25 years later and this one still hurts.

Really hurts in fact.

I rewatched this game just this week. I was there in 1984 in person. But for a change I knew the outcome going in. I rewatched this game sans my O&M contacts as I do every single Eye in the Sky.

Jesse “the body” Ventura and I call it right down the middle. And I must say, the middle reads as if VT should have won.  By and large; we were bigger, stronger, faster. But we gift wrapped this one just in time for a Falcon Christmas.

Despite possibly fielding the greatest Virginia Tech defense of all-time.

1984 3rd in Total Defense at 234 allowed per Game.
Let’s put that into a bit of prospective; shall well?
2008, VT was 7th in Total Defense at 279 yards per game.
2007, VT was 4th at 296 allowed per game.
2005, VT was 1st at 247 allowed per game.
2004, VT was 4th at 268 allowed per game.
2003, VT was 51st at 368 allowed per game.
2002, VT was 32nd at 335 allowed per game.
2001, VT was 2nd at 238 allowed per game.
2000, VT was 27th at 324 allowed per game.
Even in our MNC year of 1999, VT was 3rd at 247 allowed per game.

Only the 2006 Bud Foster defense was better. Every other Bud Foster coached VT defense has been bested by the 1984 Bill Dooley and company Independence Bowl stop-unit. In fact, the 1984 defense only allowed an extremely parsimonious 3.36 yards per play. Second best in school pigskin history. Lets take a closer look at just how loaded for bear this 1984 so-called 5-2 VT defense was…

Could start -not just play, but start- for Bud Foster today.
Let’s see … where do I begin? Hmmmmm? How about with #78? Woodpiles and a blizzard of pre-game Virginia and Louisiana Circuit-Court appeals that went all the way right up until Kickoff not withstanding; all “Bruuuuuuuuuce” Smith did was amass 16 regular season Sacks as a Senior. Three more in the Bowl game, though only officially credited with one. 46 Sacks during his VT career. 71 TFL good for 5o4 in reverse.

Now recall that we lined Bruce up (mostly) as a Dt. The Buffalo Bills shifted Bruce to De. Imagine how many more Sacks Bruce would have amassed as a fulltime VT De? For my money the best VT defensive-linemen ever. Hands down. Game over. Full stop. Starts at De or Dt today. Wherever he wants.

“They recruit quitters.” -Mark Webb Ng-
Not only did Mr. Webb give us the single greatest soundbyte in Commonwealth Cup history after the 1983 48-zip beat-down of the french; he also manned the middle of this truly epic 1984 VT defense. Mark’s job was to occupy blockers and keep OLinemen off of our two and only two Lb’s. He not only did that, he had Sacks and TFL of his own. Making him possibly the best Ng Coach Dooley ever enjoyed. Webb would be no less than our 3rd best Dt today. Borderline starter.

Morgan Roane. Morgan Roane was a Jimmy Whitten before there was a Jimmy Whitten. A rough, tough, scrappy and sometimes unclean Dt at this time who later shifted to De. Morgan Roane would make for a wonderful Stud De for Bud Foster. He would start today.

Jessie Penn.  All Jessie Penn manged to do was to go on to play three years with the Dallas Cowboys. Playing with the likes of Tony Dorsett, Randy White and Ed “Too Tall” Jones, among others. Jessie recorded 2.5 N.F.L. Sacks, one Fumble recovery and one INT of all things. Not bad for a three year back-up. Might actually slot as a Backer for Bud.

Vince Daniels.  Vince only played one year at VT due to rumored off-field problems. He lead us in tackles in 1984 despite not playing in the first four games with 113 stops. This from a guy who was not even listed as 4th string (Dooley only listed 4-strings) when August Camp began. Vince was a pure sideline-to-sideline thoroughbred stud. A Secretariat at Linebacker for our Hokies. Vince prolly had an N.F.L. ceiling; and he was so good that 1986 Peach Bowl defensive M.V.P.  Lb, Jamel Agmey could not even sniff the field. On top of all of that Vince was the most powerful hitter at Linebacker in a long long time. Only George DelRicco comes to mind. VD starts at Mike. No if’s and’s or but’s.

Paul “Chill” Johnson:  Paul led VT in Tackles in both 1985 and again in 1986. Paul finished his VT career with just over 300 stops. A very popular baller off the field and a somewhat tallish and athletic Lb who was oddly passed over by the N.F.L. draft after his senior year.  Paul would likely slot as a Whip for Bud today, but he would be a colossal Whip and he could nearly run every bit as well as Daniels did.

