Hokies look to 'keep the memory alive' on the road at Old Dominion

Once considered an automatic win, Tech's games with ODU have been anything but in recent years

In the Northeast United States, there is an invisible circle around New York City, inside which everyone loves Billy Joel. From Boomers to kindergarteners, the guy is just beloved up here.

I don’t know exactly where the line of demarcation is, but from my vantage point in Fairfield County, CT, I’m clearly inside it.

And so it was, when considering the Hokies’ trip to Norfolk three days after 9/11 that the words to Billy’s - yes, we’re all on a first name basis with him up here - Miami, 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway) came to mind.

During an interview in January, 2017, Billy explained the meaning of the song:

I was living in LA, I think it was 1975 and New York was having a financial crisis at the time. New York was in pretty bad shape. The city was dirty, there were strikes all over the place, there was a lot of crime … It was national news when New York applied to the federal government for federal aid, and they turned them down. And the headline said, FORD TO NEW YORK: DROP DREAD …

As soon as I saw that headline, I said, wait a minute. If New York’s going down the tubes, I’m gonna go down with it. And I moved back … I just had these apocalyptic visions of buildings burning and skyscrapers collapsing … I wanted a sound of a siren that was kind of bone chilling … I had this vision of hordes of people needing to flee Manhattan Island …

I wanted to set the time and place for when the song was written. And I thought, Okay, this would probably be happening in the year 2017. It seems like far enough into the future to justify me calling it a science-fiction song. And I wanted the perception to be that he’s an old man, he’s living down in Florida now, and he’s telling his grandchildren the story of what happened in New York City.

I was thinking about all that when the media asked Brent Pry earlier in the week about his feelings regarding the long-term series with Old Dominion.

Of course, a question like that only gets asked because the Monarchs keep embarrassing the Hokies in Norfolk, a place where many Tech fans feel like the team should never even play, much less lose.

I’m old enough to remember when the Hokies used to absolutely demolish teams like ODU. Now, just winning the game is accomplishment enough.

Is this weekend’s game going to feel like old times?

Read on to find out.

A roster that should not be competitive, but is

Currently, Virginia Tech is 52nd in team talent and 45th nationally in SP+. Meanwhile, Old Dominion is 128th in team talent and 72nd in SP+.

Ricky Rahne’s staff may not be able to recruit and retain elite players, but they sure are developing the guys they’ve got and putting them in the best possible position to play well.

According to SP+, ODU is in the 24th percentile in offense, which aligns with their 0.06 EPA per play¹.

The Monarchs have not demonstrated any ability to gain yards in chunks this season. That said, they do keep things moving in a positive direction pretty well. With a stuff rate of just 11% and a success rate of 37%, expect to see a lot of 2nd-and-8 and 3-and-6 type situations when ODU has the ball.

Tech’s defense has allowed similar numbers to what ODU’s offense has produced this season, so the expectation should be that the Monarchs’ offense puts up about average numbers (for them) against the Hokies.

• If they outperform expectations, it will likely be because they hit a few big plays - the Tech defense allows more than ODU typically generates.

• If they underperform expectations, it will probably be because the Hokies defense generated more stops at or behind the line of scrimmage than ODU typically allows. Tech’s stuff rate of 23% is significantly higher than what ODU has allowed this season (11%).

A reprise of last week’s second half?

The numbers, when matched with Tech’s preference to be a run-first team, suggest we could see a Hokies offense that looks a lot like it did in the second half against Marshall.

ODU’s defense is good at getting stops at or behind the line of scrimmage (19% stuff rate) and it limits explosive plays by the opposing offense.

The success rate allowed by Old Dominion’s defense is 36%, compared to the 42% generated by Tech’s offense. If this number stays above 40%, Tech should be fine. If it dips down closer to 35%, things could get dicey.

Ultimately, the stat that will determine the outcome of the game is points per opportunity (PPO), which looks at how much a team scores on drives that get past the opposing team’s 40-yard line.

So far this season, Tech is generating 4.9 points per opportunity and allowing just 2.4. ODU, on the hand, is scoring just 2.9 points per trip inside the 40, while allowing 2.6.

ODU’s defense is only giving up 0.06 expected points per play, so there is a good chance that it will hold the Hokies below their season average in points per opportunity. If that happens, ODU could make this a four-quarter game.

If Old Dominion can simultaneously raise their PPO above 4 - which is unlikely, but possible - the Monarchs would be in a position to win their third straight game over the Hokies in Norfolk.

The model is an old soul

The line out of Las Vegas currently stands at Virginia Tech -15.0 on the road. The score prediction model has Tech winning 34-15, a 19-point margin.

Peak Beamer-era Virginia Tech could have been counted on to win by at least that much, if not a lot more.

My son is seven years-old. The first complete sentence he ever spoke was, “Let’s go Hokies!”

He cheers for ole VPI because I do. But his expectations for every game are about 50/50 - Tech is as likely to lose as they are to win.

One might say he has a recency bias, but by definition, that’s what it means to be a kid. And that bias has not been inaccurate.

My bias is different. In my formative years, it was common for the Hokies to begin November undefeated and/or ranked in the top 10.

I was there when Tech beat second ranked Miami while completing only one pass for positive yardage. And even that came in the fourth quarter when the Hokies already had a big lead.

As a student, I stayed until the bitter end as the Hokies pounded patsy after patsy in September. Few things are as satisfying as watching the opposing team’s starters go nowhere against Tech’s fourth string defense.

“But that was so many years ago…” as Billy reminds us.

Each year, less and less of the people actually in the stands, home or away, remember those Virginia Tech teams and how they played.

But it is those people, ultimately, who keep the memory alive and the expectations high.

A game like this week’s should be an afterthought.

The Hokies, however, would be fortunate to win by more than 10, in a game they actually could lose…again.

1. For full definitions of the advanced statistics cited in this article, visit the CFBData glossary.