Virginia Tech Hokies Come Back to Tie Purdue: 17-17

It’s been an absolutely insane situation in Blacksburg, today. The game started with a delay of nearly 40 minutes to account for a massive thunderstorm that rolled in. Then the game was halted for 5 and a half hours because of a huge and violent line of thunderstorms that dropped several billion gallons of water on Blacksburg.

The problem was that Tech had already had serious problems with Hudson Card and the Purdue offense and with 5:50 left in the 1st quarter at the delay, the Boilermakers had a 7-0 lead.

After the delay, Tech managed a stop, but couldn’t get any offensive momentum. After Grant Wells threw a disastrous pick at the Hokie 35, and the defense gave up a 21-yard run to the endzone. Tech found itself stuck in a serious 17 to 0 hole.

At some point in the contest, though someone figured out that running up the middle and nibbling at the line of scrimmage was not working (clue folks: it rarely does -especially for the Hokies) the offense managed to start throwing downfield and running outside. Tuten finally broke a run for 14 yards, then Stephen Gosnell got involved with a curl route to the right, and Tech finally put 7 on the board with a nice wheel route and powerful run after catch by Bhayshul Tuten.

Purdue, decided to gamble big time and went for it on 4th and a yard when they were at their own 34 yard line. Hudson Card, their quarterback, had been having good success running the ball, and it seemed a good bet. It wasn’t and the Tech defense, suddenly storming back, forced a turnover on downs. That resulted in a John Love field goal over some disappointing offensive play calling and execution.

But finally, after a solid defensive stop with less than two minutes on the clock, Tech, assisted by a couple of nice deep passes and a pair of roughing the passer calls scored a touchdown on a corner route to Jaylin Lane from the 5.

The half-time only took 10 minutes and Tech gets the ball first for the 2nd half. We’ll see if the momentum keeps going...