BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -All week long, Virginia Tech felt like an afterthought.
It was the next team in the crosshairs for fast-rising Miami, the one against whom the Hurricanes would emphatically demonstrate their return to the college football elite.
And then they played the game.
“It was a set-up,” Hokies defensive coordinator Bud Foster said after his defense rattled Jacory Harris early and dominated throughout in Virginia Tech’s 31-7 victory Saturday.
“I talked to a couple of their coaches. I was just being kind, and I said, `I hope your kids weren’t buying into all this stuff,’ knowing that it’s hard not to,” Foster said.
“That’s got to be a distraction. It really does.”
It’s also the kind of scenario the Hokies coaching staff has learned to use to its advantage for years, making the players feel slighted even though they have won three of the past five ACC championships and are perennially ranked in the top 15, or higher.
ld weekend, and sent the Hurricanes tumbling to “It’s a fact that you didn’t hear a lot about Virginia Tech this week,” coach Frank Beamer said. “You heard a lot about Miami this week, and rightfully so, but I’m proud of our guys.
“I’m proud of what we’re all about here at Virginia Tech.”
The game was played in a steady, sometimes harsh rain, and Miami coach Randy Shannon objected after the game when it was suggested the weather had derailed his team’s rhythm.
“They just came out and they beat us,” Shannon said. “You’ve got to give Virginia Tech credit, fellas. I mean, they’re a good football team and they always play us tough.”
The Hokies also found the right day to put everything together.
Going into the game, the Hokies defense had been uncommonly porous, ranking 77th nationally overall and 107th against the run, giving up 200 rushing yards per game.
The Hurricanes had just 54 yards at halftime, 207 overall, and ran for just 59. And Harris, virtually untouched in the pocket in victories against Florida State and Georgia Tech, was sacked three times and had two turnovers, both leading to Hokies touchdowns.
The first came when Dorian Porch sacked him and forced a fumble on Miami’s fifth play.
“That’s just a compliment to our kids,” Foster said. “They know what our tradition is here. They responded to what we demanded and what we challenged them with this week.”
On offense, although Beamer denied holding anything back in nonconference games against No. 3 Alabama, Marshall and No. 23 Nebraska, opening Atlantic Coast Conference play with perhaps the toughest game left on its schedule meant taking the wraps off Tyrod Taylor.
The dual threat quarterback had run sparingly in the first three games, and the Hokies lack of punch so frustrated many fans against the Cornhuskers that they left Lane Stadium early, missing the 81-yard pass play and touchdown that won it with 21 seconds left.
Taylor, though, ran a quarterback draw on his seventh snap of the game, ripped off a 22-yard burst and several other good gains, and that opened things up for the Hokies offense.
“It’s an extra runner,” offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring said. “It gets you to play 11 on 11. Most times defenses like to play 11 on 10. That balances it back to even.”
Doing that, perhaps, also showed why the Hokies were considered overwhelming favorites to win the ACC again, and potentially put them in the same predicament Miami faced Saturday.
“Now the thing that we’ve got to do is avoid that ourselves,” Foster said of the hype. “The thing that we’ll challenge our kids with is you’ve got to be consistently good. You can’t just be an up-and-down team. You’ve got to continue to build on what we did today.”
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