By BRYAN STRICKLAND

bstrickland@heraldsun.com; 419-6671

DURHAM -- Many of the Virginia Tech fans who made themselves at home Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium brought their seat cushions, but few if any of them felt a need to pack their pins and needles.

Yet as the clock ticked toward the final four minutes, the Duke Blue Devils still were thinking about doing the unthinkable.

Finally, when Virginia Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor completed a 37-yard pass on third and 11 -- the last of many third-down daggers that Taylor delivered -- the No. 6 Hokies felt as if they were sitting pretty on their way to a 34-26 victory.

"It's pretty amazing, for our guys to play as inspired as they did for 60 minutes and to be able to do that despite the opposing team in your home stadium having more fans than you've got," Duke coach David Cutcliffe said. "That was two good football teams. One of them is 4-1 and one is 2-3, but it was two good football teams.

"From the sidelines, it was one of the most intense games that I've seen. There's no doubt they knew they were in a football game."

The Blue Devils led early, then trailed by a touchdown or less most of the day. Yet the hookup between Taylor and Danny Coale -- on a day when Taylor threw for 327 yards on 17-of-22 passing -- put Virginia Tech in position for running back Josh Oglesby to score his second touchdown of the fourth quarter for a 34-19 lead with 2:28 left.

Taylor was expected to spend his day handing off to Ryan Williams, the ACC's leading rusher, but early in the fourth quarter, Williams had mustered just 28 yards on 14 carries before the Hokies finally started gaining some ground.

So Taylor used his arm. In addition to the connection to Coale, Taylor set up a pair of field goals with a 20-yard pass to tight end Greg Boone on third-and-13 and with a shocking 62-yard hookup to Jarrett Boykin -- who had 144 yards on six catches -- on third-and-34.

Virginia Tech's touchdowns came on long passes, as well. After Duke tight end Brandon King pulled in an early 48-yard touchdown catch, Coale scored on a 36-yard pass and Boykin later gave Virginia Tech a 17-7 lead on a controversial 28-yarder (related story is on Page B6).

"I thought the battle of the line of scrimmage was a draw on both sides of the ball," Cutcliffe said. "But you can't let a quarterback stay as comfortable as Taylor did, and you can't let receivers average 24 and 31 yards respectively.

"They just big-played us."

Duke had plenty of big plays. Quarterback Thad Lewis hit 22 of 40 passes for 359 yards, the second-highest yardage total allowed by the Hokies since the beginning of the 2004 season.

But in between Lewis' touchdown to King for a 7-0 lead and Lewis' 4-yard score to Austin Kelly with just 25 seconds left, all of Duke's drives stalled short of the goal line.

Walk-on Will Snyderwine made all four of his field goals, including one from 47 yards, to become the first Duke kicker to connect four times in a decade.

His three second-half field goals were set up by a 74-yard pass to Conner Vernon (four catches, 128 yards), a successful fake punt on a run by King, and a 55-yard pass to Donovan Varner.

"Getting out of there with some kind of points is key, but in a game of this magnitude, we needed to get seven points," Lewis said. "But hats off to Will. He came in and made those field goals like we needed.

"Some points are better than no points."

The field goals kept hope alive for Duke's first victory over a ranked team since 1994 deep into the game, but Hokies' fans headed home victorious.

"We were sitting right where we wanted to sit," Cutcliffe said. "We got close enough in the fourth quarter to go beat a great team. Once you taste that, you like it. I wouldn't say we spit it out -- it wasn't a choke, but we just didn't finish the job. When you have that opportunity, you've got to go get that."