It's well-known that what wins football games is players making plays. Experts and prognosticators agree that each close game comes down to a handful of plays that decide the difference. Looking back over the course of a 60-minute football game, it's often just a half dozen plays that decide how the game goes.

When your stars go down to injuries, there are a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle things that happen. Game plans get altered, playcalling shifts, and momentum swings, but in the end, if you want to win, someone has got to step up and make plays.

In this game, there was no shortage of plays from either side. Pitt's John Turman and his wide receivers made plays. Some of the Pitt defenders made plays. Pitt's punter did not. Tech's Carter Warley, Dave Meyer, Emmett Johnson, Lee Suggs, and Jim Davis made plays -- some positive, some negative.

The bottom line, and perhaps the most interesting thing about this game, is that it was won for Virginia Tech by players whose roles in last year's undefeated season were minimal. Look up and down the list of heroes for this game, and you'll find a bunch of names that were non-factors in last year's run to the national championship.

And one thing is sure: this game had plenty of drama and excitement. At the end, Tech fans were happy, but they were worn out, too.

Instead of the heavy duty tape analysis that I embarked on for the Syracuse game, I wanted to spend this game analysis on a series of thoughts and impressions that I took away from this game.

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Chad Beasley said of backup quarterback Dave Meyer's clutch performance that took the Hokies to the win, and Beasley is right.

I've always liked Dave as a person. He's a class guy and a hard worker (he's a Super Iron Hokie in Mike Gentry's strength and conditioning system -- did you know that?). But I was never comfortable with him under center, and neither were many other Tech fans.

Meyer, a redshirt senior, has played a fair amount over the years, some good, some bad, and a lot of it mop-up duty. He has never lost a game for Tech, but he has rarely looked confident in the pocket, either, and when he was in the game, he never seemed to shake off that "deer in the headlights" look. Dave Meyer, no matter how long his Tech career went on, just didn't seem ready for the leadership role of quarterback.

Meyer was running the risk of finishing his career at Tech with his defining play being a dropped snap on the UVa one-yard line in Tech's 1999 blowout of the Cavaliers. In that game, the Hokies were perched on Virginia's goal line late in the first half with a 28-7 lead, and Michael Vick left with an injury. Faced with nothing more challenging than handing off the ball a couple of times, Meyer came in and promptly dropped a snap, turning the ball back over to the Wahoos.

Dave Meyer has played many other plays in many other Tech games, but it was that fumbled snap at UVa that seemed to imprint itself on the brains of Hokie fans -- not a 7-of-9 passing performance in the 1998 Pitt game, not a 54-yard bomb to Ricky Hall against UAB in 1998, and not a complete-game victory over UAB in 1999.

Fortunately, that is no longer the case. Faced with the task of winning the second half against a Pittsburgh team that was a handful, Meyer came through.

He got off to a rough start. His first pass was a screen to Jarrett Ferguson that he utterly threw up for grabs, and he was lucky that there were no Pitt players in the area to pick it off and score. And his second pass wasn't much better, a long down-and-out that was also prime interception material and fell incomplete.

But his third pass was a winner: a 28-yard zinger over the middle to Browning Wynn on a third and nine deep in Tech territory. That play kick started a 9-play, 80-yard TD drive that put the Hokies up 27-20 and got the Lane Stadium crowd -- and Dave Meyer's head -- into the ball game.

Meyer would later fall prey to a fumbled snap on the Tech 29 yard line that Pitt would score off of to take a 34-27 lead late in the third quarter.

At this point, Meyer was really running the risk of having the fumbled snap from center be his signature play, but he led the Hokies to 10 fourth quarter points and a win. And the most impressive part about it was that on Tech's game-winning, 13-play, 74-yard drive, Meyer called all the plays but one. And his play-calling was brilliant.

Don't underestimate how impressive it is for a quarterback with limited playing time under his belt to orchestrate the drive that Meyer put together to win the game. Take a look at the drive:

Not a single play for negative yardage, and only one play, the deep pass to Wilford, was unsuccessful (which was a well designed play, in my opinion, but Wilford turned one way, and Meyer threw the other way). The short pass to Witten was a fortunate interference call, because Witten was not over the first down marker, and it would have brought up a fourth and short.

