North Carolina faces Virginia Tech today in Hokies Coach Frank Beamer's last home game. He announced his retirement a couple of weeks ago. It will be a game full of emotion for Hokies fans and players but will that be enough to carry the Hokies to a win?
It is hard to just play on raw emotion over the course of an entire game. The media, specifically ESPN who is carrying the game, will try to pump it full of emotion and turn it into a Frank Beamer "glory fest" (it is not even 8 A.M. and ESPN already has a sideline reporter in the stadium promoting Beamer).
What has largely been forgotten in the shuffle is that the North Carolina Tarheels also have something on the line here and that is their first Coastal Division title and a trip to the ACC Championship game against Clemson.
I have always believed that playing with emotion can get you through part of the game but it can also have the opposite effect of wearing you out. I have seen a lot of plas crash and burn when the adrenalin runs out and the talent and the X's and O's take over. Virginia Tech is not a bad team and is also going after their sixth win to make themselves bowl eligible.
North Carolina goes into the game as a four point favorite and have scored 125 points in their last two games (both home games) and the only two road wins they have on their resume is a 38-31 victory over Georgia Tech and a 26-19 win over Pittsburgh. GT started out the year in the top 20 and Pittsburgh has bounced in and out of the top 20 but in this game against Virginia Tech, the emotion will be the "x" factor.
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