October 5, 2014
The North Carolina game - updated 10/5 at 4 p.m.
Football: #HokieHuddle

Your award winners from yesterday's win at North Carolina

A photo gallery from today's 34-17 win at North Carolina

Virginia Tech Postgame Notes

• Virginia Tech wore maroon helmets, with white jerseys and white pants. Tech is now 55-35-1 all-time under head coach Frank Beamer wearing the maroon-white-white combination.

• Virginia Tech scored just 44 seconds into the game, marking the second straight week the Hokies scored in the first minute of the game. Last week, Tech scored 8 seconds into the game when Andrew Motuapuaka scooped up a fumble on the opening kickoff and scored.

• The opening score extended Tech’s school- and ACC-record scoring streak to 249 games, the 11th-longest streak in FBS history and the fifth-longest active streak.

• Two of Tech’s four touchdowns were scored by freshmen. Sixteen of the first 22 touchdowns on the season have been scored by freshmen (18 of 22 by underclassmen), including the six before Kendall Fuller’s pick-six touchdown.

• Redshirt freshman tight end Bucky Hodges has scored in five of the six Tech games. The freshman has four touchdowns and a two-point conversion.

• Sophomore Kendall Fuller registered his first interception of the year in the second quarter, returning it 47 yards for his first collegiate touchdown. It was the seventh interception of his young career. He finished with four tackles, an interception and two pass breakups.

• With Kendall Fuller’s touchdown, all four Fuller brothers have now scored for the Hokies. Vincent Fuller scored two non-offensive touchdowns and Kyle Fuller scored on a blocked punt against Appalachian State in 2011. Corey Fuller - the lone offensive player of the four - scored six touchdowns for the Hokies.

• The touchdown by Fuller was the 137th non-offensive touchdown under Beamer and the 85th on defense (57 via interception). Fuller becomes the 88th different non-offensive player under Beamer to score a touchdown.

• Freshmen Bucky Hodges (redshirt) and Isaiah Ford (true) both have four touchdown catches. The school record for touchdown receptions in a season from a freshman is five, by Josh Hyman in 2004, who did it as a redshirt freshman. Ford’s four scores are the most by a true freshman.

• Ken Ekanem had a career-high 3.0 sacks and 4.0 tackles for loss, in addition to a forced fumble. The last Tech player to have three sacks in a game was Dadi Nicolas last season against Pitt.

• Virginia Tech is now 75-31 in games starting before 1 p.m. under head coach Frank Beamer.

• The Hokies have now won 12 of their last 14 games in the state of North Carolina and are 19-3 in games played in the Tar Heel State since 2000. Since joining the ACC in 2004, Tech is 34-6 vs. teams from North Carolina and 39-7 dating back to 1993.

• Tailback Trey Edmunds suffered a right clavicle fracture, as confirmed by X-rays. Tailback Marshawn Williams suffered a sprained ankle. His X-rays were negative.

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J.C. Coleman scores the final touchdown of the game as the #Hokies down UNC 34-17 on the road.

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Hokies claim 34-17 win over Tar Heels

Michael Brewer threw a touchdown pass, Marshawn Williams rushed for a touchdown and Virginia Tech’s defense played a strong game, as the Hokies came out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with a 34-17 victory over the Tar Heels.

The win moved Tech to 4-2 overall, 1-1 in the ACC. North Carolina fell to 2-3, 0-2 in league play.

Tech led 24-3 after three quarters, but the Tar Heels tried to make a game of it. Tech quarterback Michael Brewer’s first interception of the game led to the Tar Heels’ first touchdown. The Hokies were backed up, taking possession at their own 2-yard line. On the second play of the drive, North Carolina’s M.J. Stewart intercepted Brewer’s pass at the Tech 16.

Two plays later, North Carolina got on the end zone. Elijah Hood scored on a 1-yard run with 13:19 left in the game to cut the Tech lead to 24-10.

But the Hokies answered with a strong drive, marching 76 yards in 16 plays, eating nearly 7 minutes off the clock. The drive ended when Joey Slye connected on a 22-yard field goal with 6:28 left in the game that gave the Hokies a 27-10 lead.

The Tar Heels responded, going 76 yards in just 2:08 and scored on a Marquise Williams touchdown pass to Quinshad Davis with 4:15 remaining. That made the score 27-17 in favor of Tech.

The Tar Heels had an opportunity to cut into the lead more with just a little more than three minutes left in the game. But punt returner Ryan Switzer muffed a punt, and Tech’s Deon Newsome recovered at the North Carolina 10. Two plays later, J.C. Coleman scored on a 1-yard run to put the game away.

