2010 Virginia Tech Hokies Football: Va. Tech vs Wake Forest

The Virginia Tech Hokies were written off by some after losing their first two games of the season. The first was the most anticipated game of the off-season, and the game lived up to its billing, as Tech came back from a big early deficit to take the lead on a top 5 Boise State club, but the Broncos broke Hokies fans’ hearts with a thrilling last-minute win on Labor Day. Just five days later, the Hokies suffered the biggest upset of the season, losing at home to James Madison University, one of the top teams of the Bowl Championship Series ranks. Coach Frank Beamer, a Blacksburg institution at this point, managed to rally his troops, and Virginia Tech has gone from national punching line to the top team in the ACC. Feel free to insert ACC jokes here.

Speaking of ACC jokes, Wake Forest’s defense has been decimated in recent years. Head Coach Jim Grobe has made a cottage industry in recent years of finding unheralded lightly-recruited gems such as Aaron Curry and Alphonso Smith and turning them into all-Americans and high-round NFL draft picks. There appear to be no such gems on this year’s team.

Virginia Tech decimated Wake Forest’s defense, which has struggled all year. The final score and final stats do not do justice to just how poorly Wake Forest’s defense played. The offense and special teams did Coach Grobe no favors, either, putting the defense in an impossible position right from the beginning. A three and out by the Wake Forest offense on its first possession and a great punt return by Virginia Tech’s Jayron Hosley gave Tyrod Taylor the ball at the Wake Forest nine yard line to start the Hokies’ first offensive series. Three plays later, Taylor tossed a two yard TD pass to Logan Thomas and the Hokies were up 7-0 a mere minute and a half into the game, and for all intents and purposes, at this point the game was over, as the Hokies dominated all phases of the game.

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For its part, Wake Forest’s offense showed up in spurts, but was largely ineffective outside of some big plays. The Demon Deacons’ managed three long touchdowns: a 33 yard Josh Harris TD run, an 87 yard Harris TD run, and a 78 yard TD pass from Tanner Price to Chris Givins. Those three plays accounted for 198 of Wake Forest’s 346 total yards on the game. For the Deacs, it was feast or famine offensively. Other than those three plays, Wake Forest gained only 148 yards of offense. Even worse, factoring out the 78 yard TD pass, Price was 2-15 for 14 yards. Not even Harris, a redshirt freshman running back, could help the Demon Deacons keep it close, despite his 241 rushing yards on 20 carries and two touchdowns.

Defensively, it was just famine for the visitors from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Hokies offense was barely challenged in the first half, and the game was over by halftime. The Hokies gained over 600 yards of offense on the day, 434 of which were in the first half. Virginia Tech scored 49 of its 52 points by halftime and, game in hand, mailed it in during the second half. The offense was almost perfectly balanced, with 291 yards on the ground and 314 in the air. Virginia Tech won the time of possession battle by a two-to-one margin. Whatever metric is utilized in analyzing the teams’ relative performances, Virginia Tech dominated. The often electric Taylor was 19 of 27 for 292 yards in the air, with three passing touchdowns, and he added 31 yards and a TD on the ground. David Wilson led the Hokies rushing attack with 105 yards, while Darren Evans had 52 yards but added three TDs.

Virginia Tech strengthened its hold on the Coastal division as the only undefeated team in ACC play, moving to 3-0 in the ACC and 5-2 overall. They host Duke next week at noon. Wake Forest fell to 1-3 in the ACC, 2-5 overall. They have a bye week before travelling to Maryland on October 30th.

Virginia Tech Hokies vs Wake Forest Demon Deacons Football Recap