It's a preseason poll and ranking from a preseason magazine that trades in topical analysis. However, it's May so it gives us something to talk about, as well as a bit of insight into Tech's national perception. Athlon predicts Tech will finish No. 1 in the ACC Coastal. As has been said many times before, Tech avoiding Florida State, Clemson, and Louisville in the Atlantic Division bodes well for the Hokies return to Charlotte.
They hit the nail on the head here.
Tech's ground game should be better, if only because it would be tough to be worse.
Ouch, the truth can hurt.
The offense should benefit from being in Year 2 in Loeffler's system, but Year 1 didn't exactly set the bar high. The Hokies had the 101st-ranked offense nationally in 2013, averaging 356.0 yards per game. Fixing the lagging running game would go a long way toward making Virginia Tech more competitive, since theres plenty of faith in Blacksburg that Foster will figure things out like he always does. Beamer is confident that the changes he made to the offensive coaching staff prior to 2013 are taking root but knows that it will take time. Still, the Hokies should contend in a wide-open Coastal Division this year.
Honestly, it's a very well written preview, they even have Kendall Fuller on a cover, but none of the info should be new to you if you've been following along here.
They've released their top-40 teams thus far, and this is how the ACC stacks up.
No. 1 Florida State
No. 21 Clemson
No. 27 Virginia Tech
No. 28 Louisville
No. 30 Miami
No. 32 North Carolina
No. 36 Pittsburgh
No. 38 Duke
Comments
All I'm sayin this year.... just get us to Charlotte. I want a rematch with FSU or Clemson. By the time December rolls around, I actually think we could be playing well enough to knock either off, especially if the defense gels.
Wonder what is gonna happen to Ohio State after we beat them at home. Actually a better question is, what will we be ranked after we knock them off?
I'm liking the optimism
#BeatBrutus
Things that would make me a happy lumberjack:
1) 10+ win season
2) Winning the division
3) Keeping it close with or beating tOSU and FSU/Clemson in ACCCG
4) Young guns show promise for 2015 NCG run
5) Winning Bowl Game
i see you fixed the Peach Bowl mention...I was thinking that might be a bit ambitious considering the playoff committee would have to place us there!
Speaking of which... what is the ACC Bowl Hierarchy right now? I really have no idea what is considered a good bowl for us anymore outside of the Orange/Playoff.
i believe we have to hope the Orange Bowl invites a B1G team to play the ACC so we can be invited to the CapOne Bowl...if that doesn't happen, it's a pretty big drop off in terms of historical prestige/relevance.
http://www.fbschedules.com/2013/07/acc-new-bowl-lineup-beginning-in-2014/
my take:
1. Playoff
2. Orange Bowl
3. CFP Bowl (at-large/non playoff)
4. CapOne
5. Russel Athletic
6. gets bad quick....
i have Russel Athletic listed 5th, but it's technically our 2nd best guaranteed bowl for the league. the other sports above it only exist if the league has 3-4 great teams and all the chips fall perfectly for us.
bottom line: win 10+ games and/or win the league!
i thought the acc was getting the gator back? is that not this year?
Not every year (and the Gator cut their payout back, too)
My understanding is that after the Playoffs and the Orange Bowl/Fiesta or Chick-Fil-A Bowl replacing the Orange Bowl when it hosts a Playoff game, there isn't an exact hierarchy of which bowl you go to anymore. Instead they are going to try to match teams to bowls to create good match ups and take regional travel into consideration.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/7/18/4534934/acc-bowl-line...
You mean gone are the days of travelling to the Diamond Nut Bowl in San Fransisco? Tis a sad day indeed.
And just in case you think I'm serious, here's a disclaimer: The first sentence is meant to be viewed in Sarcastivision, and may not be appropriate for all viewers.
I'd say all of these are attainable goals and would make me very happy with the direction of the program.
I agree in most of these, but there are no moral victories. For me, keeping it close is not enough. If we do that then the drive home becomes "if we did X we WIN instead of a close loss". If we want to re-enter the national discussion, we can't be considered the 3rd best team in the ACC.
Athlon has liked VT over the years. I remember when they had us 7th in the country before the 2011 season, turned out to be a pretty accurate prediction.
Accurate how? We finished 2011 ranked 21st.
Before the Michigan game I should say. We dropped like a rock in the polls after that game. We got up to number 3 in the coaches that year before the ACCCG.
Athlon makes much more sense than the Sportswriters at ESPN who have VT going to some lowly bowl games.
ESPN has no "sportswriters". They have "sportsentertainers".
Maybe, but they have the best coverage of the national spelling bee!
That was a good bee, actually.
a championship ending in a tie!? no, thanks!
