Virginia Tech coach Brent Pry issued massive challenge to his team ahead of Stanford win

After a devastating loss at Miami last Friday night, there were a number of ways the rest of the season could go for the Virginia Tech football team. We were going to learn a lot about the Hokies this weekend when they had to travel cross-country for an ACC game at Stanford.

It was simple, things were going to go one of two ways, either they were going to let things snowball from last weekend's loss to the Hurricanes, or they were going to put it behind them and attempt to turn things around. Fortunately, they picked the latter, for one week anyway.

Virginia Tech went to California and played a strong 60 minutes and will fly back to Blacksburg with a 31-7 victory over the Cardinal with a 3-3 record. In the end, the Hokies took head coach Brent Pry's message and did their job on the West Coast.

Virginia Tech answers coaches challenge vs. Stanford

The Hokies coaching staff and players quickly put behind them last week's loss at Miami. Pry reached out to the player's families and asked them to do the same. He then had a message to his team ahead of playing Stanford.

"I told the guys: We need to prove who we can be."

- Brent Pry

Message sent, message received. The Hokies, who were a preseason darling from a lot of national college football writers for the 12-team College Football Playoff, staggered to a 2-3 record through their first five games. They looked nothing like the team we all thought they were going to be. Yes, they had some moments that were few and far between, but they weren't the team we envisioned over the summer.

Against Stanford, they were that team. It was a total team effort that also included the coaches, who had a game plan that their players executed. On both sides of the ball. The offense moved the ball like we thought they would at the beginning of the season and their defense was a force all afternoon and bent several times, but never really broke. Yes, it was Stanford, but after last week's loss and all the travel they had to do, they looked like the team that they could be. Message sent, message received.