Ethan Grunkemeyer had thrown 136 passes this season without an interception. Then he threw two of them in the second half against Pittsburgh, lost a fumble on a strip-sack, watched Jeffrey Overton Jr. put another on the ground, and saw Pitt turn those four giveaways into 14 points. Virginia Tech outgained the Panthers 499-295 and lost 35-33 at Lane Stadium when John Love's 36-yard field goal sailed wide left as time expired.
James Franklin spent his postgame on the kick. "To be honest with you, from my angle, I don't know. I think John Love is the best kicker in the country," he said. "From my angle, I couldn't tell you one way or another." A team that outgains an ACC opponent by 204 yards and loses did not get beaten by the other roster.
What the Pitt game actually showed
The passing offense is real. Grunkemeyer's career-high 434 yards and three touchdowns on 30-of-41 was only the third 400-yard game in program history. Que'Sean Brown had six catches for 142 yards and a 38-yard score in the first half, and Ayden Greene, back after missing the previous game with an undisclosed injury, caught four for 88 and his first touchdown of the season.
The difference from the Maryland win two weeks earlier is the part worth sitting with. There, Grunkemeyer completed 31 of 39 for 314 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, spread the ball to nine different receivers and ran in an 18-yard score on a third-down scramble. Same volume, no risk. Against Pitt the yardage went up and the ball security went away, and the offense had nothing else to lean on. Sixty-five rushing yards on 32 carries, with Overton held to 46 after his 209-yard game at Boston College.
Part of that is personnel. Left tackle Justin Terry was ruled out ahead of the Pitt game and is expected to miss several more weeks, while Montavious Cunningham was listed as probable after not playing the previous week against Boston College. A patched line could not create anything against Pitt's front, which is why the night became all throws.
The defense did not bail anybody out either. Brent Pry runs this unit as Franklin's defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, reuniting with him after eight seasons together at Penn State. Against Pitt it got one sack, by Aycen Stevens, and zero takeaways. That follows Boston College quarterback Mason McKenzie rushing 26 times for 138 yards and two touchdowns, production Franklin said the Hokies hadn't given up all year.
Discipline, too. Virginia Tech was penalized four times for 45 yards at Boston College. Against Pitt it was eight for 82.
Berkeley, 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday on ACC Network
The Hokies fly to California as roughly a 61 percent favorite, and the market agrees. Virginia Tech opened 10.5-point favorites before the number slid to 9.5 by Sunday evening.
Hokie fans should know better than to treat that as a formality. Last October this same Cal team pushed Virginia Tech to double overtime at Lane Stadium, trailing 20-10 at halftime before both kickers missed go-ahead field goals inside the final 62 seconds of regulation. Kyron Drones finally won it in the second overtime with a 7-yard touchdown to Takye Heath and the two-point conversion. Marcellous Hawkins ran for 167 yards that day and Kemari Copeland got the first three-sack game of his career, and the Hokies still needed the game's last four incompletions to go their way.
Watch the ball, not the margin. Watch whether Grunkemeyer gets through a full game on the other side of the country without handing one over, whether Overton holds onto it, and whether a line without Terry can generate enough on the ground that the passing game isn't carrying all of it again. Clean those three up and the Hokies should win this comfortably. Skip them and a 9.5-point spread turns into another finish decided by a kick.
Nothing else on Saturday's board moves Virginia Tech's season. The full Week 6 guide has the game-by-game detail, and the methodology explains where the projections come from.