But the drive mixed it up brilliantly. Meyer called an unexpected option and kept it, he used the short passing game to perfection, and once he had sold the Panthers on Lee Suggs as the primary running option, he called two straight fullback dives.

His play-calling and execution were absolutely top-notch. That's quite a performance from a guy who is not used to playing in pressure situations, and if he has suffered from nerves in the past, he certainly didn't suffer from them in this game.

Congratulations to Dave for leaving a legacy other than fumbled snaps. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Of course, there's still that little matter of the Miami game, and Dave might have to play in that one…

The Strong Back of Lee Suggs

Lee Suggs must be really tired today. After all, it's exhausting to pick up an entire football team and carry them on your back.

At the end of the first half, when Vick went down with his injury, Suggs had 61 yards rushing. In the second half, with roughly 57,000 people in Lane Stadium knowing that Tech was going to run, run, run, against the #8 rush defense in the country, Suggs went out and got 103 more.

Some of that can be attributed to Tech's offensive line, which did a great job run-blocking in the second half, but when I watched my tape, I was blown away by Suggs' toughness and explosiveness. With 28 carries for 164 yards, he averaged almost 6 yards a carry against one of the country's top run defenses, when everybody in the stadium knew that Tech was going to run.

It was a phenomenal performance by a running back who is having a great year, after doing very little to distinguish himself last year. The scary thing for Tech opponents is that Suggs can get better. He is often tackled by the last man with a chance, and Lee has yet to show that he can fight through that last ankle-tackle and break away. Once he gets that down, look out, Big East.

Suggs is ten pounds heavier than the man he replaced, Shyrone Stith. He is taller (6-0 versus 5-9), a little quicker, and much faster in the open field. Many people thought that he could turn out to be a better back than Stith, and he is certainly on his way and may already be there. He was the hot back against Pitt on Saturday, and the Tech coaches rewarded him for it, giving him 28 carries to Andre Kendrick's 12.

On a day when the Hokies needed players to step up, Suggs stepped up bigger than any others, including Dave Meyer, and is rightfully leading HokieCentral's MVP voting by a wide margin.

The Hokies made enough plays to win, but both teams made some key mistakes and missed some key plays.

For Tech, Emmett Johnson made a great sliding grab of a poorly thrown ball from Dave Meyer on third and seven from the Pitt 32, with Pitt leading 34-27. This redeemed a dropped touchdown pass from Vick in the first half and a very poorly run route on a deep pass from Meyer late in the third quarter. On the Meyer pass, Dave threw it well, but Johnson wasn't running full speed and failed to locate the ball. If he had run his route full speed and located the ball better, the pass had TD written all over it.

Likewise, fellow wide receiver Ernest Wilford was inconsistent. He had a few nice catches, including a very smooth grab of a hard-thrown flanker screen from Vick. But on a Vick audible in the first half, Wilford missed the communication and lollygagged downfield while Vick threw to an empty spot. After the play, you could clearly see Vick giving Wilford a hard time about not adjusting. And the incompletion between Meyer and Wilford in the last drive seemed to be more miscommunication.

Cornerback Eric Green got a harsh education in what it's like to play against top-notch receivers and an accurate quarterback. Green is a good cover corner who will be excellent once he learns proper positioning and attack angles. A couple of times in this game, he took the wrong approach to the ball and was beaten. But there's no shame in that, because the Pitt passing game was hitting on all cylinders, and Green will learn the finer points as he matures and develops.

For Dave Meyer, the fourth quarter that everyone will remember would have been overshadowed by his dropped snap from center, had the Hokies lost.

The Hokies had at least one huge "what-if." Pitt kicked off after tying the ball game at 27-27, and Kendrick and Suggs tried a reverse on the kickoff return. They bobbled the handoff, and Suggs had to cover the fumble at the Tech 9-yard line. Hokie fans can only wonder what would have happened if the super-fast Suggs had taken the handoff cleanly, because he had nothing but green grass in front of him. Not only that, but if they had returned that kickoff for a TD, Meyer would not have had the opportunity to fumble the snap deep in Tech territory that gave Pitt the chance to take the lead.

