Written by Matt Zemek at Bloguin
The year was 2008.
The Georgia Bulldogs began it by annihilating the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors so thoroughly in the Sugar Bowl that Colt Brennan’s well-being really did seem to be imperiled. Watching that massacre in New Orleans, it was hard to shake the feeling that Brennan and other skill-position players on the Hawaii roster were risking their bodies just to play a game. The sense of relief which accompanied the end of that game was palpable.
Georgia won, 41-10, but Hawaii survived — literally.
That was Georgia at the start of 2008.
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When the year 2008 continued, the Virginia Tech Hokies were coming off an Orange Bowl appearance. They lost to Kansas, but they had claimed their second ACC championship in four seasons. They’d won the Coastal division title for the second time in three seasons. The getting was good, and the Hokies were the target in the ACC. Everyone else wanted to be them — Frank Beamer set the standard all his conference peers aimed to match.
Virginia Tech was the marked team in the 2008 ACC. Yet, this particular Blacksburg bunch etched a special place in the history of the program. The Hokies defended their Coastal title and then won back-to-back ACC championships, the first time any league program had done that in the conference championship game era. Virginia Tech earned another Orange Bowl berth in the 2008 season, and although that next game occurred within the calendar year of 2009, a victory over Cincinnati earned the 2008 Hokies a taste of immortality.
Frank Beamer had won the 1995 (December, not January) Sugar Bowl over Texas, but over the course of the next 13 years, the Hokies couldn’t win another BCS bowl. Only when they broke through against Cincinnati did they snap that drought. Yet, being able to solve their January woes gave the Hokies a plate of riches that was envied by 98 percent of all other FBS programs. Only a select few schools would have looked upon Virginia Tech’s end-of-2008 status as anything resembling a disappointment, and even then, the measure of disappointing would have been miniscule at best.
2008 was a great year to be a Hokie.
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