Virginia Tech football: Hokies vs Duke: Our Seniors Deserve the Best

The last song for the Hokies senior class at home is this Saturday at 3:30pm against a Blue Devil squad that is tremendously beatable. This gives us, the fans and people who cover Virginia Tech, a chance to welcome them and thank them for all they have done for us and what they will continue to do as they represent Hokie Nation moving forward in their lives. It’s also a chance to boo Justin Fuente and Brad Cornelsen and show Whit Babcock that we are unhappy with the program and the way things are going and we are not going to take it anymore.

While there is some merit to booing as often as possible on Saturday, I would humbly ask that they be kept to a minimum and the cheers for the 20 plus seniors playing be as loud as can humanly possible. There are a few reasons why this is so important to our program today and moving forward.

First, the players absolutely deserve the cheers. Imagine coming to Virginia Tech in 2017. You get the invite, you see the stadium, they play Enter Sandman, the ground literally shakes, the program looks to be headed in the right direction, and you might be the piece to bring the team over-the-top to an ACC Championship and maybe more. You agree to become a Hokie.

Things are looking okay at first, but then ODU happens, along with a losing streak at the end of the season, and you are now part of the first losing season for the Hokies in years. Not to worry, just your Freshmen season, it should improve from here right?

Wrong. While the overall record is better, a beatdown by Duke and the first loss to UVA in what feels like a generation makes your Sophomore season just as bad.

Junior year is Covid, another losing streak, a loss to Liberty, and being part of a team that decided not to go to a bowl? Wow!

Then all the hype going into this season. Promised that the offense looked as good as it has over your coaches tenure here at Tech and after beating a Top-10 UNC team to start the year, things are looking up. Then WVU and a lack of redzone offense happens. Throw in an inability to close against Notre Dame and Syracuse and you have a disaster of a season even before a Boston College game where it looked as though the coaches quit. Any player who has stuck it out through all of that deserves our cheers and appreciation. How many of us would have stayed and not been bitter?

Two, everyone knows that Fuente and Co. and gone. This is the easy one. Anyone who saw the Boston College game, especially the last 5 minutes, knows that the coaching staff threw in the white towel. My hope is that they do everything they can to help these guys have a chance at a bowl that they richly deserve, but the writing is on the wall and I don’t think there is a chance that Fuente isn’t let go at the end of the season. If that’s the case, why boo?

After all that has gone on for these seniors, is it a lot to ask for them to be cheered on the field one more time? After all, are they not Hokies just like us? Personally, I want to hear them play a hit one more time.