Virginia Tech released its 2022 football schedule.
| Date | Opponent |
|---|---|
| September 2 or 3 | at Old Dominion (FRI or SAT) |
| September 10 | BOSTON COLLEGE |
| September 17 | WOFFORD |
| September 22 | WEST VIRGINIA (THUR) |
| October 1 | at North Carolina |
| October 8 | at Pitt |
| October 15 | MIAMI |
| October 22 | OPEN |
| October 27 | at NC State (THUR) |
| November 5 | GEORGIA TECH |
| November 12 | at Duke |
| November 19 | at Liberty |
| November 26 | VIRGINIA |
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Comments
Two Thursday nighters? Hot darn!
Back to our Roots:
Looks like I'll be taking off for a four day weekend to make the WVU game. That is going to be raucous.
Overall though, I hate that we only have one home game in October. Most beautiful time in Blacksburg for football games.
There's an open weekend in October so you could go to Blacksburg for other reasons, traffic is probably better then too.
Ugh at ODU and at Liberty in the same year.
At least the coaches will be able to fit in a lot of recruiting visits.
I forgot what a shit show this schedule was until I saw this. Ugh, breaking in a new coach and have two no win situations and they are on the road.
I see we pulled an SEC and scheduled Liberty the second to last week of the season
Are we practicing for something in the future? /s
No positive for Virginia Tech football- none in playing either of those games on the road ever. None. Win and you were supposed to, and you make 1/6 of what you would have made in Lane money wise. Lose? you are a laughing stock on PTI the next day and a low light reel on college football final. No positive for VT playing on the road at those schools. If liberty will only agree to come to Blacksburg twice with no return, fine. Same for ODU a mid/low CUSA team- you can easily find another.
6-6 is possible.
But nice transition schedule for the new staff.
I'm with you. I was thinking 4-8 or so next year with the new system being implemented and all the player changes plus minimal talent the old regime left Pry with. Know people were higher than me, but I was keeping expectations modest to be, hopefully, please on the upside. But looking through the actual schedule, I came up with 6-6 too.
It's possible but don't forget our current roster is a slightly more depleted version of the Pinstripe Bowl team (scary thought, but true when you go position by position). We added a couple playmakers on offense and probably have a QB now, but it still is what it is.
Despite being so thin it's unlikely more than 2-3 true freshman will have an impact (would happily be wrong), and even they are unlikely to start. I'd say 5-7 is a reasonable goal.
OL and DE transfers could make a difference but they won't be able to go through spring
yeah, I think it's unfair to put any kind of numbers on the 2022 season. Anything is possible. 0-12 and 12-0 are possible, however unlikely they may seem. But I don't think we'll be able to measure Pry's success (or failure) by one season, especially the first season. Fuente left him a pretty big f*ing mess to clean up and he's said and done a lot of good things so far but I'm not going to pass real judgement on his job based on the on-field results in year 1. Fuente won 10 games in year 1 and then went completely downhill for 5 years afterwards. I'm really more interested in how different this team looks year-over-year as well as over the course of a season. I think by the end of 2025 we'll have a really good sense for what Pry will be able to accomplish at VT.
The hope is that the team shows measurable progress. We could go 2-10 in year 1 but if those two wins come late in the season as the team starts to find it's legs a bit that will be encouraging. Furthermore, if VT goes 6-6 or better in year 2 that will show a tremendous step in the right direction following a dismal 2-10 campaign. Then, in year 3, if he's able to win more games than in year 2 and put VT in position to contend for the ACC Coastal that will be a good sign.
What I don't want to see is a team that comes out and surprises everybody just by being new and unknown, perhaps winning 8 plus games in year 1, only to backslide in year 2 by winning 1 or 2 fewer games and then completely falling apart in year 3 to finish the year with no bowl invite.
In essence, I don't care if we win 1 game or 11 in year 1. How this team builds upon that in years 2 and 3 will be much more indicative of what type of program Pry is going to run at VT. We've learned from the Fuente era that you cannot judge (or pay) a man based on one year of results. But a lot of folks could tell where we were headed as a program following the 2018 campaign. I'm not saying that coaches only need 3 years to get the results we want. But 3 years is enough data to know if the coach is headed in the right direction or not. Fuente arguably needed more than 3 years to get VT back into ACC contention on a regular basis. But we could tell after 3 that it just wasn't in the cards for him. Similarly, Pry likely will need more than 3 years to get VT back to the level fans expect but after 3 years we will have a pretty darn good idea if he's ever going to get there.
