The dust settles on the Virginia Tech 2004 football season. I assume that by now everybody has gotten over their Bourbon Street hangovers, quenched the Mississippi burning fires kindled by the propane of yet another Tech Sugar Bowl appearance, and have recovered from a New Orleans experience that left them laid out like Lenin in his tomb. Some of us, unfortunately, are still dealing with the aftereffects of a rather extraordinary way to quit smoking [I finally found a way to fulfill that resolution made over so many New Year‘s], but life and TSL Pass columns go on.

It will take some time, probably years, to apply the proper perspective to Tech’s '04 season. It was a year that began with a loss in the DC suburbs against the nation’s best team and ended with the same in New Orleans against the country’s second-best outfit. In between those two defeats there was another against NC State, but also ten victories and an inaugural ACC season that yielded an inaugural ACC championship. All things considered, it was a pretty darn good year by most any standard.

Tech came up short in both of its cracks against the country’s elite teams, demonstrating the difference between the Top Ten and the Top Two. USC and Auburn were both a little better than Tech and both won by just a little bit. Tech joined twenty-three other teams in losing to the Trojans and Tigers, the only one to lose to each. I notice you don’t hear too much anymore about Tech’s easy schedule.

Tech might not have been MNC-caliber, but they certainly had the stuff with which to conquer their new conference. Included among the seven ACC wins were two against old foes on the last two weeks of the regular season. Tech punctured the hype that ballooned out of Hooville, sending algroh slinking home to ponder that there is a little more to winning championships than braggadocio. The next week, in a made-for-television epic that found the ACC’s two Big East imports vying for the conference championship of their new league, either outright or shared, Tech knocked off Miami in the Orange Bowl to bogart the title. People named algroh, Bowden, Amato and Friedgen certainly were provided with ample evidence as to why it was necessary for the ACC to undertake a football expansion. Florida State took over ACC football when they arrived in 1992 and twelve years later the new kids were at it again. That was quite the football conference you were running, guys.

2004 was the year Tech re-appeared on the nation’s football radar. The program had suffered the loss of the media darling status conferred during 1999 through a series of sub-par finishes. There was no better way to deal with the reduced prominence applied by the media than to prove the media wrong again, which is what Tech did. Sixth-place finish my eye. As for certain members of the media, a certain former Roanoke sports editor must certainly be reacting with horror at both Tech’s championship and his shortened life span. One cannot also help but wonder whether a Tech-bashing national football writer has swallowed his keyboard or is attempting to eat the words on his screen. His silence regarding Tech’s title has become rather deafening.

The Virginia Tech football program reacted very well to the disappointments of past few Novembers. There was a re-dedication to championship football from the big guy on down, along with attitude adjustments and what turned out to be program addition by player subtraction. This demonstration that one cannot win big by resting on one’s past laurels will be knowledge that future Tech football teams will hopefully find very useful. It can also be hoped that Tech underclassmen have learned much from the outstanding senior leadership provided to this team and commit themselves to providing the same when it becomes their turn. It takes talent to win championships, but it also takes character and leadership, and this Tech team possessed it.

2004 was certainly the year of the Tech football team, but it was also the year of the Tech football fan. Much was made with Tech’s entrance to the ACC of the impact of the vaunted Hokie Nation. It was there for all to see. The season began with Tech fans packing FedEx Field, creating one of the more remarkable scenes in college football or any other kind. The season ended with Tech fans once again turning the French Quarter into the far southwestern corner of our state. In between, Tech fans flocked by the thousands to Winston-Salem, Atlanta, Chapel Hill and even Miami, providing the Tech team with solid fan support wherever they played. I don’t imagine the ADs at Wake Forest, Georgia Tech or Carolina are too upset with the cash infusion given their budgets by Tech fans. “Gee, I wonder how many more Syracuse would have brought” are probably not words spoken around those offices, especially since the ACC got the huge television contract, anyway. One can only imagine how much tickets Tech's road game at Duke will cost next year.

Speaking of next year, it is hard not to notice that the hype for the 2005 Virginia Tech football team has already begun to build. Pre-season football hype is a staple in Blacksburg, last year’s modest expectations notwithstanding. At the risk of being labeled a NATT, I would point out that four of the top five teams in this year’s ACC standings all had experienced senior quarterbacks, a most important requisite for a successful season. Next year’s Tech quarterback will have scant experience. But, then, neither did Tech’s QB in 1999.