The topic of our less than stellar non conference schedule has come up in a few different topics recently. I didn't want to derail any of those any further, but I wanted to put our non conference scheduling into context. If nothing else, to create a timeline. We all know that there are a lot of moving pieces with the non conference schedules, and we seem to have a history of certain series getting cancelled or rescheduled on us. I'm not trying to justify any decisions, but I am trying to see when they were made/announced.
(Apologies, some of these links may not work due to free article limits, but they're primarily just used as cited sources. Most of them are news stories from years ago.)
We really need to start on June 26, 2006, when we announced a series with Wisconsin for 2008-2009, although those games were later pushed to 2016-2017.
In February 2012, the ACC announced a 9 game conference schedule, set to start when Pitt and Syracuse joined the ACC in 2013.
Then the Notre Dame deal happened in September 2012.
By October 2012, the ACC backtracked on their 9 game plan, going back to an eight game schedule.
This is probably where some of our scheduling woes started, because we'd only planned to fill three games per year, and then suddenly had to add a fourth non-conference game. Compounding that issue was that our original noncon schedule in 2013 was Alabama, Marshall, Western Carolina . . . and Pitt. Adding Pitt to the ACC and going to 9 conference games wasn't going to be a problem for us. Our schedule wouldn't have changed. But by sticking with 8 conference games, VT got stuck with a hole on the schedule. We added ECU. (Our original deal with ECU ran 2006-2011.)
A few days later, we announced a new ECU deal - covering 2013-2020.
The two programs will renew the series beginning next year, 2013, with a game on Sept. 14 in Greenville and will play there in again in 2015, 2017 and 2019. ECU will visit Blacksburg in 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.
The two teams had mutually agreed not to meet in 2012 or 2013 because of the ACC's impending nine-game conference schedule, but when the league voted to go back to eight conference games, it necessitated the need for a fourth non-league game for everyone. Tech originally had Pittsburgh as a non-conference game, but that now becomes an ACC contest with the Panthers joining the league next season.
December 2012 - VT and ODU announce a 2-and-1 series for 2016, 2018, and 2019. The 2016 game is later moved to 2017 (likely due to shuffling to accommodate the Battle of Bristol.)
May 2013 - Less than a year and a half after Danny Coale caught the damn ball, VT and Michigan announce a series for 2020-2021.
July 3, 2013 - VT schedules WVU for 2021-2022.
July 2013 - the Wisconsin games were moved from 2016-2017 to 2019-2020.
August 2013 - VT schedules Penn State for 2022-2023.
November 2013 - VT and ODU agree to a four game home-and-home series for 2022-2025. This deal was handled by John Ballein, who got a Masters from ODU in 1987.
December 2013 - VT adds Purdue to 2015 and 2023 schedules. (Just for reference, Tim Sands left Purdue to become VT president on June 1, 2014.)
January 24, 2014 - Whit Babcock hired.
July 2014 - VT vs. WVU at FedEx is announced for 2017.
October 2014 - Wisconsin gets rescheduled from 2019-2020 to 2024-2025.
January 2015 - Rutgers added to the 2023-2024 schedules. Four more ECU games added in 2022-2025 (none in 2021). Games against PSU (previously 2022-2023) rescheduled for 2020 and 2025.
February 2016 - Four game series with Maryland announced for 2026-2029.
August 2016 - Two game series against Arizona announced for 2029-2030.
July 28, 2017 - VT announces games against ODU in 2026-2031 (6 total), Liberty in 2022 and 2027-2030 (5 total), BYU in 2026 and 2030, and VMI in 2026.
March 2018 - Michigan cancelled the planned games against VT in 2020-2021.
Prior to this cancellation, our 2020 lineup was Liberty, Penn State, at Michigan, and North Alabama.
Our 2021 lineup was Michigan, at WVU, Notre Dame, and Richmond. (I don't know exactly when the Richmond game was announced, but I'm pretty sure it was around 2012. I just remember having that circled for the longest time because that was a big matchup for my family as my wife went to UR and we targeted that game to be my son's first football game.)
May 2018 - just for context, this is when the Alabama/Texas home-and-home for 2022-2023 was announced. This is the first home-and-home scheduled for Alabama since circa 2011-2012.
