Hokies end ACC’s BCS drought
MIAMI – The opening moments were filled with just about every problem Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer feared his team would have against Cincinnati.
It was merely a blip.
Nearly everything else went according to Beamer’s plan – and the Hokies ended a yearlong Orange Bowl hangover.
Darren Evans had 28 carries for 153 yards and a touchdown, quarterback Tyrod Taylor rushed for another score and No. 21 Virginia Tech beat No. 12 Cincinnati 20-7 in the Orange Bowl on Thursday night, joining Southern California and Texas as the only schools to win 10 games in each of the past five seasons.
The Hokies (10-4) forced Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike into a season-high four interceptions. Pike – who wasn’t even on Cincinnati’s depth chart at the start of the season before blossoming into an all-Big East quarterback – threw for 239 yards and a touchdown, but had his night marred mightily by the picks and getting stopped on a fourth-and-goal in the fourth quarter.
Mardy Gilyard had 255 all-purpose yards (158 receiving , 97 returning) and a touchdown catch for Cincinnati, which saw its six-game winning streak snapped. The Bearcats (11-3) came in as slight favorites over the Hokies, who lost this game to Kansas a year ago.
“All year, all year, all year we’ve been the underdogs,” said Hokies cornerback Victor “Macho” Harris – who didn’t jump to the NFL last year, in part, because he didn’t want to leave school with an Orange Bowl loss. “All year. We had to scratch and claw our way to a victory. We had to scratch our way up to a victory. It says a lot about the character on our team.”
So this one was especially sweet for Virginia Tech.
Really, for the entire Atlantic Coast Conference, too.
The Hokies became the first ACC team to win a BCS game since Florida State – ironically, perhaps – beat Virginia Tech, then a Big East member, for the national championship to close the 1999 season.
It was eight BCS chances, eight BCS losses for the ACC since.
And the oft-maligned league was just 5-12 over the past two seasons in all postseason games before the Hokies broke through, befuddling the Bearcats’ spread offense with an array of different blitzes and, at times anyway, simply winning the battle up front.
“We did a good job mixing it up,” Beamer said. “Overall, I’m really proud of this football team. We hung in there.”
Evans got the clinching score early in the fourth, after Pike threw his third interception – albeit on a highlight-quality play by Virginia Tech defensive end Orion Martin.
Deep in his own territory, Pike rolled right and threw back to the left, hoping the misdirection would pay off. Martin never bit, made a diving interception at the Cincinnati 10, and Evans rumbled in from 6 yards out for a 20-7 lead with 11:29 left.
Pike got the Bearcats to the Virginia Tech 1 on the next drive, rolled out to his right and tried to run in on fourth-and-goal, and was stuffed by Barquell Rivers with 7:25 left to end Cincinnati’s last realistic comeback chance.
Gilyard walked off the field with tears in his eyes.
“I’m really hurt,” Gilyard said. “I really wanted this game for the seniors, the guys I came in with. I’m really, really hurt.”
The Hokies’ best defense was their ball-control offense. Virginia Tech held the ball for nearly 40 minutes.
“It doesn’t get any better than this. BCS, Orange Bowl champs,” Harris said. “Being mentioned with teams like Texas and USC, it says a lot about our players, says a lot about Coach Beamer. BCS – finally, we got one!”
There were large patches of empty seats at Dolphin Stadium. Some tickets were available through online resale outlets in recent days for $1. The building looked a bit emptier after the Doobie Brothers finished their halftime set. Event officials said 15,781 sold tickets were unused.