Tech finished with 357 yards of offense. Brewer completed 18 of 27 passes for 186 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. Tech rushed for 171 yards, with Trey Edmunds leading the way. He had 54 yards on 12 carries. The Hokies owned time of possession in this one, holding the ball for more than 40 minutes.

Tech’s defense held North Carolina to 345 yards and sacked North Carolina quarterbacks five times – three by defensive end Ken Ekanem. Three North Carolina turnovers led to 21 points.

Hokies maintain 24-3 lead

The third quarter was an ugly one for both teams, as neither mounted much of an offensive threat. The Hokies had just two first downs in the third, but still came out of it with a 24-3 lead because Tech’s defense held the Tar Heels to three first downs.

How bad was the offense in the third quarter? Tech had just 22 yards of offense, while UNC had just 89.

Of more importance to Tech fans, tailback Marshawn Williams limped off the field with a right foot/ankle injury. The sports medicine staff took him to the locker room for further evaluation. More on that to come.

The two teams head to the fourth quarter.

Perfect first half for VT

Nearly everything went the Hokies’ way in the first half, as they took a 14-3 first-quarter lead and expanded it to 24-3 at halftime. Tech amassed 230 yards in the first half, and more importantly, held the ball for more than 20 minutes, keeping the Tar Heels’ explosive offense off the field.

The Hokies took a 17-3 lead late in the first half on a 27-yard field goal by Joey Slye. That capped a 13-play, 70-yard drive that chewed more than 7 minutes off the clock.

On the ensuing possession, UNC tried to get something going. The Tar Heels got to their own 45, but then Tech’s Kendall Fuller intercepted a Mitch Trubisky pass and returned it 47 yards for a touchdown to give the Hokies a 24-3 lead. It marked the first interception of the season for Fuller (seventh of his career) and the first touchdown of his career.

Fuller became the fourth Fuller brother to score a touchdown at Tech. Kyle Fuller scored on a blocked punt in 2011 against Appalachian State. Corey Fuller caught six touchdown passes his senior year in 2012. Vinnie Fuller returned a fumble for a touchdown against West Virginia in 2003 and returned a blocked field goal for a touchdown against West Virginia in 2004

Tech had a chance very late to add to its lead. The Hokies held North Carolina on fourth-and-7 when Ken Ekanem – who had two sacks and sacked Marquise Williams for a seven-yard loss. Tech then drove UNC 26, but Slye hooked a 43-yard field goal on the final play of the half.

Tech’s defense played terrific football in the first half, holding the Tar Heels to just 138 yards – UNC had 478 last week at Clemson. The Tar Heels did not convert a third down in the first half.

Tech gets the ball first to open the second half.

Virginia Tech Halftime Notes

• Virginia Tech is wearing maroon helmets, with white jerseys and white pants. Tech is 54-35-1 all-time under head coach Frank Beamer wearing the maroon-white-white combination.

• Virginia Tech scored just 44 seconds into the game, marking the second straight week the Hokies scored in the first minute of the game. Last week, Tech scored 8 seconds into the game when Andrew Motuapuaka scooped up a fumble on the opening kickoff and scored.

• The opening score extended Tech’s school- and ACC-record scoring streak to 249 games, the 11th-longest streak in FBS history and the fifth-longest active streak.

• Two of Tech’s three first-half touchdowns were scored by freshmen. Sixteen of the first 21 touchdowns on the season have been scored by freshmen (18 of 21 by underclassmen), including the six before Kendall Fuller’s pick-six touchdown.

• Redshirt freshman tight end Bucky Hodges has scored in five of the six Tech games. The freshman has four touchdowns and a two-point conversion.

• Sophomore Kendall Fuller registered his first interception of the year in the second quarter, returning it 47 yards for his first collegiate touchdown. It was the seventh interception of his young career.

• With Kendall Fuller’s touchdown, all four Fuller brothers have now scored for the Hokies. Vincent Fuller scored two non-offensive touchdowns and Kyle Fuller scored on a blocked punt against Appalachian State in 2011. Corey Fuller - the lone offensive player of the four - scored six touchdowns for the Hokies.

• The touchdown by Fuller was the 137th non-offensive touchdown under Beamer and the 85th on defense (57 via interception). Fuller becomes the 88th different non-offensive player under Beamer to score a touchdown.

