Year One: Record 10-4 with an appearance in the ACC Championship game. Many try to add an asterisk to this season saying it was achieved with Frank's recruits, but you have to also ask yourself, what did Frank do with those same recruits his last three years as coach? AND ... the QB, Evans, was not Frank's recruit.

Year Two: 9-4 with a rough bowl game loss.. Was it a great year? not really, but I would contend winning one additional game (GT) would have made people feel very differently about the season. It would have meant we lost to 3 top 20 teams. Not great, but certainly it would have given us another 10 win season.

Year Three: 6-7. Rough and hard to watch at times. A number of those same recruits of Frank's that everyone was so enamored with turned out to be poison pills. Why? I think other folks here have (over)analyzed why this might be. But ultimately this sentiment is not what the coaches, reporters, or fans say, but OTHER PLAYERS! I am gonna trust Hollifield and Turner on this one.

So that leaves us with where we are now. What was yesterday? Well, we can try to find connections and patterns to things that aren't there or we can acknowledge it for what it was. We started out playing very tight on defense. "Stop the run" was the mantra all week, but we let three passes happen that were clearly bad coverage (another was just a helluva a throw). And, let's see... oh yea... We had 5 TURNOVERS - 4 of which were mind-numbing. It is not possible to know where this game ends if we don't have those, but it sure feels like a 10 point swing (at least) in our favor.

To call it a S**T Show like I have seen posted by a number of folks is just ridiculous. There were some really nice moments. However, I get it; it is hard to enjoy those moments when they are coupled with some really poor decisions which, ultimately, cost VT the game. Also - getting the ball at the 1 yard line after the interception was just a really rough break.

I get the frustration. I am frustrated, but to rant about the coaching and the program's demise in general while attributing some magical properties to Frank Beamer is not reasonable nor is it factual. If many of our current fans watched the FIRST 5 YEARS of Frank's tenure, they would never have given him an additional 23 years.

Let's PLEASE see how this plays out. We have some real talent. And like all but about 10 or 15 teams, we have some real question marks. I know some people might not have a private way to vent their frustration, but publicly let's support these kids (and the coaches) with everything we got. I get the feeling, this is the kind of team that might benefit from some really strong crowds for the next three games.

Mental toughness can grow when you know HokieNation has got your back!