Winning close games is the hallmark of good college football head coaches. Unfortunately for the Virginia Tech Hokies, their head coach has a disastrous 1-11 mark in one-score games during his two-plus years leading the program.
There’s no way around it these days. Coaches have to win the close games, or their record will suffer. Thanks to the transfer portal, talent is spread out across the country and many games will be tight.
The Hokies suffered another tough one Saturday, falling 38-31 in overtime to Syracuse. Despite having their top two offensive players on the sideline because of injuries, Tech built a 21-3 third-quarter lead. Then, almost predictably under Pry, the Hokies collapsed. Syracuse scored three times to take a 24-21 lead early in the fourth quarter.
Tough losses commonplace for the Hokies
Matt Gentry – The Roanoke Times)
Pry could have skipped the postgame interview room and told the media to use his same quotes after losses to surprising Vanderbilt, Rutgers, and Miami.
“Unfortunately, we made too many mistakes,” Pry said Saturday. “We didn’t make them earn it well enough. We gotta be better than that. I gotta be better. The coaches gotta be better.”
Gotta. Gotta. Gotta. The problem is the Hokies are nine games into another disappointing season. Pry has a career record of 15-18. Tech old-timers might point to Frank Beamer and say his record stood at 24-40 after six years. Beamer and the Hokies went on to win 10 games or more 13 times in the next 19 seasons.
But Pry is not Beamer. Tech will never have another coach like that. Plus, Beamer transitioned the Hokies from a small time to a college football national powerhouse. Pry received the keys to an established program. He doesn’t get six years of mediocrity to get things going.
Can Pry find a way to turn things around?
Pry seems to know what goes wrong in close games. The landslide against Syracuse started when Justus Ross-Simmons caught a screen pass and raced 55 yards for a touchdown. The big play breathed confidence into a struggling team, and it came because of a mistake by the Hokies.
“We had a mental bust on the big screenplay,” Pry said. “A guy blitzed that shouldn’t have. So we were shorthanded. We ran zero blitz. They threw a 10-yard route. Catch it. We missed a tackle and it goes the distance.”
Sure, players make mistakes. But coaches make players. It’s not a stretch to expect players to know when they should and shouldn’t blitz.
To be fair, Pry deserves credit for having his team ready to play — unlike games like Vanderbilt and Rutgers. With the vast majority of their 2024 offensive production on the sideline, the Hokies moved the ball effectively with backup quarterback Colin Schlee leading the way. They had a chance to win an important ACC road game and could have stayed in the hunt for the championship game.
Tech wasting a potential historic season
But that’s the story of this season for the Hokies. They could be 5-0 and first place in the league with the upcoming Clemson game drawing national interest. But Pry has held this team back. And it will finish mid-pack in the ACC, barring a late-season collapse.
If the Hokies play Clemson close, it’s likely Pry will trot out the Syracuse quotes:
- “Disappointing loss.”
- “Proud of the team’s effort.”
- “That’s football.”
- “Against a group like that, we gotta make them earn it. We did it in the first half, didn’t do it in the second half.”
- “We had too many penalties and too many mental errors.”
But those are losing-end-of-the-stick comments. And after 12 close games with only one victory, simply knowing what to do becomes meaningless.
“That’s kind of where we are,” Pry said about the close losses. “I’ve gotta do better. We gotta play better. The really good teams; that’s part of it. You get over the hump. You learn how to win those close games. When you do, you like your win total a lot better. It’s not horseshoes. It’s not good enough to be close. You gotta find ways to win games at the end.”
Yep. At almost $5 million per year, you gotta. Or you gotta find a new place to coach football.
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