• Freshmen Bucky Hodges (redshirt) and Isaiah Ford (true) both have four touchdown catches. The school record for touchdown receptions in a season from a freshman is five, by Josh Hyman in 2004, who did it as a redshirt freshman. Ford’s four scores are the most by a true freshman.

• Ken Ekanem has a career-high 2.0 sacks at the half. His 3.0 tackles for loss are just off his career high of 3.5 against East Carolina earlier this year.

Hokies up early on UNC

Just like last week, the Hokies got on the board quickly, as defensive end Ken Ekanem forced a fumble by UNC quarterback Marquise Williams that the Hokies recovered at the Tar Heel 16. Two plays later, the Hokies scored on an 8-yard run by tailback Marshawn Williams, and Joey Slye’s extra point gave Tech a 7-0 lead less than a minute into the game.

North Carolina added a field goal after the Hokies stopped the Tar Heels on third-and-goal at the Tech 3. Tech then responded with an 82-yard march that took 5:33 off the clock. The Hokies scored when quarterback Michael Brewer hit Bucky Hodges for a 26-yard touchdown play, giving the Hokies a 14-3 lead.

Tech finished the quarter with 134 yards and had 9:31 in possession time. The Hokies forced two three-and-outs on the Tar Heels, so overall, Tech got off to a great start.

Virginia Tech dress squad notes

The Virginia Tech coaching staff elected to put just 68 players on the dress squad for the Hokies’ game against North Carolina this afternoon. That marked the fewest players to be on a dress squad this season. It also marked the fewest to be on the dress squad for a road game – the staff elected to put 73 players on the dress squad for the Ohio State game, Tech’s only other road game this season.

The notable omission from the dress squad was cornerback Brandon Facyson, who has been bothered with a lower leg injury since last spring. In all likelihood, Tech’s compliance office will pursue a medical hardship waiver for Facyson to preserve the year, and he should receive it since he has only played in three games this season (thus he would have three years of eligibility left). The NCAA rule on medical hardship waivers for football players is four games before the halfway point of the season, which, for Tech, is the game against North Carolina.

Other omissions from the dress squad include the obvious – Shai McKenzie (torn ACL), Luther Maddy (knee), Dahman McKinnon (knee) and Woody Baron (ankle). Baron injured his ankle in Tuesday’s practice, and the injury just didn’t heal enough to allow him to play.

Tech’s staff will dress just three defensive tackles for the game – Corey Marshall, Nigel Williams and true freshman Rickey Walker. Dewayne Alford, normally a defensive end, will be the fourth defensive tackle, but only in the case of an emergency. Another defensive tackle, true freshman Vinny Mihota, did not make the trip because of an ankle injury, but Tech’s staff wants him to take a redshirt year anyway.

Michael Santamaria and Greg Jones also did not make the dress squad after both made the trip to Ohio State. Santamaria, a freshman, will probably take a redshirt year at this point.

Also, Curtis Williams did not make the dress squad. The walk-on backup cornerback made the dress squad last week against Western Michigan – the first dress squad appearance of his career.

Tech-UNC game makes for interesting weekend for the Di Nardo family

Derek Di Nardo’s parents will make the drive from Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for Saturday’s Virginia Tech-North Carolina football game, but it has the makings for an awkward situation, as Derek’s younger sister, Casey, attends the University of North Carolina.

And she’s more than just a student – Casey is a student-athlete, and a world-class one at that. She plays field hockey for the Tar Heels, who are ranked No. 1 in the nation, and she currently has a roster spot on the U.S. National Team.

“She’s a stud,” Derek said. “I’ve worked out with her a couple of times, and she usually kicks my butt. She tried out for the Olympic team this summer and made that. She’ll be training with them over the summer, so she’s pretty big time.”

It’s probably safe to say that Casey knows several members of North Carolina’s football team. So her loyalty may be divided between Carolina blue and her brother on Saturday at 12:30 p.m.

“She’s super supportive,” Derek said. “She’ll be at the game. I don’t know who she’ll be cheering for, but hopefully she’ll be cheering me on. We’ll see what happens.”

Derek is fairly sure that his parents Jimmy and Kathy will be cheering for the orange and maroon Saturday. They tend to split their allegiances by sport – and not by school – when there is a head-to-head battle.

His parents do a lot of traveling since they have two Division-I athletes for children at two separate schools. Fortunately for them, though, field hockey matches are usually on Fridays and Sundays and football games, for the most part, are on Saturdays.

