- Run Your Pool has Hokies winning by 3
- Yahoo had us opening at -3.5, but the line moved to 3
- SP+ gives us a 60% chance of winning, predicting a 24-19 win. Bill C has the line at -2.5 Hokies, not sure where he got that line from.
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Home field is worth 3 points, so this game is a 50/50.
Go Hokies
No, the teams are 50/50.
The game would be 50/50 on a neutral field. But it's not.
take the eagles
yeah, and it sucks that I agree with you
Fly Eagles Fly!
Die Eagles Die
That's the spirit!
Thank you for this. Wedding in Philly this weekend and after 17 gin and tonics, I'll be sure to use it!
Thank you for this. Wedding in Philly this weekend and after 17 gin and tonics, I'll be sure to use it!
Might as well give yourself the first one now.
Damnit. Not sure how that happened!
We are not born with hate, we are taught hate. My son is 8 and you know who he hates?
The Dallas Cowboys. End of list
#GoBirds
That's a good choice but I would have started with uva then dallas.
Always start with Dallas football. UVA is a perfect 2nd. Then you can't wrong with Duke basketball 3rd. I think Scheyer was the perfect Count replacement to keep the hate rolling🤷🏾♂️
I tried to choose which one of those teams has been relevant more recently...and I honestly couldn't make a call. My VHS didn't survive my cross country move 16 years ago...
Never gets old.
the fade of his haircut looks like his jeans
Literally every cowboy fan ever; it's the worst
Definitely NOT this Cowboy fan! Been a fan since the 70s and only have one jersey that has number 54 and White on the back!
Just to continue memeing the NFC East:
Nah fam tease that baby up to -9.5
We are favored? Seriously? I was baffled how we kept being favored last year no matter how bad things got and was looking forward to no more bad upset losses this year as Wofford and maybe Duke or GT would be the only ones we would be favored for.
SP+ (and I assume other analytics tools) say BC is worse. SP+ believes VT currently has the 100th best offense and the 35th best defense, while BC has the 108th best offense and the 43rd best defense.
Your classic clash of titans in the ACCN's primetime slot.
I'd love to know how bad we are against the spread. Our record since 2018 has to be horrendous.
5-8 last season
21-30 ATS since 2018. 16th worst among current FBS teams.
Best school in VA???
James Madison at 100%
Come on man, the network execs know what they're doing. The Quite Resistible Force vs the Easily Movable Object is always ratings gold.
In all seriousness, I think there is reason for modest optimism this week. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that:
1 - We will have fewer penalties against BC than we did against ODU
2 - Our QB will throw fewer INTs
3 - We will have less coaches stuck in an elevator
4 - We will have fewer items stolen from our locker room
That being said, the non-degenerates out there that aren't on fan sites/reddit/vegas odds sites on a daily basis over the course of the season like the rest of us are probably assuming that we're favored against way more teams than we actually are this year just because "We're VT and we usually are."
Hell, 90% of the casual fans I talked to leading up to last weekend and afterwards had no idea it was basically a toss-up by kickoff - they thought we were favored by 3+ scores like we have been in the past and reacted as if we were being upset as a top 15 team like last time (which I also get bc hey it's ODU, but I personally went into it knowing there was an incredibly real possibility of being beaten, possibly badly).
Was it really a toss up? Closes I saw was either VT -5.5 or -6. Certainly did move in the ODU direction, but I didn't see it get to within three.
I actually caught some of the BC/RUTSgers game and I'm buying us being favored-ish. BC ran for almost 30 yards...total...against Rutgers. This is *not* your typical BC team - outside of Jurkovec->Flowers they really have nothing on offense. Meanwhile they gave up over 200 yards rushing on D.
Assuming we can snap the ball on ST and generally throw the ball to our own guys this is a game we should win.
bold assumptions
BC couldn't run at all against Rutgers and I'm guessing the blame is on the totally new offensive line for BC. This plays into the strength of our front 4 and LBs. The question I have is whether or not we'll be able to generate enough havoc with just the DL to allow the LBs to drop back into space for air support. If that can happen I would expect the TO margin to be heavily in our favor. Or, we blitz every passing down and don't give Jurkovec any time to get through his progression.
As long as that can happen, and we dont give away the game on offensive, I think we have a good chance of winning.
how?
see above
I questioned this line at first glance, but if you take all the "our team sucks, how could we beat anybody?"emotions out of it, it makes sense. BC has an equally average/below average roster and just lost at home.... to Rutgers.
