Virginia Tech Football Quote Board After Dreadful Overtime Loss at Syracuse

The shorthanded Virginia Tech football team was well on their way to pulling off a big road win without two key players, quarterback Kyron Drones and running back Bhayshul Tuten. Leading 21-3 in the third quarter, the Hokies imploded, allowing 28 points over the second half of the third quarter before losing, 38-31, in overtime at Syracuse.

Following the gut-wrenching loss, head coach Brent Pry spoke with the media after falling to 1-11 in one-score games as head coach of the Hokies. Here is some of what the coach and others said and our take on the comments.

Brent Pry on mistakes and penalties

There were several times when penalties and mistakes cost the Hokies. Penalties cost them on multiple drives and a Jeremiah Coney third-quarter fumble gave the Orange the ball in plus territory to take their first lead of the game.

"We made too. many mistakes, too many penalties to beat a good team on the road,'' said Pry.

Penalties and mistakes have been an issue, but tackling in the second half was an issue, and where are all the penalties good calls? Maybe not, but you can't put yourself in those situations for the officials to call it.

Brent Pry on playing for overtime

The Hokies got the ball back with 29 seconds left in the game after the Orange tied it with all three of their timeouts left. Instead of trying to move the ball down the field and give kicker John Love a chance with his strong leg in a dome, Pry opted to go to overtime.

"Hostile environment, backup QB, they've got the momentum, I didn't want to put the ball in jeopardy,'' Pry said.

I mean, at that point, what else do you have to lose? If you're able to get the ball anywhere near Love's target line, you have to give him a chance to win it.

Brent Pry on coming up short despite the play of his backups

The Hokies were already up against it without Drones and Tuten, but Collin Schlee played more than well enough to win under center and Malachi Thomas and Coney ran the ball well enough to win. On the road in a tough environment.

"Tremendous effort by our team, particularly by our backup quarterback and running backs,'' said Pry. "Unfortunately, we made too many mistakes. We didn't make them earn it enough."

For two and a half quarters, Schlee outplayed Kyle McCord from Syracuse. Hands down. Thomas and Coney did a tremendous job running the ball, but in the end, it wasn't good enough. Again. This would have been a huge statement road win, but instead, it's another frustrating one-score loss.

Brent Pry on end of half communication with officials

It was a weird ending to the first half, to say the least. Schlee picked up a bad snap and ran into Syracuse territory for a first down. However, after a Pry timeout, the play was reviewed and Schlee's knee was down when he picked up the ball. The ball was moved back to where his knee was down, but 11 seconds went off the clock.

"It wasn’t very clear to me, to be honest and they were hustling to the next play,'' said Pry. "I was told there’d be 17 seconds on the clock. I look up and there’s seven. So we’re going back and forth. They said I’d get the timeout back. The scoreboard didn’t show that. And they’re on to the next play. I felt like if we had a chance to get into field goal range, great. We’ve got to shore up our field goal protection. It’s been a little leaky here lately. We want more confidence in that. But to me, the communication wasn’t very clear.''

Whatever the reason, not coming away with even three points or an attempt there was huge. It felt like a major missed opportunity at the end of the half. It may not have seemed like much at the time, but boy did it end up being bigger than originally thought.

Antwaun Powell-Ryland on the defense not finishing the game with a win

After allowing three points through the first two and a half quarters, Virginia Tech's defense allowed 35 in the second half of the third quarter, the fourth quarter, and overtime. Missed tackles and the inability to come up with one more stop cost them, big time. It didn't go lost on defensive end Antwaun Powell-Ryland.

"I really just feel like we have to lock in a lot more,'' said Powell-Ryland. "When we’ve got the lead, we have to keep it. We’ve got to finish,"

It was the same issue at Vanderbilt and Miami. It almost became an issue against Boston College, but they were able to have a strong fourth quarter to avoid a collapse. One. More. Stop.