Some thoughts from Thursday night's debacle.

1. Vad Lee played like a first-year starter

As Paul Johnson put it on Monday, “He’s at the point in his career where one play you want to choke him and the next play you’re ready to hug him because he does something (extraordinary). That’s a growing process and the more he plays, the better he’ll get.”

Lee had a game that first-year starting quarterbacks are almost bound to have. He made mistakes that cost his team severely. He had also made a few against Duke and North Carolina – fumbles, an interception, risky pitches – that were erased by teammates falling on fumbles or that the team was able to overcome.

It won’t surprise me if it happens again, given Lee’s inexperience. In time, he’ll be able to run the option better and handle the ball more securely and know how to handle the snap count better. But it’ll probably take some time.

2. Pretty good showing by the defense

They were caught flat-footed on the opening score, getting sucked in on a play-action fake that had them pursuing left as wide receiver D.J. Coles slipped out the back door going the other way. They gave up their longest scoring drive of the season, the 91-yard march in which Logan Thomas improbably accounted for 95 yards (due to a penalty and another play that went for a loss of a yard).

Besides that, the defense played well. Virginia Tech had eight other possessions, not counting those at the end of both halves. Six resulted in punts, all of them six plays or less. The other two led to field-goal tries, one of them successful. Virginia Tech was 2-for-10 on third downs, the sort of defensive effort that usually wins games.

It should be said that Virginia Tech’s offense hadn’t done much this season, so this wasn’t akin to the Jackets defense putting the brakes on a runaway freight train, but the Jackets largely did the job on this side of the ball.

3. Hokies defense won the game

As always, it’s difficult to say where the line lay separating Georgia Tech’s jarring inefficiency on offense and Virginia Tech’s superiority as a defensive unit. The Hokies ran unblocked all night, and whether they simply were too fast or well-trained to be blocked or the Jackets failed on blocking assignments is probably a matter of your perspective.

The multitude of penalties and mental errors on the Georgia Tech side can’t be ignored. The blocking just wasn’t very good, particularly for a veteran unit. That said, defensive coordinator Bud Foster and his unit have pulled this trick two years in a row now and have played at an elite level this season. Last year, the Jackets ran for 192 yards but averaged 3.5 yards per carry. Thursday night, Georgia Tech was held to 129 rushing yards on 42 carries, a 3.1 ypc average. The longest run from scrimmage was 15 yards.

The line of thought that the Hokies succeeded last year because of the extra time they had in the preseason had holes punched in it Thursday night.

Defensive tackle Derrick Hopkins and linebacker/cornerback Kyle Fuller are two players the Jackets will be only too happy to see graduate. Hopkins messed up the interior run game (seven tackles). Foster has made Fuller a special implement in his Jackets-specific game plan three of the past four years by moving him from corner to linebacker to get him closer to the ball. He had three tackles, two of them for loss and made the tone-setting strip of Lee on the Jackets’ first series.

4. What’s it going to take for Georgia Tech to beat the Hokies?

It seemed like so much was going in the Jackets’ favor – at home, experienced offensive line, Hokies’ offense looked average at best, Jackets’ defense looked improved. Same result. Four losses in a row, five out of six under Johnson.

Next year, Foster will have to replace six starters on defense and the Hokies will also lose Thomas, but the Jackets will also need to find replacements for six graduating seniors on defense and also five on offense. And the game will be in Blacksburg, Va.