Plus this game will be our coaches first game in Lane Stadium, at night; so home-field edge probably skews it about 3-4 points or so. I think this game is one that a good coaching staff should win more times than not and we should be able to win if we clean up the turnovers and penalties. Go Hokies!!!
I would like to think that home field gives us a slight advantage, but I just dont believe it any more.
S+P gives us a 60% chance.
This will be that game where nothing goes right for BC and we hang 40+ on them which in turn will ignite another round of false hope for all of us. Seen this movie before
If we hang 40 on them, I'm joining the hype train (for a few days).
I'll settle for a win.
Put me down for 24 hours and not wanting to end life on earth on Week 1 of the NFL.
Jets fan?
I hope so. As a Ravens fan, if we don't get Lamar extended and lose to the Elite Dragon in a revenge game I may need to go into a football coma and emerge next year.
Vikings... different, but similar.
If beating BC at home gives us false hope, we deserve all the bad things we can suffer.
There is no such thing as false hope. It is an oxymoron.
I'm pretty sure UVa has it.
That's the rollercoast of an inexperienced/under-talented team - talented and experience teams are consistent. We are not there yet lol
in a maddening twist, we win this game behind an offensive explosion and lackluster defensive play. /s
If we win, I'm very okay with it.
The team will be inconsistent all year. It would be nice to see some highs from every unit.
It's Hokie athletics, it's what we do!
There, FTFY
I was in New York this weekend and got it at -2.5 on Sunday night
We are bad, but they are, too. Its an Old Fashioned Suck Off in Lane
Not to be confused with what went down at the A's game a couple weeks ago.
What happens in the East Stands Concourse...
via GIPHY
😳
Hokies by 100.
The ACC is so bad at Football.
Hot take. I actually thought the ACC looked pretty good overall this weekend outside of VT and UNC. Still leaves room for plenty of implosion from the Florida schools and Pitt.
Ehhhhhh, NC State needed a missed xp to avoid OT with ECU, and a missed fg as time expired to not LOSE outright to ECU.
FSU beat LSU, but LSU had an xp blocked as time expired in a game where they had two kicks blocked and TWO muffed punts lol. They all but begged FSU to blow them out and they still almost blew it.
BC lost to Rutgers.
Louisville, who was supposed to be an outside shot at Atlantic contention got smoked by Syracuse lol.
It's week 1 though. The team everybody is sure is terrible turns out to go one a fantastic run and the early season lock turns out to be a dumpster fire in disguise.
It's part of what makes CFB great.
I agree that week 1 often provides a lot of misleading narratives. That LSU-FSU game was pegged by many, and I agreed, as a game where we might not learn a whole lot about either team afterwards, despite it being the game most likely to launch a hype campaign... That's basically exactly how it played out imo. Despite having elite WR's, LSU basically never tested the FSU secondary, and while FSU looked to get a monkey off their back after years of blowing games like Sunday night's contest, they also narrowly won a game where LSU almost filled their entire blunder bingo board.
That said, I certainly disagree that the ACC "looked good" after the first week lol.
Our game, the BC game, the NC State, and the UNC game were enough by themselves to make that statement look a little silly, especially when the other games outside of those were against VMI, Temple, Bethune-Cookman, and two games where ACC teams played each other.
Unless you want to ascribe a ton of value to that FSU-LSU game, or want to give Pitt credit for getting one of the luckiest game winning pick 6's I've ever seen, then I'm not really sure where anything impressive is coming from.
Oh, i completely agree that the ACC didn't look good. Just that looking good or bad at this point can be deceiving.
The ACC won the big noncon games so on paper it looks good. The problem is #GoACC eventually happens. I am usually a team chaos guy, but I do want the teams that are supposed to be good to be good until at least the realignment mess settles.
Our program's value as a chess piece in the realignment wars is not likely to be impacted by the individual results of other ACC teams.
The acc is hot garbage, stinking the college,football landscape to high heaven
It tracks back to the expansion of Louisville, Pitt, and Cuse... 2 100% basketball programs and a school that has more opposing fans in the stands at their games in a pro stadium. Make basketball and forced moves, win stupid football prizes.
The acc is so bad at football. You are correct
Hot (and positive) take:
Keyshawn King has another 100+ yd rushing game!
