Storylines for Notre Dame football before Virginia Tech matchup
Elite college football coaches must master the art of player psychiatry as much as they do game strategy, especially after a tough loss.
Coming off a 24-13 defeat to Cincinnati last Saturday, Irish head coach Brian Kelly finds himself juggling both assignments as he prepares for a tough road game at Virginia Tech this Saturday.
“First of all, you have to address why you fell short,” Kelly said of moving forward after suffering his first loss at home since 2017. “Where did we fall short in our process? That’s where we start. Then once we identify that, we close the book and we move on. We trust our process and go back to it and commit to it. If we do that, we’ll be fine.”
Kelly admitted to sensing some disappointment from his team after the Cincinnati loss, but he insisted those feelings came from playing poorly and not self-pity.
To play well and get beat is one thing. To feel like you beat yourself is another.
“We just really need to coach better and put our kids in a better position to succeed,” said Kelly, who is 16-11 at Notre Dame following a loss (season-ending defeats not included), “and our players need to play better. So this is ‘all in’ on this.”
Avoiding a second consecutive loss — a pitfall that hasn’t happened in the regular season since Notre Dame dropped its final two games in 2016 to Virginia Tech and USC — won’t be easy on the road against a tough Hokies team (3-1).
The Irish are listed as only a one-point favorite in the game.
A Dramatic Turnaround
Key personnel losses following last season suggested the Hokies would struggle on offense this season — and they have.
Virginia Tech ranks only 116th in total offense (329.5 yards per game) and 100th in scoring offense (23.5 points per game).
So all eyes and hope in the preseason from the Hokies’ faithful centered on finding defensive improvement under second-year coordinator Justin Hamilton, whose group surrendered 32.1 points per game in 2020 — the program’s worst defensive scoring performance since 1973.
The Virginia Tech fans are getting what they wished for and what they expected. The Hokies have allowed only 15.25 points per game this season, which slots them at No. 11 in the country in scoring defense.
Kelly counters with a 35-game winning streak against unranked teams and a history of success playing ACC foes, home or away.
Since 2016, Notre Dame has lost only one regular-season game to an ACC opponent (Miami, 41-8 in November 2017).
Ironically, Virginia Tech remains the last unranked opponent to beat Notre Dame, that coming in a 34-31 upset of the Irish on Senior Day 2016.
Saving His Job
Avoiding a second consecutive loss and keeping hopes alive of winning its first top-tier bowl game since it beat Texas A&M in the 1993 Cotton Bowl is what will drive Kelly and the Irish when they head to Virginia Tech this weekend.
Just trying to win this game and save his job is the more pressing issue for Hokies head coach Justin Fuente.
After suffering his second losing record in 2020 during his first five seasons in Blacksburg, Va., Fuente is feeling the heat during his sixth at a proud program that hadn’t recorded a single sub-.500 record since 1992 before Fuente took over.
Fuente cracked the top 25 this season following a 17-10 upset of No. 10 North Carolina in his team’s opener, before two unimpressive performances in consecutive weeks against West Virginia and Richmond dropped Virginia Tech out of the top 25 prior to its bye last weekend.
Fuente went 19-8 and finished in the top 25 in each of his first two years in Blacksburg, Va., but his teams are just 19-18 over the previous three seasons.
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