Virginia Tech stomped by Tar Heels, 41-10

By Jack Brizendine

Staff Writer

October 1, 2022

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Sounding drained, Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry maintained his belief to the media that his team is close to where it wants to be, despite losing its second-straight game in blowout fashion.

The Hokies (2-3, 1-1 ACC) followed up last week’s Thursday-night loss to West Virginia with an even more lopsided defeat to North Carolina (4-1, 1-0 ACC), 41-10, Saturday evening.

“I told [the team] we’re closer than they realize,” Pry said after the game. “I’m watching it, and there’s just some 100-level things we’re not doing that we do in practice.”

Simple errors plagued the Hokies against the Tar Heels, from errant plays on offense to chunk plays given up on defense.

Tech’s offense only turned the ball over once on Saturday — an underneath throw from Grant Wells into triple coverage — set up North Carolina’s offense in the red zone. UNC’s Drake Maye threw a laser to wideout Antoine Green to build the Tar Heel lead to 21-3 early in the second quarter. The Hokies never got closer than within two scores of UNC following the sequence.

“We gotta play complimentary ball,” Pry said. “We’re not the type of team right now that you can play below average in one phase or another and go win a game. We gotta do it together.”

The Hokies performance on defense was the antithesis of complimentary football, struggling to get off the field on third and fourth downs, which led to lengthy UNC drives.

“[Third and fourth downs were] an area we just didn’t make our plays,” Pry said. “...We gotta be challenging enough and put our guys in position to make plays. It seemed like we were always just a step or two away from sacking a kid.”

There were several instances where the Hokies defense nearly got to Maye but couldn’t get him to the turf, triggering broken plays that went for big gains. Maye finished the day with 26 completions for 363 yards and three touchdowns, adding 73 yards on the ground — the most total yards by a freshman against Virginia Tech ever.

“We’ve just gotta execute better,” linebacker Dax Hollifield said. “Everybody’s gotta do their job. That’s really what football is, it’s not really more complicated than that. Everybody on the field just needs to do what’s asked of them and just do it.”

The VT offense left a lot to be desired on Saturday as well. Out of Tech’s 12 offensive drives, only two ended in points.

“We were just inconsistent,” quarterback Grant Wells said of the offense’s performance. “That drive at the end of the first half showed us that we have no trouble moving the ball, we just have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot with unnecessary penalties [that] they don’t cause, [that] we do ourselves. Once we clean that up, I think we’ll be just fine.”

The Hokies have shown flashes throughout the first month of the season, but Saturday's loss is a sobering reminder of how much work there is ahead for the program.

“This isn’t going to be an easy process,” Pry said. “It’s not going to be an overnight process. This is going to take time. We’re going to do it the right way. We gotta recruit better, we gotta create better practice habits and we gotta keep working on our culture.”

Virginia Tech’s schedule won’t get any easier in the coming weeks, with matchups against Pittsburgh, Miami and NC State coming down the pike — a stretch that will test the team’s character more than any other this season.