The Knights put up 200+ on the ground. Given the need to stabilize Wells, we prioritize the run on Saturday and I think this could end up as a huge game for King (like 150yd range).
Think you need to read French's article. Our OL blocking was laughable.
Yes, and if we can magically fix those issues in a week those are the issues to fix so we can stabilize the run game, duh /s
We don't have to be world beaters. We just have to be better than we were.
I'm in. I'm going big on the over. :)
It wasn't good and King still put up 111. Call my optimistic.
But BC gave up 200 to Rutgers. 🤔
I think the betting line is a direct result of one team playing on a Friday (nobody watching) and another team playing on the ACCN (again, nobody watching). It's Vegas' way of saying, "Who? Nobody cares.....Who's the home team?....Give 'em 3.5!"
I wish Vegas thought like this
This surprising until you consider that BC blew it against Rutgers...it's a coin flip, but if we clean some of the slop we saw last Friday, I'll take it.
What's funny is that ODU loss reminded me Matt Ryan's last trip to Blacksburg.
Our D dominated the line of scrimmage all game and then gave up inexplicable passes late.
Oh god, we've fallen so far that we are making Hayden Wolff look like (fuck) Matt Ryan
Right - that BC team was ranked in the top 10. Won 9-10 games IIRC. This ODU team is not top 10 in the sunbelt.
Meh, we both choked away winnable games through turnovers and offensive ineptitude. That's a toss up and home field gives us 3. I can totally see it. Hope we win.
My condolences to the BC fans. Damn, y'all must be really bad. Underdogs to the Hokies after last week...
Fuck Matt Ryan
Always and forever
Hammer BC.. That "pretty good" DL and LB play against ODU? out the window against a physical BC team- football is not a little guy sport. BC will line up and hammer us up front like that have done for 15 years. Pollard/Kendricks will be on roller skates like they were last year. ODU stinks. BC is much better, and they have been a bad matchup for us when we have had good teams. Our offense will be pressing because BC will limit our possessions by running the ball inside the tackles. I'd take BC -6.5 in this game easy.
BC had to replace their entire OL this season and had 29 rushing yards against Rutgers. If they maul us up front I will be thoroughly shocked.
Understood. Regardless of personnel, how good their team was, etc. BC has mauled us up front for the better part of 15 years. In vegas, they call that a super trend. BC wins an ugly game 21-10. What I saw from VT's offense the other night was...uninspiring. And Rutgers FWIW is a decent program now that would beat ODU by 24 points.
Yes I could see that happening, and I agree that Rutgers with Schiano coaching can play decent defense and would beat ODU by that margin, but... I have some hope that it's not really as bad as it looked last Friday. This game will be a much better indicator of how the rest of the season goes.
Yeah lots of rutgers slander in this thread but i think if you plopped em in ACC Coastal they'd have the second best odds of winning the division after Miami, and would definitely be in the mix for the division crown come season end
I'll be super disappointed if that happens.... this isn't your typical experienced, physical, run-first BC team. They had zero run game against Rutgers (28 att, 29 yds) and were forced to try and air it out. Now obviously that's just one game, but I'm expecting us to be able to shut down the run to some degree and force Jurkovec to beat us.
ACC teams are familiar with VT. We play BC every year. They know our personnel and they know that since Tim Settle left, we are tiny up front on the interior DL. They know that to beat VT, you run the ball right at them and then hit them with a deep pass when they cheat up or let them rush up field and let the QB run right up the middle. I would never lay points against BC until we sign Michael Vick's son.
they've got a leg up on the rest of us then
based on what, exactly? Hopium? VT is a terrible team right now. I fully expect us to lose. I just hope we look a little less discombobulated on the field than we did against ODU. Even that is a tall order, considering BC is a couple orders of magnitude better than ODU. ODU might win 6 games. In the Sunbelt. BC might have a completely new OL, but I bet they keep their feet moving at contact, unlike our OLine. I think we'll be lucky to keep our scoring streak alive this week. There is a real chance BC could shut us out in a snoozer 13-0 or something.
Well, I think the team will come out pretty pissed off after last weeks performance, and they'll be amped to play in Lane Stadium again. BC's overall talent looks roughly the same as ours, and this year it doesn't look like they have the usual O-line and RBs they typically have. We won't shut them down completely, but I do think we'll be able to force a couple turnovers too. And heck, the turnovers and penalties can't be as bad as the ODU game, right??
I know we're still a pretty bad team, but I like us in a slugfest, something like 21-17 or even 17-13.