June 11, 2018 - VT replaces Michigan with MTSU in 2020-2021.
September 15, 2018 - VT was supposed to host ECU, but ECU cancelled the game due to a pending hurricane and proceeded to travel to Florida for their next scheduled game.
November 18, 2018 - Marshall agrees to play us on December 1 if we beat uva. Part of this deal includes a future home-and-home series.
December 2018 - VT pulls out of the games scheduled at ECU in 2019, 2023, and 2025. We eventually add a second FCS team to our 2019 schedule.
July 2019 - Wisconsin adds Alabama to their schedule in 2024-2025 and pushes our games to 2031-2032.
September 24, 2019 - VT and ECU officially cancel their series for 2020-2025.
October 31, 2019 - VT announces a bunch of schedules changes and additions. North Alabama (2020), Wofford (2022), Marshall (2023-2024), and JMU (2025) are announced as ECU replacements. (The Marshall games are part of the deal for the last minute 2018 game.) At the time, all but Marshall are FCS opponents. Ole Miss is added for 2032 and 2037, while Alabama joins the 2034-2035 schedules. VT also announces another SEC opponent for 2024-2025.
November 19, 2019 - the mystery 2024-2025 SEC opponent is revealed to Vanderbilt. These games are replacing Wisconsin.
2020 - COVID laughs at our meticulously scheduled lives. Non con games against PSU, Middle Tennessee (replacement for Michigan), and North Alabama (replacement for ECU) are cancelled.
December 2020 - The Penn State game in 2025 is officially cancelled as PSU did not want to reschedule their 2020 trip to Blacksburg.
January 2021 - the "Beamer Bowl" is scheduled for 2025 - VT vs. USCe in the Chick-fil-a Kickoff. This game replaces PSU on the schedule.
August 2022 - The 2026 BYU game rescheduled for 2033, due to BYU joining the Big 12 and losing 9 non con spots per year.
In summary, the parts most folks care about -- who did the ECU, ODU, and Liberty deals?
ECU - any games scheduled for 2020 or earlier were done by Weaver. Whit added four more games a year after he was hired. (Three of Weaver's games and all of Whit's games were cancelled.)
ODU - The original 3 game series and first 4 game extension (up to 2025) were scheduled by Weaver and/or Ballein (all of these were scheduled before we played them the first time). The six game extension covering 2026-2031 was done by Whit between our first two meetings.
Liberty - I can't find an exact date when the 2016 and 2020 games were scheduled, but both were under a deal while Liberty was still FCS. The additional five games added, including the ones in Lynchburg were all done by Whit.
Fortunately, we only had one year of ECU and ODU on the same schedule (2017), but it was scheduled to occur 6 more times (2018-2019, 2022-2025). None of that overlap was scheduled by Whit.
However, Whit is partially responsible for the Liberty/ODU overlap in 2022 (for scheduling Liberty), and completely responsible for the 2027-2030 overlap. Keep in mind that all of the ODU and Liberty extensions were made before our relationship with ECU turned sour. So who knows what the schedules past 2026 could have looked like. We did have the Liberty/ODU/ECU trifecta on the 2022 schedule before the hurricane. (Again, that blame would be shared between Weaver, Ballein, and Whit.)
Interestingly enough, I believe 2026 will be the first season where the entire non con schedule was completely scheduled during Whit's tenure.
Comments
Holy shit, amazing post, thank you for doing this. Looks like it's nearly impossible to schedule a P5 non-con game on less than 5 years notice (at minimum).
Wild to think about. Stacked schedule indeed. Some would argue this is bad practice, but I want us playing the best teams every year (especially in a post-playoff era where losses are forgiven way more easily than in the BCS days)
Whit was hired in 2014. It will take him 12 years to get to a point where all 4 noncon games were his doing. Wild.
Also goes to show how much things can change between when a game is scheduled and when it's actually played. Liberty went from being an FCS school with 30 less scholarship players than us to having a 10-win FBS season in less than 5 years.a
For what it's worth, Liberty announced their move up to FBS in 2017, and it actually happened in 2019.
I'm pretty sure we just made Michigan blink first in the game of chicken. There was no way that original 2021 slate was ever going to stay intact.
