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Nov. 29, 2003

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VIRGINIA COACH Al Groh

We went out to be very aggressive in the second half. We wanted to beaggressive right from start [with the pass to Art Thomas]. He’s had some spectacularplays in his career. He’s really hung in there, and that certainly gave us achance to have a lot of pep and a lot of juice.

This was a fantastic performance by Heath Miller today. Any statement I wouldmake would be secondary to the players’ nickname for him. You can probablyunderstand why the players call him ‘Big Money.’

(On Matt Schaub)
As usual, we couldn’t have done it without him. He made somebig time throws. This guy has real moxie. … The throw to Pearman, the gameis on the line at that point. If we don’t make it, we’re going to punt theball. He puts it right there. I thought he was magnificent.

(On an offsides call reversing a Virginia Tech touchdown)
Certainly, thosethings are really significant. There weren’t very many major penalties today.But there were a lot of five-yard penalties that dramatically changed the game.

(On considering a field goal attempt on fourth-and-goal from the 1)
Noconsideration. We’re here to win and we were going to let it all go. … You have totrust and believe in the players. Sometime you just have to coach by theheart.

(On the fake field goal)
Same thing as the fourth-and-one. We’re going forthe win. We had a chance to really put the game away. Sometimes you have to layit all out there and see what happens.

(On Kevin Jones)
This is a tremendous player. If you give him a crease, hecould end up anywhere. I thought we did a good job of cutting those creasesdown. It’s amazing, we resurrected that ancient, out-dated 3-4 defense. It hasdone pretty good here the last two weeks against the leading rusher in two majorconferences.

(On winning the Commonwealth Cup)
I didn’t know what it looked like. Seeingit in the locker room, I didn’t know what that thing was.

VIRGINIA TECH COACH FRANK BEAMER

We’re in a situation where we’re not doing the things it takes to winfootball games. We’re not in a rhythm. The reasons or causes that we’re not in arhythm is what we’ve got to look at.

(On Heath Miller)
He’s a big old target. You don’t want to get into mansituations with him too often. He positions his body well and he catches everythingthat comes near him. And they get the ball off quickly.

This is not the defense we’re familiar with at Virginia Tech. I’m not blaminganybody, but we’ve got to look at what the causes are. We give up too manybig plays.

(On Virginia’s fake field goal in the fourth quarter)
We had guy with him andhe had him, but we couldn’t catch up with him. We thought there was a 50-50chance they’d fake the field goal, but it was good execution on Virginia’s part.

It is disappointing. We’ve played some great football and there have beensome great moments. I think we’re going to a bowl. I want to get this team backon the field and get us out of the funk we’re in.

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