Ashley Lee:  Still my favorite non-Frederick Family football playing Hokie of all-time. Ashley lead VT in tacking from his Linebacking spot in 1980 and in 1981. But then he detonated his knee and moved back to Safety away from front-line contact after sitting out a year. I recall the week before we played Vanderbilt in 1983, when Ashley Lee was telling anybody who would listen on campus that he would pick one off and take it back for a TD vs. Vandy. He lied. He took two back for TD’s vs. Vandy; and lead us in INT’s in 1984.  To put it another way; Ashely Lee was the one defender who was pretty close to Bruce Smith at his given position. Before he blew out his knee he was very very close in fact. Hello Rover position for Ashley under Bud Foster.

Eye in the Sky: The more things change, the more the stay the same. Or not…

• ESPN used tons of crowd shots during this game. If you were good looking or a kid and near the lower part of the field, there was a fair to middling chance you would be on National TV. Brought a far more human element to the game and only added to the wonderful pageantry that is College Football at its best. This is one broadcasting tradition that should be revived.
• No game clock (on TV).  None. Not even during TV timeouts. That was not a good thing, as I was only able to get a few timestamps when making my notes on this one.
• In-game real-time player interviews. Today’s EA would have been chatting Bruce Smith up live on the sidelines rather than giving us an injury update off-camera. Again; this only adds to the human element that is so critical to all of sport.
• The Hokie Bird: a black cotton ball tail, and alternating black and brown arms. Looked like an advertisement for Guinness black-n-tan’s crossed with the Audubon Society and gone totally wrong. That costume can stay in 1984.
• Great looking Gloss Lettering and Numerals. Everyone is always changing their unis these days. Why not bring Gloss printing back? Looked extremely smart under the lights and the old wide stripe Hokie pants (see above) were not too shabby either.
• Chain smoking. I believe ESPN only managed to show two shots where coach Dooley did not have a heater in his piehole. Not my thing; even though I am a very sincere Dooley fan.
• The Dooley helmet stars on the front and the football’s on the back. I’ve never seen anyone use two distinct awards stickers for helmets. But the stars would be welcomed back by me.
• How about seeing Wr’s in a 3-point stance? How many of you have never seen that?
• Tech Trivia: how many barefoot Kickers has Virginia Tech ever had? Name them?

The Game:
1st Quarter: AFA did mount their one quality drive of the opening stanza on their second possession; as it took us a series or two to figure out the execution of so-called Assignment football vs. the Fisher DeBerry version of the Wishbone attack. Recall from the pic above that we only fielded 2 Lb’s! This meant that Ashley Lee had much more run stopping responsibility. So much in fact that by the 2nd-half you could see Ashley rushing up (not just cheating) into the TV picture pre-snap. AFA never even bothered to try to throw behind him and make him pay for this which surprised me in no small way. Our 5 full-time down-linemen contained the Belly-Play (Fullback up the gut) most of the night. But it did take our De’s a couple of series to get their spacing right; and anytime a VT Lb got caught up in traffic AFA enjoyed nice yardage to the outside. This allowed just enough room for an AFA FG and a 3-nil lead. But overall we played well in the first fifteen minutes. Mark Cox ran our very own Option very well and Eddie Hunter got us in scoring position with a nifty high-wire balancing act of a 33 yard run off-Tackle to the left. Maurice Williams punched it in on the made for TV “Sweep style play” from five yards out.

2nd Quarter: More of the same, but better for the VT defense. The AFA offense only had one possession in this quarter that was not snuffed out in just three downs. However a Hokie fumble on our own 3 yardline set AFA up for an easy major (TD) conversion on their very first play. This is the play I recall most as a teenager. The AFA Wingback (#25, Simmons) took the counter pitchout and sprinted into our endzone untouched as we swarmed the Belly-Play. But he held the ball out for Daniels, for several seconds in fact as Daniels was slowing down after the whistle with both Ref’s officially posing in the Touchdown signal. Then Simmons slammed the ball into Daniels gut. How this was not a Unsportsmanlike Conduct call I still have no idea to this very day? But it is even more shocking that an AFA cadet would do such.

Beyond that; AFA did nothing in the second Quarter. We had two nice drives however. Both had a decent mix of running and passing yardage gained. One that was aided by an AFA face-mask call and ended in a FGA that came up just a couple of yards short.

At the half we trailed 10-7; right after a Mark Cox INT right in front the AFA  Goaline in a hurry-up offense sprint down the field that saw us calling a staggering 5 running plays but move the ball rather precipitously nonetheless thanks to the judicious use of our 3 timeouts. Well, that is right up until the Mark Cox throw into Quad-Coverage. But things still looked reasonable enough … as we had 8 more first-downs than AFA had and we had 119 more yards than AFA did after 30 minutes of play. But thanks to two awful turnovers; AFA had a gimmie 3 point lead.

