I'm not surprised this ended up happening. Marshall wasn't going to back out unless they got a big check for it. Huntington in 2023, Blacksburg in 2024.
It's official! The dates are finalized for our home-and-home football series with Virginia Tech. We look forward to the Hokies' visit to Huntington in 2023, and our fans will be excited to travel to Blacksburg in 2024. #HerdFamily #RiseAsOne pic.twitter.com/zX68bYcGr9— Mike Hamrick (@TheHerdAD) October 31, 2019
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I'm a little disappointed that we're scheduling balanced home-and-homes with G5 schools instead of 2-for-1s or 3-for-2s, but I guess if we're going to schedule one it might as well be against Marshall
I think this a product of us getting them to play the 12th game last year, so in effect its a 2 for 1.
I suppose that's a fair point, I guess it just felt like we've only been scheduling 1 for 1s recently. It's not too farfetched since we have 10 more games against ODU, 5 home and 5 away, plus a home-and-home with MTSU, but beyond the Marshall series we just announced the only other G5 opponent on the future schedule is Liberty, and we have 4 home and 2 away games with them, as it should be. I guess I mostly just had a sour taste in my mouth after the long-term ECU and ODU series.
...and they worked with us on short notice, when ECU dropped out, yet booked their game at NC State. VT had very few options at the end of season for a make-up game with an FBS team, and Marshall was there for us when they were having a fairly good season.
We got the first part of the 2-for-1 in 2018.
We have a
goodgreat relationship with Marshall all around. One for one with them is just fine. And as other have said, the first of the two from them was essentially last year.Lots of news coming in today. I *like* playing against Marshall.
Edit: I forgot a word
None of this would have been possible without ECU overplaying their hand last year.
and for that, we salute them...or say argh or whatever the hell you say to pirates.
lamo pirates.
OG pirates actually say "Arrrrrr!".
Posers add the "gh".
Single-finger salutes.
They're still pretending their off-suit 2-7 are pocket Aces.
The second thay people around their program started bringing up 4/16, there was no saving that relationship. Our series was them being dealt A-K suited and they went all in without getting any help on the table.
On relatively short time, this was probably the best possible outcome.
The last game @ Marshall was real fun. Will be interested in going again. Marshall fans are good people.
Yep, by far the coolest experience I've ever had at an away game. I'd like to see them on the schedule long term
ECU Replacement
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. They don't care for WVU either, and this is our thanks for extending the bowl streak. I'm more than fine with it.
WVU is obsessed with Marshall for some reason. It might have something to do with the fact that they can't win their own conference, so they brag about how they could win Conference USA. Congrats!
I'm glad we got Marshall scheduled up. I had a blast the last time we played them in Huntington and I will definitely be going back if I can.
I believe that Marshall is the closest OOC team to VT. While this is kind of a 2 and 1, I have no problems have a 1 and 1 every so often to keep good will. Having friends is a good thing. Having a roommate for 14 years isnt.
My wife is my best friend and we have been roommates for almost 29 years.
I really dont think you you want to compare your wife to ECU or ODU.
I know Tommy, they're called doctors
FWIW Liberty would closest I think. But Marshall is fairly close.
Not playing Liberty is worth the extra mileage then.
I think it's actually number 4, behind Liberty, App State and Charlotte.
Tennessee as well
I can dig Marshall occasionally. I still don't like scheduling that far out.
Well, when the rest of America is still scheduling that far out, the alternative is having multiple FCS opponents (see: Virginia Tech, 2019) and/or an in-season home-and-home with a shitty team (see: Liberty and New Mexico State, 2019). As it is, it seems we had to fill most (4 of 6) of our OOC slots that opened when we canceled the ECU series with FCS teams, and Marshall for the other two.
Like it or not, it's a fact of life in FBS football.
What's wrong with scheduling that far out? What would you suggest instead?
I guess I'm not happy about having long-out-there matchups being continuously pushed back and/or canceled.
When I see a great opponent on our schedule, I should be getting excited about playing a big game. But when the games are that far out, it's just disappointing. Like I'd love to go to Ole Miss for a game, but that's 13 years from now.
I'd like to see games scheduled no more than, say, 4 years out, not including long running series. Clemson is going to play South Carolina every year forever, so keep the series going. Any ongoing series should be able to be scheduled forever, as far as I'm concerned.
But I'd also like to see the conferences come to some sort of agreements that in the next X years, our conference will match teams up for an early season game the following year according to some criteria, like the Big Ten/ACC challenge in basketball. I don't really think that every team in two conferences should match up (so, for example, the first place SEC team plays the second place PAC12 school, but the first place PAC12 school might get matched up against the third place Big 12 school, or something), but I would like to see some strategic matchups between schools of similar stature in OOC play. I think this can be managed in a single offseason across the NCAA instead of being nickel and dimed along the next two decades.
Since schools themselves have the ability to make any scheduling deal they want, I don't know how to change this...I don't have a full proposal or anything. I think every other sports league has control over who plays who, and the everyone-for-themselves model seems to produce few interesting matchups.
I guess I don't have a very good answer as to why this bothers me so much but an announcement like this one is really easily ignore-able.
Other than Wisconsin (which is still not canceled), how many games/series of consequence have been CONTINUOUSLY pushed back? And how many have been canceled (ECU is not of consequence)? Maybe 1 in the last decade (Michigan...which was a good thing IMO).
And even of the few that get pushed back once or canceled, most of time it results in a better game. Does anybody wish VT could have played a home and home with Illinois as scheduled in 2014 & 2016 instead of OSU and Tennessee in those years PLUS OSU in 2015? Or when Wisconsin got pushed back...Penn State got moved up.
What would be gained by limiting scheduling to four years? That's just ridiculous and unrealistic. Not to mention VT would not end up with the long end of the stick on that one.
All you hear is complaining about the schedule. Then when some exciting series get announced there's childlike complaining because the glass is 10% empty and the need for instant gratification isn't being satisfied.
Why is limiting the schedule to four years unrealistic? That's a bit of hyperbole, of course it can be done. I'm not sure why it's ridiculous either. Or why VT would suddenly lose out if everyone had a four year limit on the schedule. And how you gonna talk about one series being cancelled and then rattle off like five of them?
I get excited about a series when it's going to be played, not when I have to plan my retirement party around it. I don't think anyone is looking at our OOC schedule this year and is excited at all. How is this exciting? I would have loved to have had a big, infrequently played opponent on this year's schedule, and we got ND cycling in (which is actually AWESOME, BTW). But Furman, ODU, and Rhode Island? Are you excited about that?
How can you get excited about something that is happening in 2035? At that point, Alabama may have trended seriously downward again and they could be a perennial 6-6 team. They could be as good in 2035 as Illinois was in 2016. We're scheduling them because they are a big name this year, and they're likely to still be really good for the foreseeable future. But who the heck knows whether that will be a good game sixteen years from now.
I, for one, would have loved to have played Tennessee and OSU in the same year.
I can get behind this. Marshall really helped us out last year on short notice. Looking forward to going to Huntington for the game.
Whoa whoa since when were we playing North Alabama in 2020
Since Thursday