Keep in mind in the Pinstrip Bowl, VT was lead by an interim HC, playing our 3rd string QB with little game time and without many of the leading cast they were used to. Although Grant has never faced a Power 5 opponent, he did throw for 5,500+ yards as a two-year starter at Marshall. Sure, Jason was part of a QB revolving door for USCe, starting only four games in 2021, but he did beat Auburn and Florida. Our coaches are better, and most importantly, he-who-shall-not-be-named won't be calling our plays!
The toughest games look to be smack in the middle of the schedule...depending on what the team looks like, the last 4 games could be promising.
Why does West By God have to be on a Thursday???
So we can get drunk on Friday following the win and get to sleep it off and watch UVA lose at Syracuse on Saturday
Edit: And UNC lose to Notre Dame
Can't they both lose? Pretty please?
Yeah. But getting a sub for 2 days in a row is a lot harder than single day.... especially when you don't have a lot of leave built up.
As a Board Sub, I hear you
Edit: No longer a Board Sub...got hired into a FT position
Right now it is difficult even if you do have a lot of leave built up!
True... Nobody wants to be a substitute teacher right now.
I'm gonna guess White Out/Military Appreciation/Corps Homecoming for Wofford, and university homecoming for Miami.
October schedule looks tough
I want to believe we will return to glory immediately but even my Maroon and Orange heart has trouble making that stretch for 2022. I have no idea if the skills are there and / or the needed mesh of players and scheme and coaches are there. Nevertheless, GO HOKIES!
State games gonna be lit. Gonna be fun rooting for Tech from the student section with all my old friends. Also get to see Duke and UNC, cool that we basically get a recruiting tour of the Carolinas this year
Nooooo! the one year my sister has decided to move to England to swim the English Channel is the year I want to visit here 3 weekends in the fall! Siblings are the worst.
I mean YOUR'RE not swimming the English Channel sooo....
.... soooo I have to get a hotel now
Also of note:
Finally, it's back
GT scheduling it for Thursday night a month earlier than everyone else so they have excuse when no one shows up. If LOLUVA was smart they would do the same thing.
We bet' not lose to the cousins on my birthday!
Also, Nov 19th...I've said it before and I will say it again...FUCK BIBERTY!!!
I will double my yearly donation when we get them the hell off our schedule.
I'm troubled by he fact that we only have 5 days, maybe less, of rest for them. Yeah, it's coming off Wofford, but that's going to be an intense game for a short week.
Don't get me wrong - I hope we take them behind the woodshed and give them the kind of pounding we saw in Kung-Fu Hustle where the guy gets his face pounded into the ground and you have to take Friday off from all the celebratory Whisky you drink, I just don't have a very good feeling about it.
I hope Galt gets us ready for short week games and we don't lose any steam in our Thursday games.
We are officially changing Kung-Fu to Kung-Pry.
That's hilarious and wish I'd thought of it!
I could see anywhere from 6-6 to 8-4
Until pads hit against ODU, I don't even want to set expectations, other than making a bowl game.
Can't wait to see what this team has come spring game! 🦃🦃🦃🦃
That seems optimistic. We lost a LOT of players, and some of our best ones, we have almost all new coaches, new players, especially at QB, new schemes, and I'm not sure that the teams we think are going to be easy are the pushovers we expect. I'm going to keep my expectations low so I'm not disappointed. I mean, if we had a lot of solid, talented, veteran players I might feel better, but we don't. Add to that the newness of everything, and what sounds like expected turnover of guys who aren't up to Pry's standards, and we could be in for a rough year.
I hope I'm wrong, but I don't want to start thinking we've got more than we do, get expectations up, and bring out the pitchforks and
#FirePry#FryPry posters without giving him a chance to actually build something.Edited for correct firing poster terminology.
Anyone who is not giving Pry, at minimum, 3 seasons to unfuck this roster is a fool. The only thing he can do in one offseason is get guys a little bit stronger and instill some attitude. Scheme and finesse will take a lot of time.
I thought we agreed on #FryPry if it comes to that.
And if there are not seasoned Pry Fries for sale in Lane this year, someone gets the axe.