3rd Quarter:  To be brief; 0-0, as nobody dared score a point. Nobody even got close enough for a FGA. We only had 8, that’s e-i-g-h-t offensive snaps in the entire Quarter and two of ‘em were Punts. The key play of the Quarter was the second fumble by then AFA cadet Qb Bart Weiss. For the second time in the game, the AFA fumble hit the ground and basically died on contact; making for two relatively easy recoveries for Weiss himself. All Weiss did that day was take a helluva a shellacking as the AFA Qb. Daniels, Lee, “Bruuuuuuce” and several other Hokies all took turns abusing Mr. Weiss on-field.

All that Cadet Weiss has done in the meantime is become Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the 351st Refueling Squadron stationed in Mindenhall England. All the 351st does is hairline nerve-racking aerial work refueling U.S. and NATO planes  over 21 million square miles that covers a whopping 91 countries!

I put it in my notes to look up what happened to then Cadet Weiss. Cadet Weiss won the Offensive M.V.P. for the 1984 Independence Bowl; and you could just tell that this guy was gonna end up being a success in life. Cadet Weiss did not disappoint. God Bless and thank you and all the other AFA people for your service. God Bless the VTCC as well.

4th Quarter: despite such a suspect offensive showing in the 3rd Quarter, the 4th began with an O&M bang as Bruce Smith broke through on 4th and less than a yard to Sack AFA Qb Weiss.

After this my closest Hokie football friend ever, one Eddie Hunter, churned out 3 combative runs that finally resulted in a first down. But a Halfback Pass by the same on the very next play into triple coverage on the way to the truf resulted in another VT INT and the ball on their own 38 yardline for the AFA after the turnover. After 2 VT offsides penalties, AFA crossed midfield and then crossed VT up on a nfity play call of a play-action pass good for 16 yards. Weiss then picked up a first-down run and suddenly the game was on the line with a 4th and goal to go call on the VT 2 yardline. Then first year AFA head coach DeBerry elected to go for it as 13-7 gets beat by a Hokie TD.

As he had done twice before, VT Lb Vince Daniels dramatically timed the AFA snap correctly and lept over the AFA right-G hurdling the co-called A-Gap. Daniels hit Weiss before Weiss could even turn to fake the handoff on the Belly-Play. What is remarkable is that the starting AFA Fb had been injured and we sold out to stop the Belly-Play. Daniels effectively tackled both Weiss and the substitute AFA Fb, but not before Weiss executed what I can only describe as a two-handed chest-pass in basketball instead of an Option ptichout. The AFA Wingback (Mike Brown) was left uncovered as Penn bit down hard on the Belly-Play. Brown sprinted in untouched and AFA was suddenly up 17-7.

The other oddball thing was that we switched into a 4-3 in the fourth Quarter after playing the 33 point per game AFA offense to only 10 points in 53 minutes and change. Some of this was Morgan Roane got dinged up (but did return) on a accidental leg-whip by our very own Vince Daniels. But why change the entire Defense? AFA clearly had more room to run on our 4-3 set as this required a recalibration of assignment football. I do not know if this was a Dooley or Bob Brush call (thank you cpa hokie)? Maybe we were trying to throw AFA off-guard; like when Seth switches to a Zone in hoops? But the AFA Wishbone attack finally found some daylight vs. our 4-3 set.

After that AFA TD by Weiss; Mark Cox lead us to a couple of first downs; but a very hurtful Offensive Pass Interference call on Joe Jones (our Te who made the catch in triple coverage) effectively negated what could have been an otherwise sensational 42 yard desperation play. Cox was then stripped of the ball trying to throw by MAC Defensive Player of the Year 1984, one Chris Funk. AFA recovered deep in VT territory and punched in a token score on another Weiss run for 6 points. This one was all over but the shouting. AFA won 23-7.

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Conclusions: This one got away; and hence we have the term upset in Sports.

• 4 Hokie Turnovers, one on our very own 3 yardline. 2 AFA fumbles that bounced right back and into their talons.
• 11 Hokie penalties bad for 112 the wrong way.  Including a whopping 5 VT personal fouls which give AFA 33% of their first-downs on the night.
• Outstanding punting and kicking by the Falcons that never gave VT better starting field position than our own 35 yardline; except on time on the day and that was at our own 42. This forced us into starting drives on our own 13, our own 3, our own 12, and our own 14.
• Two missed VT FGA’s.
• And one AFA TD where their Qb’s knee may have been down. It was close, but Weiss may have had his knee touching on the backbreaking 4th down and goal to go run by Brown.

We had more total yardage and first-downs than AFA did. But more turnovers and penalties as well.

Historical Irony: Don’t forget that then Coach Bill Dooley had just secured a coaching extension until 1989; and an Athletic Director extension through 1994.

If we had beaten AFA that night … I have to doubt that Frank Beamer would have become the VT Head Football Coach after the 1986 season.

Virginia Tech=7, Air Force Academy=23
attendance 41,000

“LETS GO!”

“HOKIES!”

b’street.

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