KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech's Dyrell Roberts (right) catches the winning touchdown pass from quarterback Tyrod Taylor with 21 seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter against Nebraska on Saturday at Lane Stadium.

MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Tech's Ryan Williams rushes for 107 yards and a touchdown against Nebraska on Saturday at Lane Stadium.

KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

Tech's Danny Coale breaks away on an 81-yard gain late in the fourth quarter to set up the Hokies' eventual winning touchdown against Nebraska on Saturday.

BLACKSBURG -- There was 1:44 left in the game. Some fans in the stands were cursing. Some had started filing for the Lane Stadium exits.

Virginia Tech was down by five points to Nebraska. An offense that had mustered only two first downs and 55 yards in the second half was stuck on its own 12-yard line. There appeared to be little shot of victory.

"It's always a chance when you got a Tyrod," Frank Beamer would say later.

Got that right.

In one of the most miraculous finishes in Beamer's 23 years as Tech coach, Taylor found route-buster Danny Coale for an 81-yard hookup to the Nebraska 3-yard line. Three plays later in a third-and-goal from the 11, Taylor scrambled left, circled backwards, and came right. With the big paw of Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh tugging on his backside, Taylor fired a bullet pass into the end zone that threaded through traffic and landed in the hands of flanker Dyrell Roberts.

Touchdown, Tech.

Unbelievable. Unreal. Final score: Tech 16, Nebraska 15.

Hokies defensive Bud Foster's words said it all: "Oh, my goodness gracious."

Until the final seconds, the Hokies were history. They were done. Stick a fork in 'em.

Not so, Taylor said. The coolest cat in the house was basically thinking, "hey, we had 'em all the way."

"Yeah," said Taylor, agreeing with the thought. "You've got to think that way. You never can think about you're going to lose. When we got the ball, I knew we had plenty of time to go win the game."

With help from Coale and Roberts, the kid pulled it off. He couldn't have done it without his pair of feet that enabled him to buy time on both throws, and a right arm that was deadly accurate when it mattered most.

Tailback Ryan Williams, whose 107 yards rushing had been about all of Tech's offense most of the day, said he knew something great was going to happen when the Hokies got the ball for the game-deciding drive. Williams saw Taylor's eyes and knew something big was set to occur.

"I love playing with him. You can look in his eyes that he wants to win," Williams said. "And when he came into the huddle and called that play [to Coale], he was very calm, poised ... he wasn't we like 'we gotta go, we gotta go!'

"He was the same way he is every play, and that's what I love about him. He was ready to go, and he made the play."

Until the final Tech drive, the offense had mustered only 190 yards. Taylor, who came out hot, hitting his first four passes of the day, had gone 6-for-20 since. Most were bad throws. Some were good throws that were dropped, including Roberts' drop of a perfectly thrown pass on fourth-and-9 from the Tech 46 with 2:12 left.

At crunch time, with Tech (2-1) looking at its first losing 1-2 start to a season since 1995, Taylor worked some of the same kind of magic that a guy named Michael performed here in the Hokies' 1999 run to the national championship game.

"We don't win that game without a quarterback who can throw the football and keep a play alive," Beamer said. "We don't win it without Tyrod."

Coale, a native of Lexington, had caught one pass for 8 yards before hauling in the big one. When he saw Taylor scrambling, he broke off his planned out-route and started motoring down the right sideline on a takeoff.

"I knew once Tyrod saw me going me that way that he was going to let it go," Coale said. "I just kept running as fast as I could and I looked up and saw the ball heading right into my hands."

Coale, who has deceptively good speed, said he thought he had made into the end zone as safety Matt O'Hanlon ran him down and made a shoestring tackle.

"I just wanted to give him a ball he could catch; I didn't want to make him run too far or have to come back. I wanted him to score on that one," Taylor said.

After the replay officials reviewed the play, it was ruled that Coale's right foot had touched the out-of-bounds line. So Taylor & Co. had more work to do.

On the next play, O'Hanlon blitzed and sacked Taylor for an 8-yard loss to the 11. Taylor could find nobody open and fired the ball into the band section. That set up third-and-goal from the 11 with 33 seconds left.

Taylor took the snap and rolled left. No one open. He wheeled and went back right. Still nobody open. Then, with Suh about to bring him down, Taylor found Roberts, who had a defender draped all over him. The ball hit Roberts near the right shoulder pad. But he held the ball like a newborn baby.

"Tyrod started scrambling, and it just turned into a scramble drill ...and everybody has got to go and try to get in an open place where he can see you," Roberts said. "Luckily, I got open for Tyrod to see me. The catch was really tough, but I knew that after dropping that fourth-down play that I had to make that catch. I needed to redeem myself."

The biggest catch of his life?

"This is the biggest game I've ever been in my life," said Roberts, "and to come out with a win like this, I'm just thankful I was a part of it."

The Hokies, who open ACC play next Saturday at home vs. Miami in Lane, were fortunate their defense held the Huskers (2-1) out of the end zone all day.

All of Nebraska's points were supplied by the foot of place-kicker Alex Henery, who hit field goals of 40, 27, 19 and 38 (twice).

"That's critical," Beamer said. "If you hold a team to field goals all night long, you've won the big battle."

Tech did. Somehow.