LANDOVER, Md. — Metro D.C. was the site of Appalachian football’s biggest family reunion Sunday. Virginia Tech and West Virginia have sizable Washington alumni bases, so I don’t know how many of the masses that poured into FedEx Field were already here and how many had trekked from the hours-wide rural radius around us.
Virginia Tech vs. West Virginia was so good, it overcame FedEx Field itself
When you put an amazing college rivalry game into an awful NFL stadium, the “amazing college rivalry” part wins out.
Derik Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
FedEx Field is not a nice stadium. Few Washington fans would tell you it is, and Dan Snyder’s been trying to get taxpayers to help him build him a new one. Its concourses are cramped and dark, and I thought they smelled heavily of human urine by halftime.
But if you put No. 21 Tech and No. 22 WVU in the same building for the first time in 12 years, in a region that’s loaded with both of their fans, you’ll get a fun time.
We definitely did get a fun time. If not for UCLA’s massive, fake-spike-aided comeback on Texas A&M at the same time, it might’ve been the best game of Week 1.
What’s certain is that D.C. traffic is bad on any day, and it’s extra bad on football Sundays, and it’s especially bad when neither team is from the metro and extra cars and RVs are filling up the concrete donut that surrounds this stadium. I got out out of my Uber and walked the last mile to the field, and on my way, I was offered beer by people still sitting in traffic. Others got out of their cars and drank Bud Lights in the roadways. Most of those hearty souls were in blue and gold.
The logjam led to a perverse scene. Four hours before kickoff, the lots surrounding this stadium — three and a half hours from Morgantown, four and a half from Blacksburg — were nearly empty. Many were still trying to get off the Capital Beltway, with thousands backed up at exit 16, a mile and a half away. Closer to the stadium, the bottleneck at the entrance to the FedEx tailgating lots was next-level.
Breaking: There was traffic outside a big football game. More at 11. It was extensive, though.
This could’ve been a beautiful, chaotic mess of a tailgating scene, and it was in spots. But the travel situation inhibited it. With 150 minutes before kickoff, legions of tailgaters were still stuck on the four access roads that service this venue of 82,000 people. That was a shame.
Eventually, the place filled up. It was a good atmosphere, because how couldn’t it be?
WVU and Virginia Tech were playing for the fossil fuel-inspired Black Diamond Trophy, their rivalry grail that’s been collecting dust since the teams last played in 2005.
About 55 minutes before kickoff, WVU fans started doing that chant where one side yells, “Let’s go!” and the other responds, “Mountaineers!” a split-second later. Those continued in the concourses all night. The fans never stopped, even rattling off a sustained “Let’s goooo Mountaineers!” while an Tech player laid injured at the 50 in the fourth quarter.
Tech had a boisterous contingent on hand, too. Confession: I have never been to Lane Stadium, so “Enter Sandman” was awesome to me, even from a somewhat muting press box at a neutral site that clearly isn’t Lane Stadium. They matched their West Virginian neighbors in enthusiasm all night.
Virginia Tech was working in a new quarterback in redshirt freshman Josh Jackson. So was WVU in Florida transfer Will Grier, whom the Mountaineers had throw 53 passes. Dana Holgorsen’s been an air raid guy for a while, but WVU leaned even more on the spread passing game in its first game with new coordinator Jake Spavital.
Grier was bad early: 9 of 16 for 54 yards and a sack in the first quarter. By the end of the night, he was over 370 with solid efficiency numbers to boot. Jackson settled in well in the second half, and the offenses started trading blows. They were at turns tied at 10, 17, and 24. Players kept crumbling to the turf with apparent cramps, but other than that, the game just got better, and the crowd just got louder. So did the coaches, with the benches getting warnings and unsportsmanlike flags.
They were almost tied at 31, right at the end.
Tech coach Justin Fuente sent out a kicker who’d already missed from 38 to try a 32-yard field goal that would’ve iced it on a fourth-and-1-with two minutes left, but Joey Slye missed again.
Grier took the ball and drove 65 yards. He needed 80, though, and he almost got them. WVU’s David Sills V, who had two TDs already, had the tying one bounce off him.
Final: 31-24, Hokies. Frank Beamer cradled the fossil fuel.
The rivalry renewal was a big part of this game’s story.
The teams brought a 51-game history and a trophy into this game, but 2005 isn’t recent. If you’re on the younger side, maybe the series doesn’t mean much. The teams play again in 2021 in Morgantown and 2022 in Blacksburg, but the series might die again after that.
From Hokies blog Gobbler Country:
I really missed the heyday, didn’t I? I’m going to tell you, I’m having a hard time getting more than your normal amount of interested in the season opener against the Mountaineers. Call it naiveté, inexperience, incompetence, call it whatever, but I come from a generation of fandom that doesn’t remember West Virginia as an opponent, let alone a rival of such built-up magnitude. I hear all these platitudes, I see all these highlights, and there’s an empty spot in my experience where I suppose that pride and/or indignation should be.
That was tangible in Landover. The teams’ crowds weren’t nice to each other, but if there was violent hostility beyond the norm, it was well-hidden.
When Tech gathered at midfield to collect the Black Diamond Trophy, which it’s owned since 2005 anyway, the vast majority of its fans had already gone.
Maybe those fans left because they don’t care about the Black Diamond Trophy, or because this rivalry is no longer meaningful after 12 years off. More likely, they left because it takes hours to get out of the damn parking lot.
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