Hokies Drop BC Game in Familiar Fashion, Leaving Lane Heartbroken Once More

Stop me if you've heard this before.

After looking sluggish on offense for large portions of the game, the Hokies seemed to finally come alive in the second half. They managed to take the lead before a late defensive breakdown sealed a win for a road team in Lane Stadium.

If it sounds awful familiar to the ECU loss and the Georgia Tech loss, it should.

If it seems like an offensive line meltdown and a complete lack of any kind of running game hamstrung the offense, that should also probably feel pretty expected.

Quarterback Michael Brewer was pummeled, and the defense broke down with some very costly missed tackles and missed assignments despite flashes of brilliance. It would seem the Hokies are determined to mimic a broken record this season.

"I'm proud of our football team, I'm proud of how hard this team's played," said Frank Beamer after the game.

That should sound pretty similar to the last two press conferences Beamer's held as well.

This most recent 33-31 loss to the Boston College Eagles might've been different than the team's last two outings against Pittsburgh and Miami, but is it much better that it resembled the ineptitude of the team's previous September struggles?

"I'm frustrated, there's no hiding it," said center David Wang.

Yet just because this loss wasn't unprecedented, that doesn't make the circumstances any less heartbreaking.

Down 23-10 at the start of the fourth quarter, and with the offense going completely dormant after halftime, there was little reason to expect anything to change.

Fans started pouring out of the stands, and with the Hokies putting up a grand total of 28 yards in third quarter, they had good reason to believe the team had no chance of overcoming a double digit deficit.

But on fourth-and-nine, Beamer rolled the dice, calling for a fake punt that sent whip linebacker Derek DiNardo streaking down the east sideline for a 30-yard gain (which in one fell swoop made him the team's second leading rusher).

"I had no idea walking to the sideline, then I see DiNardo go 54 yards or whatever, and I was excited to come back in," said guard Wyatt Teller.

The Hokies would score six plays later, with fullback Sam Rogers pushing Brewer into the end zone to bring Tech within 23-17.

It's hard to see any of that happen without Beamer taking the risk on fourth down.

"I always love taking a chance like that. Just showing he has confidence in us," Rogers said. "We needed a momentum shifter right there and we got it, DiNardo did a great job making a play."

The defense forced a quick three and out, giving the Hokies the ball back a little over a minute later.

The team made some progress, getting to BC's 25 yard line, yet they faced fourth down once again. After briefly trying to draw the Eagles offside, they snapped the ball and Brewer floated a pass to Rogers for a 17-yard gain.

"We needed a spark there, we needed something," Beamer said.

Once again, three plays later, Brewer found Bucky Hodges in the end zone to give the team the lead, 24-23.

But after the debacles late in the Georgia Tech and ECU games, the Hokies knew the offense needed more.

"When we scored that touchdown, I knew it wasn't going to be enough," Wang said. "When I got back to the sideline, I said 'we've got to keep going. The moment's on our side, the fans are with us right now' and the coaches told us the same thing. The defense is going to play ball and we're going to move the ball and score."

Wang was absolutely right on one account; the lead would not hold. A 25-yard pass from Eagles quarterback Tyler Murphy to Josh Bordner helped BC get in good field position and kick a 44-yard field goal to put them up 26-24.

The Hokies made little progress on offense on the ensuing drive, and faced a fourth down on their 30. This time, Beamer wasn't ready to be daring.

"We had two timeouts, we were going to get the ball back if we held them," Beamer said. "We would have over two minutes. The problem was we didn't get a great punt, so that hurt us."

A.J. Hughes could only manage a 27-yard kick, giving the Eagles the ball on their 43 yard line and setting up BC to break the Hokies' hearts once more.

Murphy kept the ball on a draw, and confusion on the defense let him scamper 57 yards for what would be the game-sealing score.

"We had some big plays for us and the big plays killed us," said defensive coordinator Bud Foster.

It was eerily reminiscent of the way Justin Thomas and Chad Voytik gashed the defense for big gains on otherwise solid days for the unit.

Beamer says when they know it's coming, they need to be ready.

"We had a guy on that slot (receiver) and the slot folded a run and that guy's got to make the play," Beamer said. "I think when we see it, the kid's a good runner, but we should be ready for it."

Andrew Motuapuaka, who mostly had a very good day in relief of Chase Williams, knows he was that man on the slot.

"That was probably my fault. The slot came across and I spilled and I should've two-gapped him," Motuapuaka said. "I had no help outside of me, so he just took it the distance. If I'd have two gapped him, we would've stopped him right there."

The team still drove down to score another touchdown and make the game interesting, but a half-hearted onside kick attempt failed, and the game concluded.

Once more, Foster is left scratching his head. His defense put up three sacks and a whopping nine tackles for loss. They held BC to 258 yards on the ground, 19 yards less than their season average. But a few key mistakes once again killed a team that can't afford them.

"In this day and age in football, you can't be three out of four or eight out of 10," Foster said. "You've got to be exact all the time because every play is critical."

But he can't bear the brunt of the blame. Once more, the offense looked listless for long stretches of time, even if there were more bright spots than there were against Miami or Pittsburgh.

The offense was able to score on its first drive of the game, a 95-yard masterpiece that started with them pinned inside their own five yard line.

But the team could never replicate that kind of success in the shadow of their own goalposts.

They were pinned on the five on one other occasion and on the one two other times, which only served to further throw off a floundering offense.

"We had too many start out on the one yard line," Beamer said. (BC punter Alex Howell) did a nice job kicking the ball, we tried to put some heat on him to make him rush his kicks a little bit and get him out of the seat, but they did a good job. That's an unusual deal, that's a tough place to start."

While the team did avoid disaster in those situations, they also weren't exactly conducive to getting the unit in rhythm.

"The field position makes it tough," Brewer said. "Obviously you want to be better in situations like that, get some push and get it out of there, but at the same time you've got to be somewhat conservative down there and get it far enough out that you can throw it, especially against a team that can rush the passer like BC does."

No one knows about how troublesome the Eagles' pass rush was better than Brewer. He was absolutely abused on the day, getting sacked three times and hit on four more incidents that were recorded, yet that number seems low for the punishment he took.

Right tackle Jonathan McLaughlin went out with an ankle sprain, forcing recently converted DT Wade Hansen into the starting lineup, and the line struggled to adapt from there.

"I wouldn't say it's confusion, they just had a great scheme coming into it," Wang said. "We studied it as much as we could, we spent hours and hours in the film room, but on the field if something doesn't go right, you've got to adjust to it, and we adjusted to it late in the game but we should've come out faster."

But even after all that head-scratching, and all that frustration over units of the squad that have been disappointing for weeks now, this team still could've won this football game, had Joey Slye's field goal attempt not been blocked at the end of the half.

As just a 30-yard try, it seemed odd for a kicker with a leg like Slye. But Beamer suspects that McLaughlin getting hurt forced the protection unit to shuffle things around as well, causing some confusion.

"(McLaughlin's) replacement is in there...and they came right between the replacement and the next guy over," Beamer said. "They just got penetration and got a hand on the ball."

Now, the team is looking at having to win two of its three final games just to go to a bowl.

Somehow this squad will have to overcome its many flaws to beat a very solid Duke team on the road, or manage to close the season with two straight wins over equally flawed opponents in Wake Forest and UVa.

All they have to fall back on at this point is the fight that they exhibited in the game's closing moments.

"It sucks losing. It's never fun losing. I'm never going to be excited about a loss. But I am excited about this team and how hard we played," Rogers said.

But once again, in what is coming to define the 2014 season, it wasn't enough.