UConn was expected to be a challenge, but this game was 40-0 just 35 minutes in, and the Hokies cruised from there. UConn wasn't sharp for the early part of the game, and the Hokies struck quickly and often for scores that put this game in the bag before UConn could settle down and start executing.

UConn lost the nation's leading rusher, Terry Caulley, on just his second carry of the game, but that didn't affect the outcome greatly. Caulley couldn't have stopped Kevin Jones from averaging over 8 yards a carry (12 carries, 105 yards), he couldn�t have made QB Dan Orlovsky's passes more accurate, he couldn't have prevented VT from blocking a punt and returning it for a TD, and he probably wouldn't have been on the field for Mike Imoh's 91-yard kickoff return.

This game reminds me of some Florida State/Virginia Tech games from the last 15 years or so (including the 1999 national championship loss). Many times the Hokies have beaten the 'Noles statistically, only to lose the game because of big plays, a situation that usually points to a disparity in talent and depth on the two teams. D�j� vu, except this time, the Hokies are on the FSU side of the fence, and UConn is playing the part of VT.

Not that UConn outplayed VT, at least not when it mattered. The Huskies didn't really start moving the ball and scoring until the Hokies had their 40-0 lead, a lead built not on long scoring drives, but quick strikes from offense, defense, and special teams. By now, you know the two big stats from this game:

• VT scored six different ways: field goal, touchdown pass, touchdown run, interception return, punt block, and kickoff return.

• The Hokies scored 6 TD's, and the 3 offensive touchdowns all came on 2-play "drives": 2 plays, 63 yards; 2 plays, 42 yards; and 2 plays 72 yards. None of VT's touchdowns came on a possession of more than 38 seconds.

This is one of those "out-of-whack" games, so it's a little bit difficult to talk about in any coherent fashion (because the game itself wasn't coherent), but we'll give it a shot. Items of interest to me are VT's 0-for-8 third down conversion rate, and the yardage the Hokies surrendered after going up 40-0, so we'll examine those two things, plus others, in a little more detail.

Coming into this game, the Hokies led the NCAA in third-down conversion percentage: 26-of-39, or 66.7%. In this game, they laid a big goose egg: 0-for-8.

What happened? Let's take a look at all eight failures.

If I had to categorize the plays, I would break it down to poor execution on VT's part five times (#1, 2, 3, 6, and 8), a situational play call that didn't have a prayer one time (#4), and a good defensive play by UConn twice (#5 and #7).

I think it's fair to say that Bryan Randall and Ernest Wilford weren't very sharp in this game. Randall had a couple of nice option runs and one very good pass (the TD to Wilford was thrown under a heavy rush, and Randall showed great poise), but he missed some open receivers and threw behind some others. That's Randall's thing: when he's sharp, he's sharp, but he has his off days.

In the eight failed third-down conversions, Randall executed poorly twice (#1 and #3 both could have been completed for good yardage with better throws), and Wilford dropped an easy catch on one (#6) and might have run too short a route on another (#5, but give credit to the UConn LB for a solid tackle).

Wilford had two drops of easy passes and a third catch that he could have made but didn�t. His best moment, obviously, was the layout, diving catch on the 28-yarder for a TD. But overall, he and Randall weren't on top of their games, and that affected the VT offense greatly.

One guy who was on top of his game was Kevin Jones, who ran 12 times for 105 yards and a TD. Jones made some runs that didn't go for big yardage but were spectacular. He's really in a groove, running with power, vision, and athleticism, and his changes of direction are nearly impossible to stop.

After having six runs against UCF that went for 24 negative yards (as detailed in that game analysis), KJ has since run for 350 positive yards and zero negative yards on 54 carries against JMU, Texas A&M, and UConn. That's an average of 6.48 yards per carry with absolutely no backtracking over the last three games.

And the VT OL had a good game, too. Not perfect, but good. If you want to see two well-blocked running plays, take a look at these:

• KJ's 23-yard TD, 3:10 remaining, second quarter. Guards Jacob Gibson and Will Montgomery both blew their guys away from the hole, and center Jake Grove went out and sealed off the linebacker. Fullback Doug Easlick didn't even need to get a block, and as a matter of fact, barely chipped a defender who slashed in early in the play. Jones shot through the space vacated by Grove and was off to the races.

• Cedric Humes' 58-yard TD run, 6:44 remaining, fourth quarter. Backup right guard Jason Murphy fired into the inside linebacker and drove him ten yards off the line of scrimmage; backup fullback Steve Canter nailed the outside linebacker, and wide receiver David Clowney took out the cornerback. Humes, like Jones, blew through the hole and was downfield in a heartbeat.

These are plays the OL had a lot of trouble executing last year, even against the likes of Western Michigan.

