A Case Against Perennially Over-Ranked VaTech
Posted at 10:48 am on Thursday, October 23, 2003, in Sports, and tagged football, syracuse.
Virginia Tech is the most over-ranked football team in recent history. This is the overwhelming case against the southern polytech school and its conspicuous place among the elite.
On October 10, 2001, Virginia Tech was undefeated with a record of 6-0, and was #5 in the AP poll. Why shouldn’t they be? How they got there and their subsequent collapse:
They started their season with huge victories against:
- Independent Connecticut (at home);
- MAC Western Michigan (at home);
- Rutgers; and
- MAC Central Florida (at home).
At this glorious point in the season they were 4-0 and ranked 8 in the AP. Then two big victories within the Big East:
- West Virginia; and
- Boston College (at home).
They were 4-0 at home, 4-0 against weak teams, 2-0 on the road, and 2-0 against comparable teams. They were 6-0 overall and ranked 5 in the AP. The rest of the season:
- Lost to Syracuse (at home);
- Lost to Pittsburgh huge (38-7);
- Beat Temple (soon to be Division 1-AA);
- Beat ACC Virginia;
- Lost to Miami (at home); and
- Lost to ACC Florida State in the Gator Bowl (the only Bowl loss for the Big East that year).
They finished the season 8-4 with a ranking of 18 in the AP. They lost 4 out of their last 6 games. The team was 4-3 in the Big East and Syracuse was 6-1, finishing in third and second place respectively. The second-place team was supposed to play in the Gator Bowl, but its executives opted for VaTech instead of the better Syracuse squad, who had soundly defeated VaTech in Blacksburg in the snow. Life went on for Syracuse and they trounced Kansas State at the Insight.com Bowl while VaTech suffered a humiliating loss to Florida State. (Syracuse was certainly robbed from a Gator Bowl appearance and I will evaluate their 2001 season in another post.)
On October 26, 2002, Virginia Tech was undefeated with a record of 8-0, and was #3 in the AP poll. Why shouldn’t they be? How they got there and their subsequent collapse:
The season started with a string of victories:
- Sun Belt Arkansas State (at home);
- SEC LSU (at home);
- MAC Marshall (at home);
- Big 12 Texas A&M;
- MAC Western Michigan;
- Boston College (28-23);
- Rutgers (at home); and
- Soon-to-be-Division 1-AA Temple (20-10 at home).
What an impressive start! The team was 5-0 at home, 5-0 against inferior teams, and 8-0 overall with an AP rank of 3. The rest of the season:
- Lost to Pittsburgh (at home);
- Lost at Syracuse (in triple overtime);
- Lost to West Virginia (at home);
- Beat ACC Virginia (at home);
- Lost at Miami; and
- Beat Mountain West Air Force in the San Francisco Bowl (20-13).
To wrap-up this season, they played 8 games at home and only 5 away, which makes you wonder who created this biased schedule. They lost 4 of their last 6 games, finishing with an overall record of 10-4 and an abysmal 3-4 record in the Big East. Their final AP poll ranking was 18.
On October 20, 2003, Virginia Tech was undefeated with a record of 6-0, and was #3 in the AP poll. Why shouldn’t they be? How they got here and their eventual collapse:
The season started with convincing victories:
- MAC Central Florida (at home);
- Division 1-AA James Madison (at home);
- Big 12 Texas A&M (at home);
- Independent Connecticut (at home);
- Rutgers; and
- Syracuse (at home).
This dominant team was 5-0 at home, 4-0 against teams with no business playing VaTech, and 6-0 overall with a ranking of 3 in the AP. This team lost to West Virginia last night, which will undoubtedly lead to another collapse. But that is expected.
Why is this team consistently over-ranked? They do not play competitive football until November and are ranked in the top 5 when they finally play good teams. I conclude with my thesis: VaTech is the most over-ranked team in recent history.
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July 24th, 2009 at 10:13 am
[...] completed. I started it in 2003 — and was supposed to follow one of my most influential posts, A Case Against Perennially Over-Ranked VaTech. I was going to spend a considerable amount of time going through the entire 2001 football season, [...]