BLACKSBURG, Va. — Ask a Virginia Tech fan today, and he or she might claim that last-minute comeback victories like the No. 13 Hokies' 16-15 win over No. 19 Nebraska happen all the time for their football team.

They probably would have been telling a different story just one day earlier.

A play like Tyrod Taylor's 11-yard touchdown pass with 21 seconds to play to Dyrell Roberts — which followed Taylor's 81-yard strike to a shockingly wide-open Danny Coale just a few plays earlier — had not happened for this program since the last century.

That's when Virginia Tech was being led up and down the field by a guy some might have heard of — Michael Vick.

In the final minutes of a 1999 game, Virginia Tech trailed West Virginia 22-21 and Vick got the Hokies far enough down the field to give kicker Shayne Graham a shot at kicking a game-winning 44-yard field goal. The current Cincinnati Bengals kicker got the job done.

But Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer had a simple explanation on Saturday night of how such things happen.

“There's always a chance when you've got a Tyrod,” he said.

Taylor, who led the Hokies to a 35-30 win over Nebraska last year at Memorial Stadium, had done little up to his team's final drive. But thanks to Virginia Tech's defense, which held the Huskers to five field goals, hope was never lost.

“I always feel that no matter what part of the game it is and what the situation is, there is always a chance for a big play,” said Taylor, who had all but 100 of his 192 passing yards on his team's final drive. “I don't think anyone was that frustrated. We just needed a big play.”

And that's what they got.

On what both Taylor and Coale described as a broken play, Coale said he noticed that when he was prevented from running his original pattern and instead streaked down the sidelines, no one came with him.

Eventually Taylor noticed, too.

“He was running down the sidelines with his hand up,” Taylor said. “I just tried to get him the ball, and he made a great catch.”

When it came to velocity, the pass was more of the rainbow variety. That gave Tech fans, as well as Coale, plenty of time to react as everyone waited for the ball to come down.

“I heard a little bit of (the crowd's cheers),” Coale said. “It's hard not to because I think everybody had seen the same thing that I had. It was just a heck of a throw.”

There was also plenty of time for crowd reaction on the game-winning play as well.

When Taylor took the snap from the Nebraska 11, the clock showed 33 seconds.

By the time his scrambling act had been completed and Roberts was safely cradling the football in his arms, 12 seconds had elapsed.

“I don't know how long it was, but it was definitely one of the longest plays I've ever been in on,” Taylor said. “The clock in my head was telling me I should be getting hit when I finally threw the ball.”

And if it felt like an eternity to Taylor, Roberts said the agony was even worse in the end zone.

“For me, it felt like that play took the entire fourth quarter,” Roberts said. “I must have cut back and fourth at least six times before Tyrod threw me the pass. I had been open a few times before that (on the play), but that was the first time he saw me.”

And thanks to Taylor, Coale and Roberts, the Hokies' fans now have a miracle comeback story to tell that happened in this century.

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