Been thinking about this since the latest polls came out, and I'm curious as to how everyone else here would rank the Hokies currently. There are good arguments both for and against including us in the Top 25, but where do we belong? Top 25? Top 35? Top 50?
Naturally it's still very subjective at this point, with only a single game under any team's belt. I'm in the "rankings are meaningless in the off season" camp, but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless.
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With Brewer? Top 15
Without Brewer? too early to tell
Agreed. We were 2 different teams in the 2 halves.
If Motley can be serviceable for us, I think our running game can be a strength if the OL keeps it up and we can win games like we used to pounding it out. The question is if Leoffler is patient enough to pound the ball.
I wouldn't. Our offense looked better than our defense. That's all I really need to say
Eh, this OSU offense has wrecked 4 really good defenses in a row. Can't really tell how good our D is based on this game, except maybe some individuals and how well they played their specific assignments.
OSU's defense also blanked Wisconsin's "man ball" offense last season. How many times have you seen comments from fans here begging to have an offense like Wisconsin's where we line up with the big uglies and run the ball down the defense's throat? That is the offensive wet-dream of Hokies everywhere. It hearkens back to the good 'ol days of ground and pound and play-action-pass that we used to do over a decade ago.
I stand by my comment. Our offense played better than our defense.
OSU was missing their best two defensive players and not sure how many other starters from last year's defense though.
I haven't seen many people wanting Wisconsin's offense lately. They have a great running game and no passing game since Wilson has been gone.
I mean they were missing all kinds of talent offensively too, and they still embarrassed us. I don't know where you want to draw the line. You can throw out "ifs" and "buts" all day and make counterpoints to every counterpoint. There are so many intricacies in CFB that you can relatively easily form any argument and support it with some type of metric. At the end of the day, our offense scored 24 points on one of the best defensive teams in the country and our vaunted defense allowed 42. The way I see it, our offense played better than our defense.
agreed, but our offense playing better than our defense isn't a reason to have us unranked. Especially when you consider the opponent and how good they are offensively.
okay, fair enough. What are there, like 120 teams in FBS? After 1 week, there should be 60 teams with 1 more win than us. So I would rank us in the bottom half of the 120 teams.
Do we get extra points because we played the No. 1 team? OK, I guess not.
Fine, call me a cynic. I think this is a silly exercise. You'll be hard pressed to find any non-Hokie-homer who would even consider the idea that this team should be ranked. This team showed nothing to suggest they should be ranked so they will stay, rightfully so, right where they are. Unranked. When an unranked team loses at home to a ranked team that does nothing but affirm the assessment of both teams. If the game is close you can start formulating subjective opinions that outsiders may consider but when ranked team beats the spread over unranked team there should be no change. It does not matter that VT lost to the #1 team. The only reason people would even consider moving VT UP in the rankings would be if we won the game or maybe, just maybe, if we lost a very very close game in the final moments. This game was easily in hand for OSU the second they went up 28-17. With no Brewer to ride on VT had little to no chance.
I think you misunderstood my question. All teams are ranked, not just the top 25. Where should we be? Sorry, thought I made that clear when I specified a few different examples like the Top 50.
I did answer the question....begrudgingly, perhaps. But I did answer it.
Considering the number of FBS vs. FCS games in week one, that number is undoubtably higher.
And I'm the nerd that counted. 81 FBS teams are 1-0 (and 4 are 0-0).
I dunno, I personally don't rank teams strictly on wins and losses. A close loss to a good team - like Louisville losing to Auburn is worth a lot more than the blowout win in a warm-up game that many top25 teams racked up this past weekend.
So ya, if Brewer hadn't gotten hurt, I think we would've lost 38-31 or thereabouts to the #1 team in the nation. That's a good enough performance for top25. However, we lost our QB and we lost by a bigger margin because of it. So toss the Top25 out the window. At least not until Motley proves he can get it done.
We're not a complete team without Brewer to give our offense some legitimacy, but we do have a good to great defense... so I'm comfortable putting us ahead of middle of the pack teams who racked up easy wins and rating us in the 40-60 range.
That's silly
yes...yes it is. I think this whole debate is silly....
More than a few thought I was nuts just for saying that I felt our offense would not perform poorly against an OSU defense of which I am still not sold on.
not sold on them either especially without bosa. I think they will be right about where they were last year which is a top 20 defense.
I not entirely sold on them either even with Bosa (because I think he's dominant against lesser OT's but drops off quite a bit against OTs who punch in his weight class).
VT was able to move the ball on the ground reasonably well when there was a passing threat - and the RBs missed some holes. Either VT's offensive line is really, really improved or OSU's run defense could be exploited by a good OL (like, say, Michigan State's) and RBs with good vision.
With Brewer.. #20
without 40+
I agree with this
Unranked is about right.
Maybe 35. Maybe.
I'd rank us in November.
Think we'll be in the high 20s to low 30s even without brewer. Our schedule is not intimidating and if the defense can perform we should be alright.
If we win out through September and beat Pitt (who is without Conner).....I think we will pop into the 19-25 spot. Then when we get into the thick of conference play I have no idea, anything is possible at that point.
I'd rather be unranked. We've
alwaysplayed better as the underdog.Edit: to align with reply to vtStronk
I hate this mentality. Winners want to be the top dog. No one strives to be unranked.
Not to mention its huge confirmation bias. You just don't remember us playing poorly when we're the underdog because we were supposed to play poorly, which makes the upsets stick out more. I'll take 2010 top dogs over 2012 underdogs
Are you saying that underdogs don't want to be winners? Don't get me wrong...I wish we played the top-dog role better, but history shows that we don't.
I'd take the Top Dog 99 team any day. I'd also like the Sugar Bowl underdogs (Texas,Auburn). I, like you, have watched VT football for a while now and observed that we play better as underdogs.
