On-Field Performance Drives Virginia Tech's Fortunes in Conference Realignment
History tells us that unless the Hokies force the issue by winning a lot of meaningful games, they are likely to come out a loser in the next round of conference realignment
Note: Data are sourced from CFDB and accessed via CFBFastR.
Last week I compared Virginia Tech’s SRS (Simple Rating System) annual ranking percentiles during the program’s peak years to the years before and after that era.
This week I will explore Tech’s performance, as well as that of other conference members, and consider it in the context of realignment.
Former Virginia Governor and current US Senator Mark Warner played a big role in the Hokies getting an invite to join the ACC in 2004, but without a decade of on-field success and the National Championship game appearance in 1999, the Hokies would have been no different from East Carolina (a point Techsideline has rightly hammered into my head).
Political support can take a team only so far.
The Backdrop
To review, here is an overall look at Virginia Tech’s football program from 1902 to the present day (keep in mind there were some missed seasons due to pandemics and wars, and years in which data are not available):
Since 1902, the Hokies have had stops in the Southern conference, Big East, and ACC, as well as 44 years as an independent.
Interestingly, the broad SRS percentile trend seen in the line graph above - downward from 1902 to 1950, upward from 1950 to 1999, peak from 1999 to 2009, and downward again from 2009 to the present - does not align directly with conference affiliation.
Independent (1902-1920)
Virginia Tech was a thoroughly average program in its first 17 years of intercollegiate competition on the gridiron. And that’s not bad! Few teams are awesome right out of the gates.
The middling SRS percentiles resulted, in part, from a consistently weak strength of the schedule. The 1905 team’s percentile was only 69.1, despite the team winning its first eight games and finishing 9-1, with the only loss coming to Navy in Annapolis by less than a touchdown.
Most notably, after a decline in on-field performance from 1909-11, the team was trending up prior to the U.S. entrance into World War I. That success carried over into the 1917 season, but then the influenza pandemic struck in 1918, which, combined with preparations for a 1919 war offensive (that never came to pass), forced Virginia Tech to play a mixed schedule featuring some universities and some clubs. As a result, that season is omitted from the database.
The 1919 season was a step down from the pre-war seasons in terms of performance, and 1920 was worse. The Hokies entered the Southern Conference (SoCon) on a slide.
But my, what a conference they joined.
SoCon - Super Conference Era (1921-1931)
Virginia Tech was a charter member of the Southern Conference along with:
Alabama
Auburn
Clemson
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
Maryland
Mississippi State
North Carolina
NC State
Tennessee
Washington & Lee
In 1922, the SoCon added six more schools - Florida, LSU, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tulane, and Vanderbilt - to form a 20 team super conference (just imagine what the TV contract would be for that group in 2023).
In 1924, Sewanee and VMI joined, and Duke followed in 1929.
The first split took place in 1932, when 13 schools left to form the SEC.
During the super conference era, Virginia Tech was mostly irrelevant on the national stage.
The 1922 team was the only Gobbler unit to finish in the top 30 of the SRS, and the 1927 and 1932 teams were the only others to finish in the top 50.
While Tech’s performance did not stand out in the aggregate, the team was actually midpack in the SoCon. As impressive as the list of conference members looks today back in the 1920s and early 1930s, most of these teams were subpar.
However, by the late 1920s the balance of power had begun to shift to the Southeast.
SoCon - ACC Plus Era (1932-1952)
If only Tech could have maintained its level of semi-success in the two decades following the creation of the SEC, it might have had a stronger case to make for inclusion in the original ACC.
That said, clearly football prowess was not the only consideration in forming the new conference. UVA’s truly hideous football program (last by a comfortable margin in SRS Percentile among conference teams from 1933-52) failed to derail its inclusion in the new league.
Virginia aside, the other schools that left to start the ACC comprised seven out of the top eight conference teams in SRS Percentile.
SoCon - The Leftovers Era (1953-1964)
After losing out not once, but twice in the realignment sweepstakes of the 1930s and 1950s, Virginia Tech played 12 more largely mediocre seasons in the SoCon. There were a couple noteworthy campaigns in the mid-1950s (‘54 and ‘56, to be exact), but nothing approaching consistent success.
Part of the issue was the overall weakness of the rest of the league. Due to strength of schedule, there was a definite ceiling on Virginia Tech’s prospects nationally, which was reflected in the low SRS Percentile of this period.
Independent (1965-1990)
If Tech could not join a major conference, the next best option was to go independent. The Hokies did just that beginning in 1965.
In 26 years as an independent, spanning from 1965 through 1990, the Hokies logged one top 25 SRS finish and nine SRS Percentile finishes between 70 and 80.
Overall, Tech was a middle-of-the-pack independent, on par with San Diego State, Southern Mississippi, Boston College, and Colorado State. That said, the team had turned in enough solid years as an independent to be attractive to a basketball conference looking to sponsor football.
Big East (1991-2003)
Finally, in 1991, the Hokies were on the right side of realignment, joining the Big East. During their 13 years in the conference, VT finished in the top 10 nationally in SRS four times (1998-2001).
The Big East was a solid football league, and as good as the Hokies were, Miami was an order of magnitude better. With Syracuse, West Virginia, and Boston College consistently turning in good seasons, there were few easy wins in conference.
However, the conference structure made it unstable, and when the next round of realignment came, Virginia Tech was ideally positioned to make a move.
ACC (2004-2022)
The ascendant Virginia Tech program of the Big East years continued its winning ways in the ACC through 2011, but has been in decline ever since.
The Hokies have finished in the top 30 nationally in SRS in 10 out of 18 years in the league (the 2020 pandemic season is excluded from the database), but after raising the level of play in the conference early on, Tech has regressed to middle-of-the-pack status in a middle-of-the-pack P5 football league.
While the Hokies are a strong third in the conference in SRS Percentile since joining the ACC, they are sixth, with an average SRS Percentile of 64.7, if we consider just 2012-22.
The Takeaway
Tech fans have every reason to feel on edge about where things are headed in the latest round of realignment.
The current situation is rooted in the 1932 Southern Conference divorce. Tech was on the losing end of that one. If the SEC does elect to add more teams in the near future, do not discount those old SoCon ties.
And I mean that as both a pro and a con. After all, while there is a history of Virginia Tech, LSU, Alabama, and Clemson all playing in the same super conference, there are reasons why that conference broke up in the first place.