1) With all the talk about our OOC football schedules, what really makes the best sense from a recruiting and business-$$ standpoint? Play the state teams (ODU, Liberty), play regional teams (WVU, UK, SC), or your recruiting area teams (Miami-Ohio, PSU, Rutgers, Central Florida)? – Ranger Sam

Chris Coleman: So much has changed. It used to be that the Hokies could sort of pick and choose their schedule every year because they could afford it. For example, the 2006 Kent State game. That was a buy game in November. It wasn’t a two-for-one or a home-and-home; it was one game, and Kent State was paid to come to Blacksburg and take an L.

Georgia played Kent State in 2022 as a buy game in Athens. The cost was $1.9 million, which is insane. SEC and Big Ten teams can afford that these days, but Virginia Tech shouldn’t be out there breaking the bank for games like that. The Hokies could afford to compete with the big dogs in scheduling back in 2006. At that point, the ACC TV contract was brand new, and the per-team payout was higher in the ACC than in any other league. In other words, Virginia Tech was making more money off of it’s TV contract when they first joined the ACC than the Bulldogs were at the time. Back then, Tech could win a bidding war with Georgia, within reason.

Fast-forward to the current decade. The SEC distributed $54.6 million per team, excluding bowl expenses, after the 2020-21 season. In the same fiscal year, the ACC distributed between $35 and $38 million per team. I’m not exactly sure what the numbers were back in 2006, but in less than 20 years, the ACC has gone from being slightly ahead to being very far behind.

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