(Sidebar: for all their vaunted special teams expertise, the Hokies have not returned a kickoff for a touchdown since 1992, when Tony Kennedy did it against Louisville.)

But the player who will be tortured for the rest of his life by a missed opportunity is Pittsburgh quarterback John Turman. With the score tied 34-34 and the Panthers facing a third and five at the Tech 39 with just over 5 minutes to go, Pitt's R.J. English broke open down the middle of the field. Turman, who had very little pressure on him, misfired badly, throwing an incompletion, and the Panthers had to punt.

For Turman, it was an uncharacteristic case of the yips on a day when he otherwise showed incredible accuracy. Time and again, he hit his closely-covered receivers with pinpoint passes. His 29-yard corner route to Bryant that put Pitt up 34-27 was a throw of incredible beauty.

But the ball he fired into the dirt in front of English is the one he'll remember.

The Psychology of a Star Player's Injury

The fact that Vick was knocked out of the game, leaving the Hokies to go on without their star player, led to an interesting result: most Hokie fans were greatly pleased with the narrow 3-point win.

If Vick had played the whole game and it had stayed that close, or if it had been Vick and not Meyer who dropped the snap and gave up the go-ahead touchdown to Pitt, the complaining from Hokie fans would have been loud and long. As it was, the "Why didn't we win by more?" sentiment was notably absent from the comments of most Tech fans after the game.

A true barometer of how pleased Tech fans are with a win is to watch how quickly they exit the stadium. If the win is a "so-what," Tech fans will quickly head to the aisles and go for their cars. But if the win is one they want to savor, they will hang around the stadium for a while and enjoy it.

This win fit the second category. I watched very closely for this after the game (because I know that I personally was pleased and wasn’t in a hurry to leave), and Hokie fans were slow to exit. They were either savoring the victory or trying to recover, one of the two.

I made my way up the stands to visit with friends, and one of them, admittedly under the influence of a little bit of alcohol, was absolutely jacked. He was thrilled with the way so many previously unsung heroes had stepped up, and he couldn't say enough about Dave Meyer and the play-calling of Meyer and the Tech coaches. And this is a guy who has played a lot of sports and played them very well, and doesn’t give credit that is undeserved.

So Vick's injury left Hokie fans feeling proud of a narrow win that otherwise might have made many of them grumble. Me personally, I have a lot of respect for Pitt and expected a close one, so I wasn't going to grumble no matter what, but the fans who were predicting a 52-17 victory on the message board would not have let a narrow, Vick-led win go by without negative comments. As it is, those same fans are thrilled to win with Meyer playing against a Pitt team that probably surprised them (those fans) with their level of play.

One other comment about the psychology of Vick getting injured: many fans are wondering why Vick seemed to be under great pressure, but Meyer was not. Vick got sacked twice, while Meyer didn't get sacked at all and was barely pressured the entire second half.

Was Meyer getting rid of the ball quicker than Vick? Did Pitt stop blitzing? Was Tech blocking better?

Here's my take: yes on all three -- sort of. The "sort of" has to do with the blitzing question.

Tech was going with a short passing game all day, and with Meyer in there, even more so. Dave didn't hold the ball very long at all, because he knows he's got two options: pitch it or get crushed. I'm not going to stand here with certainty and announce to the world that Meyer unloads the ball faster than Vick, but I know I didn't see Dave hanging around the pocket much.

As for Pitt blitzing, I did see a couple of blitzes while Meyer was in. But it wasn't the same. When Vick was in, the blitzes were all-out, bring-the kitchen sink affairs. Not so much in the number of players, but in the ferocity with which they attacked.

But in the two all-out blitzes I recall seeing against Meyer, the Pitt players kind of half-heartedly rushed in at half speed and were picked up easily by the Tech blockers. There was a totally different intensity level to the Pitt pass rush while Vick was out.

