Inside the ACC · recap

Everybody saw the kick. Nobody can review it.

John Love lined up a 36-yarder with two seconds left at Lane Stadium on Friday night. He hit it toward the left upright, he put his arms up, his holder put his arms up, and the people sitting behind the posts put their arms up.

The officials under the uprights waved it off. Pittsburgh won 35-33.

About that kick

The angle everybody has been passing around since Friday is the one from behind the kicker, and on that angle the ball looks like it sneaks inside the left upright. The angles from the other end of the stadium show it hooking and crossing outside. That is genuinely what the video shows, both things, which is why this has not calmed down in two days.

Here is the part that matters and the part almost nobody knew before Friday. It could not be reviewed. College football only allows replay on a field goal when the ball passes lower than the top of the uprights. Love's kick went over the top of the post, and once it does that, where it crossed is not reviewable at all. There is no provision for it. The call on the field was the final word the moment it left his foot that high.

Terry McAulay, who refereed in the NFL for two decades, made the honest point about it: there is no camera angle that definitively shows where the ball is at the instant it reaches the plane of the uprights. The officials with the best look at it ruled it no good.

James Franklin did not pretend otherwise afterward. "To be honest with you, from my angle, I don't know," he said. "The end of the day, they said it didn't go through so everything else, doesn't really matter a whole lot."

Pat Narduzzi was asked the same thing and got to a different place. "I didn't know. I had no idea. I couldn't tell, it was bad angles, obviously the far upright, but it was no good, I can tell you that."

Both of those are what you would expect the two coaches to say, and neither of them changes anything.

The number that decided it

Virginia Tech outgained Pittsburgh 499 to 295. That is a 204-yard advantage, at home, on a Friday night in front of 65,632.

They lost by two because they turned it over four times and Pittsburgh turned it over zero times.

Ethan Grunkemeyer threw a pick to Cameron Lindsey in the second quarter. He got sacked and fumbled it away in the third. Jeffrey Overton fumbled with 45 seconds left in the third. And then, down eleven in the fourth with the ball at the Pittsburgh three, he threw it to Shawn Lee Jr. in the end zone instead of into it.

Four possessions handed over. One of them inside the three.

We said this would be the thing

Our preview on Wednesday ended on exactly this, so we are going to quote ourselves and take it: "In a game between two teams that grind, the margin is going to be one possession and somebody will hand it over."

Virginia Tech had five giveaways in four games going in. They had four in one night.

Two other things we asked for. We said make Heintschel throw it, because he had been excellent against the two teams who could not cover and ordinary against the two who could. Virginia Tech did that. Mason Heintschel went 10 of 18 for 113 yards. It did not matter, because Holden Geriner came in and threw the touchdown that put Pittsburgh up eleven, and the other three Pittsburgh touchdowns came on the ground.

And we said run it like they did in Chestnut Hill, where Overton carried 25 times for 209. He carried 17 times for 46. Virginia Tech rushed for 65 yards as a team and threw it 41 times for 434. The identity they found at Boston College lasted exactly one week.

The comeback was real

Give them this. Pittsburgh went up 35-24 with 13:55 left and it should have been over.

Grunkemeyer took them 57 yards in four plays and threw the interception at the three. Then Pittsburgh, backed up on their own goal line, gave up a safety. Then Overton took the free kick 62 yards to the Pittsburgh 30, and two plays later Grunkemeyer found Davion Brown for 28 yards and a touchdown.

Eleven points down to two points down in three minutes and 48 seconds.

Then nothing happened for six minutes. Pittsburgh punted, Virginia Tech punted, Pittsburgh punted again. The Hokies got it back at their own 20 with 3:54 to go and drove 16 plays and 62 yards, which got them to the Pittsburgh 18 and set up the kick nobody can review.

Love was 1 for 2 on the night. The one he made was 26 yards.

Where it leaves them

Virginia Tech is 4-1 and 1-1 in the ACC. We wrote on Wednesday that 5-0 with three road wins would put them in the poll and in the ACC race properly, ahead of where anyone had them, after a preseason media poll that picked them eighth. That is gone now, and it went on a kick that two camera angles disagree about.

Pittsburgh is 5-0 and 2-0. The question we actually asked about them was whether the 12-7 and 27-13 wins were a team learning to win ugly or a team getting away with something. They came to Blacksburg for their first road trip of the season, got outgained by 204 yards, did not turn it over once, and left undefeated.

Cal is next, in Berkeley, on Saturday.