As for the Liberty part, I was just referring that the deal was made while they were still FCS, even though the transition happened between the two games.
One thing I forgot to mention is that Liberty bumping up to FBS in 2019 actually helped us out in the non-COVID version of the 2020 schedule. Otherwise, adding North Alabama to the schedule would have given us 2 FCS schools. Or we likely would have had to make a not-as-favorable last minute deal with a G5.
I think the first game played during Whit's tenure that he scheduled was the 2017 WVU game. And the second game might have been 2018 Marshall.
The original version of the 2020 schedule would have had at least 3 out of 4 non-conference games scheduled by Whit, although two of them were replacements for cancelled games (MTSU for Michigan and North Alabama for ECU). And that might have been the first time we would have had multiple games in a season that Whit had scheduled. (Although I can't find information for when any of our FCS games prior to 2022 were actually scheduled, so it's possible Whit scheduled both of the FCS teams in 2019.)
Starting in 2022, we are seeing multiple Whit-scheduled games each year. Two each this and next year, and then 3 in 2024 and 2025. And finally all four in 2026, even though we don't have the fourth one scheduled yet.
A great earlier example of that is LSU in 2002 and 2007. That didn't look like a super spectacular matchup, because it was before the SEC was THE SEC, and before Nick Saban became a household name. Don't get me wrong, it was a solid matchup, just not what we would consider super splashy by today's standards.
Except the 2007 game (which was rescheduled from 2004) became one as LSU had become a more well known brand after winning a natty in 2003, and went on their way to do so again in 2007.
This is a great post. Good job on the research.
So Wisconsin is still scheduled for 2031/2032? 25 years after it was originally scheduled?!?
Or will it get pushed again with the new configuration of the BIG32?
There's a not zero but less than 1% chance that series ever gets played
Here's another way to put the Wisconsin series in perspective.
The games were originally announced a month after I graduated. If the 2031/2032 dates hold, my oldest kid will be old enough to attend the games as a student. And Wisconsin/VT had a six year head start on him.
Holy gazoones, this is the definition of a high-effort, high-quality post. Have all the legs, because you deserve them!!!!!
The major reason Whit has set us up with so many games against teams like Liberty and ODU is financial. Even more than us, Whit is aware of the widening revenue gap between ACC schools and Big Ten and SEC schools. He has gone on record in the past stating that each home game VT nets about 2 million. The price of getting big-name FBS schools is really shooting up too, and this cuts into our net profit for home games because we usually have to pay like 1+ million just to get major FBS programs to come to Blacksburg, which obviously eats a huge portion of our net profit.
For Liberty we pay 500K for them to make the trip, which gets VT at least 500K more net profit than we would get against almost any other FBS program. VT gets 250K to play at Liberty, which is also pretty easy since it is a lot closer than other schools and further reduces costs.
TLDR donate more if you want to play big schools lol otherwise get used to playing smaller/newer FBS programs.
Thank you very much for this post. So it's not impossible to schedule other quality P5 teams, but it's more costly to do so. Thus, long-term deals with in state schools are cost effective, provide stability so you don't have to worry about much scheduling, and keep those dollars in the state of VA.
It's also more difficult to do so
Can someone explain how WVU, who many of us want to think we are superior to as a football program, has announced upcoming games with Tennessee and Alabama in just the last couple of years? A program in the Big 12 basement, just fired their AD and about to fire their HC next year, and not a huge power program with a national fan base.
Is it possible that a lot of these deals are made...because of connections/networks that ADs have? We got a series against Arizona because Whit knows the AD there.
the WVU-UT game was announced in 2021, a one-off neutral site game in 2028; WVU-Bama was announced in 2021 and is a home-and-home for 2026-2027
which is to say that it's not all that different (from a scheduling perspective, not necessarily a quality perspective) as adding USCe in 2025 and a home-and-home with Vandy
I don't think "quality of our program" has as much sway in terms of scheduling deals for 6-7 years from now as we fans might think.
(edit words are hard wow yikes)
I guarantee that connections and network play a role. If you want to put your tinfoil hat on, one could speculate that Saban's network came into player here - Nick Saban is from West Virginia (as Saturdays Down South called out in their announcement of the Bama/WVU home and home), and is very politically connected there (he's close friends with Senator Joe Machin), so (one could hypothesize) that connection might have played a part arrange this home and home.
