On Saturday, Stanford football fell to Virginia Tech at home by a final score of 31-7. Virginia Tech quarterback Kyron Drones led the way for the Hokies, going 14-19 for 201 yards, two touchdowns, and zero interceptions while also rushing for 17 yards and one touchdown on eight carries. Virginia Tech wide receiver Da’Quan Felton had four receptions for 84 yards and one touchdown.
Stanford running back Micah Ford was the top performer for the Cardinal with 47 rushing yards on 11 attempts, two receptions for 11 yards, and one passing touchdown for 19 yards. Virginia Tech improves to 3-3 overall and 1-1 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 2-3 overall and 1-2 in the ACC.
VIDEO: Stanford Football Postgame Press Conference: Virginia Tech
BOX SCORE: Virginia Tech at Stanford-Saturday, October 5th
“Yeah, we just never had any big plays, really,” Stanford head coach Troy Taylor said after the game. “If you look down, it was kind of trudging along, and we took shots. Part of our plan was to be able to run the football. We knew that was going to be important and then be able to take shots down the field.
“We didn't connect on those shots, so we either misfired or didn't catch the ball or didn't protect well. You're going to have to have big plays against a team like that. It's going to be hard to go six, seven, eight yards at a time, and at the end of the day, we didn't do enough offensively to create some space and some big plays.
“We had some opportunities there, but we didn't play well enough in all three phases. I know the defense did some good things, but really all three phases they outplayed us.”
This game was one-way traffic for Virginia Tech from the jump. The Hokies did a nice job of steadily scoring each quarter while not allowing the Cardinal to get going on offense. Virginia Tech outscored Stanford 7-0 in the 1st and 2nd quarters to make it a 14-0 lead at halftime. In the 3rd quarter, both teams tied 7-7 and then in the 4th quarter Virginia Tech outscored Stanford 10-0.
Going more in depth on the 1st quarter, Stanford got the ball at the start as wide receiver Ismael Cisse had a 10 yard reception and tight end Sam Roush had a 17 yard reception. This led to a 53 yard field goal attempt by Emmet Kenney, whose kick came up just short. Starting with the ball on their own 35 yard line, Virginia Tech quickly marched the ball down the field to find the end zone as a nine yard touchdown pass from Kyron Drones to wide receiver Stephen Gosnell capped off a seven play, 65 yard drive. The Hokies were up 7-0 with 6:33 to go in the 1st quarter.
Stanford’s next drive got off to a good start as they methodically moved the ball down the field, getting into the red zone. Unfortunately for Stanford, quarterback Justin Lamson, who was starting in place of the injured Ashton Daniels, fumbled the ball and turned it over, giving the Hokies the ball back on their own three yard line with 12 seconds left in the 1st quarter.
“I think Justin is a gritty, tough kid,” Taylor said of Lamson. “He'll give you everything he possibly can. I know he didn't play probably his best, but I thought he gave it all and left it all on the field. When you come up short, you certainly can sense that we needed to play better in all three areas. He would have liked to have played better, but I thought he was tough and gritty.”
To start off the 2nd quarter, both teams traded punts. With 8:39 to go in the 2nd quarter and the ball on their own 12 yard line, Virginia Tech began their next scoring drive. Drones would connect with wide receiver Ayden Green for an 11 yard reception and then later on in the drive, running back Bhayshul Tuten had a rush for 13 yards before Drones found Gosnell for a 24 yard reception. The drive would end in Tuten finding the end zone on a seven yard run. It was now a 14-0 lead for the Hokies with 1:59 to go in the 2nd quarter. The Hokies would keep that lead into halftime.
In the 3rd quarter, the Hokies scored quickly as Drones connected with Felton for a 55 yard touchdown on the fourth play of the drive. The first play of the drive was a 17 yard completion from Drones to Felton, so the two of them had quite the drive. With 13:01 to go in the 3rd quarter, Virginia Tech was now up 21-0.
