Ms. Rice is, of course, on a committee of what must be a thousand people who have been tasked with deciding which four teams are the best in college football and therefore worthy of getting into the first ever NCAA FBS Division Playoff. It is a long conversation, one that is already as tiring as how teams can increase their BCS rankings, but sitting in her breakfast nook on a sun dappled Sunday morning she assured me that in her mind the Hokies were in it after trouncing all over Ohio State at the hallowed horseshoe on September the 6th, 2014.
"All they have to do," she told me as she prepared to demurely shovel more processed bran into her mouth, "is keep wining."
The Hokies were indeed in the conversation. Playoffs were on the lips of the Hokie Nation, visions of glory danced before their eyes like sugar plum fairies with huge tits, people were hopping on to "Heyletstravelsomewhere.com" to see how much a trip to the championship game in Dallas would cost, and Frank was thinking that maybe with Tech in the Playoffs he would finally be able to open a successful restaurant in Hampton Roads. It all looked very, very promising.
Challenges abounded, of course, and the first was getting past East Carolina University.
ECU! Those fucking pirates! They have often been tough to beat, and I remember when I was but 9 years old and ECU rolled into town and beat the Hokies on the holy ground of Lane Stadium. After the game ECU fans cruised around Blacksburg in their pick-up trucks, spitting chaw out the windows and going up to little boys and girls saying "The Hokies lost! You are stupid!" and they'd steal the children's cheap supermarket playground balls and take them away to do God knows what with them...probably serve them on a plate doused in a vinegary barbecue sauce with a side of slaw.
I was one of those children. They called me stupid. And they stole my ball.
I never liked ECU after all that.
Even so, I found myself at work as the game got underway. I took a peak at ESPN.com and I was stunned when I saw that ECU had racked up, quickly, 21 points on a misty day in Blacksburg. It was so terrifyingly excellent that it conjured up visions of how Napoleon surprised the Russians at Austerlitz by attacking the Prazen Heights through a dense fog. I expected either a smashing victory by the Pirates or a sterling comeback by the Hokies.
But then I got home and started watching the game and it became...awful really. Desultory. Dull. I must admit that while the Hokies found themselves in a senseless struggle reminiscent of The Somme, with neither side willing to budge, bludgeoning each other to death in the trenches, I abandoned my team in their time of need to watch the first half of the Manchester City / Arsenal match (which was a rather exciting 2-2 draw). I had recorded the soccer match, I could have watched it at any time, but I chose this time to do it. I hear the alumni association is looking for me so they can take away my Fan Card, burn it, and sprinkle the ashes over the grave of the Widow Wadman, thereby excommunicating me from the Hokie Nation forever.
They'll never find it. I've hidden it in a place that they would least expect...along with the treasure.
Anyways, I picked up the game again in the 4th quarter, and now things were hotting up nicely. Virginia Tech had engineered a comeback the likes of which Frank Beamer had never been able to manage, the score was tied and Tech had the momentum. And then...
And then it just all fell apart, in a poof of purple and black smoke.
 |
| The Hokie's playoff chances prove to be elusive as supervillain Kaiser Soze. One second they were there, and then the next "Poof!", they were gone. |
Stunned Hokie fans wept in the stands, Christ Episcopal took some advice from the Rolling Stones and painted their red doors black, and a clearly discombobulated and shell shocked Bud Foster gave a post game interview in which he said "you know" no less than 48 times in the span of no more than 5 minutes (really, my wife counted. She was beside herself with laughter and I couldn't help but have my mood lifted by her rather delightful and extraordinarily Slytherin-like display of Schadenfreude).
Are the playoffs out of reach? Probably. Not only is it very unlikely that Tech can play at a level high enough to get out of the season with the one loss and an ACC title (I just don't think they have the consistency), but even with that I think it will be quite hard now to convince the committee that Tech is playoff worthy; I'm sorry, but one can give Condoleeza only so many back rubs.
Seriously, I think I'm getting tendinitis in my thumbs.
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