Virginia Tech's two straight ACC Championship Game victories over Boston College have helped dull the pain of three straight regular season losses to the Eagles, but the fact remains: from 2006-2008, BC has laid some painful, at times embarrassing, defeats on the Hokies. Boston College: They're the New Pitt.

You remember VT's rivalry with Pitt in the Big East days. Pittsburgh had the uncanny ability to play JV football against many teams on their schedule, and NFL football against the Hokies. It was maddening.

Perhaps it was karma. Most people point to Tech's 1995 win over Miami as the victory that kicked off Virginia Tech's football greatness, but others will point further back, to the 63-21 thrashing Tech laid on Pittsburgh on September 11, 1993, as the moment the Hokies realized they were breaking out of their probation-induced football coma and were headed for better things. Indeed, those Hokies finished 9-3 that year and won the Independence Bowl, the first of Tech's current 16-year bowl streak.

That game had the opposite effect on Pittsburgh. The Panthers were 1-0 coming into that game, with a win over Southern Mississippi, and were supposed to be resurgent under coaching legend Johnny Majors, who had coached the Panthers to a national championship in 1976 and was back at Pitt after a 16-year stint at Tennessee.

However, they were not resurgent, as the Hokies pointed out in brutal fashion, amassing a school-record 500 yards rushing and a school-record 675 yards of total offense in the romp. While the win kicked off a new era of success for Virginia Tech football, Pittsburgh went on a downward spiral from which they would never recover. The Panthers lost five more games in a row after being flattened by the Hokies and finished 3-8 on the year.

Another 3-8 season followed in 1994, then 2-9 in 1995, and finally, 4-7 in 1996 before Majors and the Panthers parted ways. During the Johnny Majors era, the Hokies went 4-0 against Pitt by a combined score of 168-61 (42-15 average).

Pittsburgh hired Walt Harris to replace Majors, and Harris' hiring produced immediate dividends in the wars with Virginia Tech: Pitt beat the Hokies 30-23 in Pittsburgh in 1997.

Then things returned to normal, as Tech piled up three straight victories over Pittsburgh: 27-7 in 1998, 30-17 in 1999, and 37-34 in 2000.

The 2000 game should have served as a warning to the Hokies. Pitt knocked Michael Vick out of the game with an injured ankle, and the Hokies barely scratched out a victory behind backup QB Dave Meyer, winning on a 27-yard field goal by Carter Warley with 16 seconds left. Yes, that Carter Warley; he did win a game for Tech, once upon a time.

Still, no one saw what was coming next. In 2001, the Hokies traveled to Pittsburgh and were mauled 38-7, in a game that didn't feature any offensive points by the Hokies, just a blocked field goal return by Ronyell Whitaker.

In 2002, Pittsburgh came into Lane Stadium and ended the #3 Hokies' dreams of a national championship with a 28-21 come-from-behind win. Down 21-7, the Panthers made one freak passing play after another (hello, Larry Fitzgerald, you're kinda good) and dominated Tech in the trenches, rushing for 275 yards on 44 carries.

In 2003, the Hokies traveled to Pittsburgh with a 7-1 record, ranked 5th in the country, and again were dominated at the point of attack by the Panthers. Larry Fitzgerald was his usual self, with eight catches for 108 yards and a TD, but again, it was Tech's inability to stop the Pittsburgh offense that did them in. The Panthers marched mercilessly downfield and punched in the winning touchdown with 47 seconds left, ruining a Tech-record 241 yards rushing by Kevin Jones. The game-winning drive was made possible by a hideous no-call of Pittsburgh interfering with Justin Hamilton on a fourth down play with about four minutes left.

Remember those three straight defeats now, Hokie fans? One humiliating (38-7) and two excruciatingly painful (losing to Pitt as the #3 and #5 team in the nation)? Pittsburgh holds the longest current winning streak against the Hokies in the Beamer Bowl era, a three-game streak that will stand until at least 2012, when the two teams are scheduled to meet again.

It was the Pittsburgh Panthers who did more than any other team to define the 2001-2003 Hokie football teams as disappointments. Each one of Pitt's wins over Tech in those three seasons kicked off season-ending slides for the Hokies.

Now that I've exposed that old wound, let's move on to the subject of Boston College. In my best Seinfeld-greets-Newman voice ... "Hello, BC."

Like Pittsburgh before them, the Hokies enjoyed a long period of dominance over BC. After going 1-2 against Boston College from 1993-1995, the Hokies ripped off seven straight wins over the Eagles by a combined score of 227-105 (32-15 average).

Since then? 3-4 against Boston College, including 1-4 in the regular season.

Putting aside the two ACC Championship Game wins over BC -- I can do that, it's my column -- the series against the Eagles has been a tough pill to swallow, especially the last three years. The 2003 Tech team had some serious issues with chemistry and effort, and their 34-27 loss to BC in Lane Stadium is almost forgotten as part of a more elaborate tapestry of a program that temporarily lost its way.