Frank Beamer's special teams, which have been shaky the last few years, were almost perfect against UConn. Here's what they did:

• Vinnie Burns punted six times for an impressive 45.2-yard average. He had one punt the likes of which you rarely see, a picture-perfect 57-yarder that was downed on UConn's 1-yard line. He had another beauty later, a 45-yarder downed on the UConn 2-yard line. Burns sent a third punt into UConn's end zone from 46 yards out.

• Carter Warley was perfect on field goal attempts, kicking both straight through the uprights, from 38 and 35 yards out. The only black mark against the kicking game was a bad snap that led to a missed extra point. (Fortunately, since it was 40-0 at the time, we didn't have to hear the announcers say, "That one could come back to haunt them.") Fans worried that Warley might be a weak spot this year, but he's now 5-for-6 on field goals, including 2-for-2 between 30 and 39 yards, and 1-for-1 above 40 yards (with a long of 43).

• Mike Imoh returned the first kickoff for a TD since (stop me if you've heard this one) 1992, when Tony Kennedy returned one against Louisville. Returning kickoffs gives Imoh a chance to use his best skills, which are open-field vision and the ability to change directions without losing speed. Lots of guys break containment and have "one man to beat," only to lose speed as they juke that one man and get run down from behind. No such problem with Imoh, who put a little shifty open-field move on UConn's kicker and blew past him without breaking stride. As one message board poster said, Imoh was running the same speed when he crossed the goal line that he was back on the Tech 20.

• The Hokies blocked a punt and returned it for a TD, with Nathaniel Adibi getting the block, and Chris Clifton doing the TD honors. VT special teams trivia: in between the 1992 kickoff return and Imoh's kickoff return, the Hokies returned 11 blocked kicks for scores.

One note about the blocked punt: Watching the tape doesn't reveal anything particularly inventive or clever that was employed to block the punt. VT had a player standing up behind the line of scrimmage who stunted to the left of UConn's line, bursting through it and drawing the attention of the up-man. VT overloaded the line on the right side, and Adibi came through. The punt was doomed, because the up-man can't block two people, both of whom had a good head of steam.

To add to the total domination of the play, Jimmy Williams was slashing in from the far left side of the UConn line, and if Adibi hadn't blocked the punt, Williams would have. If anything, Williams pulled up to keep from plowing into Adibi in their race to the punter.

And it wasn't even close. Adibi slowed up a tiny bit at the end to keep from overrunning the football as it came off the punter's foot.

Surely I've asked this question before: Do you ever get the impression that Virginia Tech can block a punt any time they want to? Twice against Texas A&M and once against UConn, the Hokies so overwhelmed the punter that there was no way he was getting the punt off. The Texas A&M punter didn't even try, tucking the ball both times and running. Nobody would have chided UConn's punter if he had done the same.

To keep the punt teams honest, the Hokies have to set up the returns some times, and play "punt safe," keeping the defense in, for other punting situations, where the offense is on the VT side of the field and has short yardage to go, and therefore might fake the kick.

The Hokies punt-block team is smokin'. Good thing, too, because that could be the difference in a game against the Pitt and Miami offensive machines, and heck, it might be the difference against WVU, Syracuse, or UVa.

Connecticut had 443 yards of offense. Sounds like a lot, but for a long time in the first and second quarters, they didn't do much on offense. They opened the game with a 52-yard completion to Shaun Feldeisen (VT Rover Michael Crawford just flat blew the one-on-one coverage), but from then until the time it was 40-0, they picked up just five first downs, and one of those was from a questionable VT roughing-the-passer penalty on Noland Burchette.

When Clifton crossed the goal line with the punt block, putting the Hokies up by 40, UConn had 163 yards of total offense. From that point on, VT started substituting liberally, and the Huskies kept their starting offense in, rolling up 13 more first downs and 280 yards of offense.

A reader asked me to analyze how much substituting the Hokies really did on defense, and I can tell you that in UConn's last three drives, which were 80, 97, and 63 yards, VT had a lot of second and even third-stringers in. When VT brings in defensive end Bob Ruff and defensive tackle Isaac Montgomery, they're reaching the bottom of the depth chart. That's not an insult to those guys, but the fact is, they're the fifth options at their respective positions and rarely play.

The generous part of me excuses UConn's late offensive success by saying that substituting brings discontinuity to the defense, as starters and backups mix, and the play gets � well, not sloppy, but not smooth. The backups have talent, but little experience (take James Griffin, for example), and they wind up out of position and miss plays.

And also, UConn finally started making plays. They missed a lot of opportunities in the first half, but QB Dan Orlovsky finally started making some sharp throws and completing some passes. He was 9-of-20 for 94 yards when it was 40-0, and from that point on, he went 16-of-20 for 220 yards and a 2 TDs, and that wasn't all VT's incompetence. Orlovsky and his receivers started connecting.

