Virginia Tech's Brent Pry opens up about what facing Marshall means to him

Virginia Tech is completing its home-and-home series with Marshall this weekend in Blacksburg, Virginia. Last year, the Hokies made the trip to Huntington, West Virginia, and to a Marshall campus that has a special place in the heart of Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry.

Pry spent the early years of his life there, as his father Jim played on the 1971 Marshall team, helping rebuild a program and community in the aftermath of the tragic plane crash that took 75 lives the year before, including those of 37 members of the Thundering Herd football team.

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Not only did Jim play at Marshall, but he also began his coaching career with the Thundering Herd.

“It means a ton,” Pry said this week, when explaining the personal significance of facing Marshall. “I spent a couple years there in married student housing. My folks got married at 18 and had me, and that’s kind of where it all started.

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“Marshall’s very near and dear to my father, just his experience going there, why he chose Marshall, being on the ‘young Thundering Herd.’ Taking him to that game last year, he walked around campus, and he walked around town, and it was emotional for him. So it means a ton.”

Brent brought up how two of the Southern Airways Flight 932 victims on that fateful November day in 1970 were Virginia Tech alums: Frank Loria and Rick Tolley.

Loria, then a DBs coach for Marshall, shared the Hokies’ defensive backfield with Frank Beamer in the 1960s. And Tolley, Marshall’s head coach at the time, played center for Virginia Tech from 1958-61.

“We got to go be 1-0 and win this game,” Pry said, “but, man, there’s a lot of layers that are emotional about Marshall and for myself, my family, for this team, for this school. I got a lot of respect for Marshall.”

Marshall upset Virginia Tech in last year’s meeting, 24-17. Thundering Herd running back Rasheen Ali, eventually a fifth-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens, rushed for 174 yards and two touchdowns in the win, most notably a 56-yarder in the second quarter.

The Hokies started last season 1-3 but rallied to make a bowl game and ultimately win seven games in Brent Pry’s second year at the helm. Virginia Tech, which was receiving votes in last week’s AP Poll, got off to another slow start this time around, dropping an overtime game to Vanderbilt last weekend.

Looking to get back up in a wide-open ACC title race, the Hokies hope to rebound Saturday against Marshall, a program that Pry will always be tied to.