Mississippi State-Virginia Tech will play in Belk Bowl, sources told @Stadium— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 8, 2019
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Mississippi State-Virginia Tech will play in Belk Bowl, sources told @Stadium— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 8, 2019
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Needs more earplugs.
This comment didn't age well.
Still a great GIF brother. +1
You know what I think, Cowbell in Starkville?
I think you're out of whack.
They'll be taking their cowbell talents to Music City.
Was hoping for the CWB in Orlando for my first winter down here. At least we have good history in Charlotte.
How to talk my boss into letting me use my PTO that day?
It's New Year's Eve. Who really works that day anyway?
Collections never sleep. She's a Tech fan so may be able to sweet talk her!
*hand raised* Enterprise doesn't close for anything, not even natural disasters nor nuclear explosions.
They also don't know what a reservation is, much like the Seinfeld episode.
They know how to take them. They just don't know how to hold them.
100% accurate
New Year's Eve in Charlotte it is....
Sucks that the belk bowl is a nooner now.
Looks official now
Belk bowl = best bowl
Let's send them out in style.
And hey, we still followed up our trip to Charlottesville with a trip to Charlotte!
SEC side might be getting wonky:
Hey remember when dcwilson he'd stop criticizing Fuente if we "made it to Charlotte" and then oversold it by saying it applied to the Belk Bowl as well as the ACC Title Game?
Pepperidge Farm remembers....
🤣
Do you feel as good about making this belk bowl as much as the last time we went?
Do you feel good about anything VT football related ever?
https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2019/november/29/here-i-go-being-opti...
Do you have selective memory or do you just single out people who don't always cheerlead for the team?
I'd say I have an above average memory but with two kids under 5 it's safe to say that it's deteriorating on a daily basis. Seriously I'm glad to see that you find some happiness and hope out of following the football program. I enjoy a healthy debate and recognize there's going to be differences of opinion that won't be settled until we see the results on the field. However, I can't say I see much purpose to random bursts of negativity.
Yep we mostly felt pretty hopeful about the program after the ACC championship game in 2016. And only two years later it took borderline divine intervention to make a bowl game. So does it matter if fans feel worse about the program now compared to December 2016? Because come next fall, I guarantee that the way that fans feel the program is "trending" today won't mean a damn thing once our guys take the field.
Oh shit.
Music City should take VT to play Tennessee
Oh shit, VT-Vols now???
MSU fan friend of mine and I have been waiting for a VT-MSU Belk Bowl for years and now I'm pissed that we finally got it and it got taken away.
VT-Tenn??? Okay I'm def in on this now!!!
Might be VT UK matchup. Regardless I just want to win
WTF IS HAPPENING
Lol what the hell is going on
Nobody wants to play Tech right now. We are looking to give a beatdown after that UVA game.
Boy this has turned into a real cluster.
.....It just means more?
I mean, one kind of crappy bowl to another, but yeah I guess it does to some.
I was reading Tennessee managed to sneak their way into the Gator, moving Kentucky to play us and Mississippi St to play Louisville.
VT will be playing a combination of Kentucky AND Tennessee, should be one hell of a matchup
Bourbon and whiskey!? Nice!
The Cumberland Bowl
Wild Turkeys vs Tenn-Ken
Bourbon Bowl confirmed.
The Tuckysee Volleycats, famous for their checkered end zone design and Jack Beam whiskey. Not sure how well those Nashington fans travel, though.
Check my signature and understand why I'm *stressed*
I'd think you'd be happy to see VT beat Tennessee.
VT first obviously.
By the way, Kentucky literally plays a WR at QB and runs the ball almost every down.
So GT again?
Yup... I was not looking forward to this potential matchup
Yeah and putting up 40-50 points a game since then including their game against Louisville
Well everyone knows Louisville doesn't play defense, so that part is irrelevant.
They put up 45 against Louisville and 50 against Tennessee-Martin. Other highest scores of the season were 38 against Vandy, Toledo and Eastern Michigan. Any team with a pulse they scored less than 30 and lost. I think we bring a better defense than most teams they have played.
