I was in attendance, and since my pregame buzz is worn off and I desperately need to start drinking all over again, I decided to put some thoughts down in an attempt to get the negativity out of my head (only 12 hours till the Browns make me negative all over again).

1. I don't want to seem like I'm putting the loss on Barrett or anything -- I think we all knew that if we were in a situation where we needed to rely on his arm in the clutch early on, we'd be in trouble -- but man, the miss on the swing pass to Wilson, on what I believe was the first offensive play we ran after VTech retook the lead, was obviously the biggest play of the game. He looked to me like he had, easily, 20 or 25 yards of open space ahead of him. Nothing really went right after that. Which segues into

2. The combination of an inexperienced quarterback, a line that is definitely inexperienced and may actually also be quite bad, and pass plays that all seem to take a good 5 seconds to develop, is a recipe for complete disaster when you're trying to come from behind against a good team.

3. Why don't the Buckeyes have any sort of ball-control passing game? The key to Virginia Tech's remarkable third down success in this game was that they always seemed to have someone open right at the marker. Too much of our passing game is "throw it a long way and hope someone runs under it." This was also the case to some extent last year with Miller -- think of all the misses deep against Illinois and Sparty -- so I don't think it's just a function of Barrett being new.

4. I really think Herman and co. panicked to some extent after it got back to 28-21. Did we call a single running play (not a scramble) after that? We still had plenty of time. As I said above, this team isn't going to have much success against anyone decent if we get into passing downs. Once the Hokies knew we had to throw, it was over. We couldn't keep them off the quarterback.

5. The defense is showing potential. Having said that, the constant third down conversions were deflating to those of us in attendance. It's incredible that the Hokies had two conversions on third-and-10 (or more than 10) from inside their 5 yard line. There are teams that go whole seasons without managing to do that even once.

6. Both teams made mistakes. But one difference in the game is that ours came when we were trying to catch up (the missed FGs, the dropped TD by Smith, the dropped INT by Grant). Virginia Tech never had to play from behind. And the one time we had a chance to get the ball back with a tie score, they got the penalty on (again) third-and-long.

7. Speaking of which, if we really do have the talent now I keep reading we have, I see no reason why C. Smith should ever play a meaningful down again. Sorry, but three strikes, or three drops, should mean you're out.

8. While I'm singling out individual players, Kyle Clifton has one damn job, a fairly simple one, and he's failed at it twice in 2 weeks. Unacceptable.

9. The VT fans were fun to hang out with before the game, and there sure were a lot of them. Good people. Having said that, I hope the return visit is as miserable for them as tonight was for me.

10.  Boy, there were a lot of dissenters to the notion that the injury to Miller was going to hamper the team in any way. Does anyone still believe 4 losses are completely impossible (the general reaction in here when that was a poll option)? As of right now, the Cincinnati game can't be more than a toss-up. And I guarantee their fans will smell blood.