Virginia Tech hoping to avenge loss to BC in ACC title game By Heather Dinich ESPN.com In the visiting locker room following his team's most significant win over rival Virginia last weekend, 61-year-old Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer danced. He bounced to his own little hip-hop beat as if he were the hit of his high school prom -- or a chaperone trying to be one -- while the Atlantic Coast Conference's newly crowned Coastal Division champions egged him on. "If you can't get a dance after a win like that …" Beamer said. "It was time to dance." It was also time to start thinking about Boston College -- again. Matt Ryan's heroics got Boston College past the Hokies once -- can he do it again? Beamer held up an orange piece of laminated paper marked with the time 6:01 -- the point in the fourth quarter when senior safety D.J. Parker intercepted Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan in late October. The Hokies were unable to do anything with the turnover, and were stunned at home as Boston College pulled off an improbable comeback and won one of the most memorable games of the season. "6:01 is when we didn't get it done," Beamer said. "We didn't finish it." They've got one more shot, and this time it's for the conference title. When the Hokies take the field against Boston College on Saturday (ABC, 1 p.m. ET) in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship in Jacksonville, Fla., it will mark the first time in more than 100 years that Virginia Tech will play the same team twice in one season. The winner earns an automatic bid to the Orange Bowl. For the Hokies, this is where they -- and many outside the program -- thought they would be; No. 6 Virginia Tech (10-2, 7-1) was picked by the media in July to win Saturday's game. The expectations were even higher for the program that shouldered the tragedy of an entire campus this season, but the Hokies' national championship hopes were derailed by losses to LSU and then, more specifically, Boston College. For the No. 11-ranked Eagles (10-2, 6-2), it's a dream come true under first-year coach Jeff Jagodzinski, who inherited the best quarterback in the league, and one of the best in the nation. The only thing familiar about the ACC championship will be Virginia Tech; the Eagles have never won an outright conference title -- not while in the Big East or during the past two seasons in the ACC. "One of the things I thought we were stuck at for a long time was being one game away from getting to that point," Jagodzinski said. "We had to go down to Clemson and play in a tough environment and beat a really good Clemson team to get to where we are now. I think they broke through that barrier that's been sitting there the last few years in not getting to that point." Although Virginia Tech has its 2005 experience to draw from -- a 27-22 loss to Florida State in the inaugural championship game -- Beamer has never in his previous 26 years as a head coach prepared for a rematch game. "I think you go to your game and look at that one and make your adjustments off of that," he said. "This one will be a different game in every way I would think." Frank Beamer's team has bounced back from losses to LSU and BC. It will be certainly be a different game -- mainly because of the addition of freshman quarterback Tyrod Taylor to Beamer's unusual rotation. But how could it possibly rival the last time these teams faced off? Trailing 10-0 in a driving rainstorm, Boston College scored two touchdowns in the final 2:11 to beat the Hokies 14-10. Ryan, a Heisman candidate, led scoring drives of 92 and 66 yards. "As a quarterback, you just want the ball in your hands toward the end of the game with a chance to win," Ryan said, "and we had that that night." Virginia Tech has two quarterbacks it can choose from at the end of the game this time -- Taylor or Sean Glennon. Against Virginia, Beamer routinely switched the two after almost every two or three plays. While Glennon is a steady drop-back passer, Taylor is shifty, and his two rushing touchdowns helped Tech earn the Coastal Division title. "The big thing will be the two-quarterback system they'll have running against us," Boston College safety Jamie Silva said. "It's really a whole new team. There's much more of a scrambling threat once the other quarterback is in. "[Taylor] is athletic enough to break contain and turn it into a big play," he said. "I was watching film and I noticed he did that a few times. It's dangerous and you do have to defend it differently." Boston College only needs one quarterback. Ryan has thrown for 3,953 yards and 28 touchdowns this season. His 16 interceptions are usually an afterthought -- if they're mentioned at all. "He showed me so much in that football game," Virginia Tech linebacker Xavier Adibi said. "I didn't think he was a quarterback that could move out of the pocket. … He's the heart of that football team. One thing we learned is you can never be satisfied. You have to play all four quarters. We preached it all the time, but that game just really shows us and it really just slapped us in our face." The 6:01 signs are now all over the locker room in Blacksburg, Va., and the time is on the front of T-shirts the program recently had made. The back of the shirts read: "A minor setback for a major comeback," the words of cornerback Victor "Macho" Harris in the locker room after the Hokies' win at Georgia Tech following the loss to BC. "I think you've gotta be careful what you wish for," Beamer said. "A lot of us, after Boston College got us in the last couple of minutes ... said, 'Well, we'd like to meet those guys again.' Now that it's time to meet them, you have to figure out how to beat them, and that's not easy." If they do, only then will the Hokies see Beamer's best moves. "I'm saving it for this week," he said with a chuckle. If he's lucky, so are they. GO BC!!!
VT have been really lucky wit some of those 1st down spots. I've counted so far at least 2 that weren't. 16-9 BC Go here for live game http://sports-ak.espn.go.com/ncf/gamecast?gameId=273350103&confId=1
Well...the last time they played, the only part of the game that mattered was the last 2 minutes. We might be in for another close finish.
Whoever drafts Chris Ellis is going to get a monster pass rusher. This is the second time in a row he's dominated that BC O-line.
I'm watching him now and he IS becoming a problem. This is going to be one hell of a finish here. I hope I'm wrong but the momentum seems to be with VT right now. 16-16 BC :wink:
October 16, 2004 is the night that sports died for me. Its been downhill ever since then. YANKEES-check JETS-check BC-check
because its not FSU vs miami in the title game? I'd like a legitimate reason that backs up this statement
