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Blake LaRussa actually grew up watching the Virginia Tech football games. Until he enrolled in Old Dominion two years ago, he considered himself a fan of the Hokies. His older brother, Mike, is a Virginia Tech graduate and he informed Blake before Saturday's game that he would probably be encouraging his alma mater.
He said, "If you go, I'll support you," Blake LaRussa said after having managed the biggest upheaval of the season. "Otherwise, I'll go get the Hokies."
LaRussa did not start the match for Old Dominion, but he managed to take the second Monarch flywheel and he gave his brother a lot of encouragement and lamentation in a superb 49-35 victory over No. 13. team in the nation.
ODU has entered the game as a 29-point outsider, making it the biggest surprise of 2018, but it's only beginning to tell the story.
The Monarchs were 0-3, including a loss against Liberty, a freshman FBS team, and a humiliating defeat against Charlotte. The ESPN FPI prediction tool gave the ODU a chance to win 1.8%, making it the biggest surprise on the part of an FBS opponent at during the 14 years of the existence of the metric.
Heck, this program did not even exist ten years ago, and in seven years playing at the FBS level he had been 0-9 against Power 5 opponents with an average defeat margin of 28 points per game .
But if every ounce of history suggested it would be a one-sided affair, head coach Bobby Wilder had sold his team on a different outcome.
"Our kids believed it, and we just made history," Wilder said in his post-match interview.
LaRussa was among the many stars for ODU. He threw for 495 yards and scored five touchdowns, including a 4-yard pass to tie just before half-time and a superb 29-yard pass to Jonathan Duhart with 5:11 to play to give a 42-35 lead. to the Monarchs. anything but put the dagger through the heart of Virginia Tech.
This dagger arrived a moment later, when ODU was able to simply kneel and go out of the clock, but instead gave way to Jeremy Cox, who got 40 yards for another note.
"Go out and throw the ball and have fun," LaRussa said. "It was literally our plan."
Fans came out of the stands and on the field, kissing the players and coaches. Half an hour later, the crowd continued to applaud LaRussa savoring the victory.
"It's just a moment we will never forget," he said.
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