The Miami Herald headline the next morning read “Happy Hokies” - and that is probably all you need to know about the Orange Bowl.

The Hokies exercised a lot of demons with their first BCS win and the team’s first major bowl victory since 1995’s Sugar Bowl victory over Texas. After the first 2 minutes it looked like it was going to be a long night for the Hokies but a little Le Dip Majick helped rebound the Hokies and after tying up the score at 7-7 we never looked back. Despite an expectation to be an empty stadium, both teams filled up their respective sections and only the top bowl was loosely filled bringing the supposed total attendance to 57,821, meaning Jon Ross was doing the counting.

Obviously the Hokies did everything they had to do in front of a national audience. The team benefited from great athletic running performances by Evans and Taylor and it is an understatement to say it was a great night for Tech defense. Watching from the stands I didn’t realize how spectacular the four interceptions were for the Hokies until I saw replays the next day while flying back. Then I puked in to my seatback pocket.

Bud Foster was clearly on top of his game after the first drive made it look like the Hokies were severely overmatched. Media interviewers couldn’t avoid asking Foster how he feels about still being an assistant and he said he is happy staying with the Hokies but didn’t hesitate advertising he would be willing to be the big show at a major conference school.

I spoke with a couple of Hokie alumni on my flight back who claimed to be close to the coaching staff and they said Foster hasn’t made the move to another school’s head spot because he apparently doesn’t interview well and is extremely disorganized - something that would keep him from being successful if he did leave Tech to be a head coach elsewhere. And apparently Stinespring is very well liked among the coaching staff as a person, despite the team knowing he is out of touch with play calling, which has helped keep him out of the doghouse.

The mixture of ice and whiskey delayed some of my reactions to big plays, but when we held Cincinnati at fourth and goal in the fourth quarter I could finally sense that the BCS bowl loss streak was going to end. It was a strange feeling that almost seemed undeserved since I have grown accustom to leaving bowl games saying things like “well… they played well, can’t be disappointed with the season either” but instead we left to cheers of “let’s go Hokies” intermixed with screaming Doobie Brothers lyrics. The celebration continued through the streets of Miami Beach - and culminated in a boutique hotel room where our extremely old and extremely Jewish neighbor thinks we caused $100 worth of noise, and for good reason.

Though its been highly publicized, its worth repeating: Virginia Tech has reached bowl games in 16 straight seasons (only Florida and Florida State can say that these days) and with the win on Thursday VT has won at least 10 games in five straight seasons (USC and Texas are the only common company there).