Remember back in the 1980s or early 1990s, when Virginia Tech would put a scare into Florida State, Oklahoma, or Miami, maybe even outplay them on the stat sheet, only to lose? Reversal is sweet, and despite Virginia Tech being outgained by over 200 yards, the Hokies, who have rediscovered how to win in the last year, did what it took to get out of Raleigh with the W.

Now that I've had a day to reflect on this game and watch my DVD of it, I've decided that above all, this game was exactly what it needed to be: a win. It was ugly at times, and the defense struggled much more than I expected them to, but in the end, it was a win, and there are a lot of positive things to take away from the victory. The things that didn't go well are fixable, and the things that did go well can be continued and improved upon.

Sometimes I like to break down a game by going deep into the box score, or closely analyzing certain plays. For example, after last year's loss to the Wolfpack, I broke down every one of NC State's ten sacks. But for this game, I'm going to speak more in generalities, though I will throw a few stats in for support.

First, let's talk about doing what it takes to win.

For Hokie fans, this game was a gut-wrencher, like many of 2004's big victories. NC State rolled up 438 yards of offense, more than any team managed against the Hokies in 2004. (USC had 373 yards, tops for that season for VT opponents.) Wolfpack receivers racked up about 200 yards after the catch (I'm not being facetious; it really was about 200 yards), and Hokie tacklers missed 15 tackles.

Offensively, VT only had 232 yards. NC State's fabulous defensive line applied pressure all game long. Marcus Vick, renowned for his accuracy, missed some wide open receivers. Four of Tech's first five possessions were three and out.

The referees took a VT touchdown off the board, reversing a fumble call to an incomplete pass call.

But still VT found a way to win. For all the talk of Marcus Vick's game-breaking ability, for all the fancy formations that new State offensive coordinator Marc Trestman threw at Virginia Tech, the Hokies won this game the old-fashioned way: They won the turnover battle, dominated field position, committed fewer penalties, and controlled the ball with the running game late.

NC State had three turnovers, two interceptions and a fumble, while VT, in a critical measurement of poise on the road, didn't turn it over at all. As noted above, the Hokies didn�t score off of NC State's turnovers, one of which came on the last play of the game, but the one State fumble proved to be a critical component of Tech's win.

With the game tied 13-all late in the third quarter, State's Darrell Blackman got around the corner on the Hokie defense but got caught in an Aaron Rouse-Jimmy Williams sandwich, making him cough up the ball and then spend a few minutes sitting on the turf, contemplating how difficult breathing can sometimes be.

Tech took possession on the State 43 and picked up just one yard in the next three plays, but when they punted, Blackman, perhaps still fuzzy from the Williams/Rouse hit, committed a game-altering mental error when he fair caught the ball on his one-yard line.

Three plays later, State punted, and Eddie Royal returned it to the Wolfpack 20 yard line. On third and nine from the 19, Marcus Vick hit David Clowney in the end zone for a 20-13 lead that Tech wouldn't relinquish.

So though the turnover itself didn't directly hurt the Wolfpack, the shift in field position, along with Blackman's mental error, led to the game-winning score.

As for field position, because of the success NC State had moving the ball, I didn't realize what a significant advantage the Hokies had here. VT's average starting field position was their own 32 yard line, while NC State's was their own 21 yard line. Their own 21? That's pretty impressive, and you can thank Nic Schmitt for that, as he averaged 46.5 yards per punt and put the Pack inside their 20 three times.

NC State started just one possession in Tech territory, when they took over on VT's 48 yard line with 11:35 to go in the second quarter. From that point on, State didn't get to start a drive outside their own 30 yard line. Their last seven possessions started from their 24, 20, 20, 20, 1, 27 and 20 yard lines.

Remember, the VT defensive scheme is predicated on not giving up the big play and on making the opponent, in particular the quarterback, put together long drives during which they must execute play after play after play. Most teams and QBs can't do it, and while NC State completed a lot of short passes and piled up a couple hundred yards after the catch, they didn't score a touchdown after their first possession. This allowed Virginia Tech to do with Marcus Vick what they perfected last year with Bryan Randall: hang around, hang around, hang around, and then strike when the time was right.

When one team out gains another by a huge margin but loses anyway, turnovers and penalties often tell the tale. We already covered the turnovers -- one of State's turnovers led to a VT touchdown -- now let's cover the penalties.

VT had six penalties for 40 yards (6.67 yards per penalty), and NC State had 12 penalties for 105 yards (8.75 yards per penalty). NC State got two first downs off of Tech penalties, and the Hokies got four first downs off of State penalties.