The two teams didn't play in 2004, and then the Hokies righted the ship in this rivalry by dominating BC 30-10 in 2005, in a game that wasn't as close as the score. Tech outgained BC 492-183 and ran 81 plays to just 51 for the Eagles.

But since then, it's been a Pittsburgh-style mess. A BC team that I annually dismiss as not having as much talent as the Hokies and as being coached by a circus clown (Jeff Jagodzinski in 2007 and 2008) has owned Tech. And the defeats have been painful and humiliating.

In 2006, ranked 22nd in the nation, the 4-1 Hokies ventured to Chestnut Hill and were whipped 22-3 in a game that shook the Hokie football program to its core. The Hokies came in averaging 33 points a game, with their one loss being an anomaly (we thought) to GT at home the previous week, 38-27.

BC buried Tech, exposing the Tech offense (181 yards) as pretenders and leading to two embarrassing incidents that led Hokie fans everywhere to question the heart of their team. When BC scored a fourth-quarter TD to go up 20-3, Vince Hall and Aaron Rouse got into a shouting match and had to be separated on the sidelines. Defensive end Chris Ellis committed a cheap shot personal foul on BC's next possession, and as the officials marched off the penalty, the BC band played "Sweet Caroline." TV cameras caught Tech whip linebacker Brendan Hill dancing in carefree fashion, apparently oblivious to his team's plight.

ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit laid into the Hokies for their lack of discipline and heart, and I wrote a column called Rudderless Hokies Take a Big Step Backwards that was critical of the team's lack of leadership and focus. The article set a TSL record which still stands for votes cast for a pay article, with 1,096 subscribers weighing in. Hokie fans were hot.

The 2006 Virginia Tech team didn't go to the ACC Championship Game, by virtue of their loss to Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets lost to Wake Forest, who lost to Louisville in the Orange Bowl.

2007 rolled around, and on a rainy Thursday night in Blacksburg, Boston College entered the game 7-0 and ranked #2 in the country, to face a 6-1 Tech team ranked #8. Tech's Bud Foster put together a masterful plan to stop BC's Matt Ryan, and for almost 56 minutes, it worked. But Ryan followed up some questionable playcalling on a Tech possession that ended with 4:16 remaining by driving the Eagles for a touchdown that made it 10-7 with 2:11 to go.

Then the Hokies failed to corral an onsides kick, and BC went on a drive that ESPN later touted as a Heisman-defining moment. Watch the drive on YouTube if you dare -- you will be reminded that the Eagles scored not just once (with 11 seconds left to go), but twice, with the first one being called back due to a penalty. And you'll be treated to Chris Fowler saying "And Lane Stadium goes silent!" And you'll get to witness Jeff Jagodzinski doing his goofy victory jig. Click a related link, and you'll get to see Matt Ryan hurling on the sidelines.

It's all a horrible abomination that most Tech fans would just as soon bury in their collective memories -- much like the 1998 Game of Which We Shall Not Speak -- and Tech's win over BC in the 2007 ACC Championship Game helped heal the wound.

But remember this: the 2007 Hokies finished #3 in the BCS rankings. What if they had beaten Boston College? Would Tech have made the BCS Championship Game, against an Ohio State squad the Hokies might have been able to beat? We'll never know, because Matt Ryan's pass happened. It's history.

The 2008 game between these two teams turned up the criticism of Tech's flailing offense and its offensive coordinator, Bryan Stinespring, to ear-splitting levels. The 5-1 Hokies, ranked 17th in the nation, visited 4-1 Boston College, got two interception returns for touchdowns ... and lost, 28-23.

Boston College got a punt return TD from Rich Gunnell and limited the punchless Hokie offense to 240 yards (at least that's an improvement over 2006) and zero offensive touchdowns. I started off Monday Thoughts with this paragraph:

The elephant in the room -- Virginia Tech's struggling offense -- had been sitting quietly in the corner all season, and the Hokies notched a 5-1 record despite their lack of offensive production. But Saturday night, the elephant got rowdy and starting knocking over furniture and breaking stuff. Things finally collapsed, and in the aftermath of Tech's 28-23 defeat, all eyes are on the offense, or lack thereof.

And I didn't really slow down from there. The offense's inability to show a pulse against BC intensified the criticism of Bryan Stinespring, which was already at a high level.

Much like 2007, the Hokies regrouped after that loss to BC, and they got their revenge, dominating the Eagles in an ACCCG win that catapulted Tech to an Orange Bowl win and a season deemed a success.

And that's the difference between Tech's struggles with BC and their Big East struggles with Pittsburgh. In 2007 and 2008, the Hokies got a shot at redemption and took advantage of it. But that doesn't erase the memories of what the Eagles have done to the Hokies in the last three regular season meetings, dealing Tech embarrassing and painful losses, including one that might have cost the Hokies a shot at a national championship.

So fellas, do everybody a favor Saturday: Don't save it up for the ACC Championship Game this time. Come out and pound BC from the opening whistle. Knock the Eagles back where they belong: all the way back into the late 1990s. Quit messing around and restore order to this rivalry.