Final Grades: Miami Loss

Special teams was the biggest culprit, as miscues and mistakes again led to a Virginia Tech loss, 30-12 last night at Miami. Having seen replays and thought it over, here's publisher Jason Stamm's exam of the Hokies' loss:

When you think of junior

It's hard to know what's going here. Freshman

It's close to the same story as the running backs. It looked like redshirt freshman

They had a bye week to heal and mend their wounds, but it's tough to tell if it made a difference. Junior

The push that was the highlight of the defense the past two games wasn't gone, but it was a fraction of what was shown against Clemson and Duke. Sophomore

The consistent highlight all season has been junior

There were big plays, but what was more unnerving was that the defensive backs seemed to get turned around on short passes or runs, resulting in big gains. On one instance, two defensive backs, then Tyler, got turned around and Nicolas made the tackle five yards down-field on the right sideline. That can't happen. Junior

In the past, the offense made the majority of the mistakes. The offense made its share of miscues, but more glaring were those on special teams, which directly led to Miami's first two touchdowns. Freshman

Some of the coaches have to be at their wit's end, like defensive coordinator

Just an example that 'The U' is nothing like it used to be. The reported, official attendance was over 37,000, but there's no way the nearly 75,000-seat Sun Life Stadium was even one-third full. The fans did have plenty to cheer about, but when you think of 'The U' you think of a better environment than that.