Virginia Tech Snaps ECU's ACC Streak in 54-17 Win in Blacksburg
Virginia Tech made short work of East Carolina and snapped their two-game losing streak to the Pirates with a convincing 54-17 victory for Homecoming in Lane Stadium on Saturday.
It was East Carolina's first loss against an ACC foe in the past seven games.
Jerod Evans passed for 282 yards and three touchdowns including a 24-yard pass to Cam Phillips who caught another pass for 55 yards and ran for 97 yards including a nifty 55-yard touchdown to lead the Hokies at quarterback.
"We came out of halftime with a lot of energy. Physically I thought that was a great team we went up against. I take my hat off to what they were able to put together and put on that field. That was a great team," Scottie Montgomery said after the game.
The Pirates had their issues again in the red zone, but Philip Nelson passed for 362 yards including a two Jimmy Williams 70-plus yard bombs in the Pirates' first loss to Virginia Tech in their last three meetings.
"It was just too many mental errors, too many things that we've had the opportunity to work on that showed up today that we knew were going to be problems for us and we didn't handle it, said Montgomery.
Greg Stroman, wearing the number 25 in honor of former Hokie head coach Frank Beamer, gave the Hokies an early lead when he took a punt return 87-yards for a touchdown just four minutes into the contest. It was the third longest return in Virginia Tech school history.
It was all up hill from there for the Pirates who continue to find difficulty scoring points in the red zone and major issues on special teams. ECU was just one of three in red zone conversion and three of fourteen converting on third down.
"Some times you have to make corrections in the scheme. You can't always look at the players. You've got to look at the scheme first. It will be correctable, but it ain't as simple as some of the issues we had last week that were more physical."
Isaiah Ford led Virginia Tech's receiver corp with four catches for 117 yards and a touchdown in the victory.
Tech rolled up 462 yards of total offense including 295 yards all told through the air to 443 yards of total offense for the Pirates. Anthony Scott ran for 69 yards on 14 carries to lead the ECU ground game.
