2010 Virginia Tech Hokies: Va. Tech vs Ga. Tech

Revenge is certainly on the minds of the Virginia Tech Hokies as the month of November dawns. However, the bigger key for a reliable college football brand name is to move one step closer to regaining control of its division.

Yes, the good people of Blacksburg, Virginia, will want some bees to be stung on Thursday night at Lane Stadium. Last year, the ACC Coastal Division championship that had belonged to Virginia Tech for the previous two years (and three of the last four) got snatched away by the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Playing at home in Atlanta, the team also known as the Rambling Wreck destroyed Virginia Tech’s credentialed defense. Hokie defensive coordinator Bud Foster – one of the elite defensive masterminds in the United States – looked on in pure disgust as his troops were eviscerated by the triple-option offense devised by Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson. Despite the fact that the Yellow Jackets completed only one forward pass all evening, they rolled up 309 rushing yards and pounded the Hokies’ front seven with relentless persistence. Georgia Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt rushed for 122 yards and three touchdowns – the last one being a 39-yarder with 3 minutes left – as then-No. 19 Georgia Tech pulled off a 28-23 upset win over the fourth-ranked Hokies for a triumph that reverberated throughout a conference, a season, and the Georgia Tech program.

That five-point victory against the ACC’s standard-bearer marked Georgia Tech's first win at home over a top-five team since the Bobby Dodd-coached Yellow Jackets beat Bear Bryant's top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide in 1962. The win also wound up catapulting the more Southern Tech (not the more Northern one in the Mid-Atlantic region) to its second Coastal crown, the first one coming in 2006. Moreover, unlike that 2006 season – when Georgia Tech lost to Wake Forest in that year’s ACC Championship Game – the 2009 Jackets wrapped up the ACC title by disposing of Clemson in the title tilt.

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Georgia Tech’s rise to its first BCS bowl (the 2010 Orange Bowl against Iowa) was finalized against Clemson, sure, but it was ultimately built on the back of the win over Virginia Tech, in a series that has instantly become a must-see ACC event since Johnson left Navy to coach in Atlanta. Before last year’s thriller in the Peach State, the Hokies and Jackets dueled in Lane Stadium in 2008. A young and unproven Georgia Tech squad pushed the veteran Hokies to the limit, and had Nesbitt not overthrown an open receiver near the goal line, the Jackets might have won. As it was, Virginia Tech squeaked out a 20-17 win in a punishing, draining battle that left both sides respectful of each other. Now, they return to the gridiron of Blacksburg once again, and the Hokies have to resist the temptation to try too hard. They don’t need revenge; they just need to win and quietly slip away into the night.

When Miami lost to Virginia last weekend, the path to Charlotte for this year’s ACC title game opened up for the Hokies, the only ACC team with an unbeaten record in conference play. Virginia Tech has a two-game lead on the rest of the Coastal Division, so just three more wins will clinch the division title. Since the Hokies have to make road trips to both Miami and North Carolina, they need to hold serve at home and ensure that a split of the Miami-UNC swing will put them in position to wrap up the division at home against lowly Virginia in late November. If Virginia Tech blows this opportunity against a struggling Georgia Tech squad, the ACC Coastal race becomes wide-open once more.

Revenge is overrated. Winning division titles is underrated. Virginia Tech needs to know what it’s playing for on Thursday.

Virginia Tech Hokies vs Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Football Preview