Poor Virginia Tech Can't Get No Respect

Virginia Tech won the Orange Bowl last night, but you'd think it committed a crime if you read the New York Times game report today. Frankly, who's to argue? Tech, which lost four games in a weak league, didn't belong in a BCS bowl any more than its opponent, wannabe Cincinnati, did. Here are some quotes from the NYTimes story:

• "... in a forgettable Orange Bowl."
• "That scene summed up the main theme for this game — apathy."
• "A flush secondary ticket market left seats going for as low as 99 cents."
• "Virginia Tech sold only 4,000 of its allotment of 17,500 seats."
• "In a game lacking star power ..."
• "In a battle of conference champions — irrelevant conferences for a majority of this season ..."
• "The Orange Bowl lived up to its billing as the least attractive of the five B.C.S. games."
• "They played a sloppy game filled with turnovers (five), punts (nine) and few marquee players."
• "The actual attendance was 57,851, well below the paid attendance of 73,602."
• "... the Orange Bowl forced local fans wanting to attend next week’s national title game here to buy Orange Bowl tickets along with their title game tickets." (Bigtime football has long held a reputation for what my wife points out is extortion in ticket sales, but this is ridiculous.)
  

The ACC finished with a 4-6 bowl record, probably a bit better than many expected, and Tech now has a 2-9 Bowl Championship Series record.

All this left two larger questions: What in the hell is the ACC doing with 10 bowl teams and how does Tech rate a BCS bowl in years when it's not good enough to win the game, which is usually?