Five Prys burgers and fries?
Don't DePryve us of this VT, pls.
To be clear, I'm not saying I'll be down on Pry if we don't get at least 6-6, I realize it'll take some time. My thoughts game by game are:
@ ODU - W
BC- W
Wofford - W
WVU, at home, Thursday night - W
@UNC - L
@ Pitt - L
Miami - L
NCSU- L
GT - W
Duke - W
@ Biberty - W
UVA - W
WVU might be a toss-up, they probably should win, but it's gonna be crazy at Lane. BC also, could be a toss-up considering we get them so early in the season
We'd better beat ODU, Biberty and Wofford. Duke and UVA are going to be going through the same growing pains we are, but I think we will just have more talent than Duke and better coaching. UVA just always finds a way to lose to us, even when they should win.
I'll be really impressed if Pry can pull off the win against WVU on a short week.
I have no idea what to anticipate next year, but I think we'll be worse than the more hopeful fans are assuming.
Personally, I'm thinking:
@ ODU - W
BC- L
Wofford - W
WVU, at home, Thursday night - L
@UNC - L
@ Pitt - L
Miami - L
NCSU- L
GT - W
Duke - W
@ Biberty - W
UVA - W
Which puts us at 6-6.
That middle of the season stretch is *rough*
Dang man. I ran through and had the exact same results in every game. Will actually be pretty pleased with this result. Momentum at the end of the season to carry positives forward would be really good. Win a bowl, even a piss-ant one against a 7-5 lower conference team would be great for the future.
Pry needs a long leash, especially on the offensive side of the ball.
As long as we see week to week improvements (no matter how incremental), even a really bad 3 or 4 win season shouldn't be too much cause for concern.
I guess I just don't have any thoughts on the games and I won't even hazard guesses until at least after the Spring game, maybe the first couple games of the season. We got thrashed in our last game (to a mediocre team) and we lost people after that. Yes, we picked up what I hope are upgrades at QB, and a couple WRs, but not sure how much we gained compared to what we lost. And maybe some of the games early in the season we lose (that we think we should have won) but we see improvement during the season to where we wouldn't have lost the games. It's hard to tell how our current players will adapt to a new scheme, also undergoing a lot of stuff with a new strength and conditioning coach, and younger players with less experience than the last time we faced this.
If our QB pickups are not an upgrade over Blumrick, we are in big, big trouble, and not just for next year
I meant upgrades over Burmeister (so to compare to last season's results and performance). And I'm assuming they are based on the numbers, but want to see how they fare against ACC competition.
Gotcha, where you mentioned getting thrashed in the last game, I just thought you were referring to that roster
Bowl eligible every year. 10 wins in year 3. 5 year plan.
Leg, but I'm not sure what I did there. I was beating the 5-year drum with Fuente too. It's what I think is realistic to truly gauge what a coach in college football can do for a program.
Welp, you talked about a 5 year plan, and you only mentioned details up to year 3.
I thought you were doing the ol' Whit-Fu math where year 1 is actually year 3.
ah, got it. no i wasn't doing fun year math. i'm leaving years 4 and 5 (real years 4 and 5) up for grabs. i don't expect a continuing-upward-trajectory for pry's entire tenure so i could see a speed bump in year 4 before returning to another 10 win season in year 5.
and if we're not on schedule by year 5, it reverts back to year 1. Profit
Thursday night against WVU is going to be an insane environment. I might have to make it down for that one.
Ah nc state, Duke, and unc all within a 30 minute drive...really enjoy the odd year schedule!
I'm in Hillsborough, where are you?
Wake Forest/North Raleigh
I'm also in Hillsborough NC! I love the Bud and Beamer picture at the Wooden Nickel
small world! We should get together sometime!
As someone in Southside, I'm pumped for the NC slate of games. Definitely going to NCSU, Duke, and UNC, maybe Liberty.
Looks like I'll be staying with my parents a few weekends this fall. Might give my son his first Hokie game at NCSU (he has a bad habit of rooting for blue teams on NCAA 14).
Any other year and I'd say this is one of our easiest schedules ever, with a floor of 8-4.
This year, this schedule makes 6-6 realistic and a great springboard for a new staff and young roster.
Playing AT Liberty and AT ODU is a clear indication we aren't close to big dog status.
