MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Tech DT John Graves (right) tries to grab Boise State's D.J. Harper over the blocking of guard Joe Kellogg (center).

LANDOVER, Md. -- Virginia Tech fans can be forgiven if they didn't recognize their football team Monday night -- and not just because the Hokies wore black uniforms.

The Tech program prides itself on its defense, running game and special teams, but the Hokies floundered in all three aspects during their 33-30 loss to Boise State at FedEx Field.

"If all our guys can get this game back, there's so many things we can do much better," free safety Eddie Whitley said after the game.

But the Hokies, who dropped from 10th to 13th in The Associated Press poll Tuesday, can't get the game back. For the fourth time in recent years, they lost early in the season to a top-five foe.

Coach Frank Beamer regretted the "critical mistakes" his players made, and said his team "can learn a lot" from the opener.

"We've got to correct some mistakes -- a lot of young guys making some young-guy mistakes," said Beamer, who fell to 1-11 against top-five teams this decade. "Just some things that's not Virginia Tech.

"It's the first ballgame. We're going to correct them. I believe we're going to be a good football team."

The Hokies were expected to be a more physical team than the third-ranked Broncos, but Boise State dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

A Tech defense with seven new starters had trouble stopping the run and defending the pass.

"We missed some plays that we could've executed on," Whitley said

Doug Martin plowed over Hokie defenders for 83 yards on 12 carries. D.J. Harper broke tackles by Bruce Taylor and Lyndell Gibson en route to a 71-yard touchdown run.

"We missed a couple tackles on the long run," Beamer said. "We don't usually miss tackles."

Boise quarterback Kellen Moore threw for 215 yards and three touchdowns. Whitley left Austin Pettis open in the end zone on Moore's first TD pass.

Moore completed four of five passes on the Broncos' winning drive, which was helped along by a late-hit penalty against Taylor. Pettis got past Cris Hill and Jeron Gouveia-Winslow to haul in the winning 13-yard TD pass with 1:09 to go.

"We've got to clean it up, just like the kicking game," Beamer said of the defense. "At the end, we made some critical mistakes.

"We've got work to do in our coverage there at the end. We fouled that up a couple times."

Highly touted tailback Ryan Williams also struggled.

Williams did score three touchdowns, but he ran for just 44 yards on 21 carries. He averaged 2.1 yards per carry, less than half of his average last season (5.6 ypc).

"I kind of figured that Boise would want to stop the run," Williams said. "With them being as physical as they were up front, they were able to penetrate. There [were] a lot of times that I got the ball and I had a defender right in my face. They did an excellent job."

Does the offensive line, which includes two new starters, need more time to mesh?

"I don't know," Williams said. "All I know is that there [were] a lot of times I got the ball and there [were] defenders in my face. I don't know who let who by or what kind of scheme they ran, but there were people in my face. That prevented a lot of things."

The Hokies took a 30-26 lead with 7:38 to go, but they failed to score on their final two series.

"It was very disappointing," Williams said of the team's inability to close out the win. "There were a lot of plays that should've been executed and weren't."

It didn't help that Tech fell behind 17-0 in the first quarter, thanks in part to its special-teams play.

"We did some awful things to get ourselves in a hole," Beamer said.

Pettis came untouched from the edge to block a punt, paving the way for a Moore TD pass that extended the lead to 10-0.

"You could've blocked that kick," Beamer told a reporter. "It was a new guy communicating to a new guy. We turned their best punt-blocker loose."

The Broncos' next TD drive was kept alive when, on a Boise punt, D.J. Coles drew a roughing-the-kicker penalty and a personal-foul penalty after the play.

Boise extended its lead to 20-7 on a second-quarter drive that began when new Tech kickoff man Justin Myer kicked the ball out of bounds, giving Boise good field position.

"That's disappointing. That's not Virginia Tech," Beamer said of the special-teams woes.

But on Monday night, it was. And Tech finds itself with plenty of problems to fix.

"You look at the effort that we gave to come back after we got in a hole, I'm proud of what we're all about," Beamer said. "I'm just not proud of how we're ... not playing consistently.

"The kids fought awfully hard to come back, and we just didn't finish it off."