I entered VT as a freshman in 2004. I came from out of state, and was told of the rivalry with UVA, but had never experienced it in person. Regardless, I left thanksgiving break early and headed back to Blacksburg in time for my first Commonwealth Cup. The campus was buzzing. Everyone was fired up. I was fired up. Both teams were ranked, and the Hokies won 24-10. Hooray, in-state rivalries. It was fun, and I looked forward to the energy and excitement that the Commonwealth Cup brought in future years.
My sophomore year we won 52-14.
My junior year we won 17-0. By the way, that particular thanksgiving I slept in a bit, and had to listen to the game on the radio on my drive down 81. This "rivalry" already began to lose its luster. The rest is history. We then won 6 more times in a row, bringing the total to 9 straight wins. We're going to beat them again this year, bringing us to a decade of VT wins. We've beaten them 277-97 since I've started following college football in 2004. That's a margin of over 27 TDs. We've shut them out twice. Goodbye rivalry.
Serious question: What college football teams in America can say they beat their "in state rival" 10 times in a row? I tried researching this, but gave up. I couldn't find any. Maybe Ohio State vs The University of Ohio or something like that. Would Ohio State fans care if a 5-star from Ohio signed with Ohio University? They'd probably be confused.
My point here is that I no longer consider UVA to be a rival and will not until they demonstrate the ability to beat us on the football field. I do not care about what recruits they get just like I do not care about what recruits ODU or Richmond gets, just like Ohio State fans don't care about what recuits the University of Ohio gets and so on. Shoot, I almost care more about ECU recruiting at this point since they've shown the ability to sneak up on us. I am more concerned with VT developing teams that can win the "big games" and believe we should all really take "star rankings" for what they are worth - - a kinda, sorta, relative assessment of talent (and offers) developed by middle age dudes who've never played or coached a down of football in their lives.
Comments
Turkey leg4U
Good perspective on the whole thing!
This series may have lost a bit of luster, but my freshman year (2003) was the last time we lost of UVa, and let me tell you, if you experience that once, you never want to experience it again. That memory alone fuels my intensity every time rivalry week rolls around. I had a sick feeling in my stomach all this year until the final FG gave us the win. That game alone demonstrated that they might have the ability to beat us. I dreaded the thought of us losing to the Hoos. For me, that's a rivalry - when there is a team, any team, against whom losing would trigger physical illness.
There are probably rivalries out there that are completely one-sided, probably not marquee teams, but the VT-UVa rivalry stems (in part) from UVa constantly, at every possible turn, trying to say that they're in some way better than us. Conveniently, what have we got going for us? 38-0 bro. (Almost) decade of dominance. I want nothing more than to see that continue. Oh yea, and improve on the big stage and win the "big games."
With all that said, I still want #AllTheFiveStars
I will settle for Ocho Cinco Stars.
Just some quick googling and found out this:
KSU beat KU 11 times in a row, (1993-2003)
Iowa beat ISU 15 times in a row (1983-97)
OU beat OSU 19 times in a row (1946-54) and 15 times in a row (1977-91)
For current, I would guess VT probably has the longest, although Oregon is currently at 5 wins over OSU.
Perfect timing. I've been talking about this recently with some of my friends.
Virginia Tech and UVA will always be a rivalry regardless of the product on the field. The schools are the preeminent college football programs in the Commonwealth, recruit the same high school players and the fans have a rare familiarity with each other. Outside of Virginia Tech, the biggest percentage of college graduates I know went to UVA which of course leads to epic shit talking sessions (the argument usually ends either with 38-0 bro or we're a top 25 school, football doesn't matter).
The bigger question is how important is the rivalry to the fabric of our football program. Recruiting immediately comes to mind. Since VT's football program is better, we're always going to get a certain type of recruit over them no matter how hard UVA tries. Since UVA is a better academic school, they are going to get a certain type of recruit over us no matter how hard we try (usually the prep school kid who wants to be a doctor/lawyer/in finance and is playing football "on the side").
From a recruiting standpoint, it's incredibly important to maintain the status quo. We need to maintain the image that we're not just a better program than UVA, UVA's program is not even in the same stratosphere as us. We need high school players to view UVA as a terrible football program and realize they're making a conscious decision to go to terrible football program if they sign there. The easiest way to depict that invirility is by asking recruits, "Do you really want to play for a football team we've beaten 10 years in a row?".
