Give Virginia Tech football coach Brent Pry credit for wanting to exude positive vibes.
“The message to the team was we’re closer than they think. We just got to do more things right, then all the sudden, it’s a knotted-up game in the fourth quarter. We’ve got a chance to win it against good people,” Pry told reporters at his weekly presser on Tuesday.
You’d think he was referring to a couple of close losses, but in actuality, the Hokies (2-3, 1-1 ACC) are coming off being on the wrong end of back-to-back blowouts – a 33-10 home loss to West Virginia, and a 41-10 loss at North Carolina.
UNC outgained Tech 527-273 this past Saturday, a week after WVU had outgained the Hokies 421-228.
Tech actually was in the game with West Virginia into the fourth quarter, but the game in Chapel Hill was over shortly after halftime.
It’s not Pry’s fault. The dysfunction for the program in 2022 is a function of the sorry state that his predecessor, Justin Fuente, left things in.
Pry had to go with a transfer, Grant Wells, at QB, with no succession plan in place, and the roster will be a work in progress for the next couple of years, at least.
That said, in the here and now, Pry wants to see improvement.
“There’re opportunities in all three phases for us to play, what I consider our potential to be. That’s the whole thing. It’s reaching your potential week after week, beating good teams to do that,” Pry said. “Right now, we’re not hitting it. We’re not playing to our potential consistently enough. My message to them was, we’re not that type of team.
“We’re not the type of team where the offense is just going to go dominate, and you win 60-58. We’re not the type of team where we’re going to go win three to nothing. We’re not the type of team that’s going to have a blocked kick and two punt returns for touchdowns. We’ve got to play complementary ball. We’ve all got to do our part in each of the three phases. If we do that, we’re good enough to beat anybody left on our schedule.”
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Chris Graham
