Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508300012
SECTION: COLLEGE FOOTBALL PAGE: CF-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It may be the best college football rivalry nobody knows about, and for good reason. Four times the series has been broken off, for some pretty good reasons - world wars - as well as some less global ones, such as the fighting and foul language that led to an 18-year break from 1905-23.
When Tech and UVa stopped playing in 1966, ostensibly for good, the Cavaliers said they wanted to concentrate on ACC opponents. The suspicion in Blacksburg was that UVa no longer felt competitive - this two years after the Cavaliers had beaten the Hokies 20-17.
There is little documentation of the meeting that brought the two sides together again, except that former Tech assistant athletic director Bill Matthews seems to remember it took place at the Howard Johnson's on top of Afton Mountain.
The two other people at the meeting, Tech athletic director Frank Moseley and Virginia AD Steve Sebo, have died. But, Matthews remembers he and Moseley constantly were pushing for a resumption and Sebo was the only person who seemed to be listening.
Part of the problem was the availability of dates and sites. Twice, in 1971-72 and '78-79, Tech agreed to play back-to-back games in Charlottesville when the Cavaliers had five or more road games.
Before that, the game had been held at a variety of sites, including Norfolk and Richmond. After Tech took a two-year break for World War II (the Cavaliers never stopped playing) the series resumed at Victory Stadium in Roanoke.
Tech and UVa would play at Victory Stadium 16 times from 1945-63, but the games frequently were in the early part of the schedule and did not attract nearly as much attention as the annual Thanksgiving game between the Hokies and VMI.
Tech won the last eight games against UVa at Victory Stadium, one reason the Cavaliers were eager to move to campus sites following the 1963 game. That was fine with the Hokies, who were preparing to move into 40,000-seat Lane Stadium (since enlarged) in 1965.
It's no wonder UVa was eager to stop playing in Roanoke, when Tech, a 12-point underdog, upset the Cavaliers 20-15 in the 1963 game. Quarterback Lacy Edwards from Jefferson High School directed two early touchdown drives for Tech, which stopped UVa at the Hokies' 12-yard line in the closing moments.
Although the Cavaliers were to beat Tech on a last-minute touchdown pass in 1964, the programs clearly were on different tracks. Tech had big-time ambitions and, in some years, was bringing in freshman classes of 50 or more players. UVa, on the other hand, wasn't sure if it wanted to remain in the ACC.
Inauspicious return
Mike Burnop estimates he has seen 20 of the past 25 Tech-UVa games, including the three in which he played for the Hokies (1970-72). For the past 12 years, he has done commentary on the Virginia Tech football radio network.
``I remember the first Tech-UVa game [in 1970] got a little bit of hype, but nothing like it does today,'' said Burnop, owner of New River Office Supply. ``For one thing, it was the opening game of the season. For another, neither team was very good.''
Actually, Burnop had played against the Cavaliers once previously, when the schools' freshman teams met in Charlottesville in 1969. The freshmen accomplished something the varsity teams haven't done since 1931, playing to a scoreless tie.
It was the first of three shutouts Burnop would witness in his first three years at Tech. In 1970, Virginia won 7-0 before a crowd of only 23,000 in Blacksburg, with the Hokies returning the favor the next year in Charlottesville, 6-0.
Both schools had fired their coaches after the 1970 season; in fact, Jerry Claiborne was notified he was out at Tech following the fourth game. It seemed a pattern was forming, when, three years later, both schools went looking for coaches again.
It was a pair of enthusiastic first-year coaches, both still in their 30s, who led their teams onto the Scott Stadium field in 1974 for one of the most memorable and controversial games in the Tech-UVa rivalry.
Tech coach Jimmy Sharpe wasn't much older than his quarterback, Bruce Arians, who had to be persuaded to return to the team for a fifth year. Arians had been buried under Sharpe's predecessor, Charlie Coffey, to the point where he watched the 1973 game from the stands.
There was no suggestion of great drama when Virginia took a 28-14 lead in the fourth quarter, particularly since Tech favored the wishbone, an offense not known for its comeback capabilities. The Hokies had not completed a pass in nine quarters before Arians engineered a fourth-quarter rally capped by an 11-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Scales that made it 28-27 with no time on the clock.
The Cavaliers argued in vain that Scales was out of bounds when he made the catch, but they had no complaints when the officials ruled Arians had failed to cross the goal line on the subsequent two-point conversion attempt.
``I was lying in the end zone with the goal line at my waist,'' said Arians, a former head coach at Temple and now an assistant at Mississippi State. ``I was elated. Then, all of a sudden, I heard the Virginia players cheering. I remember one of the refs saying, `Let's get out of here.'
