Instant Analysis: Orange Bowl

In ten previous BCS bowls, the Atlantic Coast Conference had claimed only one victory, a victory in which the Virginia Tech Hokies were the losing team. Nine years after Florida State stopped them in the 2000 Sugar Bowl, Frank Beamer’s boys carried the banner for the ACC with distinction, and claimed the achievement that had eluded them for so long.

Irony can be dark, and it can be delicious as well. Thursday night’s 20-7 win over Cincinnati in Miami gave Virginia Tech’s football program a sweet and satisfying taste of triumph—not only for a team, but for the conference the Hokies opposed when Michael Vick tried to fend off Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles in New Orleans at the beginning of this decade.

By winning their first BCS bowl in four tries, and by winning their first showcase bowl game (dating back to the old Bowl Alliance era) since the 1995 Sugar Bowl against Texas, the Hokies added a postseason prize to their bulging trophy case. At long last, an ACC championship can be accompanied by an Orange Bowl scalp in Blacksburg. In a city and a game where many college football champions have been validated and affirmed over the years, the already-decorated Hokie program increased its stature to a considerable extent.

Given that Tech entered this tussle with four losses, many members of the college football cognoscenti felt—with a certain amount of justification—that the Hokies had to win this game in order to justify their place as a BCS bowl team. With that said, no program with a track record of consistently substantial success should have to defend itself from criticism, and Frank Beamer’s body of work has earned Tech the benefit of the doubt in many college football arguments. Yes, the BCS system could be tweaked to legislate 9-4 teams out of the big-bowl discussion, but the Hokies—owner of three of the past five ACC crowns—have achieved at a high level this decade, supplanting Florida State as the ACC’s premier football program. As kickoff time approached in Dolphins Stadium, the Hokies themselves weren’t the ones on trial; it was the ACC, bearer of an ugly 1-9 mark in BCS battles, that needed a boost from its most consistent champion.

After Tech’s gut-check win against a worthy but mistake-plagued Cincinnati squad, that ACC agony can finally and blessedly subside, in Blacksburg and every other league locale. Just how did the Hokies beat down the Bearcats? One only had to look to a ball-hawking Bud Foster-coached defense that responded splendidly to multiple forms of in-game adversity.

Tech successfully tackled multiple challenges—and not just UC ballcarriers—throughout Thursday night’s throwdown. The first urgent task for the Hokies was to rapidly regroup after the Bearcats roared downfield for a touchdown on their first offensive possession. Given that Cincinnati never again dented the scoreboard, it’s clear that Foster, a brilliant defensive coordinator who is largely responsible for the successes of the Beamer era, effectively adjusted to Bearcat coach Brian Kelly’s creative offensive offerings.

The deeper reason why Tech turned the tide after Cincy’s sizzling start was that the Hokies didn’t allow home run plays against a pass-happy opponent. The Bearcats depend on their ability to push the ball downfield, particularly to stud receiver Mardy Gilyard, who caught five passes for 128 yards in the first half. After halftime, however, Gilyard caught just two balls for 30 yards. The Bearcats showed flashes of brilliance throughout this encounter, but they met more and more resistance from Foster’s defense as the game continued. Without the big-gainers that came so easily in the game’s earlier stages, Cincinnati had to slowly wind its way to the red zone, and in that precious portion of the field where yards are harder to come by, the Hokies repeatedly planted their cleats in the turf and made a stand. The game’s most defining moments came when Cincinnati drove inside the Tech 20.

In the second quarter, with the game tied at 7-all, a Bearcat drive died when UC quarterback Tony Pike blinked. On a second-and-goal from the Hokie 8, Pike made a poor throw into the end zone that Tech’s Stephan Virgil plucked for a mammoth interception. Pike had a receiver open near the end line, and his decision to attempt the pass was a sound one, but a tentative throw delivered across his body led to a ball that floated far short of its intended target. In a moment of considerable importance, Pike—who has run hot and cold throughout Cincy’s stellar season—lost a measure of the confidence that flowed so freely on his team’s first touchdown march. This reality would enter into the proceedings two quarters later, the next time the Bearcats entered the Hokies’ red zone.

Midway through the fourth quarter, with Tech protecting a 20-7 lead, the Bearcats gained a first-and-goal at the 3. But instead of delivering a dart or finishing a play, Pike threw two incomplete passes on plays in which he ceded leverage to Tech defenders. After a third-down run gained two yards to the 1, Pike—on a planned fourth-down run—failed to lower his shoulder and dive for the goal line. When a Hokie defender heroically filled a gap to make a saving stick on Cincy’s hesitant signal caller, the Bearcats’ last best chance to create a fantastic finish evaporated into the Miami night. After landing one big blow out of the box, Pike lost his poise in the pressure cooker of a BCS bowl, the first in Cincinnati’s largely futile football history. Virginia Tech’s defense was more than a little responsible for Pike’s plummeting fortunes as this contest continued.

Between those two memorable red zone stops in the second and fourth quarters, Tech’s defense contributed a third play that enabled the Hokies to build a two-possession lead and breathe easier down the stretch. With Cincinnati down only 13-7, thanks to the gridiron gallantry of a defense that repeatedly managed to stop Tech just outside of field goal range (between midfield and the UC 35), the Bearcats—for all their offensive struggles—had a chance to take the lead with one perfect drive. Instead, the Hokies would use a Cincy possession to set up a touchdown of their own.

Pike, in the middle of his Hokie-forced tailspin, tried to execute a throwback screen by rolling right and then—after abruptly stopping—throwing across the field to his left. Instead of seeing the field, Pike automatically and mechanically released the ball, a telegraphed pass that was perfectly measured by Tech defensive lineman Orion Martin. It would have been more than enough for Martin—as a lineman, and not a defensive back—to merely bat the ball down with his big paws, but the trench warrior stunned everyone in the ballpark, and sent his own sideline into a state of unbridled joy, by making a circus catch at the UC 10. The sensational interception enabled the Hokies and their increasingly dominant ground game to hit paydirt. When reliable running back Darren Evans caused two Bearcat defenders to overrun their lanes and whiff on makeable tackles, Tech had attained the 20-7 lead that eventually became the final score. After one bad drive in the game’s embryonic stages, Virginia Tech’s defense picked up on Tony Pike’s passes to prevent Cincinnati from stealing this Orange Bowl. Because of great reactions in their secondary and an inspired effort in red zone situations, Bud Foster’s bunch brought the ACC the BCS bowl breakthrough the league so desperately needed.

Yes, it should be noted that Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor was superb in this game, given that the Hokie quarterback repeatedly moved the sticks on third downs by outrunning several Bearcat defenders to the first-down marker. Yes, Virginia Tech’s offense became much more consistent at the same time that Cincinnati’s offense lost more and more of its own polish and precision. But when this game’s supreme storyline is set in stone, it will be said—first and foremost—that Hokie heroics came from their defensive unit, while Cincinnati’s sob story could be connected to Tony Pike’s tentative red-zone play and a penchant for throwing crippling interceptions.

As a result of all these developments, the Atlantic Coast Conference—whose champion denied Virginia Tech a national championship nine years ago in New Orleans—can now boast of those same Hokies as their terrific and salvific standard-bearer on the first night of 2009.