“They’ll make all sorts of trips,” Derek said. “They’ll drive up to, like, Maryland and watch her play on Friday and then drive down and watch me play Saturday. They’re driving all over the country to watch us play, and it’s pretty neat having supportive parents like that.”

The Di Nardos will have a busy weekend ahead in Chapel Hill. Casey – who has started all nine matches for the Tar Heels and has two goals and an assist – plays tonight at 6 p.m. when the Tar Heels take on No. 3-ranked Virginia.

Regardless of what transpires this weekend, Derek and Casey do have a healthy sibling rivalry when it comes to athletics, and that will continue into the foreseeable future.

“Obviously, I think I’m the best athlete, and she thinks she’s the best athlete,” Derek said. “We still have our little brother coming up, so we’ll see what happens. Right now, I’ll take the crown until she dethrones me.”

Rogers perfect example of inexact science that is recruiting

This week, there has been a lot of focus on Virginia Tech’s running game – mostly on the Hokies’ 308-yard rushing performance against Western Michigan and also on how the Hokies move forward after losing talented tailback Shai McKenzie to an ACL tear against the Broncos. McKenzie will be out for the remainder of this season and spring practice.

Running backs coach Shane Beamer said the pecking order at tailback was Marshawn Williams, Trey Edmunds and J.C. Coleman. He also mentioned that fullback Sam Rogers could get some carries. Rogers, a sophomore from Mechanicsville, Virginia, carried one time for six yards against Western Michigan – his second carry of the season.

Rogers is an interesting story, and some media members’ questions in Tuesday’s media availability prompted Beamer to divulge Rogers’ recruiting story. The process started at an awards dinner in Richmond, where head coach Frank Beamer learned that Rogers had been named the area’s overall Player of the Year.

“He leaned over to me during the banquet and said, ‘Why aren’t we recruiting him?’” Shane said. “I’ll be honest, I told him, ‘What’s he going to play? Maybe he’s a fullback. I think he’d be a great walk-on.’ He said, ‘Why aren’t we trying to get him to walk-on?’ I told him that Sam had some Division III schools on him, and he took an official visit to Virginia. My dad’s response was, ‘Why isn’t he taking an official visit here?’ I told him I didn’t know we were bringing future walk-ons in on official visits.

“I’d like to say that I saw him and knew he was a diamond in the rough, but you can thank my dad for a lot of that stuff. I’ll never forget we were driving to the airport, and he was like, ‘You need to call him. You need to get him in on an official visit right now. I like what that kid is about.’”

Shane Beamer said he knew about Rogers and had been to Hanover High School several times during the recruiting process. Rogers was a quarterback and rushed and threw for more than 1,000 yards his senior year.

“You’d talk to people in Richmond, and they all tell you, ‘The best kid in the Richmond area is the kid from Hanover,’” Beamer said. “I knew about him. I was always in that school. I talked to his high school coach a bunch, and I was shocked – and it’s easy for me to say this because we didn’t offer him a scholarship – but I was shocked that he didn’t have scholarship offers from some of the FCS schools. I think St. Francis was his main deal. William & Mary was trying to get him to walk on. Knowing what a good football player he was, I was shocked he didn’t have more offers.

“I’m making myself look bad, but I did go in January to his high school assuming he would have some scholarship offers, and when he didn’t, it was like, ‘Wow.’”

Beamer ended up getting Rogers to visit Blacksburg, and he and the coaching staff sold Rogers on coming to Tech - even though Rogers' mother is a Virginia graduate. Rogers has basically been a starter since arriving on campus last year.

Rogers will be a part of a Tech rushing attack – either running for blocking – looking to continue its success from the Western Michigan game. The Hokies are now up to 174.6 yards rushing per game thanks to the outburst against Western Michigan. North Carolina gives up 190 yards rushing per game, but only allowed 92 yards to Clemson and just 2.1 yards per carry. Plus, the Tar Heels gave up just 48 yards rushing to the Hokies last season.

If the Hokies are fortunate to have some success offensively, Rogers will probably play a role. He’s averaging more than 30 plays per game, and last Saturday’s 26 plays were his fewest this season.

“I could talk about him all day,” Beamer said. “He’s a great football player.

“Let’s not think he’s Rudy-esque [a reference to former Notre Dame walk-on Rudy Ruettiger, the inspiration of the movie, “Rudy”]. He’s athletic, he’s strong, he’s physical and he’s smart. He has all the attributes you want in a football player. He outworks everyone. That’s nothing against anyone on the team, but he’s made himself into a great football player. He’s made of the right stuff.”

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