If you want to be a high-level college football head coach, you have to be able to lead your program to victory in tight games regardless of whether you're the better team or not. Most coaches usually end up around the .500 range with the best being comfortably above .500. The floor for one-score game success (or failure) usually ends up being around a .350 winning percentage outside of Scott Frost, whose 5-22 (.185) one-score game record at Nebraska seemed to be the floor for what was possible.
However, the Brent Pry era Virginia Tech Hokies are redefining it, with the Hokies having a 1-11 one-score game record since Pry's arrival, the latest of which being a 38-31 overtime loss at Syracuse where they blew a 21-3 third quarter lead. This includes not a single one-score game victory since their 2022 finale victory at Liberty despite the fact that the past two VT teams have way more talent than Pry's first one in 2022 that had the sole one-score victory of the Pry era.
Now at some point, you start to think that maybe you can find answers to why the Hokies are struggling but at least when I dive into it, I have a hard time finding a consistent common thread.
Let's look at this season for example. The Vanderbilt and Rutgers games saw VT have to rally from slow starts but a Kyron Drones mistake against Rutgers and a defensive disappearance down the stretch against Vandy led to disaster in those games. The Miami game saw game management and special teams issues earlier on haunt them while the Syracuse game was a defensive collapse with the offense just running out of firepower in overtime. General coaching malpractice could be blamed in the Vanderbilt loss along with coaching errors proving costly in games against Miami and Syracuse.
There's no common thread of one unit struggling or one consistent thing other than the consistent losses in these type of games. That includes times where they had the momentum in their comebacks against Vanderbilt and Rutgers, or had regained momentum and blew another, smaller lead as they did against Syracuse.
So maybe the coaches and players have an idea of what they are struggling in these one-score games. Let's start with the head coach Brent Pry who had this to say about the frustration of their one-score game struggles.
"I think it’s a great point. That’s kind of where we are. I’ve got to do better. We’ve got to play better. The really good teams, that’s part of it, you get over the hump, you learn how to win those close games. We’ve got to do a better job there. And when we do, you certainly like your win total a little bit better. It’s not horseshoes. It’s not good enough to be close. We’ve got to get over the hump, find ways to win games at the end," Pry said.
That type of "get over the hump" talk is fine when you're in year 1 in a rebuild, but this is three-fourths into year 3 where you had a team with the talent capable of competing in the ACC. Saying you have to get over the hump and not having clarity on what the hump is that you have to get over is a big red flag to me of a coach who doesn't know why his team is struggling in these situations.
Now that may be harsh given how that answer was right after the Syracuse loss but at some point, a consistent issue deserves more than just coach-speak answers to show an actual understanding of the problem.