But within those stats, there's a story of how NC State's penalties were more costly than the numbers reveal. The Hokies committed a pass interference penalty on third down that kept State's TD drive alive, but after that, none of VT's defensive penalties came on third down to revive a drive that otherwise had expired. And offensively, the Hokies didn't have a single penalty, save an intentional delay of game on their last possession.

NC State, however, hurt themselves a few times with penalties. Four offensive penalties helped kill drives, meaning that there were four times where the Pack committed offensive penalties and then failed to pick up another first down.

Defensively, State committed a face mask penalty on a third down that kept alive a VT drive and led to a field goal, and in a critical mistake, the Wolfpack ran into Tech kicker Brandon Pace on Tech's last possession, allowing the Hokies to run the clock down from about 2:30 to 0:39 remaining in the game.

Defensively, the penalties were pretty much a wash, but offensively, the State offense slowed itself down, while the Hokie offense never once shot itself in the foot.

Beyond the measurable penalties, State had the biggest bonehead play of the night, Blackman's terrible fair catch decision. By contrast, I can't think of any plays that Hokies made that would cause you to cringe. Sure, Tech tackled poorly and failed to execute a number of times, but they played with poise on the road and didn't commit stupid penalties or make groan-inducing mental errors.

State head coach Chuck Amato was one of Bobby Bowden's top assistants at Florida State, and he has brought some aspects of the Florida State program with him: Florida players (30 on the State roster), speed (the Wolfpack is one of the fastest teams in the conference), and lack of discipline (NCSU finished 115th in penalties in 2004 and are up to their old tricks already).

The difference was that Florida State in its heyday could be undisciplined and still get the win. Amato's Wolfpack isn't good enough to overcome the penalties and undisciplined play.

The Hokies got their heads handed to them statistically for more than one-half of the game. After NC State's first possession of the third quarter, the Wolfpack had outgained Tech 297-99 and had a ten-minute time of possession advantage, 22:27 to 12:28.

From that point on, the yardage battle was even -- NCSU 141, VT 133 -- but the time of possession was heavily skewed in Tech's favor, 16:58 to 8:07. Of VT's last four possessions, two of them ate up the large majority of that time, going for 7:46 and 7:30.

VT was outplayed in the first half but kept it close, 13-10. While Virginia Tech fans sweated out the second half, the Hokies were in the process of doing what they did for much of the 2004 season: getting control of the game and gradually tightening the screws. Throughout the second half, the Hokies' offensive line got stronger and stronger, asserting itself in the running game (particularly on runs up the gut), and Tech's defensive line started to get penetration and pressure on the quarterback.

Tech waited and waited and finally got the opportunity to blow things open, scoring on the 19-yarder to Clowney, and then scoring on a fumble return by Aaron Rouse after Jay Davis was hit and fumbled. That play by Rouse would have made it 27-13 Hokies, throwing the Wolfpack into a hole they couldn't have climbed out of, but replay officials in the booth blew it and reversed the call, ruling it an incomplete pass.

The play itself was close, I think, but in order to reverse the call, the booth official needed to see irrefutable evidence that the call made on the field -- a fumble -- was wrong. In my mind, the evidence to reverse the call wasn't there. I felt that whatever call was made on the field, be it fumble or incomplete pass, should have stood and not been reversed. Instead, the replay official in the booth seemed eager to leave his stamp on the game, and he did so to Tech's detriment.

Chris Coleman, Phil Martin and I all wrote before the game that it would be close into the fourth quarter and would be blown open by a big VT touchdown, off a turnover or a special teams play. Well, guess what: VT got the play, but the refs took it away.

I also thought that VT made some odd personnel and playcalling decisions down the stretch that helped keep things close. On Tech's last possession, with center Will Montgomery and guards Brandon Gore and Jason Murphy asserting themselves, I felt they should have battered away at the Wolfpack with 233-pound Cedric Humes. Instead, Mike Imoh played most of that last possession. Imoh had played well early in the game, but in the end, his shiftiness and 197-pound frame should have been taken from the field in favor of Humes.

Humes averaged 3.7 yards per carry (10 carries, 37 yards) to 3.1 for Imoh (18 carries, 56 yards). That's not a big disparity, but on that final drive, Humes was clearly the back of choice, I thought. He ran it three times for 18 yards (6.0 ypc), then was pulled for Imoh, who ran it eight times for just 17 yards (2.1 ypc).

Humes and Imoh are a nice thunder and lightning combination, and I think the general approach ought to be to front-end load Imoh's carries and back-end load Humes' carries. Unlike VT, NC State doesn't substitute much on the DL � only five Wolfpack defensive linemen registered tackles, and their starting four seemed to spend most of the game on the field � and as the game wore on, you could see Tech's push getting stronger. Pounding away at them with Humes might have yielded better results on that last drive, instead of the shifty Imoh, whose cutting and juking in the backfield gave NCSU's athletic DL a chance to use their best asset, their speed, to their advantage. Imoh's last six carries netted just four yards.