But the un-generous part of me says, yeah, but even the Tech backups, like a blind squirrel, should find an occasional nut -- in other words, make a play of their own to kill a drive. UConn converted two fourth downs in the fourth quarter, and they made a play when they needed it on their last three drives, except for losing the ball on downs at the very end.

The issue is how to explain VT's porous defense, beyond the brief explanations given above. And to do that, I'm going to take a rare step and defer to a message board poster who did a great technical analysis of the film. Many of you may have read a message board post by "Raleigh Hokie" that explained UConn's last three drives, but you may have missed it. Here it is, edited for length and clarity:

So, UConn had a couple of late, meaningless scores and VT cruised to another home victory over a decent, but overmatched opponent. Yet, anyone who saw it in person left feeling concerned about the ability of VT's defense to stop a solid passing attack. UConn's last three drives of the game were:

1) 80 yards for a touchdown
2) 98 yards for a touchdown
3) 83 yards ending on an incomplete 4th down pass in the end zone.

So, what did UConn do that was successful? Why couldn't VT's defense get off the field? I think there are several factors that contributed.

First, everyone is now familiar with VT's defensive schemes and tendencies. It's a scheme that is now eleven years old and there is a LOT of game film available that shows how to successfully attack it. There's an old saying in the NFL that the first three games of any season are dictated by talent and skill, but from game four on, games are dictated by intelligence and experience. That's because with three games of film, veteran coaches and players can find the tendencies of the other team and game plan accordingly.

The VT defensive scheme is no longer unique....a formula has been found to attack it successfully. It started with Sparky Woods at UVa, then with Walt Harris at Pittsburgh. Other teams now study that formula over and over with game film. Offensive coordinators (OC's) have charted and documented the tendencies of the VT defense after studying thousands of plays � The result is the "quick passing game" that we're seeing over and over now, mixed with the delayed running game, and a max-protect downfield passing game.

Teams now know where the VT pressure is going to come from and they are blocking it, leaving receivers running across the field man-to-man against Tech's safeties and linebackers. Any time the offense can get a receiver running crossing routes against the VT linebackers, then you know they have come up with something that can be successful. That is a matchup that OC's will take every time.

Another factor leading to these long drives is the softness of the VT defense when in zone coverage. Zones are really counter to the entire theory behind the VT defense, which is based on aggressive play, attacking and blitzing from all over the field. The personnel is recruited to play an attack style of defense...when zone is needed, there is an awkwardness to it. It's counter to the reflex that the defense is based on. Bottom line....the VT defense just isn't very good at it and never has been.

Ok, so what happened in those last three drives against UConn? Well, the defense played zone almost exclusively, and it showed that it isn't a strength. In addition, second and third teamers were out there, and their inexperience showed. Aaron Rouse and James Griffin showed why they still have a ways to go in pass coverage -- both were too shallow in their zone drops, making it easy for a very good UConn QB to hit the receivers in front of the corners or safeties that had deep responsibilities.

At this point in time, Brandon Manning and Michael Crawford are far ahead of Rouse and Griffin when it comes to pass coverage. Vinnie Fuller was playing very soft in deep zones. It was obvious that he and Rouse weren't clicking together on their respective drops, often leaving big holes in between their zones. What I found interesting was that even though VT had inexperienced Brian McPherson in there on the right side, UConn continued to throw deep outs to their left (Fuller's side). Going left with those passes was in the UConn game plan and they kept doing it even though the more experienced guy was on that side late.

The UConn TD's weren't anything special. UConn's first TD came on a fourth down pass just before the end of the 3rd quarter. That play was nicely set up, but would have been unsuccessful had Jimmy Williams not slipped in the end zone. The idea was for one receiver to clear JW out of the play and then hit the other guy dragging across into the vacated area. But, JW read it perfectly and would have been there to knock the pass down had he not slipped and fell.

On UConn's 2nd TD, Fuller bit on an inside receiver and gave up the deep outside. He blew the coverage...it was almost as if he thought he was playing safety or man coverage instead of corner with deep outside responsibility. Mental mistake, plain and simple.

Will here again: couldn't have said it better myself. No really, I couldn't have. Thanks to Raleigh Hokie for the assist.

And now, we have overstayed our welcome, and it is time to go.

The Hokies finally go on the road, traveling to Piscataway, NJ to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. In VT's last four trips up there, they have outscored Rutgers 212-56, an average of 53-14. Something about Rutgers Stadium makes VT light up the scoreboard.

On Monday's Hokie Hotline, the VT coaches were raving about how much better Rutgers looks on film this year, and the Scarlet Knights are 3-1 for the first time since 1993.

We'll be back with a preview later this week.

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