Clemson beating Virginia Tech (again) for the ACC Championship was a game that would be construed as a “good game.” The #23 Hokies did not shrivel up and get blown out like so many going up against a National Championship contender, instead keeping it close and undecided until literally 1:51 left in regulation.
The final score was 42-35. It was a good game.
But I’m still bummed out about it. I realize that of all the sports I enjoy and all the sports I watch, nothing brings me down harder than Virginia Tech football. They’re like the one team I’m ingrained to remain loyal to, so it’s their inability to reach the pinnacles of success and their failures to succeed that actually manage to make me feel mopey and disappointment when they occur.
I turned the game off before Dabo Sweeney could talk about how great of a game it was, how Virginia Tech is a program on the upswing, and other graceful remarks in said in victory. I don’t want to hear that shit. I don’t want to hear people saying nice things about Virginia Tech’s respectable performance in defeat. I know all this shit. Every Tech fan knows this shit. None of it changes the fact that Tech still lost, and losing sucks.
I used to think about sports at times, and wonder if I’d go the rest of my life and see if _____s would win championships. When I was little and loved the NBA and the New York Knicks, I wondered if I’d ever see the Knicks win a championship. Sure, they won titles in the 70s, but I wasn’t even alive then; would I ever see Patrick Ewing and John Starks get to hoist up a title? Turns out Ewing and Starks are both gone, I think that the NBA has gone down the shitter from greed and two work stoppages, and the Knicks have for the most part been one of the laughing stocks of the league. I just don’t care anymore.
After I moved to Atlanta and developed my love of baseball and adopted the Braves as my own, I wondered if I’d ever see the Braves win the World Series? Sure, they’d won in 1995, and I actually do remember it, as I was a casual young O’s fan who paid attention to things like that; but would I get to see a Braves win, as a Braves fan, as an Atlantan? Turns out that the Braves organization is really greedy, racist and corrupt, and care way too much about running a profitable business than succeeding at their field. I can only subject the players themselves to so much ire, because it’s the puppet masters above them who I think are immoral and terrible people, but I tend to revel in their losses and don’t really care as much about their success like I once did.
I’ve never really had an NFL team. Sure, I’ve rooted for the Redskins and Falcons at varying times, but mostly because the Redskins were the local team I grew up with, and the Falcons were the adopted team that just so happened to feature Tech guys like Michael Vick and DeAngelo Hall. But I moved away from the Redskins and Vick killed dogs, DeAngelo became MeAngelo, and neither team ever won or warranted long-term commitment anyway, and also succumbed to greed and other immoral practices.
But Virginia Tech football? Yeah, I always want to see them succeed. I still wonder if I’ll ever see them win a National Championship. It doesn’t feel very likely, but I still hope for it.
Frankly, I even just hope for them to win a New Year’s Six Bowl game. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem very likely to happen anytime soon either.
I’ve seen the Hokies hoist ACC Championships before, which are always nice, and which is why the loss to Clemson makes me feel shitty and inspired to churn out a bunch of words about the topic and how I feel about it, but Conference championships are often precursors to big Bowl games in which Virginia Tech just doesn’t have much success in.
But then I wonder what I’d rather see, Tech win Bullshit Bowls nobody cares about, or lose in heartbreaking manners in Bowls that people actually watch:
2015: Bullshit Bowl (Independence Bowl) – 55-52 over Jobber (Tulsa)
2014: Bullshit Bowl (Military Bowl) – 33-17 over Jobber (Cincinnati)
2013: Bullshit Bowl (Sun Bowl) – 42-12 blowout loss to Mid-carder (UCLA)
2012: Bullshit Bowl (Russell Athletic) – 13-10 OT win over Jobber (Rutgers)
2011: Sugar Bowl – 23-20 OT bullshit heartbreak loss against Michigan
2010: Orange Bowl – 40-12 blowout loss to Andrew Luck and Stanford
2009: Chick-fil-A Bowl – 37-14 over Tennessee
2008: Orange Bowl – 20-7 over how the fuck did Cincinnati get here
2007: Orange Bowl – 24-21 loss to Kansas
2006: Chick-fil-A Bowl – 31-24 loss to Georgia
It’s hard to say which is preferable; beating jobbers or losing to contenders. Given the fact that beating Clemson would have gained Virginia Tech entry into likely the Orange Bowl, which looks likely to have Michigan in it, they probably would have lost that too. Michigan would likely have trounced Virginia Tech, and I’d have been upset by that as well, but given the fact that I was rooting for Tech to beat Clemson so fervently, it’s almost as if I’d have been okay with another major Bowl loss versus playing in another Bullshit Bowl.
I know that all Bowls matter in the sense that it’s basically free money for the schools that get to play in them, but let’s be real here, the New Year’s Six should always be the goal. The loss to Clemson means Virginia Tech is denied an Orange Bowl berth, and is going to be placed into a less-heralded Bullshit Bowl which all appear to be ACC vs. SEC, so there’s a good chance they’ll still get steamrolled by a school like Auburn, Florida or Texas A&M.
Really though, forget about the National Championship, forget about a major bowl. To some capacity, forget about the ACC, I’m just tired of Virginia Tech losing to Clemson. I wanted to be frustrated and cry foul and accuse Clemson of cheating or preferential referee treatment. But none of that happened. Clemson won because they’re just the better team, with a very good QB, a suffocating defense, and Tech couldn’t stop committing pass interferences.
So I grew frustrated with the fact that Clemson hasn’t seemed capable of regressing or going into a rebuild period where they should lose games, and that they’ve developed a program with a reputation, that keeps successfully recruiting studs and physical beasts, and have been on the upper tier of the ACC for the better part of the last ten years. I mean really, Tajh Boyd dominated the ACC and beat Tech 20 times, and as soon as he steps down, Deshaun Watson emerges as an even more dominant QB, and runs the table on the ACC.
It’s like Clemson will never not be good, and it makes me envious that they’ve developed this collegiate machine that prospective players want to go to, and will go to, and produce impressive results for. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech can’t get their QB situation straightened out, and as well as Jerod Evans has been throughout the year, he’s a senior next year, and then it’s back to the drawing board for a QB, and likely another stretch where even Bullshit Bowl berths will be considered fortunate.
I’m tired of Clemson’s success, and I would like to see Virginia Tech win some meaningful games, and possibly some honorable titles. That’s all I really want as a sports fan.