In short, I think the Pitt defenders stepped down a level, and I think the Tech blockers stepped up a level. Remember, these are 18-23 year old kids, and the intensity with which they play ebbs and flows with the challenges that they face.

Don't forget that the Tech play-calling was even more run-oriented with Meyer behind center in the second half. I think Pitt was thinking run, and that's why it appeared that they called the dogs off. Add to that a mix of Tech plays that included flanker screens, tailback screens, and even handoffs out of the shotgun, and I think the Pitt players might have even gotten confused as to what was coming next.

It all added up to a Pitt pass rush that was defanged, and a Tech offense that concentrated more on protecting an immobile QB. I think when Vick got hurt, it just changed the focus of both the Pitt defense and the Tech offense, to Tech's advantage. If there's a grain of truth to the idea that the Hokie players played better while Vick was out, then the Tech coaching staff will have a talk with their players.

Other Notes

Kudos to Lamar Cobb: Lamar Cobb is rapidly turning into an excellent run defender, and in this game, he supplemented it with a very nice pass rush. The official statistics only gave Cobb credit for two tackles, with no sacks and no tackles for loss, but he disrupted Pitt's rushing attack more than once deep in the backfield, and on pass plays, he repeatedly did a great job of driving his blocker back into the pocket and flushing out Turman. I even saw him doing it in one instance against a double-team. Despite the low tackle totals, this was, without a doubt, Cobb's best game overall, in my opinion.

Jim Davis' Tackle: One great defensive play that bears mentioning is Jim Davis' tackle of Turman on a third and ten with 10:33 to go and the score tied 34-34. Turman broke out of the pocket and had gobs of real estate in front of him, but Davis made a saving tackle that held Turman to a five-yard gain, limited Pitt to a key three-and-out, and forced a punt.

Carter Warley: Warley has been a pleasant surprise this year, and is now 6-7 on field goals for the year. On the 46-yarder that he missed, he explained that he kicked it where he wanted to, but the wind he expected was not there, and the kick hooked wide left. Warley went 3-4 on field goals in a game where his field goal kicking finally mattered, and he nailed the game winner.

Whack!, Take Two: Kevin McCadam did his best Wayne Ward imitation, throwing a crushing block on a Pitt player during a punt return with 4:31 to go in the third quarter.

Shiny Helmets: I have forgotten to mention how good I think the metallic paint on Tech's helmets looks. This is the first year that the metallic flakes have been added to the helmet, and the biggest advantage it brings, other than adding some visually appealing pop to the helmets, is that it makes the helmet color more closely match the jersey color. Previously, the helmets looked darker than the jerseys, but the colors are more in line now.

Stopping the Run: on Pitt's second offensive play of the second half, Kevan Barlow rushed for 9 yards. That brought Pitt's rushing total to 20 yards for the game, and Tech would only give up 5 more rushing yards for the rest of the game.

Up Next: the Big East Championship

Virginia Tech is only one Big East Conference game away from its second straight undefeated season in the league. It's hard to believe that it's not even November yet, and the Hokies are about to wrap up their Big East schedule, but that's the case.

By this time next week, we will know if Virginia Tech is going to go to their fourth BCS bowl in six years, or if they'll have to wait for a while to find out. There has been so much concentration on getting back to the championship game (and just getting through the WVU, Syracuse, and Pitt games) that most people have forgotten that Tech is less than a week away from the chance to sew up another conference title and another big payday.

There is a mountain of uncertainty surrounding this game. The biggest question is, of course, will Vick play? His injury was diagnosed as a sprained ankle, he is listed day-to-day, and Tech is currently planning on making a "game-time" decision on his status. Trainer Mike Goforth is calling it a 50-50 shot at this point.

As for Miami, their defensive line is banged up, and star linebacker Dan Morgan, who is George Del Ricco turned up to eleven, has a bruised toe. X-rays were negative, and he says he'll play. There are other injuries of note here and there. I'll return later this week with a preview, including everything I know about the injury status of Michael Vick and the Miami players. See you then, and try to survive the week without going crazy!

HC Football Page