I'm not saying underdogs don't want to be winners. I'm saying winners don't want to be underdogs
I completely agree with this. My comment was based off of history, not the mentality of our players. Up vote for you.
No, we don't. I don't get that. We dominated in 2011 except for Clemson both times. We were underdogs, we got wrecked. 2012, we were the underdogs against FSU, couldn't win there. 2013, underdogs against Alabama, couldn't win. I guess we did well in Miami 2013 and OSU 2014, but other than that not really.
We have been a perennial Top 25 team for a good amount of 25 years and we should strive to stay there. People shouldn't be happy being unranked just because expectations become lower and we do better as an 'underdog'. From 1999-2011, we were the underdog a very select few amounts of times and generally we did not do well against them so I really do not get when people say the opposite.
There is the perception that lose more games we "should win" than we lose games that we "should lose." I think that's where the "we want to be the underdogs" idea comes from. Not that it's necessarily true.
Especially because its an idea that everyone thinks applies to them. OSU was saying the same thing last year through their playoff run.
I understand your opinion and I agree that, even as underdogs, we have not always preformed when we needed to. I will still stand by my opinion, though.
Top 69 no doubt
If I'm ranking us, it's a no-brainer. Number One.
I like the Hokies better than all the other teams. It's not even close.
I think this team will perform very differently in the next few weeks than what we saw Monday night. I just can't seem to accurately process how good we are based off of playing the consensus top team in the country.
Motley could look like a world-beater vs Furman. The defense could hold Purdue to under 100 yards. Anything can happen.
Me too.
I don't have a clue of how good this team really is nor do I know how well and/or how quickly 1) the offensive scheme can be adjusted to get the most out of Motley's skill set and 2) how quickly Durkin/Lawson can grow up so that the coaching staff can gameplan without a primary objective being to keep Motley from getting injured.
higher than temple
After week 4.
Meh, I wish they didn't do any rankings until after 4 games or so. But then again how else would ESPN be able to hype games for tv ratings?
Around 40-50.
between a rock and a hard place???
slightly behind "what-might-have-been"
I think I saw us at 33 according to the coaches poll? Maybe the Power Rankings? This was when all the polls weren't published yet on ESPN, so whichever one I was looking at went down to 35. Why? No idea.
I feel like that's fair.
I DON'T get the unanimous #1 OSU. If they're so unanimous, how were they losing to an unranked team at the half?
If games ended at halftime, we'd be doomed. Seriously, I remember tons of games in which VT was the ranked team and was struggling or trailing at half. Great teams make adjustments and flip the script. Scrappy teams might take you by surprise, but the top teams overcome them.
The "unanimous" comes from a simple fact. OSU had every single # 1 vote in the preseason AP poll. I believe I read that this had never happened before. They are also throwing around the "undisputed" label due to the fact that they won the first College Football Playoff. The complaint with the BCS was that secret formulas set up winners, so the playoff would remove all doubt - the true champion would emerge by real, on-the-field competition amongst the top teams. You can make arguments either way, but that's the narrative.
But I've also read that the trend has been in this direction for some time. I believe the teams with the highest percentage of pre-season #1 votes (in the 90+% IIRC) before this year were...Florida State last year and Bama the year before that.
Groupthink invades college football preseason polls...whodathunkit?
I'm with you. I'm already hearing people talking about how amazing the SEC is because of how many top-25 programs they have already. Preseason polls are crap, but within the paradigm we have, yes, OSU was the unanimous #1 in AP. I'll look at the polls again in October.
and it's a narrative that I have no issue with. Going into the playoff there was a lot of doubt around whether they even belonged there. They snuck in over TCU/Baylor and claimed the #4 spot. How many pundits thougt there was no way they'd get past Alabama? Well, they took care of business and won the Championship outright. I think they deserve to be called the undisputed champs for 2014 (as much as it pains me to say that). There is no doubt in my mind that Whit Babcock would trot out something very similar in the event VT won a championship.
That OSU-Bama game was everything I hoped playoff football would be. Great matchup and a hell of a lot of fun to watch (especially because I had no rooting interest; had that been the Hokies in that game I doubt I'd be alive).
They're also using that because they can't say "undefeated".
Incomplete right now. Haven't seen enough to warrant a top 25 ranking, but Ohio State just makes teams look bad. I like our chances in the ACC IF:
-Motley is better than a simply serviceable backup
-The stable of running backs absolutely catches fire until Brewer comes back and beyond
-The defense regroups and goes to what we were predicted to be
-Bucky Hodges and Cam Phillips make major contributions, as well as Ford and Malleck keeping pace with what they did
-Special teams continues to be solid
Motley did get a pre-season vote for ACC player of the year last season...so he's got that going for him.
Well, football is no VT Women's Soccer, that's for sure.
#1..... In my heart
I'd be inclined to rank us somewhere in the 30s for now. I don't understand the doomsday view many people took after the clock hit zeroes on Monday. Yes, Motley looked uncomfortable. He was in a terrible situation, so I'll give him a pass for that. But he has to improve rapidly, and he has the potential to do it. This team still has a higher than expected ceiling if we can get our quarterback to settle down and run the offense. Yeah, the defense gave up a lot of big plays and seemed to just quit by the fourth quarter. But many of the mistakes came from places we kinda knew they would (Stroman in coverage, Motu reading gaps and tackling, Frye not being Reavis). The one play that really made me mad was Kendall on that stop n go. But I'm not convinced he was at 100% physically at that point in the game. The defense can still be great, and if anyone can light a fire under them, it's Bud. So right now, mid-30s. By November, there's enough potential that mid-teens is not out of the question. It all comes down to how the team moves forward from Monday.
#1, obviously, in the state of Virginia.