MIAMI -- For Virginia Tech, there was no mystery. The Hokies came into the Orange Bowl convinced that if the defense delivered, everything else would fall into place.
Oh, how right they were.
Darren Evans had 28 carries for 153 yards and a touchdown, Virginia Tech's defense came up with four interceptions and the 21st-ranked Hokies beat 12th-ranked Cincinnati 20-7 on Thursday night to join Southern California and Texas as the only schools to win 10 games in each of the past five seasons.
"All year, all year, all year we've been the underdogs," Hokies cornerback Victor 'Macho' Harris said. "All year. We had to scratch and claw our way to a victory. We had to scratch our way up to a victory. It says a lot about the character on our team."
They were the underdogs again Thursday, plus were driven by the chance to avenge last year's Orange Bowl loss to Kansas.
For the first two minutes, they seemed very much in trouble.
But the rest of the way was all Virginia Tech (10-4) -- and coach Frank Beamer couldn't remember too many sweeter wins than this.
"This game has special meaning for Virginia Tech," Beamer said.
Pike -- who wasn't even on Cincinnati's depth chart at the start of the season before blossoming into an all-Big East quarterback -- threw for 239 yards and a touchdown, but had his night marred mightily by the four picks and getting stopped on a fourth-and-goal in the fourth quarter.
Mardy Gilyard had 255 all-purpose yards and a touchdown catch for Cincinnati (11-3), which had its six-game winning streak snapped.
"You work out in the summer and in preseason camp because you want to get to this point," said Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly, whose team was picked fifth in the Big East's preseason poll. "But you want to finish it off, so there's a lot of disappointment."
Not for Virginia Tech, there wasn't.
And not for the Atlantic Coast Conference, either.
The Hokies became the first ACC team to win a BCS game since Florida State -- ironically, perhaps -- beat Virginia Tech, then a Big East member, for the national championship to close the 1999 season.
The ACC was 0-for-8 in BCS play since.
And the oft-maligned league was only 5-12 during the past two seasons in all postseason games before the Hokies broke through.
"We hung in there," Beamer said.
Evans, the game's MVP, got the clinching score early in the fourth, after Pike threw his third interception -- albeit on a highlight-quality play by Virginia Tech defensive end Orion Martin.
Deep in his own territory, Pike rolled right and threw back to the left, hoping the misdirection would pay off. Martin never bit, made a diving interception at the Cincinnati 10, and Evans rumbled in from 6 yards out for a 20-7 lead with 11:29 left.
Pike got the Bearcats to the Virginia Tech 1 on the next drive, tried to run in on fourth-and-goal, and was stuffed by Barquell Rivers with 7:25 left to end Cincinnati's last realistic comeback chance. His fourth interception came five minutes later, capping a night to forget by the quarterback who wasn't even on the Bearcats' three-deep when spring ball began.
"Their secondary was the best I've ever played against, as long as I've been playing football," Pike said.
Gilyard walked off the field with tears in his eyes.
"I'm really hurt," Gilyard said. "I really wanted this game for the seniors, the guys I came in with. I'm really, really hurt."
The Hokies' best defense was their ball-control offense. Virginia Tech held the ball for nearly 40 minutes.
Virginia Tech entered the stadium to the familiar sounds of Metallica's Enter Sandman -- the song that usually blares when the Hokies enter Lane Stadium in Blacksburg.
Nonetheless, it was Cincinnati at home early in its BCS debut.
The Bearcats took the opening kickoff, sent their spread offense onto the field and made the Hokies look very confused. Pike found Gilyard for a 38-yard pickup on the third play from scrimmage, and they hooked up for a spectacular 15-yard touchdown three plays later to open the scoring.
Facing a third-and-9 from the right hash, Pike waited ... waited ... waited ... before lofting a fade to the far left of the end zone. Gilyard took off on a sprint, made a diving catch as he sailed out of bounds and managed to just barely drag his right toe on the turf painted in Virginia Tech's colors for a 7-0 Cincinnati lead.
It looked easy.
Ah, but the nation's seventh-ranked defense would eventually get its bearings.
"We don't always play well but we always play hard," Beamer said. "That's what we did tonight."
The Hokies held Cincinnati to 137 yards, rendered the Bearcats' running game nonexistent (eight carries, 11 yards) during the remainder of the half, and battled their way to a 10-7 lead by intermission.
Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor tied the game with a zig-zig-zag rushing effort from 17 yards early in the second quarter. Out of the shotgun on third-and-9, he started straight ahead, darted right, cut back left and then made a sharper move to run just past the pylon -- the quarterback's seventh rushing score of the season.
Cincinnati had a great chance to reclaim the lead later in the second, until Pike made the sort of error he avoided all season, throwing into what essentially was triple-coverage while trying to force the ball to Dominick Goodman in the back of the end zone.
The miscues just kept coming from there.
"Got to be happy that we made it here," Cincinnati running back John Goebel said, "but it was disappointing that we didn't come out with the victory."
There were large patches of empty seats in Dolphin Stadium, which wasn't altogether unexpected. Some tickets were available through online resale outlets in recent days -- even Thursday morning -- for $1. Plenty more were offered for well below face value, and the building looked a bit emptier after the Doobie Brothers finished their halftime set.
Event officials said 15,781 sold tickets were unused.
And by the end, it seemed like only the heartiest Hokies fans remained to regale the back-to-back ACC champs one final time.
"It doesn't get any better than this. BCS, Orange Bowl champs," Harris said. "Being mentioned with teams like Texas and USC, it says a lot about our players, says a lot about Coach Beamer. BCS -- finally, we got one!"