But, at the end of the day, schedules still have to line up. In 2026 (when WVU plays Alabama) both schools had availability on the first weekend in September. The WVU/Bama game was announced in 2019. By that point (as pointed out by BlueHokie in the OP), we had already scheduled 4 non-cons for 2026: VMI on opening weekend (which is when Bama/WVU are playing), plus BYU, UMD, and ODU.
There's definitively a bit game theory/risk-cost-reward balance at play. How early do you lock in a team? If you try to schedule an exciting P5 team, and it falls through, then you're stuck paying millions for a body bag game that fans aren't even that interested in.
Here's the dream: There's no scheduling ahead; every year after NSD, there's a 'matching day' (just like for med school) - all the FBS ADs gather in a single location, and find/announce matches for the upcoming year. ESPN could cover it like they do the draft. I would be so savage getting to see ADs double cross each other to get better match ups. It would create more hate, and we all know that hate and schadenfreude make college football better.
Side note I would love to play either Tennessee or WVU every year, just have them on rotation. They are without a doubt our two best nonconference rivals. Any year neither can play we could fill in with Penn State.
It would never happen, it makes too much sense. A rotating here and there with WVU, PSU, and UT.
#dreamschedule
I don't entirely agree with this - Yes, playing ODU, JMU, Liberty, etc is more cost effective than bringing in Wofford, who we have to pay to play. I don't understand how we lose money by scheduling a home and home with a P5 program. What about a Chick-fil-a kick off game in Atlanta where we get additional revenue from ESPN?
Love Whit, but this is such a short sighted loser mentality. The revenue gap bc of TV contracts is over $10m. The $500k savings doesn't even make a dent.
Play some big time games and get us back on TV in the national spotlight. Generate some excitement and everything will take care of itself. Who is going to donate more for a decade of games at Liberty or ODU that you can't even watch without paying for ESPN+ or the RSN package?
And another thing: we already have flex ticket pricing. Guarantee there is more than a $10 Delta between Liberty/ODU ticket price than a P5. I think the Ohio State tickets were the first year of that and they were around $100 face value if memory serves. These little schools barely go for $50
We might have started the flex pricing earlier, but it was the Clemson game in 2017 that was the first time I remember seeing triple digits for a regular ticket.
You may be right. My point is at 66k tickets at at a modest $10 increase per (we can get more than that), you have $660k in revenue so that $500k "savings" should be a non-issue.
I believe I've seen where buy games with non-P5 FBS programs are often in the $1M+ range currently - with some pushing $2M - and out years are even higher because the SEC/B1G have driven the cost up significantly. So VT's profit margin for a home game in 2026 with, say, even a Western Michigan or Georgia State is pushing close to zero.
Folks may hate long term deals made years ago with ODU, Liberty, et al, but without them VT's financial competitiveness would be even more precarious.
Fantastic post. I'm glad somebody had the energy to do this, haha.
Forgot that we were originally supposed to play Wisconsin for the first time 14 years ago. I think it just got pushed back to 2100...
Drew Harris has to be on our team for Wiscy to actually play us.
Great post.
Hate to say it, but having ODU and Liberty in the same year probably couldn't happen at a better time. I'd rather play them in a crap year where there really isn't any impact, then play them in a year where we may actually make a run and have skeptics.
The big thing will be what does the realignment look like over the next few years. if that picks up steam again, can assume all bets are off.
Bottom Line is that zero hokies fans would give a fuck if we scheduled ODU, Liberty, JMU and VMI every year. Until we fucking lose to them in grand fashion. Then its a fucking joke, and rightfully so. Zero hokies fans complain about our hoops team scheduling VMI. why? we beat them and the walk ons can shoot 3's in a real game- win/win. We fucking hate the ODU and Liberty series, because we pack our tailgate shit up, pay for our hotels, buy our season tickets - which are 4X what Maryland, Oregon and South Carolinas are for starters- and we proceed to lose to fucking programs that were playing hampden sydney when Vick was running around lane. Its as simple as that. Why do hokie fans like B1G teams on the schedule more than liberty? well fucking because when you lose to Purdue at Lane, it's not national news or Scott Van Pelts laugh of the week. Win the fucking games. Win the games. Don't lose to internet schools because they are plucky and have tall WRs. Come the fuck on. There was a stretch when we FINALLY would drub ECU every year. Fans loved the series then. They hated ECU when they fucking completed the most long passes in their history AT VT 6 days after we beat Ohio State in the shoe. Beat fucking liberty and beat fucking ODU - in football- and nobody gives a flying fuck. Its an excuse to see the beautiful VT campus and tailgate... until you fucking lose.
