Published: October 31, 2009 11:19 pm      

Hokies to focus on putting the parts back together

BLACKSBURG, Va. — A popular math postulate that says the whole is equal to the sum of its parts is not uncommon at an engineering school like Virginia Tech.

However, what is uncommon, especially of late, is that some of its football team parts haven’t consistently done a whole lot of good. That fact has added up to consecutive conference losses to Georgia Tech and North Carolina.

Still, head coach Frank Beamer remains optimistic that his team is good enough to achieve a 10-win season.

“We can still win 10 games, and only three teams have done that the last five years,” said Beamer during Thursday’s post-game press conference.

“I firmly believe we’re a good football team, but if you look at (the North Carolina game) today, in parts the defense is good, in parts the offense is good, in parts the special teams is good. The problem we have is that we’re not consistently good (in any of those areas).”

Both aforementioned losses mirrored each other in primarily two negative ways. The first was that the offense could not score in the first half, mustering only three points in four quarters of play.

In their opening drive against the Tar Heels, Hokies’ sophomore split end Jarrett Boykin fumbled the football away at North Carolina’s 27-yard line after a 20-yard pass reception from junior quarterback Tyrod Taylor.

Three subsequent Virginia Tech first-half drives into Tar Heels’ territory yielded zero points. Taylor blamed the “how” for that and not the “who.”

“It was bad execution and we didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that were given us,” Taylor said, who passed for 161 yards in the game, but lost 31 on three sacks. “No disrespect to North Carolina, they played great, but we beat ourselves tonight.”

The second was that the defense could not stop the opponents’ scoring attack in the second half, giving up 34 points in four quarters of play. Part of that was due to its inability to prevent third-down conversions.

The Tar Heels extended drives seven times in the second-half, including a critical fourth-down-and-seven first-down conversion with five minutes left in the game. Place-kicker Casey Barth’s ensuing 19-yard field goal tied the game at 17-17.

Three minutes later, North Carolina recovered an uncharacteristic fumble by Tech redshirt freshman tailback Ryan Williams deep in Virginia Tech territory. Barth’s 21-yard field goal with only two seconds remaining gave Carolina its first Atlantic Coast Conference victory.

Redshirt junior cornerback Rashad Carmichael is concerned about the other team’s ability to stay on the field, but gave most of the credit for that to the Tar Heels.

“The pride and tradition we have at Virginia Tech is how we get people off the field on third down. That hasn’t happened for us in the last couple of games,” said Carmichael.

“Georgia Tech and North Carolina had good plays called for the defenses we were in. We weren’t out of position and it wasn’t missed tackles or assignments or (any) one person’s fault.”

Another consequence of an inability to score or stop your opponent from scoring is a disparity in time of possession. Georgia Tech and North Carolina both dominated that statistic by owning 38 and 36 minutes of game time respectively.

As with all Division I schools embarking on a new football-season journey, Virginia Tech’s expectations and goals entering the 2009 season were high.

In fact, there was even talk about a possible appearance in the national championship game after defeating the likes of Nebraska and Miami and being the highest ranked one-loss team at number four in the nation entering the Georgia Tech game in mid-October.

The back-to-back conference losses — the third time in the last four seasons that Virginia Tech has suffered that fate — has the Hokies re-adjusting their goals with four regular-season games remaining. Three of those games are on the road.

Carmichael was philosophical about the whole thing.

“We can’t come into a season hoping for a national championship or big (Bowl Championship Series) hopes. In college football, any team can lose on any Saturday. We have to execute our game plan week-in and week-out and not lose.

“If the road had been paved for us to go to the national championship game, we would have went. It didn’t turn out that way.”