After the Wolfpack committed the running into the kicker penalty that kept the Hokie drive alive at the State 23 yard line with about 2:30 to go, VT lost 8 yards over the next three plays, then took an intentional delay of game call to give them more room to punt, from the NC State 36.

That whole sequence was a head shaker, going from a field goal attempt to intentionally backing up for a punt. In reviewing the plays, though, I see what offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring was doing. On first down, the Hokies lined up in the I-formation with Jeff King in front of Imoh. King went into motion to the left side of the O-line, and Vick executed a delayed handoff to Imoh, who lost two yards.

On second down, the Hokies ran the same formation, motion, and delayed handoff, except this time, Vick faked the handoff and turned and looked downfield to pass. State must have had it covered well, because Vick tucked the ball back in and got swallowed up by three Wolfpack pass rushers. The play lost six yards and set up a third and 18, so it turned out to be a complete failure, but I'll give Stinespring this: he was going for the jugular. VT had just run the ball seven straight times, and it's a testament to NC State's defense that they didn't get fooled by Stinespring's attempt to sucker them into giving up a game-sealing touchdown.

Despite the lousy call reversal by the refs, the decision to play Imoh instead of Humes, and the failure of Stinespring's attempted coup de grace, the point stands that VT played strong down the stretch and closed the Wolfpack out. In the style of the 2004 Hokies, this 2005 Tech team played calm, kept their cool, and made plays for the win.

Now, let me hit you with an endless stream of bullet-point thoughts.

• After a weekend of watching other teams tackle poorly, I expected VT to look good by comparison, but the Hokies also suffered from opening-game tackling woes, missing 15 tackles and giving up 114 yards after first contact. James Anderson in particular tackled poorly, a surprising thing for such an experienced, smart, athletic player. He came in high repeatedly, leading to two incidental face mask penalties. Anderson did lead the team in tackles with 10, and he was the one State picked on the most as they isolated running backs and WRs on Tech's linebackers. Vince Hall was solid but missed four tackles, as well. They'll get better in this department.
  
  
• As good as VT's linebackers are, they took bad angles a couple of times and lost containment. On Blackman's 25-yard TD run, Vince Hall got suckered and charged off to the right, clearing out the middle for Blackman. (DJ Parker filled but missed the tackle.) On another long NCSU run, both Hall and Xavier Adibi cleared out of the middle, opening it up. When they were in position, Hall and Adibi played well, but they demonstrated a couple of times that they're still just sophomores.
  
  
• Continuing in that vein, most of VT's defensive weaknesses were displayed by sophomores or inexperienced players. Roland Minor played, I thought, deep in coverage and soft underneath, DJ Parker missed a few tackles, and Parker and fellow safety Justin Hamilton were pretty much invisible in this game (five total tackles between the two of them). To the good, Parker and Hamilton didn't give up anything deep, most notably on State's early flea-flicker, when Tech's defensive backs were not fooled and provided good coverage downfield.
  
  
• Hokies were completely fooled by NC State's fake punt. On 4th and one in the fourth quarter, State lined up to punt, and the Hokies were in "punt safe," when they leave their defense on the field to guard against a fake. NC State committed a false start, making it 4th and six, and Tech put in the punt return team. The Wolfpack faked it and got a 44-yard gain. Chuck Amato said that the false start was intentional by NC State in order to get Tech out of their punt safe formation, so nice coaching job by Amato's crew.
  
  
• Poor clock management by the NCSU staff almost cost VT big-time at the end of the first half. With no timeouts left, State had the ball on Tech's 32-yard line with no timeouts and 29 seconds left. They ran the ball, a bone head call in my opinion, for a loss of one yard to the Tech 33. The clock operator didn't start the clock, so the refs halted play, set the clock to 19 seconds, spotted the ball, and then waited for both teams to get set before starting the clock again. Long-story-short: NC State wound up getting an extra play out of it and took a shot at the end zone, which fortunately for VT, they missed and had to kick a field goal. Had they completed a TD pass with that extra play, it would have given State four extra points in a four-point loss.

• Aaron Rouse posted a darn good line for a guy making his first start at rover: eight tackles, one forced fumble, two interceptions, and two pass breakups. He needs to be more consistent, but if he cleans up the mistakes while still doing the good stuff, look out.
  
