ATLANTA — The chant first rang out with 5:14 to play and Virginia Tech leading Tennessee by 20 points.
“A-C-C! A-C-C!” fans chanted as the margin eventually swelled to 37-14 at the close of Thursday night’s 42nd annual Chick-fil-A Bowl inside the Georgia Dome.
(OK, so it’s really only been the Chick-fil-A Bowl for four years. Nevertheless, a bowl answering to Peach, Chick-fil-A Peach or Chick-fil-A has been around since 1968, which makes it college football’s ninth oldest bowl, regardless of its name.)
Anyway, all those unique maroon-and-orange-clad folks among the crowd of 73,777 couldn’t stop chanting “A-C-C! A-C-C!” — which stands for Atlantic Coast Conference, the best way imaginable to hurt a Southeastern Conference school such as Tennessee.
Never mind that the ACC is supposed to dominate basketball, not football. In fact, many have hinted in the past that UT should play Virginia Tech at the Bristol Motor Speedway, the thought being that it could be a natural rivalry without becoming an uncertain victory.
If this game were any indication, the Volunteers voluntarily will play Tech in the regular season when Lane Kiffin walks one of Urban Meyer’s daughters down the aisle at her wedding.
Regardless, the Hokies justifiably were squawking like Gobblers — another Tech nickname — after the ACC’s first Chick-fil-A win over an SEC foe since 2004.
“We took representing the ACC seriously, and we wanted to win one for them and win one for Virginia Tech,” Hokies coach Frank Beamer said. “It’s a great win for our program because we beat a great football team.”
Tennessee is without a doubt a great program, its history filled with 48 bowl appearances, second most all-time. But it hardly has been great in this bowl, having now lost its last three appearances by a combined 63 points.
“We need to get more players and find a special-teams coach,” losing coach Kiffin grumbled. “Very disappointed in the outcome today.”
It appeared an uncertain outcome at intermission, the Hokies owning a slender 17-14 lead after being allowed to kick a last-second field goal after time appeared to run out.
Yet even then it was far closer in the scoreboard than the stat sheet, the Hokies owning twice as many first downs (10 to 5) and 85 more total yards. By game’s end it was far worse, Virginia Tech piling up 438 total yards to UT’s 240.
To add injury to insult, Tennessee’s outgoing senior quarterback Jonathan Crompton left the stadium on a stretcher and in a neck brace.
Maybe this is to be expected, off course. Everything is new to Kiffin, never before a college head coach. The SEC. The four weeks off between the regular-season ender against Kentucky and the bowl against Virginia Tech. The attempt to balance family, team, recruiting and coaching during the holidays.
Or maybe it was that one odd play at the close of the first half. Tennessee had just scored to tie the score at 14. It was the kind of momentum changer that figured to carry deep into the second half.
Obviously owning a fan advantage from long before the opening kick, the Vols seemed to control the noise as well at that point.
But with eight seconds to play, the Hokies heaved a 63-yard completion to the Tennessee 4. The clock appeared to run out; the Vols headed off the field.
But then the officials briefly huddled. They said Tech had called a timeout with two seconds left. The Hokies kicked a field goal. UT trailed 17-14.
“It didn’t (change momentum) for me,” Vols tight end Luke Stocker said afterward. “But it might have affected the fans and some of the other players a little bit.”
Or maybe it was something both as timeless and simple as the game itself.
“I thought we did some good blocking and some good running,” Beamer said. “Sometimes it comes down to being mentally tough and physically tough, and we were in the second half.”
The Vols? They apparently need to get more players and a special-teams coach.