The ACC announced the opponents for next season’s football schedule earlier today. Though we don’t know exactly when the Hokies will play each team, we do know who they will be playing and where.
Because Syracuse and Pittsburgh will be joining the ACC, some conference teams will be forced to make some of the same trips they made a season ago. Unfortunately, Virginia Tech is one of those teams. The Hokies will have to play at Boston College and at Miami for the second year in a row. To make up for it, the ACC decided to send Duke to Blacksburg for the second consecutive season (yes, that’s sarcasm you’re sensing).
The ACC’s schedule is pretty simple: each team plays three road division games, three home division games, one crossover home game and one crossover away game. Here’s how Virginia Tech’s schedule breaks down…
Home: Duke, UNC, Pitt, Maryland
Road: Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia, Boston College
The Hokies avoid the two most talented teams in the league – Florida State and Clemson. However, from an entertainment standpoint, Tech fans will miss out on two potentially attractive games. Tech will also not play NC State, which would be an attractive border matchup.
There are things to like about that schedule, and things to not like about it.
The Good
This is a pretty easy schedule. Those teams combined to go 44-56 a season ago, although Pitt, UNC and Miami all managed to beat Virginia Tech. After going 7-6 in 2012, the Hokies need to get back to their winning ways. I’d prefer to beat Florida State or Clemson, but this is the easier road to the ACC Championship Game. The goal is, afterall, to make a BCS Bowl.
The Bad
When you combine Tech’s home conference schedule with their home non-conference schedule, it looks like this…
Western Carolina
Marshall
Duke
UNC
Pitt
Maryland
That’s pretty boring. The Hokies will play their usual Thursday night home game, and I imagine it will be against UNC or Pitt, though Maryland could potentially be an option. That leaves just one good Saturday game – either Pitt or UNC – and that really depends on your definition of “good”. If I had to guess, I’d say UNC will be on Thursday night, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
Virginia Tech’s sellout streak is still intact, going all the way back to the UVA game at the close of the 1998 season. However, with the way the 2012 season went, could that sellout streak be in jeopardy against Western Carolina or Marshall? We’ll find out in September.
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I guess I am one of the few alum that pay to watch VT play football. No I really don’t care who they play. I would rather see an easy schedule that we can win and get to the ACC championship game and then a BCS game. I would think that if the opponents are weak during the regular season when we got to the Championship games we would have those tough teams every one wants us to play. We would likely play FSU or Clemson in the ACC Championship game so for those who want to play them every year, we just need to win our division. If you can’t get past UNC, GT, & Miami, don’t worry about playing FSU or Clemson. After such as terrible year and with new coaches coming on board, I prefer an easy schedule. I don’t think this team has anything to prove against tougher competition next year. If we don’t improve I am not so sure that we would be Duke, which should always be a given. I get no enjoyment out of losing. I would rather beat Marshall by 35, than lose to FSU by 14. What I would really like to see is the Tech of old (years before last year). If we played to our potential with the schedule we have next year I would expect an 11-1 season. This is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own. I personally only want a tougher schedule if I think we can be competitive, but after last year I am not so sure we would be next year.
Another 300+ per seat probably 3 game in a row home eventually fans will get tired of this I have
Games were not a sellout last year as far as loyalty. The seats beside my wife and i were not sat in for any games. I contested my seats with a letter to Mr Weaver of which i recwived anegative response, These were seats i was suppose to select, however when the person on the other end of the line gave me no choice of seats. I have been coming to Tech games since 1948 , but only the last 14 as aseason ticket holder.There is no loyalty in buying and selling tickets. It is more important to bring the monry in than va tech fans, The schedule stinks and i’m about ready to give up the ship. By the way i was in the stands when Alabama beat us 3 to 0 when Jerry Clairborne was coach. Bryant said he would never come back to Blacksburg again. Good Luck from LOYAL FAN.
We play Miami away 2 years in a row. BS!
Miami aint Miami any more, yadad yada. The Schedule sucks and so does the general Direction of the entire Athletic Program at present, under his Leadership!
We’ve gotta get the Infirmed Jim Weaver outta there, He has become a Cancer on the VT Program, he just won’t go away, He’s killin us! Thank-You and for God’s Sake please Retire with dignity! Why is that so tough, You are destroying your Legacy. A Blind Man could see it. With All Sincerity, A Fan
Yeah…it was WEAVER who made the schedule?? Really?? All the ACC lovers can blame Little Johnny S!! We have always been, and always WILL BE the unwanted, red-headed stepchild in the ACC…
Well, for this particular Hokie,,,,the feeling is MUTUAL!!
Except, IMO, this is the first time I’ve actually felt like the ACC was treating us poorly. While we were the choice thrust upon them, and they had been avoiding us for decades, I can’t remember the ACC offices being anything but pretty decent to us….until now.
Our first ACC football game was at home, vs a very winnable opponent.
In basketball, everyone predicted that “yeah, Duke and UNC will eventually have to come to Cassell, but I bet the ACC puts those games on Tuesday night. Instead, in the first season we got those matchups on Saturdays and so on.
And I do blame Weaver for this, some. He’s our representative to the ACC, I would think, or at least he should be. He should have argued against this.