Also ODU getting us for their home opener feels wrong...
I'm still waiting on the administration to justify this.
We played at Western Michigan once. It's fine in a 2 for 1 setting. Unfortunately, this is a local program thing for keeping money in the state and reducing travel costs.
There's a reason that UNC and NCSU don't play at ECU, and its not because they're scared of the Pirates
Except that they are 100% scared of the Pirates.
Edit:
Side note NCSU opens the season in Dowdy next year. Hold over from the old contract, will be a fun game.
UNC cancelled all future ECU games after the 2013 loss at home when at least half of Kenan was purple. In 2014 they played their last game at Dowdy and got 70 dropped on them, that was awesome to experience live
ECU Against UNC:
5-11-1 all time.
3-2 in Greeneville.
Currently on a 3-game win streak (with 2 of the wins in Greeneville).
ECU Against NCSU:
13-18 All time
3-1 in Greeneville.
3-2 since 2010 (but NCSU on current 2-game win streak).
Interesting. That made me curious so I'll add more recent context.
ECU vs NCSU since 1991:
8-6
ECU vs UNC since 2001 (didn't play for 20 years):
4-6 (3 straight as you said)
Doesn't have anything to do with us being a big dog or not. It was by choice. Shooting ourselves in the foot and ruining our own public perception
I believe it was giving our guys from the 757 a game in the home area code for the families that can't travel to Blacksburg.
I mean, thats one way to rationalize it.
but is it worth a game that we get no benefit from winning, and hurt badly (in perception) if we lose?
Two points to that:
1) there was that "policy" (not sure if it still exists) established by the AD 2+ decades ago to schedule at least one other VA school annually, and this was before Liberty or ODU had programs.
2) It WAS viewed as a way to get games closer to VT fans and potential recruits (link)
Regardless - we should have taken more pride in ourselves, and scheduling anything less that a 2:1 home:away ratio should have been off limits.
Here's an article about it. Also note that we were supposed to play ECU this year, but replaced them with Wofford after that series was cancelled.
Why we scheduled ODU and Liberty
1) The schedule reveal ACC network show was trash.
2) due to a few circumstances was forced into having a fall wedding... scheduled it on bye weekend
The hone schedule sounds great in theory: Miami, WVU and UVA at home. Three biggest rivals should be a premium schedule for us.
The away schedule looks absolutely horrible from a name stand point: Duke, ODU, Liberty wow.
The only good thing is that ODU and Pitt are our furthest games at 308 and 321 miles respectively.
I saw somewhere else that the Pitt game is the only one on our schedule out of the states of Virginia or North Carolina. A weird quirk given the ACC's footprint!
The ACC is trying to help Pry recruit this year. Away games all in his recruiting footprint. /s
Yeah that is what I noticed then I went to Google maps to see if ODU was the furthest travel cause Pittsburgh isn't THAT far, its only 13 mile difference. The triangle is close so those games aren't bad. Its really a great schedule from a travel time perspective. Lots of parents can go watch away games. If it wasn't for @ODU and @Liberty, and the month of October, its a darn good schedule.
So when does the anti SEC play each other scheduling thing start........
Who knows because we have Bammer and USCe in 2034 and 2035...
So the alliance hasn't made any concrete plans yet on that aspect that i'm aware of (probably because the alliance is held together by nothing), but if/when they do, the ACC will probably be behind on getting on those matchups.
I believe the B1G and Pac-12 each play 9 conference games so they can revert back to 8 and add a crossover game somewhat easily. With only playing 8 conference games, the ACC teams would all have to cancel an already scheduled OOC game.
It seems like there's some momentum from the B1G and PAC-12 to head towards divisionless schedules and 8 conference games. So hopefully that will allow for more games to be scheduled between the conferences.
Yes, please scrap the divisions!!
No divisions in the ACC- this would be great- and add another conference game or 2. Please get ODU, wofford and liberty off the schedule- keep a rivalry with WVU!! Play real teams!! even if we lose!! better opponents make for a better team- cupcakes make cupcakes- Tech and the ACC must get tougher to survive- conference realignment will weed out the weak.
Its smart in the playoff world because you're more likely to have your best 2 teams battling it out . The ACC needs to go this way too so tired of never playing Atlantic teams.
Soooooooooo tired of playing BC every year. Fuck Matt Ryan.
