A comment on another thread made me realize that there is a misconception amongst many Virginia Tech fans when it comes to our football history. There were more than a few years at Tech before Beamer that we had a quality football team, its just historical and doesn't get much attention.
Tech only had one losing season from 1892-1930. They went 0-2 in 1893, and proceeded to be at least a .500 team or better from 1894-1930, until they went 3-4-2 in 1931. The 1930s and 1940s were difficult because the school was still Corps only and many cadets left to fight overseas, especially when the US entered WWII. We had three losing seasons in the 1930s, and five in the 1940s one of which came by way of our loss in the 1947 Sun Bowl. The 1950s started rough with three losing seasons to start but got progressively better with only one losing season the rest of the decade. The 1960s only had two losing seasons, saw us win a conference title in 1963, and go to two bowl games in 1966 and 1968. The 1970s is where Tech lost track of football, having seven losing seasons, the only bright spot being 1975. The 1980s was very successful win wise under Bill Dooley but racked with controversy regarding recruiting violations which brought us to the Beamer era. We only had 22 total losing seasons from 1892-1988.
That's 74 seasons of at least .500 football in 96 years, most schools would be envious of that history, Tech under Beamer almost chooses to ignore it.
Here are our records for our more successful seasons:
1894-1899 - Winning record every year, Combined record of 25-10-1 for these years, Outscored Opp 704-251
1901- 6-1, outscored opponents 115-33
1903- 5-1 outscored opponents 108-21
1905- 9-1 outscored our opponents 305-24 that season
1907- 7-2
1909- 6-1
1910- 6-2
1911- 6-1-2
1913- 7-1-1
1914- 6-2-1
1916- 7-2 South Atlantic Conference Champion
1917- 6-2-1
1918- 7-0 South Atlantic Conference Champion
1921- 7-3
1922- 8-1-1
1923- 6-3
1928- 7-2
1932- 8-1
1942- 7-2-1
1954- 8-0-1
1955- 6-3-1
1956- 7-2-1
1963- 8-2 Southern Conference Champions
1965- 7-3
1966- 8-2-1 Lost the Liberty Bowl
1967- 7-3
1968- 7-4 Lost the Liberty Bowl
1975- 8-3
1980- 8-4 Lost the Peach Bowl
1981- 7-4
1982- 7-4
1983- 9-2
1984- 8-4 Lost the Independence Bowl
1986- 10-1-1 Won the Peach Bowl
Comments
For good and bad the memory for college football is short term. It works both ways.
If a team is a perennial loser it only takes a year or two to turn things around before everyone starts to forget.
What sustains programs reputations through the decades are National Championships.
If you think of storied programs, teams with recent multiple NCs (FSU) look silly compared to
legendary teams (Ala, ND etc)
The game reinvents itself and evolves over the years, which makes historical comparisons inconclusive.
Its a very different sport altogether from 80+ years ago, as opposed to a sport like baseball.
Case in point: its easy to imagine Shoe-less Joe Jackson playing in the MLB today,
Knute Rockne would have his ass handed to him seven ways til Sunday in the NFL. GO HOKIES!
I suspect the comment you're referring to was mine, and for that you're right and I should probably revise what I meant. The thing I noticed was that we had net losing records against most (if not all) of the major-conference opponents until Beamer came along. We won a ton of games against mid-major conferences or independents (mostly FCS schools now, I believe), and that's probably why we don't mention those years or claim a lot of credit for it. It's one thing to beat W&M and VMI, but to lose a lot of games against ACC, Big East, etc. doesn't reflect well. When we moved up in the world (under Beamer), the quality of the wins got better and so did the recognition.
I hate to be that guy but our first bowl game wasn't in '66. It was the 1947 Sun Bowl against Cincinnati. That loss made us 3-4-3 on the season. Different times of course.
No problem, and on point. Still wasn't necessarily one of our better teams, but if you read about that team its a good story about returning war vets coming together to finish school and play football. The nightmare travel to get the team to El Paso for that game was a story in itself. They only were able to take about half the team and it still took two airplanes to get them to a city close to the game before they then had to bus to El Paso.
It's still a pain in the ass to get to El Paso... *eyeroll*
Good history lesson, Wiz! It goes without saying that the current mindset of college football is very much what have you done for me lately, but still you're completely correct in saying that most teams would be envious for "74 seasons of at least .500 football in 96 years".
