Over the last several years, it appears that Virginia Tech has been moving up in the way they play football, slowly crashing through several ceilings as they hopefully make their way to a national championship.
Ten years ago, when I first started following Tech football, there were several habits that I noticed:
-If the other team scored first, they won.
-If the other team got up by more than 17 points, they won.
-In fact, if the other team go up by more than 17 points, Tech couldn't even make a comeback.
-While Tech could get to 10 wins in multiple years, they can't get to 12 wins.
Fortunately, that first habit got broken in Tech's first ACC game, as Duke scored first, but Tech came back to win 41-14.
They finally got over the 17 point deficit hump in the 2010 season. First, against Boise State, while they lost the game, they were down 17-0 in the first quarter, and came back to get the lead for a brief time in the second half. Then, a few weeks later against NC State, Tech was down by 17, and came back to actually win the game.
Before this season, the only time Tech had fewer than 2 losses in the regular season was during the Michael Vick years. This year, they got to 11 wins in the regular season, tying that record/milestone, but couldn't win in either postseason game.
It feels like VT has to work their way up to being national champions. They've broken through in several ways, but now it looks like they have to work on getting to 12 wins, and hopefully also win their bowl game. It doesn't matter if it's a BCS bowl or not, VT needs to get into the habit of winning bowls. While they might have a 19 year bowl streak, they've only won 5 or 6 of them, and only have one occurrence of back to back bowl wins.
So, come on Tech, pull it together, and give us a season unlike any we've seen. Even if you don't get to the BCS title game (which I admit is a long shot anyway), give us 12 wins, including a bowl win. There's always 2013.
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