However from a practical standpoint, the rivalry is unimportant. The games we play with them rarely have any bigger context outside of the game itself. Personally, I get more jacked up when we play Georgia Tech, Clemson or FSU because the games are meaningful from either a national ranking or an ACC Championship standpoint. There's a give and take between those schools- we beat them sometimes and they beat us sometimes. Those schools have a stable of NFL-bound players, just like Virginia Tech. If we can beat those three schools with the same rate of success as UVA, we're truly knocking on the door of a national championship. Because those three school are the most meaningful for me, they are VT's biggest rivals from my vantage point.
Weaver should put you on the payroll as a recruiter.
Wait. Weaver pays our recruiters?
This is my sentiment as well. Listening to UVa fans try to trash VT is comical, but when it comes to Georgia Tech, I'm fired up, and nobody makes Tech work harder for a win than the Bumble Bees. Ever since Paul Johnson trash-talked about Beamer, it has been a rivalry ever since.
I feel that Tech has a budding rivalry with Clemson, but because of the #goacc logic in the ACC's cross-over rival, we are stuck with the Eagles. Now, I'm not knocking the Eagles because I have a sneaky suspicion they won't be down for long. Yet, for television rating, the annual match up versus the Tigers would get the fans juiced up and excited. My father-in-law (a Clemson alum and fan) and I would be trading witty, friendly bantering.
Florida State, in my opinion, has tremendous respect for Tech. Heck, Jimbo Fisher acknowledged that Virginia Tech became the standard bearer of the ACC a few years ago, and playing them in the ACCCG would be a TV rating bonanza better than them playing the Bumble Bees. I know some of you detest Florida State, but I detest Miami worse than Florida State.
I don't know that it is a completely accurate statement to say that they are a better academic school than us...in some areas, yes. In others, no. That is a very subjective statement and for the record: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704554104575435563989873060.html
I would get more in-depth into this (I agree with you) but I don't want to get into a UVA v. VT academic argument. I'm not a Wahoo, there's no need to bring up academics when we're discussing football :)
A response to Hokie High's question "What college football teams in America can say they beat their 'in state rival' 10 times in a row?". The longest active streak is Texas A&M with 24 consecutive wins against TCU.
They've only played once since 1996 in a bowl, so it depends how you define "active." Is it active if they don't play each other every year? Would we consider the WVU/VT rivalry active? Not sure.
This past decade winning streak over UVa exists for one reason: Our players want it more.
I want to keep it that way, and will ALWAYS consider UVa our biggest rival until they stop fielding a football team.
No Hokie who lives in hooville wants to live through a year between a LOLUVA victory over Tech and the next Commonwealth Cup. Having done that before, I'm all for never loosing to them again. The bigger the point differential, the better. These people can be downright insufferable anyway, they don't need more ammo.
Navy has beat Army 11 straight times.
Old school Hokies know the real rivalry was with VMI. That era has passed. Has it passed for Uva also?
It should please you to know that the VT-VMI rivalry is still alive and well on the rugby pitch.
We were 1 and 1 during my tenure on the pitch. Never cared much about some of the other games other than just beating on some folks to get my frustrations out, but boy howdy were we jacked up for the Tech game!
Does anyone think that ODU could surpass UVA as our main rival in 10 years or so?
Not sure if serious, but no. VT plays ODU 3 times in the next 10 years. VT plays UVA 10 times in the next 10 years. But I wouldn't be surprised if ODU becomes a greater competitor to get 757 recruits within the next 10 years. I don't expect London will still be coaching in 10 years and unless UVA brings in another 757 guy, I don't think their recruiting success in the 757 will continue.
IMO and have talked about this with a few of my peers. Now is a time that is extremely important for both VT and UVA to make it clear there is a difference between them and ODU. ODU is in the heart of the 757 and it is where the majority of the talent is located in VA. ODU is being held back on some levels by not being allowed to expand their campus but if those walls were to break down and they can start investing in being a bigger, better campus I think they can become a very good program. Mind you this would be probably 10-20 years down the road but it could happen. If UVA crashes and burns (I believe this is highly more likely than VT becoming horrible) I wouldnt be surprised if ODU surpasses them to be the 2nd best school in the state.
To answer your question on rivalries that are that one-sided, I think the one that comes to mind (even though it isn't in-state) is Notre Dame-Navy. ND won 43 straight in that series at one point, and keep in mind that Navy was no slouch team when the streak started. The first of those (a 40-0 ND win) was Roger Staubach's last year at Navy.
Not as impressive, but another example that comes to my mind, Tennessee beat Kentucky every year from 1985 through 2010 I believe.
What a great day that was! Rushed the field after watching UK beat Tennessee for the first time in my lifetime. Kept Tennessee from being bowl eligible (we can all toast to that). And made it home in time to watch Logan and the Hokies lay the smackdown on UVA 38-0.
38-0, bro, to be exact.