A converted tailback playing safety. Three young cornerbacks. Little experience and little depth. The secondary started the season as a potential problem for Virginia and, unfortunately, it proved to be just that.

Though the defensive backs turned in some good performances, they were inconsistent and gave up too many big plays all season, despite playing in a scheme that specifically tries to prevent long passes. Virginia Tech managed to expose the Achilles’ heel of UVa’s defense on Saturday, resulting in a 24-10 loss that now has the Cavaliers going someplace even more remote than Blacksburg – Boise.

Virginia entered last weekend ranked ninth in the ACC in pass-efficiency defense. Making matters worse was Coach Groh’s decision to leave cornerback Philip Brown at home for undisclosed reasons. Eventually, the secondary broke down. After holding Hokie quarterback Bryan Randall to just 59 passing yards in the first half, the Cavaliers suffered from three game-changing defensive lapses committed by the secondary, two of which went for long touchdown passes and the third a momentum-changing pass interference penalty.

“What got the points [for Tech] was clearly the passing plays,” Groh said. “They were obviously very harmful to us.”

...