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Game 1: ECU 27, Va. Tech 22 |
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Game
Slants
Sunday, August 31, 2008
By Denny O'Brien |
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Manhandled no more
By
Denny O'Brien
©2008 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
CHARLOTTE — It’s difficult to completely
measure the magnitude of East Carolina’s 27-22 victory over No. 17 Virginia
Tech. Too much football remains in 2008 and there are too many marquee
victories in the Pirates’ annals against which to compare it.
How the Pirates respond and the Hokies
rebound will provide a more accurate barometer to the game’s historical
significance.
But for anyone who personally witnessed
this Queen City thriller, it’s hard not to label it one of the special
moments in ECU football history.
Only this time it wasn’t because an
outmanned Pirates team pulled off some plate-shifting shocker, the type of
victory that at one time earned ECU the ‘Giant Killer’ moniker. Because
Saturday’s victory was anything but a story of David versus Goliath, that is
unless you considered the Pirates the backyard bully entering the game.
At the very least, ECU’s victory over Tech
Saturday deserves a boldface asterisk, or some other special notation to
completely capture how the program has evolved since Skip Holtz took the
program’s reigns in December 2004. In essence, Saturday’s win marked the
first time in a long time that ECU stood up physically against an elite
program and completely pushed it around.
“Coach (Mike) Golden has been done a great
job with us all year long getting us physically ready,” senior defensive end
C.J. Wilson said. “I say that we are physically fit to be on the field with
anybody in the country.
“Coach talks about it all the time. We
belong out there, and it felt great being out there in this type of
atmosphere.”
It certainly looked like it. Though it’s
tempting to attribute much of ECU’s success to Virginia Tech’s youth, it
would be short-sighted to take that position.
Hokies Coach Frank Beamer is a recruiting
machine who annually compiles classes filled with blue chippers. And you
can’t ignore the fact that the hallmark of the Virginia Tech program is
physical toughness on defense, overwhelming dominance on special teams,
close attention to detail, and the elimination of mistakes.
“It’s one win,” Holtz said. “Just like if
we would have come up short in this game, it would have been one loss.
“It’s a win very similar to like the bowl
game where not a lot of people gave us a chance in this football game. These
players believed and they went out there and competed.”
But it wasn’t some fairy tale scenario that
required black magic or smoke and mirrors. If anything, that exactly is what
kept the Pirates from winning more comfortably than the five-point margin.
Truthfully, it shouldn’t have taken the
drama of T.J. Lee’s blocked punt and 27-yard touchdown return, not when you
consider how completely lopsided the final statistics were. The Pirates
out-gained the Hokies 369-243, and that was with their offense spending much
of the first quarter on the sidelines.
Take the 14 points that ECU literally
spotted the Hokies. An errant lateral and muffed kick return put the Pirates
in a two-touchdown hole, the type of scenario that should shipwreck a less
talented team or one that is lacking in confidence or poise.
Ditto for that blocked extra point attempt,
a PAT opportunity which should have evened the score at 14 but instead
pushed the Hokies’ lead to 16-13. Likewise for that blown coverage that led
to a 62-yard completion from Tech quarterback Sean Glennon to Dyrell Roberts
and an eventual 22-13 VPI lead.
It was the only touchdown the Hokies
offense truthfully earned in a game dominated by ECU’s defense.
“Our defense has done a great job,” Holtz
said. “That’s where so much experience and so many guys returned.
“I’d love to sit here and tell you that I
had something to do with this. But this is a story of a group of young men
who went out there and fought their tales off and aren’t going to take ‘No’
for an answer. They’re not going to listen to all the naysayers. They’re
going to believe in themselves.”
They certainly should. Because ECU’s win
over Virginia Tech showed that it has reached the point where it can compete
with a high-profile program – one that again is predicted to contend for the
title in a BCS conference – without being physically outmatched.
You have to admit, that’s pretty
significant.
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08/31/2008 03:49:55 AM |
