On Nov. 22, 2014, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest played one of the most gloriously dreadful college football games of the last thousand years. It produced this all-time classic moment, when Frank Beamer celebrated a missed Wake field goal that ensured the game would go to overtime:
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7657869/beamer.0.jpeg)
Wake would eventually win, 6-3, in a game that stole the attention of uninvested onlookers across the country. No, seriously. Everyone flipped over to watch the final moments of this disaster, then rooted for 0-0 to continue forever.
The box score does the fantastic, miserable experience no justice, other than the part about Wake's two game-winning scoring drives going for 0 yards and 4 yards. Both teams averaged about 5 yards per pass and fewer than three per run, and there were four total turnovers, but you could take this entire box score and slap on a final score like "17-14" or "11-8" or "10-7" without losing any plausibility. Points were already scarce and then just disappeared, and no one knows where they went.
1. Two years later, amid the Wakeyleaks debacle, it turns out a rogue former Demon Deacons coach tried to tip off the Hokies to some "game plan information" ahead of VT00WF.
Statement from Director of Athletics Whit Babcock pic.twitter.com/4OK6iT8YS6
— HokieSports (@hokiesports) December 15, 2016
SOMEONE TRIED TO HELP YOU AVOiD VT00WF, VIRGINIA TECH. There is a time for good sporting manners. Preventing the viewer from indulging in the sick pleasures of a 0-0 regulation game outweighs personal integrity, however.
2. The gods were trying to warn us from the beginning. Wake Forest's mascot rides a motorcycle onto the field, and on this day, it didn't work when it was supposed to (you can see the white-white-orange uniforms of a few Virginia Tech players, which affirms this was indeed the same day as all the sad football). How this video only has 376 views as of this moment, I'll never know.
Same:
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7658355/Screen_Shot_2016-12-16_at_10.55.35_AM.0.png)
Elsewhere!
Minnesota players are boycotting football ahead of the Holiday Bowl after a pile of suspensions.
This investigation into how teams Photoshop their new head coaches is delightful.
Huge day for recruiting, as 2017's No. 1 WR picks Michigan and 2018's No. 1 QB picks Clemson. Also, 2017's No. 1 RB wore a Michigan shirt online despite being a Bama commit. So that's an update on what a teenager wore.
Twelve plays that shaped the season, and yeah, about half are either Clemson or Ohio State.
J.T. Barrett's running vs. Clemson's defense might be the Playoff's most interesting matchup.
Also Saturday: the Celebration Bowl, a kind of national championship and the actual start to bowl season.
Notre Dame appears to have a solid defensive coordinator hire, an overachiever from Wake.
Explaining the wheel route, the most beloved play in all of college football.
Meet the Division II team with a winning streak longer than Bama's.
Nick Chubb says he's coming back to Georgia to avenge Georgia Tech's Athens celebration, which was both savage and totally normal by rivalry standards. Leonard Fournette and Dalvin Cook being in this draft class seems like a more likely reason.
Also, Paul Johnson took issue with a Kirby Smart quote and called him "that guy from Georgia."
Explaining Notre Dame's roster losses requires a little bit more context.