``That game has kept me alive as a player. Not a year goes by that somebody doesn't want to talk about it. It's probably the only thing I'm remembered for.''
Two-point plays decisive
The series has been more competitive, with Tech holding a 37-34-5 edge, than the individual games. The '70s were an exception, however, with only two of 10 games decided by more than seven points.
Many went down to the closing minutes, including the 1976 game, when then-Tech assistant Arians went out before the game and crossed two pieces of adhesive tape at the spot where he felt he had scored in 1974.
As if destined, the Hokies rallied for a 14-10 victory when Roscoe Coles scored on a 1-yard touchdown run with 1:08 remaining.
``I touched it; I touched it,'' said Coles, one of only four people who was aware of the ``X'' mark Arians had made in the end zone.
Three times during the '70s and '80s, the Tech-UVa game came down to a two-point conversion, with the Cavaliers foiling the Hokies on all three occasions (1974, '79 and '87). Tech went for two points after all three touchdowns in 1979 and failed on all three in a 20-18 loss.
That clinched a winning season - the first in 26 years - for the Cavaliers. UVa was in jeopardy of blowing a 17-0 halftime lead before intended receiver Tony Blackmon fell on the final two-point play with three seconds left.
Blackmon was the backup to regular fullback Mickey Fitzgerald, who had torn up a knee at West Virginia one week earlier. Fitzgerald was one of Tech's most popular players ever, owing in part to a growing public fascination with recruiting.
When Fitzgerald signed with the Hokies in the spring of 1975, it was widely reported he had picked Tech over and Virginia. At the time, he said he would have signed with UVa if Sonny Randle had been retained as coach, but, years later, he said the final choice came down to Tech and Alabama.
``Lynchburg, where I'm from, is an interesting place,'' Fitzgerald said. ``It's an old Civil War town, with its cobblestone streets and country-club drinkers. You're either [for] Tech or UVa, but even the Tech people there are kind of preppy.''
Routs favor Tech
It has been particularly galling to the Hokies that Virginia seems to win all the close games. Since 1970, the series couldn't be more even (12-12-1), although Tech has outscored UVa by more than 100 points.
During that time, the Cavaliers have beaten Tech twice by one point, once by two points and three times by three points. The Hokies, on the other hand, have had victory margins of 48, 32, 30 and 25 points since 1980 alone.
After head coach Bill Dooley arrived from North Carolina, Tech defeated UVa six times in seven years, thanks in large part to a succession of heavy-duty tailbacks. Cyrus Lawrence had a mini-career against the Cavaliers, with 492 yards in three games, as did Maurice Williams (404) and Eddie Hunter (382).
The only time they didn't beat Virginia from 1980-86, the Hokies took a 23-13 lead into the fourth quarter in 1984. UVa's starting quarterback, Kevin Ferguson, had thrown three interceptions, prompting coach George Welsh to bring sophomore Don Majkowski off the bench.
On fourth-and-inches, with 10:48 remaining, Majkowski faded back and hit diving John Ford on a post pattern that took the Cavaliers to the 5-yard line. Virginia scored one play later and came back to win 26-23 on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Majkowski to Ford.
More than 10 years later, it is viewed as one of the pivotal games in recent UVa history. Welsh isn't sure of that, but events leading to the game only increased his satisfaction with the outcome.
``Once we turned off the interstate, we were in the right-hand lane, with a police escort, and everybody was going past us,'' he said of the bus ride to the game. ``By the time we got to the stadium, I was furious. They dropped us off in the parking lot, where we had to endure the insults of the Virginia Tech fans.''
Coaches cringe
For a couple of coaches who stayed clear of controversy, Dooley and Welsh weren't always successful in keeping their players' comments off opposing bulletin boards.
In 1983, when it appeared North Carolina's unwillingness to play the Hokies would keep Tech, then 8-2, out of a bowl, All-America defensive lineman Bruce Smith trashed everybody in sight.
``This is a `must' situation that shouldn't be a `must' situation,'' he said. ``If any team doesn't deserve to go to a bowl, it's Virginia. I can't understand how people are talking about Virginia going to a bowl when we might not be going to one.''
Smith was matched against UVa's Jim Dombrowski, an All-America offensive tackle, for most of his career. But the player with whom he frequently was linked in print was Cavaliers linebacker Charles McDaniel.
Although he was injured early in the 1983 game, McDaniel still was in uniform when the media reached the locker room following a 48-0 Tech romp. He quickly set the battle lines for the next year's game.
