ERASE THIS GAME: WAKE FOREST-VIRGINIA TECH, 2014

THE DUMBEST GAME BOTH OF THESE TEAMS HAS EVER PLAYED

Erase This Game is a new offseason feature in which we, merciless jerks that we are, find the dumbest football game ever played by one school. We start with this year's Wake Forest 6, Virginia Tech 3 overtime gas station tuna salad lunch, which has the benefit of being the dumbest game for both the Demon Deacons and the Hokies.

I.

Virginia Tech's first drive ends with a punt from the Wake Forest 36 yard line on 4th and 10. It's boring-ass football cowardice, but it becomes tragicomic given that Frank Beamer is so clearly unprepared for what is to come. In this game, a possession inside the opponent's 40 yard line is like owning an original Cézanne. And this punt is Virginia Tech letting their homeowner's insurance lapse the day before a hurricane hits.

II.

There are highlights of this game on the ACC Digital Network because when one child gets a lollipop every child gets a lollipop, even if they are the child who set the curtains on fire with a magnifying glass. This is the link; you have been warned, and we cannot protect you from yourselves and the terrible decisions you make. .

We've already watched them, and therefore it is too late for us. We can only hope to redeem the damage by passing along the few lessons to be learned from this atrocity. For example: if the corner is pointing madly at the endzone pre-snap, your ball is already intercepted.

The corner is pointing to the exact spot where he picks the ball off. This is the 2014's "What are you gonna do, stab me?" moment.

III.

Wake Forest called a timeout before this play.

Let me expand on that: Wake Forest, who had, to this point, beaten only Army and Gardner-Webb, and who had one week earlier been blown out by NC State, and who had absolutely nothing to lose in this game, called a timeout before a third down, and RAN THE BALL FOR ONE YARD.

You deserve to eat mediocre sandwiches for the rest of your lunches.

IV.

One time I cried because of futility. It was putting together a child's toy car, the Little Tykes Kozy Koupe Roadster SUV edition. It was blue and yellow, and my son would adore it like nothing else if only his stupid father could snap the simple plastic tabs together in the right order, which I did and...nothing. It still didn't fit. I took the whole thing apart again and failed at exactly the same spot, and yet took it apart again to see where I'd misaligned something. I hadn't missed a thing: the fucking piece of muleshit just didn't fit together right.

This took two hours to figure out before I got a hacksaw and started cutting the fucker into the right shape. Before that, though, I'd walked away, cried, taken a ten minute walk, terrified my family, and declared war on the right of inanimate objects to exist. There are two lessons here. The first is that Mike Weaver should have taken a saw to the goalposts in revenge, because inanimate objects are the biggest enemy I have as a human, and I need strong allies in my war against them. You can't judge his field goals, goalpost. You're just a stupid fucking chunk of metal.

The second is that I seriously want all inanimate objects that frustrate me destroyed immediately. Fuck inanimate objects.

V.

The play-by-play description doesn't really reveal what happened on this play. Virginia Tech threw a swing pass to the slot receiver; said slot receiver was immediately decked before completing the catch. The officials ruled this a backwards throw, however, and a fumble recovered by Wake Forest.

See that player on the right? The one who looks like he's about to go down a Crocodile Mile? Yeah, he missed a block. Badly. Even relatively low risk, low reward shit like a pass to someone six yards behind the line of scrimmage turned into complete disaster for you, Virginia Tech's offense. You are inspiring people to become shut-ins, because outside is where the bad and hurty things happen.

VI.

It's right to the cornerback in stride with not a single Virginia Tech receiver near him. A perfect seam route, really. If Virginia Tech Scot Loeffler was not screaming "GO HOME TO YOUR FAMILIES AND BE WITH THEM WHILE YOU STILL HAVE TIME" to everyone around him, he should have been as a favor to those watching his slaughterwork. This game is so desolate a giraffe should have wandered onto the field while a lonely child pondered its meaning.

VII.

I'd be mad that Wake didn't end this at regulation, but without that miss, we don't get this frightening proof that there is no afterlife:

DEATH IS THE ONLY FINAL WHISTLE GOBBLE GOBBLE

VIII.

The winning drive in this game: three plays, negative six yards. Wake Forest didn't even push the plunger; they were wounded, and won by falling on the detonator by accident.