January 2, 2009

Steve Megargee
Rivals.com College Football Staff Writer

MIAMI ? Virginia Tech defensive end Orion Martin and cornerback Victor "Macho" Harris just wanted to start the new year by watching some college football.

They were in for a rude awakening.

When they sat down in their hotel room Thursday to watch the New Year's Day pregame shows, Martin and Harris heard the various talking heads discussing the ACC's postseason misery.

Why had the league lost most of its bowl games? Why does this happen every season? Maybe the ACC champion should lose its automatic BCS bid.

"I was like, 'Dang, it's getting that bad?' " Martin said. "We knew we needed to step up and win one for the ACC."

That's just what they did.

Virginia Tech's 20-7 victory over Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl ended one of the most nation's most dubious postseason streaks and helped the ACC salvage some measure of respect at the end of a disappointing bowl season.

The Hokies gave the ACC its first BCS victory since Florida State's 1999 national championship season. The ACC had lost eight consecutive BCS games since the Seminoles clinched their second national title with a 46-29 Sugar Bowl victory over Virginia Tech, a Big East member at the time.

"I remember Coach Beamer saying it's time for a change," Harris said. "When we heard that stuff this morning, it was just adding more gas to the fire. 'The ACC ain't this. The ACC ain't that.' Man, the ACC is tough. The ACC is one of the elite conferences in the nation."

Virginia Tech's counterparts in the ACC responded by losing six of the league's first nine bowls. In the hours before the apple dropped in Times Square, the ACC's stock really plummeted with two New Year's Eve losses.

Atlantic Division champion Boston College carried an eight-game bowl winning streak into a Music City Bowl matchup against Vanderbilt, which owned a .500 record and had lost six of its past seven games. The Commodores won 16-14 for their first bowl victory in 53 years.

Georgia Tech, the hottest team in the ACC, played the Chick-fil-A Bowl in its hometown against an LSU team that had dropped three of its past four games. LSU whipped the Yellow Jackets 38-3 in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated.

This postseason already was a lost opportunity for the ACC to prove it belonged among the nation's elite conferences. If Virginia Tech had continued the league's BCS hex, it could have turned the conference into a national laughingstock.

"If you can read, you knew what our record was," said Beamer, referring to the ACC's lack of success in BCS games. "And we've been a part of that. I felt like we let the ACC down a couple of times ourselves."

Virginia Tech has won three league titles and has reached the conference championship game one other time in its five seasons as an ACC member, but the Hokies' December coronations often led to January consternation. Since the start of the BCS era in 1998, the Hokies were 0-3 in BCS games. They also had dropped four of their past five bowl games overall, including upsets against Georgia in the Chick-fil-A Bowl two years ago and against Kansas in the Orange Bowl last season.

This didn't seem like the season Virginia Tech would end its BCS drought. The Hokies opened without any experienced running backs or receivers. They had to replace departed star linebackers Xavier Adibi and Vince Hall. Beamer planned to redshirt quarterback Tyrod Taylor this year, only to change his mind after Sean Glennon struggled in a season-opening loss to East Carolina.

"It's been one of those years where we've had to scratch and claw for everything," Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster said.

Virginia Tech won this game by using the same formula that has worked so well for the Hokies in ACC play. The Hokies intercepted Cincinnati quarterback Tony Pike four times and ran the ball well enough to compensate for its lack of a passing attack.

Cincinnati drove 72 yards for a touchdown on its opening possession but never reached the end zone again against a defense playing without injured sack leader Jason Worilds and linebacker Brett Warren. Redshirt freshman linebacker Barquell Rivers, making his first career start in place of Warren, stuffed Pike on fourth-and-goal from the 1 midway through the fourth quarter to end Cincinnati's last comeback threat.

"I think it's the best football team we've ever had," Beamer said. "We've had some tough losses, but nobody split up. Everybody kind of hung in there together and kept working hard. We always practiced hard."

That team mentality continued in the postseason. The Hokies worked out in pads more often than in their past bowl preparations. They moved into a different hotel the night before the game. They sharpened their focus instead of considering the bowl game a reward for a successful season.

The extra work helped Virginia Tech join Texas and USC as the only teams in the nation to win at least 10 games each of the past five seasons.

Virginia Tech now can rightfully claim it ranks among the nation's elite programs. And perhaps the Hokies took the first step toward helping the ACC become one of the elite conferences.

"This right here just put the ACC back on the map," Virginia Tech tight end Greg Boone said.

It also saved the ACC an awful lot of embarrassment.

Steve Megargee is a national writer for Rivals.com. He can be reached at smegargee@rivals.com.