In the bustle of a college football season, sometimes you don't think as much about some peripheral developments as they're happening. But then, during some late-December days of decompression when you actually have time to reflect, you look back at some events and say: "Wow."
Virginia Tech's 2012 unraveling would certainly qualify. A 6-6 season? Four of the losses by two touchdowns or more? A trip to Orlando for the Russell Athletic Bowl?
Goodness gracious.
Hindsight gives us clarity, and now as we look back to 2011 we can clearly see the widening cracks in Frank Beamer's impressive program.
They started 4-0 and we all thought they'd roll over Clemson in Blacksburg. The Tigers pounded them 23-3 on a night that felt like a weird dream, because stuff like that never happened in Lane Stadium. But then the Hokies reeled off seven straight wins, and we thought customary reality was descending -- they were playing their best football as the season reached its conclusion, and they were going to maul an unraveling Clemson team in Charlotte for yet another ACC title.
Clemson won 38-10 that night, and we began to see the Hokies for what they were: a team that had won 11 regular-season games on a diet of weak competition.
Still, no one saw this season coming. The Hokies were going to get better on defense because that's what Bud Foster's defenses always do. They ended up allowing 23.9 points per game, an increase of six points from last year. Logan Thomas was going to get better at quarterback after his first year as a starter, because that's usually what Hokie quarterbacks do. He was worse, making a mockery of preseason projections from NFL Draft pundits that he was a Top 5 prospect for the 2013 draft. It got so bad that Jesse Palmer, having already used every excuse in the book in support of Thomas, actually said this after Thomas bounced a pass to a receiver 10 yards in front of him in a loss at Miami: "Maybe his hands are too big."
Ten-win seasons in Blacksburg used to seem so automatic; the Hokies strung together eight of them in a row. Now they must win in a no-account bowl to avoid a losing season.
The ACC seems to always be dealing with accusations of being a fraudulent league compared to the heavyweights, and the last weekend of the 2012 regular season did nothing to help that stigma.
A discussion about which school reigns a conference doesn't have as much gravity when that conference doesn't occupy a prominent stature, but it's nevertheless important to note the changing of the guard that's taken place over the last 12 months.
The Hokies haven't just slipped from their long-held ACC perch; they've tumbled from it in a breathtaking way. The seats of power are now in Tallahassee and Clemson, and it's hard to picture that reality changing anytime soon.
It surely qualifies as a "wow" moment in hindsight, even as late as late December.
LW
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