Instant Analysis: ACC Championship Game

They might have four losses. They might not pack the firepower they once possessed. They might have been little better than the rest of their conference, especially a Georgia Tech club whom they were fortunate to play earlier in the season. But make no mistake: The Virginia Tech Hokies have successfully defended their ACC title.

Yes, a long and winding road carried the often hobbled Hokies to this unlikely championship, which needed numerous outside events to become a reality. Because North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Miami, and Virginia all stumbled when those teams had the ACC Coastal Division crown in their sights, Frank Beamer’s boys were able to return to a Florida city on the first weekend of December, against a Boston College bunch that defended its own division title in the ACC Atlantic. Last season, Virginia Tech bested BC in Jacksonville. This season, the Hokies ate up the Eagles in Tampa. It was a delightful dose of déjà vu for a brand-name program that just heightened its place in the college football pecking order.

Consider what this championship means for the bunch from Blacksburg: Virginia Tech has not only won back-to-back ACC titles, but three in the past five seasons. While former superpowers Miami and Florida State have fallen off the football map in recent years, the Hokies haven’t lost hold of their championship credentials. Since Tech left the Big East Conference for the ACC along with Miami and BC, only the Hokies have been able to remain at the top of their game. Today’s decisive victory proved as much.

While it’s entirely true that Boston College defeated Virginia Tech in each of the past two regular-season meetings, the Hokies have won the only showdown that has truly mattered. The Eagles might have landed the first strike in recent October battles, but Tech—by flying higher than BC in a December duel for a BCS bowl berth—has ultimately won the war for ACC supremacy. The Hokies’ ability to dust themselves off, lick their wounds, and bounce back against BC for two straight seasons says a lot about their staying power, not to mention their ability to respond in pressure situations, which is precisely what defined today’s game at Raymond James Stadium.

There’s a very simple way of analyzing this game, and it relates to areas of the field. When both teams needed to do something special, only Tech turned the trick.

Inside the opponent’s 5-yard line, Tech—on the strength of clutch scrambling from quarterback Tyrod Taylor—scored two touchdowns, while the Eagles committed two turnovers. That stat alone could account for the outcome of this contest.

Just to pound home the point a little more, however, there were other parts of the gridiron that made a difference in this game. From the opponent’s 33, Boston College chose to punt in the first quarter, while Tech—in the third quarter—kicked and made a 50-yard field goal, a huge boot by Dustin Keys that gave the Hokies a 10-point lead and the two-possession cushion that came with it. The kick forced the Eagles—with a young and inexperienced quarterback, Dominique Davis—to throw on almost every down, and that only enabled Tech’s defensive coordinator, Bud Foster, to send the wolves at Davis to an even greater degree.

Finally, it should be noted that Tech converted Eagle turnovers into 14 points, while BC could only gain three points off Hokie mistakes. This was a result of the fact that two BC blunders were either committed inside the Eagles’ own red zone, or witnessed Hokie returns that brought the ball inside the BC 20. Virginia Tech did cough up three turnovers on the afternoon, but never a mistake inside its own red zone. Real estate had a big effect on this contest, and the Hokies made sure to own the particularly precious pieces of Tampa turf.

Four ACC title games have been played. Virginia Tech has played in three of them. With today’s win, the Hokies have won two of them, with Florida State and Wake Forest being the only other clubs to find ACC hardware in the past half decade. College football’s great powers will rise and fall over the long march of time, but Frank Beamer’s program has been better than most in terms of maintaining top-flight consistency. Today’s victory—and the Orange Bowl bid that accompanies it—ranks as a milestone moment in the life of the ACC’s best football school.