  
• More evidence that VT got better as the game went on: State converted their first four third-down attempts, then went just 2-of-10 after that on third down conversions. (VT was a pedestrian 4-of-15 for the game.)
  
  
• Jimmy Williams corner blitzed twice that I saw and made two great plays, dropping Blackman for a loss of six yards and sacking Davis.
  
  
• You really couldn't ask for a better performance from Nic Schmitt. Schmitt averaged 45.7 yards on six punts, dropped three inside the 20, and had just one touchback. He had punts of 59 yards, 43, 38, 57, 41 (fair caught on the 1-yard line), and 36 yards (touchback). Schmitt showed nice touch on the short punts, dropping a couple of soft punts inside the State 20 yard line, one of which was downed by Roland Minor on the two.
  
  
• The Hokies went for it twice on 4th and one and didn't get cute either time, QB sneaking it up the middle for first downs behind Will Montgomery. The push showed by Montgomery on both plays went a long way towards cementing his status as an all-ACC lineman.
  
  
• Give it up for defensive tackle Tim Sandidge. With Carlton Powell hobbled by an ankle sprain, Sandidge picked up the slack with four tackles and an athletic sack. After Blackman's fair catch on the 1-yard line, State threw an incomplete pass, and then it was Sandidge who stopped the drive. He tackled Reggie Davis for a 1-yard gain, then blew up the next play, another run up the middle by Davis. Adibi got credit for that tackle, but it was Sandidge who penetrated and slowed Davis down.
  
  
• NC State senior defensive end Manny Lawson is 6-6, 245, runs a 4.5 forty � and is an Industrial Engineering major. Wow.

It is amazing to me the general incompetence shown by production, direction, and broadcast crews in college football. ESPN's #1 crew, the ones that do the prime time Saturday and Thursday night broadcasts, are generally very good. ABC's #1 crew, consisting of Brent Musberger, Gary Danielson, and Jack Arute, are horrible. They don't do their research, they mispronounce names, and they generally mail it in. And ABC does a horrendous job of mic-ing college crowds, often reducing Lane Stadium's roar, for example, to a dull murmur. (ESPN does a great job of mic-ing the crowd.)

ESPN, despite all their experience broadcasting college football, can't find broadcast teams at the second level, third level and beyond that are capable of analyzing a game in any kind of detail. The crew in the booth Sunday night was a classic example. With all the strategy in this game, they instead spent their time yammering on and on and on about Marcus Vick's well-documented legal troubles. They showed Michael Vick constantly on the sidelines, which even to this Tech observer was tiresome, and there was barely a shred of analysis going on in the booth, beyond Rod Gilmore's observance that NC State was isolating Tech's linebackers in coverage.

Beyond that, nada. It was stunning to me the way all three broadcasters watched the inconclusive replay of the Jay Davis fumble/incomplete pass, then lined up like three little lemmings to say, "Yep, it's a forward pass." Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but it surely wasn't conclusive enough to reverse the call. Not one announcer mentioned that.

On NC State's next to last play, the one with the double lateral, the crew was in such a hurry to use the word "trickeration" and make references to Cal-Stanford that they forgot to ask the most important question: was that second lateral a forward lateral?

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that the constant chatter about Marcus' past problems, the frequent shots of Michael on the sidelines, and the general shallowness of the commentary (as opposed to the analysis that Kirk Herbstreit is so good at) detracted from the game.

Rant over.

The game plan was to rely on the defense, play conservative on offense, bring Vick along slowly, and hope that the special teams played well and didn't give up a game-turning play.

For the most part, that plan went to perfection. The defense gave up a lot of yards, but not points. The coaching staff didn't ask too much of Marcus Vick, who responded in kind by not trying to do too much. The offense played with about as much poise as you can expect, committing just one intentional penalty and giving up just three sacks and no turnovers. The special teams had a shaky moment when they gave up a fake punt, but Nic Schmitt was a bright spot.

Lastly, the team seized its one big opportunity, the possession that started on NC State's 20 yard line, and turned it into a game-winning touchdown. The Hokies even got the break of the game when they forced the fumble and Rouse returned it for a touchdown, only to have the refs take it away.

Offensively, Marcus Vick will get better and more polished as the season goes on, and the offensive line, barring injury, will gel and be a pretty good unit by game five or six. Defensively, the tackling will get better, Hall and Adibi will play better together as a unit, and Roland Minor and the safeties will improve.

The Hokies got a critical win early on the road. They didn't come unglued, and the experience in Raleigh will help out later on. As big as this win was, the team has a much higher ceiling, because there are so many areas in which they can improve. If they keep their poise and focus, and if they avoid injury, they ought to hit their stride in mid-October, as the QB and O-line play in particular comes together.

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