Those opponents were Vanderbilt, UT Martin and Louisville.
FEI's 95th & 109th rated defenses.
And UT Martin.
All I can take away is everyone is scared to play us
Jet sweeps give me nightmares, too
What the fuck is going on?
My understanding is that all the agreements were in place, then Tennessee decided they should be in a Gator bowl (they do have a 5-3 SEC record compared to Kentucky's 3-5 AND won the head to head matchup) and messed everything up by lobbying for the switch. It seems it worked out as they wanted.
From what I gather from twitter, I think the original plan was Miss State to Belk, Tennessee in Music City, and Kentucky in Gator. Tennessee then changed their mind at the last minute and wanted the Gator Bowl.
Can't do a straight up Kentucky/Tennessee trade, because Louisville is in the Music City, so putting Kentucky there would make a rematch.
Not quite sure how Music City has made the announcement but the other two are still waiting.
Tennessee messing everything up per usual
Kentucky.
Probably the least ideal of the 3 rumored SEC teams. Would much rather have Tenn or even MSU
Not only is it a meh school to be playing in a bowl, but their style is agonizing to watch. It'll be as nauseating as any usual GT game under Paul Johnson
Well hopefully just like with GT, having the extra time to prepare will be their achilles heel.
Doesn't matter. Get to watch one more game of football.
MSU fans were meh when it was them; fully expecting to not travel and to get destroyed by VT.
Damn, was hoping for Annapolis so I could go. Maybe next year
We didn't suck enough to drop down to Military Bowl. Even if we did, we still wouldn't have gone because the bowls try to avoid back-to-back appearances.
Same
not sure we would play in the nation's capital two years in a row (if you know you know)
Hopefully not next year or any year for a long time
The tier 1/tier 2 system goes away next year, so all bowls are on an "equal" footing, so who knows how the decisions will be made.
Meh. I really wanted to go to Nashville
Kentucky's fan base seems pretty pissed judging from the team's social media accounts...they were really gunning for the Gator Bowl lol.
Nobody wants someone else leaping them after they've been selected for a bowl.
It's a pretty odd thing, really.
Especially when it's a result of one of your bitter rivals politicking to get to a bowl of their choice.
Saw a lot of this. "Belk, just lost six tickets, blame the SEC", etc. Fans saying they were going but they aren't now. Maybe they'll wake up tomorrow and remember to support their team, but who knows.
Also saw a (PSU?) fan saying the stadium would be empty; vt guy said it would be 3:4 hokies, her response was "nope, that's what penn state said last year". Like the two situations are comparable.
Right, because a random Penn State fan is an expert on Virginia Tech bowl attendance.
They're experts on everything, just ask them.
Yay?
I know it's Kentucky and I can't go to Belk a way with wife's work schedule but driving back from Disney we heard Miss State and all I heard was those damn cow bells in my head.
Would much rather be playing UT than UK, but on the other hand this seems like a perfect opportunity for Bud to bring back the Bear D from the 2015 Ohio state game
Come to think of it this should be a good matchup for our D. We've been hurt by scrambles some (when the QB is an actual passing threat), but I don't remember anyone running it down our throats. When we played BC it wasn't their power run game that got us.
If you think about our "weaknesses" on D - it's been the safeties in coverage, and the pass rush off the edge. But - our safeties and DEs have been pretty good against the run, as have our DTs and LBs and Conner. If wildcat is all they run and passing game is very limited such that there's no concern leaving Farley and Waller in man coverage and commit 9 to the run game, this should be a good matchup for our D.
I think this is a horrible match-up for us. We just played a team whose whole offense is their quarterback, and all we had to do to win was stop him from running. And what did we do? We let him rush for a career high in the first #$&&*@% quarter!
I don't know. I don't think the teams are comparable in terms of the offensive scheme. Perkins is a legit dual threat QB. Kentucky has a WR playing QB and doesn't throw the ball at all - completely different personnel prep and scheme.
I realize it could still give us trouble (as with any team) but for different reasons.
