Friday's Commonwealth Cup matchup is a must-win for Virginia Tech if the Hokies want to continue their bowl game appearance streak.
We sat down with former head coach Frank Beamer to talk decades of Hokie-Hoo memories.
It's a Thanksgiving weekend tradition in Virginia. The Hokies and the Hoos hit the gridiron battling for bragging rights for the next 364 days.
Frank Beamer led the Hokies for 29 years in the Commonwealth Clash, facing off against Cavalier coaches George Welsh, Al Groh and Mike London.
Beamer sat down with us to talk about his nearly three decades of memories of the matchup.
“You know, I liked every one of them. I really did. I think there was respect. It was a bitter fight on the field, which it should be, play as hard as you possibly can, but then after it's over you shake hands. But I think you do that when you respect the other team and know you're doing it the way you're doing it, no one's cheating here, everyone's playing by the rules and so I think it was a healthy rivalry, one that meant a lot to the state,” Beamer said.
In 1989, two years after accepting the head coaching job at Tech, Beamer recalls the day he lost more than just the game, but a tooth, on the field.
“I said, 'What a day.' Just gotten beat by your rival, UVA, you think Jimmy Whitten is getting ready to punch somebody out, so you go over and try to stop that and when he comes back he knocks your tooth out, and now you're scratching around trying to find your tooth and then you got that long bus ride back to Blacksburg. How bad can this day get? After that the years got better, but that was a lousy day in Charlottesville,” said Beamer.
In fact, the next year, 1990, the teams played in Blacksburg and it was a quite a different story.
That was the season UVA was ranked as the top team in the country at one point.
“They were good. They were really good. For us to beat our in-state program and beat them soundly when they somewhat dominated the scene in years previous to that, that was a big win.”
Since the late '90s the Hokies have dominated the rivalry, but there were some nail biters along the way.
Like the 2012 game when Cody Journell kicked the game-winning field goal as time expired.
“So many of our games came down to the end and I was always proud of both programs. I always said this, the state of Virginia was lucky because their two major programs did it the right way, both of us, you know, we weren't going to cheat,” Beamer said. “I always made it important and I don't apologize for that, some people [would say], 'Aw this is another game.' No, this is not another game. This is important and it's important to our fan base. Your fan base has to go out there and we have to go out there and live with that, whatever happens on that Saturday, you live with it for another year. There's nothing you can do about it. It's there for everybody to see,” Beamer said.
By the end of Friday, everybody will see who has bragging rights until next year.