most of the game....when the defense doesn't show up, the offense can't do anything at all. That's not how you run a game, not sure what philosophy Beamer is running here.
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Nothing will change. Beamer and co will say that the offense was just a few plays away from executing. and continue to stick with the same gameplan. It will work against most of the rest of the schedule, because the ACC as a whole is incredibly weak. There will be an embarrassing loss in a bowl game, and then an embarrassing loss in the opener against Alabama next year. And always, there will be nothing fundamentally wrong, just a few plays away from executing.
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Logan Thomas is not worse than last year. No QB can succeed in a Stinespring offense. Tyrod wasn't decent until his fourth year, and even then our offense was weak.
The problem is that when the run is successful, we continue to run. When the pass is successful, we continue to run.
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Agreed! Having no offense is getting old, especially when Beamer has the talent to do better... MUCH BETTER...
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Following the Hokies and Frank Beamer for the last 20 years, its clear that this athletic department coaching staff will not be able to win a National Championship. The Hokies have become very predictable over the last few years and their record shows it. I don't fault the players but I think the Hokies will always remain a good, but not an elite football program. Unless things change,the best that Hokie fans can expect is an ACC title and maybe a BCS win. Even those BCS wins have not come easily.
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I don't know what it is with VT and Pitt, but perhaps they just have the right mojo. Good luck next year when they and Syracuse join the ACC. Maybe VT and Miami will go the A10?
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I agree 100%. I's embarrassing to keep losing these games. But as long as we have a 10 win season and a bowl appearance that's considered a successful season. It's also time to bench Logan.
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Logan is not the problem. He had a bad game, give him a break. The problem is Beamer & Company. If Beamer can not take a leadership role and dismiss Stinespring, then the Athletic Department should dismiss them both. It is just a matter of time until Bud Foster leaves us for a head coaching job elsewhere, and we are in for a world of hurt.
Frank, I think it is about that time. Step down. The last 5 years of offense statistics support my conclusion that you need to go.
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Matt Logan has had a bad 3 games....
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Matt - Logan is the problem. Yes, the play calling is horrible and has been for years, but Logan's failure to complete passes can't be overlooked. He got by GT becuase he completed when he needed to, but Saturday was awful.
The whole team looked under prepared and dismal at best. Let's not go shouting Bud's praises yet either - the defense gave up 500+ yards.
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The defense was horrendous, but it was one game. Bud Foster's career speaks for itself. He doesn't get a pass for the game, but he does for his job security.
As for Logan, you can't complete more than 60% on a regular basis in Stinesprings offense because passing is always overlooked. It's not Logan's fault we never run receivers over the middle.
We got past GT because we committed to the pass in the fourth quarter and LT thrived when he got in a rhythm. Putting in any other QB would be incredibly bad for us. The Stinespring/O'Cain pairing is an inept QB system.
The offense has been uncoordinated for several years now. When players constantly run wrong routes, drop easy balls, quit on plays, and fumble because they don't know how to carry, that is a coaching problem. LT has tremendous physical tools, but the coaching staff is completely ignorant on how to coach him. They prefer to run bad plays, then hope he bails them out.
I'm sorry you bought into the draft hype of LT, but his not being a savior in the third game of his second season doesn't mean he should be benched.
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Same story, diffrent year. Amazing how an administration that fired Seth Greenberg, continues to accept mediocrity in the football program. I will say this, Tech is good at making opposing teams look like national championship material.
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I just want to thank the Hokie Football team for saving me a bunch of money. I was going to make plans for a trip East to attend a game, but luckily Stinespring's usual game-plan coupled with crappy play saved me the trip. Maybe I'll travel for the Beef-o-Brady Bowl or whatever other 6 win team bowl there is. Nah, on second thought, I'll spend my time doing something other than watching the failing Stinespring experiment that's been ongoing for way too long. I'm hopping on the Stanford bus.
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way to be a fairweather fan
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The first person to go needs to be Jim Weaver. Not only is he incompetent as an Athletic Director, he just described people who support the Stadium Woods as "treehuggers".
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Let me rephrase since I did not do the best job explaining myself... When I said Logan is not the problem, I should have said Logan is a problem, but not THE problem. I have not bought into the hype of this Tight End. His accuracy is beyond bad. But THE problem is Frank Beamer and his lackies (namely, Stinespring).
And Bud Foster would be the first to say his boys played attrocious, but you can't be perfect all the time. Most of the time, him and his boys are.
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If things don't change, All Virginia Tech is going to have are fairweather fans. They are painful to watch on offense... No wonder our TV Ratings have gone down the crapper drastically over the past 4 seasons....
Weaver, clean house and leave Bud Foster. After you get done doing that, you can leave as well.
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As I sat in the stands listening to the Pitt fans chant "over-rated", I actually had to agree with them. This team has earned nothing this year. Finally the AP poll got it right and put us #33, which still may be a gift.
What we have here is a coaching staff that has gotten completely too comfortable with their job, but as long as they keep putting up 10 wins a season, their job is secure. I personally look at the costly losses instead of the unimpressive wins. If our biggest win this year is barely beating a Ga. Tech team, then this will be a long season my friends and maybe, just maybe something will change. Until this happens, the product will be the same, "10" wins that don not amount to much.
I love Frank Beamer and what he has done for the school, but at times I think his old school way of approaching the game is a dinosaur. We need new blood on the offense and the special teams.
GO HOKIES!
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Hokie09, the weather is still fair, but that's all it will always be, only fair, so long as Stinespring runs the offense. The day the good of the team and program trumps loyalty to a mediocre offensive coordinator will be the day the team is deserving of a loyal fanbase.
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Yeah , that was a very ignorant statement on behalf of Weaver. I lost what little respect I had for him with that comment..
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