We have a lot of prep time for this - I like our chances in that scenario as many times with an offense like this (it's so different from what you play week to week) that difference is the advantage. The additional prep time diminishes that advantage significantly.
That was under the old Defensive Coordinator regime. New sheriff in town now. 😜
UVA was playing to break a streak and win the Coastal Championship. What's Kentucky playing for? What are we playing for?
I hope we're tired of going to bowl games and losing. Let's beat Kentucky and get a win streak started.
I keep up with Kentucky football fairly well. Lynn Bowden Jr. is a big part of their offensive success. He's a good guy and has a son. I was just watching a press conference Kentucky held for the Belk Bowl announcement and several reporters were asking other players if they thought he'd play. They didn't give an answer, but stated they were appreciative about what Lynn has done for their program and support him either way. It would be big for us if he didn't play. Just something to keep an eye on.
Do you know might hold him back from playing in the bowl?
I think he's entering the draft.
#sauces
YAY!!!!! If we win we will hold the title of Belk Bowl champion forever. No one else will ever possession that title!
So....
Belk Bowl = Best Bowl
Best Bowl Champions = Virginia Tech Hokies
That has a nice ring to it!
The Reigning Belk Bowl Champion Virginia Tech Hokies
The Reigning National Belk Bowl Champion Virginia Tech Hokies
The bowl itself isn't actually going anywhere. Just a new sponsor.
They're pretty much cleaning out anything people associate with the Panthers right now.
When you say "they're" who are you referring to?
Yes but their wont be another Belk bowl so they next winner will be the Cookout We give you a straw for the Milkshake as a joke Bowl champion or something like that.
I thought it was going to be the Bo Bowl. Served with a side of Bo rounds.
How about Bowljangles?
I actually use the straw...
Your name must be Hoover or Kirby
I do it on purpose because otherwise the shake would be gone in less than 2 minutes.
Is there any chrome left on your trailer hitch?
Something something golf ball garden hose.
via GIPHY
Kentucky is opening as a 1 point favorite in the Belk Bowl
Circa opened with us as a 3 point favorite yesterday.
Yep, it's arbitrage time 😎
With the recent announcement of our new DC, VT certainly has something to play for.
We're now a 2.5 point favorite. O/U is 48. And CPI has them with 58% chance to win.
Is a title change warranted?
I thought there might be a follow up post coming, which was why it was left, but since there has not, I agree, time for a title change.
Kentucky's Defense is one of the best in efficiency in the country. And it's top 5 against the pass.
Then we will run in the shade
Lynn Bowden Jr announced on Twitter that he is declaring for the NFL draft but will play in the bowl game.
His announcement video is really well made: https://twitter.com/lynnbowden_1/status/1204135497779408896
That's too bad. Will make for a more interesting game, though.
He's gonna run all over us isn't he?
We really can't lose to UK. I mean I know they are better than they have been but this is a school that we should always beat. Even though we don't always beat teams we should always beat (Duke). But if we lose to a team that we know is going to run 90% of their downs then it's gonna be a long off-season.
We need to turn our streak of being horrible in bowl games around. We are horrible in bowl games for some reason. It is so frustrating. I personally don't think we have any business losing to UK. We'll see though.
I said this before the Kansas Orange Bowl, just fyi
The idea that there are teams we should never lose to because of the name on the jersey is a peeve of mine. A couple of years ago you could have been saying the same thing about UCF and now look at them.
this x1000, it's this very thought process that makes fans and players overlook opponents.
More of a reflection of how far VT has fallen than how good UCF's program has become IMO.
Go back 12 years and replace "UCF" with "Boise State" and the point still stands.
I'll just say that where it seems our views differ is... I don't think VT should have lost that game either... or the one that followed.
It was a close game, and we lost, and nobody thought much worse of us for it until we what the bed the following week. Not to mention, we were far from the only highly-ranked team toppled by the Broncos in that timeframe. Sure, we'd expect to beat them more often than not, but if we had scheduled a 3-game series I would have been very surprised if we had swept them.
