Virginia Tech Headed to Orlando for Camping World Bowl vs. Oklahoma State

Virginia Tech football
Virginia Tech is likely headed to Orlando to play Oklahoma State in the Camping World Bowl. (Photo by Ivan Morozov)

Thanks to a series of fortunate events, No. 22 Virginia Tech is headed to the Camping World Bowl to face No. 19 Oklahoma State on Thursday, Dec. 28 at 5:15 p.m.

College football insider Brett McMurphy was the first to report the news.

Virginia Tech, which seemed headed for a Tier I ACC bowl, such as the TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., lucked out on Sunday. The College Football Playoff committee ranked Notre Dame 14th in their final regular season rankings, leaving them out of the New Year’s Six bowl games. Because a Big Ten team (Wisconsin) is playing in the Orange Bowl, that opened up the Citrus Bowl for Notre Dame, removing them from the ACC’s bowl lineup.

With Notre Dame removed from the discussion, Virginia Tech was the next highest-rated ACC team among the Committee’s rankings, thus landing them in the Camping World Bowl.

This is the 25th-straight bowl appearance for Virginia Tech, which is the longest active bowl streak recognized by the NCAA. Tech finished the regular season at 9-3, improving Justin Fuente’s career record at Virginia Tech to 19-7. Camping World took over naming rights for this bowl game from the Russell Athletic Bowl for this season. Virginia Tech’s first and only appearance in this bowl game came in 2012, when the Hokies defeated Rutgers 13-10.

Oklahoma State finished third in the Big 12 this season, with a conference record of 6-3 and a overall record of 9-3. The Cowboys are known for their explosive offense, averaging 46.3 points per game (third in FBS). Quarterback Mason Rudolph led the way with 4,553 passing yards and 35 touchdowns. Virginia Tech and Oklahoma State have not played since 1972. 

You can find more information on buying tickets to the Camping World Bowl here.

28 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. We get a lot of OSU games here on TV in Austin. I’m worried about this match-up. After attending/seeing VT get mauled by a collection of great QBs on offensive teams, Bud’s D doesn’t seem to be able to stop a great QB. For examples of high-profile beat-downs, see the 1994 Gator Bowl that was at Florida Field,(Peyton Manning), the 2003 Bowl in Phoenix (Aaron Rogers), and 2011 Orange Bowl with Andrew Luck. I was at two of these in person, and it was hard to be so totally outclassed. Bud Foster’s D has a good record in its body of work, but when it’s outclassed by a mobile/throwing QB and great receivers, it’s can be really ugly. A.H.

  2. We will have a great chance to win if our offense can sustain drives that give the defense a rest. Plus, our special teams should be an advantage. Hopefully it’s an interception feast for the defense!

  3. Mason Rudolph just won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award,. Good for him. Sounds like a great kid. However, Tech can’t move up in the rankings by playing lesser teams. Embrace the challenge!

  4. How much does extra 3 weeks help our young WRs? Patterson, Kumah and Grismly all had some flashes in last few weeks. Do Hokies start installing some of next year’s offense, move Cam and Savoy more to slot and put a couple of 4 and 5 WR sets on the field

  5. Man, if we thought that West Virginia quarterback could chuck it just wait until Mason Rudolph steps on the field. I don’t know much about their defense, but this does not look like a good match up for us.

  6. We got this. 4 weeks to heal, and I believe in our guys > their guys ( coaches and players)

      1. Diablo? Edmunds? Will they be back? Because with that passing attack we’re going to have to have every one of our defensive backs ready to go.

  7. this matchup forces the Hokies to try to get better. Defense will have their hands full so everybody must rally together. Best team will win, not just the best offense.

  8. why is Notre Dame in the ACC’s bowl lineup? – – since their games do not count as conference games, why should they shalaylee-in on the the parties’ invitation list?

    it was probably part of the “affiliation agreement” with the ACC. but, imho, it makes no sense – unless we’re only talking about this kind of $en$e, only – for the overall benefit of the ACC for notre dame to jump above other full-membership teams.

    Go Hokies!

    1. Notre Dame has to fit into someone’s lineup beneath the top 6 bowls, otherwise they are in a “Fiesta Bowl or bust” mode, which is dumb as 20% of America wants to watch them win and 80% would happily watch them lose, but almost all would rather watch them than watch Wake-Northwestern or whatever. We get one more good bowl in our lineup in the expectation that the Citrus, Tangerine, Gator, Music City… will one day get ND. It’s the reason we have these bowl options.

  9. I like this matchup. We should be healthy with renewed offensive fire power. Our defense is capable of diminishing the OSU artillery. We certainly have a good chance to beat a decent team.

  10. Don’t get all the pessimism here…Do you guys want to play with the big boys or not? OSU has a great offense, so what.

    We have a great Defense and we should be much more healthy on both sides of the ball when the game comes around.

    1. It’s not pessimism it’s just telling the truth. The defense is going to have to keep their offense in check because ours is abysmal. I like the bowl, the matchup just makes me nervous. It should make anybody who watched our last couple of games nervous.

      1. YES ! The VT Offense would have scored ZERO TD’s against UVA, if not for the VT Defense’s very fortunate fumble recovery. This looks like another varsity vs. jr. varsity match-up to me, with VT on the ‘short’ side. Also, the VT Defense is ‘good’ but certainly not great. I believe that the OSU passing game will show off almost all of Bud’s weak spots to the tune of about 45 points. IMO, OSU deserved a much better opponent, both on offense and defense !!! VT was lucky to beat WVU, but I don’t see the same outcome against the OSU Cowboys !!! Could the point-spread actually be double figures ???

        1. Would welcome your bet that OSU scores 45 points. Also, if you had watched the whole UVA game, you would have observed that we were about to score at TD in the closing minute, but in a class move, took a knee instead.

  11. Why is this fortunate? Thursday game at 515. And I don’t like our beat up team against that offence.

  12. I am confused, so is the Taxslayer (old Gator) higher or lower than the Camping World? We lucked out to not get tje Taxslayer? I thought Tier 1 meant higher.

    1. I think CW bowl is the last bowl that has an auto-tie-in with the ACC, so it is not one of the tiers. But the TS bowl is Tier I and doesn’t have a guaranteed tie-in to particular conferences. For them, it all comes down to available teams and matches, although they do have a rotating preference system to keep things fair amongst the bowls in their tier (e.g. to keep one bowl from bogarting a conference). I may be wrong, but that is how I interpreted it from the Wikipedia page on bowl selection orders.

    2. TaxSlayer is lower. Camping World (CW) took the place of the Peach Bowl when the Playoff started so CW gets to pick before any tier bowls start so it’s a little more prestigious. Tax, Belk, Sun, and Pinstripe are Tier One so they get together after CW and pick based on matchups and available teams and to avoid repeats. Because of our recent Belk and Sun trips we’d have gotten Tax or Pinstripe if we fell to Tier One.

  13. Great bowl, bad matchup for us. Don’t think we can score enough to keep up with the cowboys even if our defense plays well. Maybe we can pull another Arkansas game, except for 4 quarters.

  14. Going to be there for my son’s showcase soccer trny at ESPN Disney anyway…this is is a nice gift. Will have the whole family going now!! Woohoo.

  15. Gonna have to lean on the defense. If they can’t play lights out there is no way our offense can keep up with theirs. I really wanted Miss St. or South Carolina.

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