Source on that claim, a quick look at USCe website told me worst arson ticket location for two people was 940 dollars, in a stadium that seats 11,000 more people than Lane. For two season tickets for two at Lane the price is starting at 700.
My three season tickets are $3250. So that is over $1,000 a ticket when you include mandatory donations per seat.
That's because you choose to sit there. You can pay a donation as low as 25 per seat.
Firefightin on the mind?
Sure. Costco sold season tickets for all 3 for the SEASON for 99 bucks this year. My hokies tickets are - um- more than that per game. 4x was being generous.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/college-football-costco-tickets-south-car...
The unfortunate reality is, we've probably reached a stalemate on the intersection of program performance and fan/donor engagement. During our best years as a program we sat back and did squat in terms of fundraising and being forward-thinking. Now the quality of play and game slate is going down, while fans and donors are being asked to pay more for less.
Could not agree more. IMO VT (fans and university) do not have a culture of pushing for athletic donations (for whatever reason). It caught up with us (as the arms race was exploding) and we got worse. Now we have to donate more but wait longer than ever before for results.
It's a chicken/egg problem, and not a great situation to be in.
I'm not even sure it's just a longer wait. We are so far behind that today's increase is barely making up for strides made years ago for other programs. We can realistically only go up so much or ask for so much more at one time. It's a compounding problem that unfortunately I just don't see us overcoming. Short of getting extremely serious/aggressive about corporate donors and NIL, which admittedly won't happen overnight, I don't see it. We were just recently focusing on facilities when now the conversation has switched to NIL.
A good analogy coming from my experience is the dilemma localities are facing with aging water/wastewater infrastructure. For years, some of those great years, people did nothing to improve facilities. As long as crap wasn't bubbling up from the manholes, out of sight, out of mind. Now it's an enormously massive issue. Massive infrastructure failures and line breaks. Increased regulatory oversight. You try to make up for it by rate increases, but you can only increase rates so much. You take out debt, but you realistically only have so much debt capacity before lenders say nope looking at your cash flows and debt coverage ratios. And you're so far behind in improvements that, even at the most aggressive rate possible, by the time you finish what you need you'll have to start repairing the first improvements. This is what happens when you fall asleep at the wheel and don't look forward.
I also wanted to end this with, "Thanks, Boomers" but wanted to be charitable. But screw it.
Right you should really read before posting that. You pick one game from their season to attend for that price it's not season tickets.
Neither of those are for season tickets. They are god damn good deals though.
There are 10 more fucks in this post than we had wins this season
If football wins were "Fucks" we'd be bowling this year and start a brand new 10+ win season streak. Heck, we might even make the CFP.
The thing about DC: you know he gives a fuck. Several, actually.
I'm actually a fan that does care regardless of if we win every year. It's BORING as shit to see the same non-conference games every year. We already have annual conference opponents so why the fuck do I want to see the same teams out of conference? that is basically forming a secondary conference that gives us next to zero money. I would rather see us play new teams and generate some actual interesting matchups we've never had before. I loved when we played Boise St even though we lost. It was still more interesting to watch than every JMU, VMI, Liberty, ECU game EVER.
Great research and well put together.
It's been said plenty of times, but this is excellent stuff. Thank you for breaking this down.
Rule #1. If you are going to schedule shit commuter schools that started D1 football 5 minutes ago? fine- beat them. If you are going to schedule JMU with the boulder sized chip on their shoulder - scout them and prepare for them like you would Alabama, and beat them. no excuses. They are a decent sun belt team- not Ohio State. Beat these fucking dog teams and the rest takes care of itself.