Since they dropped down to only 2 crossover games, they should have abandoned the linking to one of those two every year to the “rival team”. We only get FSU once every 6 years. Clemson once every 6 years. etc. just so we have BC forever. At home only once every 12 years! That is the worst part of the new league. NC/NCSU are the only ones who really give a hoot about their crossover rival. Even Miami/FSU is a recent rival, not a long term one. Two rotating teams would have been much better than just the one.
Isn’t the ACC slate generally “boring” every year? I’d say that really goes without saying. The only two teams that are fun to play are Clemson and FSU and they are in the other division. Maybe Miami but that “rivalry” seems to have lost some flavor. It’s always fun to beat UVA but that has become routine. Now what would be exciting would be playing the likes of Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee; even Ole Miss and Miss. State would be fun.
Too bad we have to play this schedule year in and year out. Were hoping to play NC State, really?
Any chance Maryland gets out of the ACC early and Louisville takes their place for next year? Would certainly make for a little more appealing home schedule.
I am with you….
Playing Maryland in their swan song years is one of the things I like least about this schedule.
The ACC also let us skip out on a road trip to FSU- i’d say that makes up for playing Miami and BC (the 2 of the least intimidating crowds). and we play Alabama. After last season I don’t see anything bad with this schedule.
They should have been able to do better than this. Even without breaking it all down they should have been able to avoid the repeat trips for so many. But that should be the motto of the ACC: “We could have done better”.
Well at least we get Duke at home 2 years in a row.
Beat BAMA!
And then have a horrible SOS and finish 3rd in the BCS.
Wouldn’t 3rd in the BCS get us in the playoffs?
Playoffs another year away.
Schedule is not that exciting but I think it is favorable. We avoid FSU and Clemson which will make it easier to get to ACCCG. All the other contenders in our division have to play either FSU or Clemson, except for UNC. Therefore I think that means UNC is the key team to beat to return to Charlotte.
What sellout streak?? We’ve never sold most of the club seats up behind the glass from the 20s to the end zone. I don’t know how we can perpetuate that lie year after year!
Schedule is pathetic, BUT we can send Md out with a major-league ass-kicking!!
People will still go to the home games. The student population will go. The normal fans will go. And of, home-away does not matter for tv watchers so it isn’t that big of deal. There have been home snoozers before and I think the other factor will be off-season anticipation if there are coaching changes. People will be looking for a rebound next year in any case.
This is an awful home schedule. 1 team I would call a quality opponent and that is UNC.
Why would the ACC do something so damned stupid. Why take away FSU from VT, thats an attractive TV matchup.
We can’t play them every year
We will have played @FSU once out of 10 years in the ACC after this upcoming year. That’s pathetic.
now it will be once every 10 years regularly. adding in Syr and Pitt really reduces inter conference play. I’m just glad we can say the same about Syracuse.
You are absolutely correct. However, we were supposed to play them this year – which doesn’t happen very often – and the ACC is taking that away from us. That’s the point that corvt2000 is making.
This sucks.
My definition of “good” isn’t nearly broad enough to include North Carolina or Pitt.
Virginia Tech fans got hosed by the ACC; there’s no two ways about it. We are nothing more than background scenery for ES(EC)PN.
If we didn’t play Bama this would be the worst schedule of the last 21 seasons.
I’m not sure where I stand on conference affiliation but this is a perfect example of why so many Hokies pine for the SEC. Who wants to spend meaningful money to see this home schedule? It will reach a point where we will have to schedule better home and home non-conference games even if it means one less home game some seasons.
as opposed to playing vanderbilt, ole miss, miss st, kentucky, etc? In the SEC we would likely get 1, possibly 2 good home games and 1, possibly 2 good away games. It wouldn’t be bama, LSU, FL, etc every week
Any one of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, or Tennessee as a home game would beat any of our currently-scheduled home games for 2013. All four of those wouldn’t be on the road each season and that’s just talking SEC East, not even getting into potential crossover opponents (A&M) in the SEC.
My only take is that we can’t throw stones right now. Some teams may look at us and yawn.
We should demand not to have a Thursday night game with the crappy schedule. This home schedule is really bad.
Saturday noon games, get used to it.
If Western Carolina get scheduled any less than 7 days after Alabama, we should just secede from the ACC immediately.
That sucks. I’m retiring at the end of August 2013. I was looking forward to doing a complete football schedule, both home and away. Unfortunately, a road trip to Boston isn’t going to happen.
I could still do Miami, depending on how the game fall before and after. For example, if we were on the road to GT the week before or week after Miami, I’d probably do it. We could go to the GT game in Atlanta, then head down to Orlando for a couple of days (Wife’s family) then head down to Miami.
Talk about sellout streaks, I remember 35 years ago or so Alabama had about a 90 game sellout streak. The streak was broken when Virginia Tech went to Tuscaloosa. Back then ‘Bama’s stadium only held around 50,000, not 90,000 like today.
Yeah but it was about 29 degrees in Tuscaloosa if I remember!! I was there and froze my ass off!! Didn’t we lose about 60-0????
I was at that game in 1979. The weather was beautiful, Bear Bryant was roaming the other sideline and we lost 37-7, I think. We had a kickoff return for a touchdown and our only score.
and we scored first if I recall
oh, apparently we replaces FSU with Maryland at home
So am I reading this right
We lost the away game at FSU and are now going to Miami and BC away for the second year in a row?
Yep. Looks that way. Snoozefest. Better beat ‘Bama or the talking heads will crap on the schedule the entire season (assuming we win games this coming year).