Published: November 03, 2009 10:06 pm      

Hokies look for return to winning

BLUEFIELD — It seems like it was only days ago that the Virginia Tech Hokies were ranked fourth in the nation, and dreaming of national championship possibilities.

In a matter of two games in 12 days — both ACC losses to Georgia Tech and North Carolina — those hopes have been dashed.

Virginia Tech has dropped from fourth to 14th and now sit at 22nd in the national rankings, but contrary to what many in the Hokie Nation might believe, the season isn’t over.

Frank Beamer won’t let his Hokies believe that way, not with four games left on the schedule, starting Thursday at East Carolina.

“It was tough, it was tough on everybody, but the thing we have around here is we’ve got great kids. I’ve said along I like this football team and I like them right now,” Beamer said. “They played hard, it’s not like we’re out there goofing around and not playing hard.

“We are playing hard, but I think when you’re in athletics, things just don’t go your way sometimes. One team is going to win and one team is going to lose and you’ve got to move on, correct what went wrong and move on and that’s what we’ve done.”

Losing consecutive games is a rarity for the Hokies, although they have done just that in three of the last four seasons. Getting back on the winning track is definitely the goal in Thursday’s ESPN-televised game slated to start at 7:30 p.m.

“Coming off two losses, you go through your week of practices, but when it comes down to it, you’re ready to play another game,” said Virginia Tech sophomore receiver Dyrell Roberts, who leads the nation, averaging 40.8 yards per kick return. “We have lost two games in a row and people are starting to doubt, but as for us, we can’t get down on ourselves.

“All we know is we are ready to get back out there and show everybody what we can do and get our season back moving forward.”

Thursday night used to be a Virginia Tech favorite, winning 11 straight such contests at one time. Since then, the Hokies are just 3-4 — including at least one loss in each of the last four seasons.

That trend continued last Thursday when the Hokies were shocked by the Tar Heels 20-17, less than two week after a Saturday night 28-23 defeat against the Yellow Jackets.

“I think when you play on Thursday, you’re going to be playing good teams, they’re going to choose good teams to put on Thursday nights and it kind of goes in cycles a little bit,” Beamer said. “We played some good people on Thursday night, we played a good team last week and they played exceptionally well.

“I like Thursday night games. Particularly if you can play well, they are beneficial in a lot of ways so we’re going to continue to play on Thursday night.”

Virginia Tech entered last season with similar expectations to this year and lost the season-opener to the Pirates when T.J. Lee blocked a late punt and returned it for the winning score in a 27-22 East Carolina win.

The Hokies haven’t forgotten how that game ended, especially Rashad Carmichael, who started his first game at defensive back against the Pirates.

“This is the one of the games I have been looking forward to and I know the rest of my teammates have been looking forward to since we lost the opener last year,” Carmichael said. “It’s going to be an exciting and emotional game for us.”

Virginia Tech will play three of its final four games on the road, starting tonight by stepping outside the ACC to play the Pirates, who have the same 5-3 mark as the Hokies.

East Carolina currently leads the Conference USA East Division, while the Hokies face an uphill struggle that must include lots of help to reach the ACC championship game for a third straight season.

Among East Carolina’s three losses this year were consecutive defeats to West Virginia and North Carolina. The Pirates are riding a two-game win streak, including last Tuesday’s 38-19 victory at Memphis.

“This is a really good football team,” said Beamer, whose Hokies are 9-5 all-time against the Pirates. “Going down there, it’s going to be an exciting atmosphere and we need to get ready to play a great football game.”

Three losses in a row hasn’t happened at Virginia Tech often, with the last time being in 2003. Roberts certainly doesn’t want to see that happen, especially after the feeling the Hokies experienced following the loss to the Tar Heels, which waited until that game to win its first ACC tilt of the year.

“This one stuck to us because we’re not used to losing two games back-to-back, that is a big decrease in our confidence in that we did lose that one in a close one, a heartbreaker type of loss,” Roberts said. “Really, no team wants to go out and think we’re going to lose, but after taking that loss, it is still in our minds and we’re still thinking about it.

“We don’t want to feel that feeling again so right now all we’re doing is putting in the time and effort and work so we don’t have to go through that again.”

The Hokies still have hopes at a fifth straight 10-win season, but they can’t afford another loss. Even though many of Virginia Tech’s dreams have been ruined with a trio of defeats, the goal ahead is simple. Just win.

Who knows, stranger things have happened. Virginia Tech also had three conference defeats in 2008, and still wound up in the title game, bringing home the ACC crown for a second straight season and third time since joining the league in 2004.

“We reflect on (those expectations) all the time, coming into the season we had high hopes and we didn’t think we were going to be in the same position we were last year, but right now we’ve just got to take it and go with it,” Roberts said. “We can’t sit here and keep dwelling on it because we’ve still got a couple of more games to play.

“We’re just trying to finish out now with all wins.”

—Contact Brian Woodson

at bwoodson@bdtonline.com