She called me asking if I wanted any memorabilia. To make a long story short, I rambled on and on about my “disliking” UVA. I guess it’s really my hatred for their Pep Band….I had a bad experience with them. All I can say is “Decade of dominance”baby. Ok enough about UVA, back to the 1995 Sugar Bowl game.
Virginia Tech was coming off a great regular season. I was only 9 years old at the time, but I remember almost every game that season. Tech had struggled to begin the season. They lost their first two contests against Boston College & Cincinnati. However, they hit a hot streak and didn’t lose a game for the remainder of the regular season. They beat teams such as Miami, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Syracuse, and Virginia (of course). I remember the home game against Syracuse. At the time, their quarterback was Donovan McNabb and one of the receivers was Marvin Harrison, who played for the Indianapolis Colts. Tech dominated that game 31-7 and later represented the BIG EAST Conference in the Sugar Bowl; VT against the University of Texas Longhorns.
When my parents told me about going to the Sugar Bowl game in New Orleans Louisiana I was really excited.
However, I quickly knew I was going to need to come up with some cash to pay my share of my ticket to the game.
What was a 9 year old to do? I didn’t work, so how was I going to get that cash. The parents had different plans.
In order to “raise” enough money, I could do some additional chores around the house. I had to put in some work to validate the purchase of my ticket. This was great for me as I always enjoyed helping out and it was a great way to score some points with Mom and Dad.
Now to the game. I am sure my sister (12) and I put a damper on the New Orleans experience for my parents, but I think they still had fun. When we first walked in to the Superdome I was in shock. It was huge. Being my first away game watching Virginia Tech, I wasn’t expecting the Texas crowd to cover over half of the stadium. It was very loud. The game started off a bit rough. Tech came into the game with the Number 1 Rushing defense. That has been a strong component of the Tech program for the last 15 years or so. The “lunchpail defense”needed to step up in order to slow the Texas running attack down. I knew this was going to be difficult as their rushing attack featured two studs, one of which was Ricky “Running”Williams. In the first quarter Tech surrendered a rushing touchdown and later a field goal in the early part of the 2nd quarter and trailed 10-0. The game was being controlled by Texas and Tech needed to do something special to shift the momentum. A momentum shift occurred with “BeamerBall” took over. Bryan Still took a punt and returned it for a touchdown. The Tech crowed went crazy! We now had the momentum going into halftime.
The second half was dominated by Tech. They blitzed, contained the run and forced Texas to throw the ball. Tech contained that too. The Hokies scored one touchdown in the third quarter. They also scored two additional TD’s in the fourth quarter, one of which was a long touchdown catch by Bryan Still. The closing score was a fumble recovery returned for a TD by the Tech defense. At this point I knew we had beaten Texas. We had contained Ricky Williams, allowing him only 62 yards which was well below is average. All three phases had contributed to the victory. I was certainly proud to be a Hokie!! Are you proud to be a part of a college program? Is there anything better?