Lets think about it like this:
7 home games
W&M - W
ECU - W
Georgia Tech - always beat the Bees - W
Western Michigan - W
Miami - Thursday night - W
BC - W
UVA - W - #11STRAIGHT
If we take care of business at home this year, which I think is challenging but manageable, we might have a very good shot at Charlotte and 10(+) wins.
We play at Duke... so that makes it 8 home games
That pic was from 2005, and the crowd grows every year
I wouldn't discount the surge in Duke Football interest from last season's championship run. Yes, we have historically traveled well to Duke but the fact that they beat us on our turf only increases the desire to see a repeat for their fans on home soil. I expect Duke faithful to gobble up as many open tickets as they can to try and make it a game... (disclaimner, I take back everything I said if Duke falls back to being Duke football and losing every game next year before they play us - captain obvious)
Trust me... its not happening (I'm in the know on this one)
Duke administrators are expecting a big orange and maroon crowd again this year.
HASHTAG SOURCES
#professors
#homework
#cantdressuplikeadorkandbecoollikeicanbeincameron
Considering how they jack up their prices for VT games, I imagine they're fine just as long as the tickets are sold. Also, based on the game last season, they might be feeling as good about this game as we used to when going down there.
I think the Duke game at $60 per ticket is almost twice what I paid 4 years ago.
I see what you did there.
How was this offensive to someone? Do you understand what constitutes a down vote?
I got ya, bro.
thanks, man!
Somebody with their mind in the gutter projecting instead of recognizing that it was a reference to the Fighting Gobblers.
It is quite possible that someone fat-fingered the up-vote/down-vote on their phone. It happens all of the time and a lot of people do not realize that they can undo the down-vote with an up-vote. Getting upset about a single down-vote, especially on a comment with plenty of up-votes, is a waste of energy. If the down-votes start to pile up on a comment, then it is time to worry about it. Apply Occam's Razor.
When applying Occam's Razor, I always try to follow it with Williams LectricShave.
I used to enjoy laughing at these kinds of things. Then I remember the 4 pick performance against Duke, and it wipes my smile away.
I'm not ready to pencil a W against BC, Miami, GT, or ECU. I'd think the others are safe, but have you watched VT football the last two years? That and we lose 90% of our offense from last year in Thomas. I'm taking a cautiously optimistic approach.
#ALLMAROONEVERYTHING is worth at least 9 wins.
Being picked 27th means we are lurking, and we should be able to climb if that running game comes together.
Historically we are better as the hunter than hunted. When you are out of the top 25, there is only one way to go.
Just Win some Important Games and show progress on the Offensive side and I'll be happy. 9-10 wins in the regular season schedule should make me real happy .
I wish we'd start talking about <3 losses instead of 10+ wins. We play 17 games and people are still going to be happy with 10 wins. SMH
17 games?
Was there a recent NCAA rule change??
First, not many teams get to ten wins any even if they get to play 14 games so it is a good goal to set. Second, I think "playing to win" and not "playing not to lose" are two vastly different things so your goals should reflect that.
In any given season, well over 20 teams can finish with 10 wins. It's stringing together multiple 10 win seasons that's difficult.
Don't deny my pussy touchdowns.
I miss kennyhokie
Someone killed kennyhokie?
He actually didn't say that the first time around. And unfortunately he was one of the few people I had to swing the ban hammer at because he didn't play nice with others. I remember waking up one morning to seeing half the active discussions were rants he posted in the forum.
You use a hammer? I always envisioned it more like this:
Except you're at a computer...and fewer people watching.
More like this:
VT needs to work harder on their College of Engineering acceptance rate. This seems dangerous.
Looks more like LOLUVA engineering to me.
I don't know what happened here but I can't stop watching it and being more than slightly envious. God help me I want to try it out
Same here except I'm understanding that I have no control over where that maul comes down.
or the traumatic brain injury from the concussion.
Nah more like this
I clicked the "Ranking the ACC's QBs for 2014" Link
The thing I took away from it the most was that even with us having no idea who will be our starting QB, we still beat LOLUVA:
12. Michael Brewer, Virginia Tech (JR)
13. Greyson Lambert, Virginia (SO)
Well in all honesty, Brewer will be on the winning side of that match-up. Every. Time.
Edit: Haven't seen a double-post from my account in quite some time.
How many times?
Did you hit the table?
ACC Predictions
They pick us to win the coastal and ask the question "Is there any hope for Virginia to finish anywhere but last in the Coastal?"
Think both of those points make it an excellent article.
Wow. This statement is eyeopening:
I always look at point differential to determine how good a team was. For example, VT was pretty good last year in the ACC, had some tough losses. Won all ACC games by 10 or more except GT which was a 7 point win. The three ACC losses were 3, 3 and 7 points. It appears UVA was downright terrible.