Final Grades: Loss At BC

The Virginia Tech offense put up some big numbers, but turnovers were too much to overcome at Boston College in a 34-27 loss. Having seen the game in person, replays and thought it over, here's publisher Jason Stamm's exam of Virginia Tech's loss:

Passing yards-wise, senior quarterback

Will Virginia Tech ever figure out how to get its running game going? It's now been five games since a running back gained over 100 yards and yesterday, they weren't even close. The Hokies had just 55 yards and 38 of it came from Thomas. While Thomas and the receivers might not admit it, that puts a ton of pressure on them to perform. And the bad news is that there really aren't too many signs that the running backs will get going. Duke and Boston College were both just so-so defenses going into the games that the Hokies could have rebounded against.

Not sure where it came from, but redshirt freshman

Yes, left tackle

For two weeks in a row, the Hokies have failed to get much penetration on their opponent. This time, they got zero sacks as the defensive line struggled to really get going. Also not a good sign that Boston College was able to run all over Virginia Tech, with 196 total yards. Hopefully, this is just a funk as the group had been lights out before this.

As has been his M-O, senior

The Hokies' secondary missed an uncharacteristically high number of tackles. And senior

Wow, senior kicker

The passing game definitely opened up for offensive coordinator

Just before kickoff, it didn't look like Boston College would have 10,000 in the stands. The Red Sox victory parade was going on at the same time and thousands turned out throughout Boston for that. But while many more showed up at Alumni Stadium throughout the first half to give an official count of 30,129, it was far from a raucous atmosphere.