``If I told you what I think about Bruce Smith, you couldn't write it down,'' said McDaniel, who also accused the Hokies of running up the score. ``I doubt Bruce Smith can even spell his name.''
There were no more incendiary comments until 1986, when the Hokies defeated Virginia 42-10 at Scott Stadium. ``Everybody knows, when you get Virginia down by 17, they quit,'' said Tech nose guard Mark Webb. ``That's the type of people they recruit. They quit.''
Gulp.
The Moore Era
Of the Tech-UVa games in the 1980s, none was as satisfying as a 28-10 victory over the Cavaliers at Scott Stadium in 1985. The Hokies trailed 10-0 before scoring on their first four possessions of the second half.
After Dooley left in 1986, the Cavaliers beat Tech three years in a row, their longest winning streak in the series since the early '50s. It coincided with the NCAA probation that followed Dooley's departure for Wake Forest.
It also was during that time that Virginia recruited Shawn Moore and Herman Moore, who formed the most potent pass-catch tandem in school history. Herman Moore had 505 receiving yards in three games against the Hokies, who hadn't forgotten that Moore was poised to sign with Tech in 1987 before questions arose about his admission.
One of the most memorable games in the series took place in 1989, when Tech trailed 32-8 before Rod Wootten replaced injured Cam Young at quarterback and got the Hokies as close as 32-25. Yet, the comeback quickly was forgotten.
Tempers flared as the Cavaliers were attempting to run out the clock and Tech coach Frank Beamer suddenly found himself in the role of peacemaker. Beamer was approaching defensive end Jimmy Whitten from behind when Whitten cocked a fist and caught Beamer in the face with an elbow.
A dazed Beamer was knocked to the artificial turf, not immediately realizing his right front tooth had been knocked out. After a lengthy search, the tooth was retrieved, but Beamer had no great desire to keep it.
``I guess it's good to be remembered for something,'' Whitten said, ``but I thought I had a pretty good career and played for some pretty good teams. I hate to be remembered as the guy who knocked out Frank Beamer's tooth.''
No doubt there were some Hokies who were rooting for Virginia the following year, when the Cavaliers were ranked No.1 in the country for three weeks, but they had an ulterior motive. They all knew UVa had to come to Lane Stadium on the last weekend of the season.
Virginia was a beaten team when it finally arrived in Blacksburg. The Cavaliers had lost two of three games and were without Shawn Moore, injured the previous week, but that didn't suppress the Hokies' celebration after a 38-13 rout.
Beamer particularly remembers a pregame visit from former Tech coach Jerry Claiborne, who was struck by how relaxed his former player was on the day before the game. ``It was almost like it was set up for us to win,'' Beamer said.
Rivalry flourishes
One continuing source of aggravation for Tech was eliminated in 1991, when the Hokies were invited to play football in the Big East Conference. The Hokies had been independents since 1965, when they left the Southern Conference.
Despite the new affiliation, Tech has lost none of its intense feelings for the Virginia rivalry, particularly under athletic director Dave Braine, a former UVa football assistant and administrator.
``I don't think I've left any question in the minds of our coaches how important a game this is on their schedules,`` Braine said. ``Our rivalry with Virginia is bigger for us than their rivalry with us is for Virginia. They don't look at it the way we do.''
Virginia, at the ACC's urging, wants to move the Tech game to an earlier date on the schedule. The teams never played on the season's last weekend until 1981 and contracts call for the game to remain in that slot at least until 2000.
Welsh, who has spent much of his UVa career talking up the rivalry with Tech, had second thoughts after last season. After beating Tech 42-23, the Cavaliers came out six days later and didn't look like the same team in a 30-27 loss to North Carolina State.
``I don't see what we gain by playing it at the end,`` said Welsh, whose Cavaliers appeared headed for the Fiesta Bowl before falling to the Wolfpack. ``It would have been better for us to lose to Virginia Tech and beat North Carolina State than vice versa.''
To Braine's way of thinking that's exactly why the teams should play each other on the last weekend of the season. That would have been the case last year until UVa rescheduled its N.C. State game in order to play the Wolfpack on ABC on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
In a strange turn, the loser of the Tech-UVa game was invited to a more lucrative and prestigious bowl game for the second year in a row, but at least both teams went somewhere. It marked the first time Tech and UVa had gone to bowls in consecutive years.
``It was great to see the teams finally play [in 1994] when they were both ranked in the Top 25,'' said Phil Elmassian, who has been an assistant coach at Tech, UVa and three other state schools. ``That's been the biggest change over the years; you've finally got two good football teams.''
(Editor's note: Some of the material for this article was taken from the book, ``'Hoos and Hokies,'' to be published this fall).
by CNB