Well hey, in 2016, almost 6 years ago to the day, we had a new coach... in his conference home opener.... as a small favorite... against BC... and beat 'em 49-0! I say we lay it on them again! GO HOKIES
I'll be happy if we just don't beat ourselves. The last time we lost to ODU I felt like they made some plays and we crumbled under the pressure of losing to the under dog. This time I felt like we just handed them the game with a few bad plays.
This.
70% Chance of Rain Saturday Night.
Good forecast for playing a team that can't run the ball.
Also not good for a team that can't longsnap...
Touchdowns every drive then
I look for a lot of improvement by Tech from game 1 to game 2. Tech by 14.
I look for improvement by us here but this is an all too well known "Team X sucks at running and has no O-line" only to show that they actually DO have an O-Line and our game is their coming out party with their RB enjoying the spoils.
yes, this is how we're conditioned. It's Pry's job to reverse that conditioning - just a question of how long it takes him to do that. Winning tomorrow would be a big step in the right direction (fwiw, I don't think he'll win tomorrow)
in other new Stewart Mandel at the Athletic picked us as the upset of the week....
via GIPHY
Wait, since we are favored does that mean he is picking BC?
Yup!
How is one unranked team beating another unranked team that's only a 3 point favorite the upset of the week?
Maybe he meant upset of the weak?
Yeah, I'm still pissed we didn't get Gameday.
Game of the Weak is a pretty nice consolation, though.
Under appreciated comment. I read it 4 times before it sunk in, then laughed way to much, partly at the joke, mostly at my own idiocy.
We need to adjust our aim a bit.
Looks like its gonna be a wet one this week
Lol, when we have over 100 prospects visiting for this game. Our luck sometimes is just comical
Go ahead and put them up in a suite for this one
Its a night game in the rain against BC
whats the worst that could happen
Fuck Matt Ryan!
2009 (edit, duh) Miami in a downpour was one of my absolute favorite games. I would have committed based on that alone. People still talk about the hurricane game too.
Absolutely. The bad weather games are some of the most fun I've ever had in a stadium.
2003 Texas A&M
2009 Miami
2016 @ UNC
Absolute shit weather from kickoff to final whistle, but 3 games that absolutely stand out for how much fun they really were.
That A&M game was downright glorious. I remember the announcers flipped out at the packed house and noise while Isabel made passing and punting an absolute adventure. I also think it was shortly after they redid the field and they kept showing the pump spewing out water all game while the field remained in great shape. One of the best games I've ever attended.
Think this might be one of those games where I just give up on even trying to stay dry; when you do that it actually gets kinda fun! As a high school grocery clerk, I once worked during a tropical storm here in Richmond at Ukrops and there would be roostertails coming off the cart wheels in the parking lots- I volunteered several times to get keys from customer and bring their car around so they could stay fairly dry.
Best ever though was the final time they played the Super Bowl champ from previous year against college all-star team in the 1970s.
edit- initially embedded wrong link
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2019 vs Pitt - Bud's last home game and a shutout vs. Pitt. Priceless.
Yep was at that one too! Stood outside the locked gates during the postponed start and was one of the first hundred fans into the game when they finally opened 'em. (At least I THINK ..i was FAIRLY DRUNK LOL.)
Hah, I was at that one, too. My (to date) last game in Lane. How could I forget!?!?
2011 Miami was the good weather shootout and "Now Miami wants to talk about it..." game. 2009 was the downpour blowout of Jacory Harris and uber-hyped Miami coming off their big win over GT.
I was at the hurricane game and it was glorious!
I'll see your 2011 Miami and raise you with 2003 Texas A&M
Sounds like a matchup tailor-made for a battle in the trenches.
does Grant like wet balls...hope he doesn't go to the wells too often...I'll see myself out.
They might as well rename this game Poncho Effect because that is all anybody is going to see. LancerHokie and I are bringing our full body rain gear for this game.
That was my thought as well. I will look like the 6' plus banana in my rain gear.
Not being able to bet against Tech has lost me so much money. I'll never understand why in-state teams are off limits.
I wonder if the thought process is that if you are in state then technically you could be close to the players and try to influence the outcome with a payoff? Who knows.
Yes, that is the reasoning
I think there's a lot of perceieved avenues for corruption (quid pro quo from professors, amateur athletes betting on themselves, students getting inside information etc) but IMO it's primarily an optics issue.