WATCH: Clemson-Virginia Tech game interrupted by sprinklers going off mid-game

Virginia Tech was tasked this week with the unenviable job of stopping a Clemson squad just one week removed from a 52-17 rout of Pitt. It was going to take something strange, and borderline miraculous, for the unranked team to get anywhere close to achieving that goal, and late in the first quarter, something to that effect kind of happened.

With less than three minutes left in the first period, the water sprinklers went off causing a stoppage in play. Surely the coaches must have been annoyed, but the Hokies players tried to make the most of an awkward situation and used the sprinklers to hype up a defense going up against the No. 3 Tigers and Trevor Lawrence, the  consensus top quarterback in this upcoming NFL Draft.

But the brief stoppage was only able to do so much for Virginia Tech. After the waterworks were stopped, and a groundskeeper was properly reprimanded, the Tigers drove 62 yards down the field to take a 10-7 lead against the Hokies with the first quarter practically over.

There has been a lot of strangeness and uncertainty in this college football season given all that’s happened throughout the year — from nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, to a global pandemic and everything in between — so it’s a nice change of pace when something surprising happening in the sport is limited to an error in a grass watering schedule