VT Football: Lest we Forget, A Small Walk through our Past

A comment on another thread made me realize that there is a misconception amongst many Virginia Tech fans when it comes to our football history. There were more than a few years at Tech before Beamer that we had a quality football team, its just historical and doesn't get much attention.

Tech only had one losing season from 1892-1930. They went 0-2 in 1893, and proceeded to be at least a .500 team or better from 1894-1930, until they went 3-4-2 in 1931. The 1930s and 1940s were difficult because the school was still Corps only and many cadets left to fight overseas, especially when the US entered WWII. We had three losing seasons in the 1930s, and five in the 1940s one of which came by way of our loss in the 1947 Sun Bowl. The 1950s started rough with three losing seasons to start but got progressively better with only one losing season the rest of the decade. The 1960s only had two losing seasons, saw us win a conference title in 1963, and go to two bowl games in 1966 and 1968. The 1970s is where Tech lost track of football, having seven losing seasons, the only bright spot being 1975. The 1980s was very successful win wise under Bill Dooley but racked with controversy regarding recruiting violations which brought us to the Beamer era. We only had 22 total losing seasons from 1892-1988.

That's 74 seasons of at least .500 football in 96 years, most schools would be envious of that history, Tech under Beamer almost chooses to ignore it.

Here are our records for our more successful seasons:
1894-1899 - Winning record every year, Combined record of 25-10-1 for these years, Outscored Opp 704-251
1901- 6-1, outscored opponents 115-33
1903- 5-1 outscored opponents 108-21
1905- 9-1 outscored our opponents 305-24 that season
1907- 7-2
1909- 6-1
1910- 6-2
1911- 6-1-2
1913- 7-1-1
1914- 6-2-1
1916- 7-2 South Atlantic Conference Champion
1917- 6-2-1
1918- 7-0 South Atlantic Conference Champion
1921- 7-3
1922- 8-1-1
1923- 6-3
1928- 7-2
1932- 8-1
1942- 7-2-1
1954- 8-0-1
1955- 6-3-1
1956- 7-2-1
1963- 8-2 Southern Conference Champions
1965- 7-3
1966- 8-2-1 Lost the Liberty Bowl
1967- 7-3
1968- 7-4 Lost the Liberty Bowl
1975- 8-3
1980- 8-4 Lost the Peach Bowl
1981- 7-4
1982- 7-4
1983- 9-2
1984- 8-4 Lost the Independence Bowl
1986- 10-1-1 Won the Peach Bowl