Stanford would score in the 3rd quarter as well as they started their scoring drive on their own 20 yard line with 8:16 to go in the quarter. Running back Chris Davis Jr. had a 20 yard gain in the drive before wide receiver Elic Ayomanor had an 11 yard reception to get to the Virginia Tech 33 yard line. The drive ended with Micah Ford finding Elic Ayomanor for a 19 yard touchdown to the corner of the end zone. It was now a 21-7 lead for Virginia Tech with 1:00 to go in the 3rd quarter.
“Yeah, we just felt like we tried to utilize him in this game as one of our weapons,” Taylor said of Ford’s passing touchdown. “He's a versatile guy, obviously can throw it and run, smart kid, so we thought we'd try and expand (our offense) and give ourselves a chance.”
Rather than having a comeback like Miami did at Cal later that evening, Stanford was not able to find that same kind of magic. Instead, Virginia Tech would win the 4th quarter 10-0 to win the game by a final score of 31-7. Drones had a two yard rushing touchdown to cap off a seven play, 35 yard drive that came courtesy of Justin Lamson getting picked off by Keonta Jenkins. Later on in the quarter, the Hokies tacked on a 46 yard field goal by John Love for good measure. At the very end of the game, Micah Ford was injured, limping off the field. No word yet on what his status is going forward.
“Yeah, I haven't gotten any information,” Taylor said of Ford’s injury. “Looks like something on his leg, but other than that, I don't know.”
For Stanford, this is a really disappointing loss. Ball security continues to be an issue for them as quarterback Justin Lamson threw an interception and fumbled the ball. If they can just take better care of the ball, they have the ability to give teams some trouble. And then the defense wasn’t as bad as the offense, but giving up 31 points isn’t a great outing, either. Just all around a dud.
“I don't think I performed very well,” Lamson admitted. “I made a lot of crucial mistakes. I was moving the ball down the field, and then I had a turnover early, which put us behind. Not very good. We only scored seven points.”
To touch quickly on the status of quarterback Ashton Daniels, Stanford doesn’t yet know when he’ll be able to go. He was available for the game but didn’t get much practice over the week as he is getting over a foot/ankle injury. It’ll be interesting to see when he returns.
“Yeah, he was available to go,” Taylor said of Daniels. “He didn't really practice much, to be honest with you, and I just didn't feel like it was the right thing to do to put him on the field without practice. We want to try and give him a few more days -- if you get on the field and you haven't practiced and you're trying to move around against a really good defense, things can happen.
“Justin has worked really hard, so hopefully he should be ready to go because like I said, he (Ashton) was available if we really needed him, but we just want to make sure he's completely healthy and 100 percent so he can protect himself back there.”
“I mean, I knew yesterday, but I took all the one reps in practice this week,” Lamson said of when he found out he’d be starting. “So I had a good idea that I was probably going to get the start.”
As for Virginia Tech, they should feel good about how they played. They went on the road and took care of business after having taken a cross country flight. They moved the ball well and in general did a good job of making Stanford pay for their mistakes. Not a lot to complain about if you are the Hokies.
“Yeah, I would say on defense, they're very athletic and physical and we didn't maintain blocks, so we had times where we'd have a little bit of space and then we wouldn't maintain the blocks and they're a good tackling team,” Taylor said of Virginia Tech. “So consequently we weren't able to create any big plays in the run game, and like I said earlier, we just misfired in the pass game. We had opportunities there and matchups that we liked, and it didn't happen.
“I think being inside the 5, we really had an opportunity to score there, and we misfired. That was a tough one. Then on the other side of the ball, the kid was really efficient. We didn't really force him to make any mistakes, real physical guy, and then special teams, they outplayed us in that area, too.”
Up next for Stanford is a road game at No. 16 Notre Dame on Saturday, October 12th. That will kick off at 12:30 PM PT on NBC.
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