Should we always beat Furman? Yes, we should. We have better coaches, better facilities and better players. Now does that guarantee a win? Of course not, players still have to go out and play. that being said we should never lose to Furman.
Alabama should never lose to Alabama A&M. Not because of the name on their jersey but because of the players they recruit, the level they play at, their coaches and their schools football budget.
UK has Stoops who I think is pretty decent coach for all I know and what he has done at UK. Now perhaps since we have fallen a bit and they have gained a little it's more of a strectch in should. Perhaps i'm looking back more to our glory days when we were routinely in the top 10/15 and UK was a cellar dweller in the SEC.
But there are teams that other teams have no business losing to. Does it always happen? No. Look at ODU last year. We had no business losing that game. But we did.
VT: P5
Furman: FCS
Alabama: P5
Alabama A&M: FCS
VT: P5
Kentucky: P5
Honestly, the mere fact that Kentucky is in the SEC means that they likely have a larger football budget than we do, and with a larger budget comes a higher ceiling. Granted, they've historically underperformed as a P5 program, but the fact exists that if they find the right coach and build some momentum (which, honestly, they're halfway there already) that they could be competitive with just about anybody. To say that there's a single P5 program that we "should never lose to" is arrogant and largely inaccurate.
To give you an idea...from a few years ago. VT: $31mil UK: $22mil
https://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/2017/08/which_schools_spend_the_most_on_college_football_where_does_syracuse_rank.html
Interesting... I suppose it makes sense that they'd spend significantly more on basketball than football, but I didn't realize the disparity would be that wide. Most importantly, that list tells me that spending seems a bit less important than I thought, even if the general trend is there. Arkansas chimes in at #11 in terms of football spending, and they haven't had a good season since 2011, when Bobby Petrino was in charge. We're somehow ahead of LSU and Texas (that last one absolutely can't be right though), and Rutgers is in the top half at #31, ahead of Oregon and Stanford. And Kentucky is still spending more than Utah, Oklahoma State, and TCU, which surprises me.
We should always beat ECU, ODU, Liberty, and JMU.
Edit: Removed "also" while still pointing out teams Virginia Tech should always beat in football.
G5, G5, G5*, and FCS. Not nearly the same comparison.
I don't care what the comparison is, I'm simply listing teams VT should never lose to.
And I'm saying your use of "also" is a bit of a misnomer as Kentucky doesn't belong on the list.
My apologies, fixed it for you.
*shudders remembering chinballs offense*
tl;dr: our overall 12-14 bowl record during The Streak™ actually isn't all that bad, and the main reason we're even below .500 is that we've tended to be placed in bowl games above our station more often than not due to our tendency to sell lots of tickets and win conference championships during down seasons for said conference. Many of our losses have come against elite-level competition, and most of those that haven't have come with a roughly level playing field.
Data Time:
I took a look at all of our bowl games during The Streak™, and have some stats for you. All rankings were pulled from the AP Poll for consistency's sake.
Out of 26 games, we have been the higher-ranked team 9 times (including 5 times when our opponent was unranked), the lower-ranked team 11 times (including 2 times when we were unranked), and both teams were unranked 6 times.
In the 9 instances where we were the higher-ranked team, we were ranked 8.4 spots higher on average (considering all unranked teams in a tie for 26th for simplicity's sake), and had a record of 5-4. Not great, but all four losses were against good P5 competition (Tennessee in 1994, FSU in 2001, Georgia in 2006, Kansas* in 2007), and 3 of those 4 times the opponent was ranked close enough to us to where they jumped above us in the final poll.
In the 11 instances where we were the lower-ranked team, we were ranked 6.1 spots lower on average (still considering us to be #26 in the two instances where we were unranked), and had a record of 3-8. The only three wins in this category were the Independence Bowl in 1993 over #21 Indiana (we were #22), the Sugar Bowl over #9 Texas (#13), and the Orange Bowl over #12 Cincinnati (#21). However, silver linings and whatnot, all 8 losses were to P5 competition, and of the first five instances in this category (1996 through 2010) the lowest-ranked opponent was #7 UNC in 1997. Also here are 2011 Michigan (only by technicality of it being listed as a loss in the record books), 2013 UCLA, and 2017 OkSU.