My dad remembers the old rivalry from the VMI point of view, and how intense the mutual dislike was.
its how skipper was invented:
My dad recounts sometime after the debut of The Skipper, his fellow Keydets started chanting "Where's your tractor?!"
This video should be required viewing for freshmen! Love it! God bless Homer Hickham and Ben Harper.
The reason the original Skipper was retired in 1982 has a story. This was during my junior year. Not being in the Corps, forgive me if I get details incorrect. In the spring, there was a Military Ball for the Corps on a Saturday night. Skipper was taken to the drillfield just below War Memorial. As I recall, Skipper was fired several times (don't remember how many....maybe three), which I could hear easily from my dorm room in Vawter. Loud, but you're used to hearing it as a Hokie. However, apparently something went wrong (rumor has it that some of the crew had loaded an extra amount of charge) and the cannon blew out an emergency pressure relief plug. This 2" brass plug flew over the drillfield and broke (I think it was) a third floor window in Slusher. We knew something was strange about the last charge fired, because it sounded more like a bomb going off, shook the windows in the dorm room. Since Skipper's barrel had essentially been blown apart, it required the retirement of the original. The new cannon was unveiled at the first home game of the 1983 season.
Jake Gyllenhaal should reprise his role as Homer and make a sequel to Rocket Boys/October Sky.
Cannon Boys
or
Autumn Nights
Homer has mentioned ideas for writing a book about Skipper
The story is just as solid as "Rocket boys" if not more.
GO HOKIES!
The Corps of Cadets from both schools used to do a huge march towards Roanoke, where most of those games were played. You think the stories about West Virginia are bad, some of the history with VMI back in the day were right there with WVU. Ice ball fights loaded with rocks and other stories were passed down over the years from Corps alumni. In the Corps when I was a freshmen, at all Corps meals, freshmen were required to wear "sails", essentially hankerchief type bibs that each class designed. We weren't allowed to stop wearing it until Tech beat VMI in an athletic event. This tradition probably made sense when we played them in everything but we had to hold out hope that we would beat them in basketball or wrestling. I think it was the wrestling team that set us free.
We also went up to VMI one evening, shined the sword of the Stonewall Jackson statue on their campus and then"borrowed" their entire Corps guidons and had them out at morning formation for our Corps. Their freshmen had to shine the rest of the statue when we did it and their commandant made an official request to have their guidons returned.
Apparently the game was called the "Military Classic of the South" although that title has now moved to the VMI-Citadel matchups. The series also had a trophy called the Chamber of Commerce trophy.
According to VMI history, Tech and VMI also played each other in five bowl games. The 1974 and 1976 Tobacco Bowl, and the 1980, 1982, and 1984 Oyster Bowl. We went 4-1 in these games, losing the 74 Tobacco Bowl.
I wonder how many other post season type games that we show no record of that we participated in over the years.
The Sails are still very much alive and well! This year I think it was Cross Country in October when the Freshmen lost them.
I'm still hoping for the game where the Hokies outdo Heisman, and hang a cool 33 TDs on LOLUVa
When I look at this, I see a team that hadn't won a bowl game until 1986. I wouldn't be thumping my chest about it, honestly. And there are major differences in the comparative SOS that you're glossing over too. Sure, there are a couple of highlights here and there (Bruce Smith comes to mind, for instance), but I think this list does nothing but improves the argument that our history prior to Beamer is pretty bare.
The concept of Bowl Games and even a national level competition in these sports wasn't really structured the way it is now though either. You can point to SOS based on where you think those teams are now, but remember, back in the first half of the 1900's Army and Navy were powerhouse football programs that regularly won National Titles, although the definition of a National Title back then is kind of wishy washy at best because you still didn't have all the big teams playing each other. Those two teams now, one is seen as an average team that makes bowl games, the other is a dumpster fire that hasn't seen a winning record in years.
Until 1930, the only national bowl game was the Rose Bowl, originally called the Tournament East-West Football Game, which started in 1902. More bowl games began to be developed primarily to promote tourism in warmer climates to be attractive to folks wanting to escape the winter for New Years based on the success seen by the Rose Bowl.
To give you a better idea of how disjointed the National Championship picture is take a look at this list:
http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/champions_national.html
Princeton has 14 National Titles in football, all before 1911. Harvard and Yale are up in that same group. Notre Dame claims eight national titles from 1924-1949. The biggest factor in getting named the champion was getting seen by the press, considering how slow information was to travel between phones and newspapers back then. The same was true for being named an All American. All American status wasn't something really worth fighting over back then because where were you going to go with it? The NFL as we know it didn't exist so if a guy continued to play football it wasn't for the money usually.