I miss the days of looking at our schedule and immediately expecting 10-2. The fact that I can't even look and think 6-6 with great confidence hurts me so much.
7-6 is a record with this schedule and I can be patient with the new staff going forward.
More wins than that, and I will be very excited.
friendly reminder that Justin Fuente won 10 games in 2016. I caution against being excited (or, for that matter, disappointed) about any results in one year.
Yeah, honestly even had Beamer not retired, I think we could have won 10 games in 2016 still with the right QB. That was a pretty solid team with NFL-caliber talent on O and D, albeit not extremely deep. I give credit for Fu bringing in Jerod, but I think that team was poised for success regardless. Had Brewer not broken his collarbone in 2015 I think that year could have gone a lot differently too.
With our roster now being very depleted and having numerous holes, if Pry can get us to .500 in year one I will consider that a tremendous accomplishment. Anything more than that and I will be extremely excited.
I agree with this 1000%. If Beamer had a QB he had a winning team. Had Jerod Evans played for Beamer in 2016, all else being equal, we probably would have won the ACC, made the playoff, and lost in round 1. But still, better results than we could even hope for nowadays.
I agree in general about caution in terms of overreacting to any one year.
However, given what Fuente inherited in terms of our last great crop of NFL talent on both sides of the ball, 10 wins in 2016 in hindsight is a lot less impressive than say, 8 or 9 wins, with what Pry will be working with after 6 years of Fuente's roster management.
All that to say, I have a much longer outlook on Pry, regardless of how well/awful we do next season.
Oh, I agree completely! I have high hopes for Pry. I'm also aware that he's been left a pretty significant mess to clean up and the success we want to see is not going to happen over night. I think if he can win more than 6 games next year that will be relatively impressive given the situation he's coming into. At the same time, he'd be winning those 7+ games against a pretty weak schedule (arguably weaker than the schedule we had in 2016) so I'm not going to immediately anoint him as the savior of our program after that type of season. I'm also not going to hoist the #FryPry flag if he doesn't win more than 2 games in year one. I do think we'll have a good idea where we're headed after 3 years. I'm on board with HOAT's 5 year plan, generally, but after 3 years we'll have a really good idea whether we'll get to where we want by year 5.
I need some future Midwest games please, Whit. Maybe @ Northwestern? I could just hop on the L be in Evanston in like 45 minutes.
So..... I readed all the comments in this here thread and after scrolling up and down looking for the answer on my own.... Has anyone asked cbp about the upcoming schedule? Also, isn't this schedule also a hangover from the fu era?
I assume that CBP will give a boilerplate answer, but someone should ask him.
Yes game schedules are determined years and years in advance home and homes for 2037 have already been announced
My understanding (which could be wrong) is that most football coaches are less involved in future scheduling than say Mike Young is for mens basketball, so not sure he would have much interesting to say on the topic anyway? College football, except for maybe a game here and there, is scheduled so far out in front it doesn't make a ton of sense for them to get bogged down in it. They may say they want to play certain types of opponents (ie don't schedule Ohio state during a rebuild please), but I suspect that's about the extent of it.
Thanks for your insight on the process.
along with the schedule creation process I assume I am not the only one who wants to see the battle in Bristol make a return to the schedule. That must have been an incredible experience in person
It was incredible in person.
I'll never go back. But I don't make many games anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter to me.
Yeah, if you go to HokieSports to football, you can find future schedules. It has all opponents (just not all dates) through 2024, then the full slate (all 4) out-of conference opponents through 2030, and even some out of conference opponents scheduled through 2037. Not sure it's the same navigation on a desktop version of your browser, but on mobile, it's under the "more" links button on the football page.
Excellent. I have already requested off for the 2 Thursday night games. My manager that graduated from NCSU and has season tickets to their games has no idea that she's already already approved for me to tailgate all day while she has to work!
When does vt play JMU in Harrisonburg? I'm only an hour and 10 minutes up north
I hope never. Enough Hokies in this area that we could fill half that little stadium without any help from other Hokies in the rest of the state.
ODU game will be on Friday, September 2nd.
This will only be the case if they join new conference.
It's looking like that's the most likely scenario. They'll negotiate some kind of settlement, because it will be hard (and possibly illegal) for the C-USA to force them to play in the conference.