In the 6 instances where both teams were unranked, we were 4-2 (respectable). Nothing really of note here except blowing out Alabama in 1998, as well as the Cal shootout loss in 2003 and our first bowl loss to a non-power-conference team (2017 Cincinnati) since well before such things became a distinction with the introduction of the Bowl Coalition system in 1992.
* - Yes, Kansas was good P5 competition in 2007. That is the best season they've had in the modern era, their first season with fewer than 2 losses since an 8-1-2 campaign in 1947, which was itself the first since they went 5-0-3 in 1923. If you consider a tie to be half-win, half loss, the last time they had fewer that 1.5 equivalent losses was 1909, when they went 8-1. Yes, they've been bad (and I mean bad) throughout most of their history, but this one loss is probably one of the biggest exceptions to the fallacy that there are "teams we should always beat", regardless of how historically great of a season they might be having.
FTFY
That was a catch.
I don't view the bowl results under Beamer as particularly relevant but personally I think we've played well in bowls compared to expectations under Fuente (2-1 against the spread, and I'm not sure how OK St was only favored by 6.5).
Under 500 isn't great. I suppose it could always be worse. And I don't expect us to dominate every bowl game we play in.
It's just a feeling that we have a knack of losing winnable bowl games. The kansas game as you mentioned, the bowl game against UGA, the Michigan bowl game, etc. Perhaps we are better than my perception is but still not a great bowl record for as much as we've been to bowls.
.500 is the expectation, and the fact remains that if you go to any single bowl loss and flip it to be a win that's exactly where we'd be, a difference over 26 games that isn't statistically significant. And yes, we've had a number of examples of games we probably should have won and still lost, but there are a few examples of the opposite as I've already given.
Another way to look at it is that we went 9-4 in games we were favored to win and 3-10 in games we were predicted to lose.
Losing to UK would be very bad because it would leave a bad taste to fester in the fans mouth until the spring game. Losing our last game is easier to dismiss as "they got their one shot for the century" when you follow it up with a win. Being positive about young players developing is easier when they look good the least time you saw them. Feeling better about the coaching changes is easier when the only game you have to judge them by went well. The fan base was pissed last year when we came out of our extra practices looking worse than before we went in. It will be worse if it happens again against UK because of the coaching changes and how the season ended.
While I don't disagree with your reasons for wanting to beat UK, I want to beat them to send Bud and the Seniors out on the right note.
All 2 of them.
And Bud.
Tangentially related to this thread: A bunch of Tennessee fans bought tickets to the Music City Bowl because sources indicated they were going to be playing there, only to have it later announced that they were playing in the Gator Bowl. Attempts to sell the tickets to Mississippi State fans (whose team *is* playing in the Music City Bowl) have been unsuccessful.
(Pay link to The Athletic)
https://theathletic.com/1453337/2019/12/12/tennessee-vols-fans-music-cit...
Also, maybe a title change to this thread is warranted?
They have nobody to blame but their own administration, who lobbied to change bowls.
I'm kind of surprised they would want to change. I mean, they would have no problem selling out in Nashville (huge UT alumni base) versus Jacksonville? Bad move by Tenn IMO.
They wanted to take home less money ($5.35mil vs $5.7mil split) and pay more for the travel.
The money still goes to their conference, so I'm not thinking the money split makes all that much difference.
Don't know about the travel proceeds, but I can see the argument for Florida over Nashville feeling more like travel.
Don't know why you were downvoted as you're 100% correct so I offset it.
The "take-home money" is meaningless (not to mention a misnomer), as it all goes to the SEC and is split up and handed to all 14 teams. Paying more for travel is also meaningless, as the SEC will reimburse travel expenses out of the total bowl revenue before divvying up the proceeds.
Tennessee literally loses no money with this move.
Word is they are doing it for recruiting reasons.
Boy could they turn a damn light on in that room.