The fact is what is now the Big10 and Pac12 plus Notre Dame dominated the press on this because they spent the most money on their programs back then combined with the Rose Bowl. Even with this though, look at the list and see how many years before the 1950s that actually declared a National Champion that actually played in a bowl game.
Bowls started getting big in the 40s and 50s (Sun Bowl, Gator Bowl, Tangerine Bowl, Liberty Bowl, Cigar Bowl, Oyster Bowl, Pecan Bowl, Pineapple Bowl, Refridgrator Bowl, Tobacco Bowl... all founded around then). We still don't win one until the mid 80s. I'm not asking for national championships (although those were not THAT hard to come by - several teams claim the same years for a lot of them), but a complete absence from the national stage is not terribly impressive.
I'm not trying to sound like jerk here or anything, and I'm really proud of our school and team, I'm just saying that we don't exactly have a tremendous history to beat our chests with. We're a little-guy who broke through the glass cieling, and that's probably harder than being a charter B1G member who can just coast on name recognition. Lets be proud of that and not try to be something that we aren't.
Well according to your list, we won the 1954 Tobacco Bowl, lost it in 57 and 58, won it again in 59 and 60, lost it in 62, won it in 66, lost in 72 and 74, won it in 76 and 77, and lost it in 1980.
We lost the Oyster Bowl in 49 and 51, won in 69, 75, 80, 82 and 84, lost in 86.
Never played in the others that aren't still recognized (Liberty, Gator, Sun). So by this list we won our first bowl game in 1954. This is also 11 Bowl wins the school doesn't seem to acknowledge.
Just read up on the Oyster and Tobacco bowls (I had previously just grabbed a list of bowls founded in the 40s and 50s). Didn't realize they were regular season games (like the Chick-fil-a kickoff, I guess). I guess that's why we don't acknowledge them.
I think my point still stands - we've had some good seasons, sure, but we really didn't have much to boast about prior to Beams.
The Rose Bowl was similar to this as were many of the "bowl games" back then. They were designed to be another attraction to a larger event. In the case of the Tobacco Bowl, it was part of the National Tobacco Festival usually held in the late fall. The teams were selected based on their success the previous season typically though.
The Oyster Bowl was sponsored by the Shriners in Norfolk as a fundraiser for the Shriners Hospital there. It featured any assortment of matchups from high school in 1946 to Division I/II from 1948 to 1995. It was a matchup usually base on how the teams had performed the previous season. It is now being played as a start of the season game usually with a Division II Virginia Team playing another East Coast opponent. ODU has played in the last three against JMU, Delaware, and Albany.
There is so few published pieces on the Oyster Bowl that this discussion thread is the seventh link when using BING search.
The NCAA came about in 1906, not 1973. Teddy Roosevelt played a big part in its creation to curtail attempts to ban football because of the numerous deaths that were occurring in the game.
http://nypost.com/2011/04/17/how-teddy-roosevelt-saved-football/
1906 they formed the IAAUS which became the NCAA in 1910. 1973 apparently was when they divided into three Divisions. The majority of today's bowl games came about after this division brought a greater focus on the top tier of college football.
Prior to 1986 there were only 12 bowl games. Prior to 1970 there were only 9. You had to be good to get into a bowl back then. There are teams that have never won a bowl game. VT had not been consistenly good until the FB era.
I believe VT is the winningest program (total wins) that has never won a NC. We are due.
that's an interesting claim like the the Eagles under Andy Reid.
Wow the 1905 defense was good!
It certainly was, thanks to Bud's great-great-grandfather, Defensive Coordinator Pal Foster!
I thought it was Guy Foster
Lunch Pal Foster
Ah the ole 1905 season. I remember it like it was yesterday.
The first Tech team to beat LOLUVA, we won 11-0. They were so upset by it that they refused to play us again until 1923. Tech was considered the Champion of the South that season.
i cant remember what year that was (1909?) but i used to have a postcard on my fridge of that team.
The 1905 team was the first to beat UVA
Regarding bowl games, there weren't very many post season bowls around until the 80s (ten until the Liberty and Independence bowls were added in the late 70s), and nowhere near as many as there are today. I still get cheezed off when I think about the 83 Hokies, going 9-2, and getting stiffed during bowl season. We were really hurt on the national scene because we were an independent program until we joined the Big East.